Goff joins Collins at Sunday Star-Times

Jono Milne writes at the SST:

When we announced last week that Judith Collins would be writing a column for the Sunday Star-Times, it excited comment across the broadcast and digital media. …

Would we also be running a column from an MP in one of the other parties, asked a Green Party PR person, for balance? “Wait and see,” we replied, coyly.

Quick as a flash, the PR person moved the goalposts: “Cool, you got a Labour and Green MP signed up too? News to me,” she said, just a tad sardonically. Apparently it would now take two columnists from the left to take on just one Judith Collins.

The outrage on Twitter was hilarious.

A few Twitter users demanded our readers cancel their subscriptions. Three of them actually went through with their threats by emailing me their cancellations – though one refused to identify himself or herself in the email because, this correspondent said, the right wing had so corrupted journalism that the writer could not risk me knowing his or her identity. Without knowing the person’s name and address, it was rather difficult to cancel his or her subcription!

Paranoia at its best.

Indeed, there is plenty of healthy precedent for senior MPs writing columns for the country’s big papers – among them, David Lange, Simon Upton, Deborah Coddington, John Tamihere, Jim Anderton and George Hawkins.

So who has the SST got to balance Collins?

Finally, for those who believe commissioning Judith Collins was an outrage, I have more bad news … as foreshadowed, I’ve taken on a second MP, too. Phil Goff will go toe-to-toe with Collins in the Sunday Star-Times every week. Goff, once the leader of the Labour Party, has now been moved off new leader Andrew Little’s front benches. Like Judith Collins, he is freed of the constraints of collective responsibility – both of them can call it like they see it. If that means they sometimes criticise their own leaders, so be it. This weekend, the former foreign affairs minister will examine whether Kiwis should be allowed to go take up arms in foreign wars like those in Syria and Iraq.

This is hilarious as many on the left regard Goff as a right wing sell out. I look forward to more howls of outrage.