Field on Labour
November 25th, 2012 at 11:00 am by David FarrarSimon Day at Stuff reports:
Already under pressure from internal ructions, the Labour Party leadership has been given a mauling by disgraced former MP Taito Phillip Field.
Just over a year after his release from prison, Field, who compared himself with South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, weighed in on Labour’s recent struggles, saying the party has lost its way and been “contaminated” by liberal policy.
The former Helen Clark government, in which he was a minister, had infested the party with homosexuality, Field said.
“There is a perception that they are controlled by homosexuals. It’s like a smell that won’t go away.”
I’d say the bad smell is the former MP who used immigrant slave labour and was sent to jail for corruption.
“Nobody wants to go to prison, but Mandela was imprisoned for 26 years. Who I am to complain?”
Incredible. The sense of entitlement.
Field cited John Banks’ mayoral campaign donation by Kim Dotcom, and Helen Clark signing a painting she didn’t paint for charity, as “prima facie” examples of corruption and fraud.
Helen won’t like that comparison.
Related posts:
- Does Labour think Field broke the law?
- Field gets six years
- Dom Post on Field and Labour
- Field appeals – again
November 25th, 2012 at 11:01 am
One of a series – to be followed by Brian Neeson on the National Party.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:04 am
The guy is a nutter, thief and liar.
Seriously who cares what he thinks.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:11 am
mikenmild … nice attempt to threadjack … fail. This is about a Cabinet Minister and convicted felon who was defended to the death by H1 dumping on ‘your’ Party. Pot and kettle comes readily to mind.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:20 am
You know I always thought the punishment was a bit tough on Field. If only he had been able to retrospectively legalise his crimes the way Clark did.
Vote:He got some tiling done and Clark stole money from the taxpayer to fund her election campaign.
November 25th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Yes, well, you expect this sort of distorted emphasis from militant fundamentalists like Field, and it isn’t exactly unknown in the United States, for that matter either. Funny how the Christian Right feels entitled to pontificate about reproductive rights and LGBT concerns, yet clams up completely insofar as business and professional ethics is concerned, despite the latter’s considerably greater magnitude and adverse effects.
Yawn. Diatribes from a convicted fraudster and corrupt former politician. Wouldn’t this rather be like (say) Donna Awatere Huata denouncing the ACT Party?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:21 am
“Helen won’t like that comparison”
Core, imagine if those names were all said in the same breath a few years ago when Helen held the reins of power! The look of death would have spelt instant death to Taito Phillip Field.
Fancy dragging up the buried & dusted Paintergate (move along now) and associating her credibility with the likes Banks and Dotcom, I think Taito PF might get struck another ray of death next time Helen’s visiting!
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Chardonnay
Vote:Or John Banks lecturing on reforming campaign laws?
November 25th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Mike, I couldn’t agree more. Which is why ACT would be well advised to start contingency planning for Banks’ succession now, preferably selecting Catherine Isaac as his replacement ACT candidate at some point in the intermediate future. Although inertia has prevailed in that caucus in the past…
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Incidentally, has anyone else spotted that analogous story about a certain current NZ First MP?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Isn’t dodgy kind of a prerequisite to be a NZ First MP?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:59 am
@mikey,
No more so than being hopelessly out of touch with the voting public is a prerequisite for being a Labour Party MP.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I agree with that, and I’m sure you are looking forward to the Labour Party changes that give members more of a say.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Well if, as indications suggest, giving members more say will lead to them picking Cunliffe as leader, then, yes, I most certainly am looking forward to it! – it would show that the members are no different than the current MPs.
A fantastic result all round.
Here’s hoping…
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Who is your all-time favourite dodgy MP?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Depends on what one’s criteria for dodginess is. I was highly amused by Richard Worth’s shenanigans during the Key administration’s first term, as well as dismayed at the grandstanding and denialism that Field showed before Labour set him adrift at last, although I was gratified to see ACT having to eat its words over the Electoral Integrity Act when its own Donna Awatere Huata turned out to be dipping into the till. One wonders about the substance of the current claims about that certain New Zealand First MP as well. And you’re right about dodginess within NZF, especially Richard Tosser- oops, Prosser, the Investigrunt columnist. Although he’s dodgy for other reasons than financial misdealings or grotesque legovery.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Mikenmild @ 11.01 re Brian Neeson – laughed out loud. Nice one
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I have a fond recall of John Kirk’s shennanigins.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
But putting aside his appalling crookedness; about what Field was saying about the Labour party.
Round these parts that is definitely the perception: ‘bunch of gays and academics’ – whether that’s right or wrong is irrelevant. Plus all anybody sees of them is that they’re dysfunctional.
Tamihere’s interview in the Listener is worth reading; he could well be the answer, or part of it, to Labour’s woes but they’re just not going to let that happen.
So they’re fucked.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Interesting discussion on Labour’s gay – straight political divide over last 30 years.
http://conzervative.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/labours-gay-straight-divide/
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I await delicate Chrissie Carter’s condemnation and rebuttal from his swanky UN office in civilised Kabul.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Who is your all-time favourite dodgy MP?
A close call between Winston and Clark.
Vote:Winston would have the edge. Then that is only because Clack used her position
to retrospectively legalize the stealing of the $800,000 and stop the court case that would have ended here reign early.
November 25th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Yawn once again. Read Stringer’s latest musings. Amusing. Nothing else. And I’m the gay son of ‘traditional blue collar’ voters. What does that make me?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
A potential partner of Chucky Chauvel, Chrissy Carter, Grant Robertson and, heaven forbid, Helen Clark.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
CG
you can’t be gay, surely traditional blue collar voters wouldn’t have taught you gayness.
Harriet and others have told us that someone has had to teach you to be gay.
Your traditional blue collar voting parents will have been too busy paying there way by the sweat of their brow to have time to get you ‘homo’ lessons- I’d have thought anyway.
Are you trying to tell us that your sexuality was something you were born with? Well I never.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
“The former Helen Clark government, in which he was a minister”
The unpleasant and unacceptable side of tokenism. Oh wait, there is no acceptable side….
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
klakula has a lot to answer for. Single handedly ruining what was once a decent party full of reasonably decent people, we are still seeing the fallout from her 9 years of social experimentation.
Revolting woman.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
mikey: You remember John Kirk a.k.a “the blowfly”? Really? and here’s me imagining you as some sort of no longer young socialist/communist, but nowhere near my vintage…
And DPF: re Field’s self comparison to Mandela, surely it’s delusions of grandeur rather than a sense of entitlement? Would be a bit like me comparing myself to Winston Churchill in the ’30′s, mocked by most, but awaiting my day of glory and triumphal return….
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Yawn. Diatribes from a convicted fraudster and corrupt former politician.
The point is not who he is it’s what he said and pre-Clark Labour is completely different from post-Clark Labour. The group she most sidelined is the blue collar working bloke and that’s who Field was talking to, in addition to the PI Christians. Urbanisation has reduced the influence of the working bloke like it has the influence of the farmers in National. But unlike Labour, National has quite a few farmer MPs and a lot of grassroots activity from farmers. Labour has none of that going on. Mallard is the only real MP I can think of who stands for the working bloke constituency, there may be one or two others. But that’s one of Labour’s problems, in addition to all the other ones they have. They’ve ditched the working bloke completely.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
So there is some truth in Field yet.. Klark & Co, destroyers of a decent nation.
Vote:BTW, did any see the interview last week, where she uses a Taxpayer Limo to get her hair done.. says a lot really.
November 25th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
The important point is it doesn’t matter if labour is having problems. The votes will be picked up by greens, and NZF, and we’ll have a red green govt after 2014, so get used to it.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
And if Labour lite and Key continue performing this badly, you could well be right!
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
I don’t see how he can claim to be blue collar. He’s lived a life of relative privilege.
Vote:I’d prefer to align with liberal rights over corruption or exploitation if i were Labour too.
November 25th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Bigfish: so when did YOU get banned from the Standard?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
I’d prefer to align with liberal rights over corruption or exploitation if i were Labour too.
BigFish most people don’t actually see where “libewal wights” align over “cowwuption and exploitation.” What happens is there’s a lot of media fluff over it which happens all the time, Helen Kelly’s particularly good at it. But yet it fails to gain traction in the polls doesn’t it. And you don’t know why, do you.
Well, we do.
See, we who live in the real, actual world know it doesn’t happen, the way you think it does. We see ethics galore all over our workplaces. Out of simple basic humanity. The ones who do what you think they do, none of us yes none of us ever ever see, in our daily lives. Once or twice in our working lives we come across humans who are shall we say less “advanced” in that they’re say, bullies and every now and then you come across an outright criminal like Mary Ann Thompson who came straight out of Clark’s PM’s Dept with a fake Ph.D, didn’t she. Wasn’t she awful, BigFish. Doing what she did. Disgraceful. What a terrible example of a CEO she was. Outrageous.
So yes BigFish corruption and exploitation happens doesn’t it. It just doesn’t happen in real life the way you guys apparently, from your perspectives, seem to think it happens.
That’s why you’re not getting up in the polls. Because your constituents don’t actually as you seem to believe, get up every morning to trudge to some Dickensian slave-factory. Your transparent attempts to pretend this is the case causes a disconnect between your message and their reality in your target audience.
Your key issue is that you think that it’s a matter of better explaining your message when the reality is you’ve in fact got a crummy message. I hypothesise this is because lefties, imagining themselves to possess superior insight into humane intelligence, can’t bring themselves to believe such beings have reached the wrong conclusion.
We conservatives are bwa-ha-ha-ing over all this as you fumble your way through life. But that seems to be what’s happening BigFish. Shame, isn’t it.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
He may be the wrong person to say it but he critique is spot on. The Labour party and the “Greens” are unfit to hold power or even participate in the political process. In s truly just society most of them would have been arrested and imprisoned for stupidity.
Not that National is much better. Both parties appeal to the lowest common denominator, to the lazy, the greedy, and to sexual perverts.
A pox on all if them.
Democracy is a system in which A, B and C vote to steal and bludge off D, and the have the audacity to call this freedom and justice.
“Democracy” is not an excuse for tyranny, theft and stupidity.
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:16 pm
ChardonnayGuy
Staggering difference isn’t it – ACT called the police in immediately allegations (publicly ?) surfaced. No extended gardening leave and a report held up in parliament with a claim it exonerates her followed by how many charges again ?
Come on – the whole bloody problem here is the ‘major party’ attitude displayed repeatedly by Labour and now starting to occur under National of; they did it too – move on !
Only as bad as the others is no measuring stick for principles and accountability. At least ACT respected the law rather than validated their actions because it’s the way they have always done it. !!! Today though – ACT who ?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
What about Winston eh, Field must have a bit to say about him as well… How many years electoral returns was he required to refile again ? Has he repaid his $158,000 – and how is that compared to Fields graft which he paid the price of incarceration for?
Vote:November 25th, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Reid – that was incoherent. Strange use of ‘you’ and ‘we’ too – you’re not a mason are you?
Vote:In general I regard the view of someone who is discredited and expelled from any group as sour grapes.
The man’s view of himself is fanciful at best. Freedom fighter?
November 26th, 2012 at 5:48 am
I agree burt.
Every time I read or hear that NZ politics is ‘corruption free’, I think of Winston Peters, and wonder how he escaped justice with our money.
Lovely smile though.
Vote:November 26th, 2012 at 6:48 am
David Garrett @4:39
“… And DPF: re Field’s self comparison to Mandela, surely it’s delusions of grandeur rather than a sense of entitlement? Would be a bit like me comparing myself to Winston Churchill in the ’30′s, mocked by most, but awaiting my day of glory and triumphal return….”
David, thanks for your candour. That acknowledgement of reality is in stark contrast to the “I have been martyred” attitude of some former MPs. When TPF compares himself to Mandela, he is either taking the piss or giving us a glimpse into his fantasy world. Sadly, his grandiose delusions are shared by some of his colleagues.
I understand that David Cunliffe is wandering around Parliament at the moment showing everyone his stigmata. He is clearly aiming higher than Mandela. He seems to really believe that he is the Messiah, even though Shearer would have us believe he is ‘just a naughty boy!’
Vote:November 26th, 2012 at 8:15 am
Thomas: Very good Sir! (the reference to Cunliffe not moi)
Vote:November 26th, 2012 at 9:30 am
Why Was Taito Philip Field a member of the Labour Party?
Keeping slave workers etc… he is clearly one of those 19th century Capitalist Bastards that the Labour Party (according to him) is meant to be battling against, instead of furthering the agenda of compulsory homosexuality for all…
Vote:November 26th, 2012 at 9:42 am
RRM, I couldn’t agree more. And it is who Field *is*, which is a convicted fraudster and former corrupt politician. One expects a certain standard of legal and ethical conduct from our elected representatives, regardless of their partisan affiliation. What a fascinating antinomian definition of morality religious social conservatives represent. Apparently, it doesn’t matter if one is a pedophile like Graham Capill, numerous Catholic clergy pedophiles or convicted fraudster like dear Mr Field, they are capable of “righteous” rhetoric about abortionandhomosexuality/spanking/pawn/whatever.
Vote:November 26th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
My main issue with what Field did was the hypocrisy. Since I think the minimum wage should be abolished, I have no problem with what he paid anyone. But it is appalling that someone could do that, then vote to raise the price of labour for everyone else. His crime was not what he paid his workers, but what he did in parliament.
Vote: