Kiwiblog

In the Sunday News we read:

A TVNZ in-house legal adviser helped shape the confidentiality agreement between Tony Veitch and ex-girlfriend Kristin Dunne-Powell over what was later publicly revealed as a domestic violence incident, a source close to the case has revealed.

When the scandal broke in July last year, TVNZ said they told Veitch it was a private matter for him and they would help him fi nd his own lawyer.

But Sunday News has been told the state-owned network’s legal adviser Helen Wild was involved in framing the agreement “on behalf of TVNZ’’, working alongside Veitch’s lawyers to “finalise the best possible terms for Tony’’.

The source said Wild met the then-sports presenter’s lawyers Richard Burrell and Willie Akel in the days leading up to the signing of Veitch’s $150,000 payout, and offered them written advice on the agreement’s wording.

Yet in the Herald on Sunday we read:

TVNZ is fuming over reports questioning some of its executives’ roles in the Tony Veitch saga and has reiterated its full confidence in them and chief executive Rick Ellis.

A report in another publication this week raised allegations that suggested TVNZ executives may have originally been more fully aware of the Veitch assault allegations than publicly acknowledged.

This included an allegation that Veitch signed the Kristin Dunne-Powell confidentiality agreement in a second-floor TVNZ office – well before the case ever became public – and that this took place in front of company representatives.

Last night TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said the confidentiality agreement was not signed in the TVNZ lawyer’s second-floor office. “Nobody at TVNZ had any part in the negotiations concerning the confidentiality agreement.”

So how do you reconcile that? Let’s go back to the Sunday News article:

TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said yesterday: “Nobody at TVNZ was involved in any of the negotiations between them (Veitch and Dunne-Powell).

“The only statements we made at the time remain true, accurate and very careful statements of TVNZ’s understanding at the time.”

My reading of this is TVNZ is using near Clintonian definitions to cover up. They are interpreting negotiations as being only between Veitch and Dunne-Powell’s teams.

But if a TVNZ lawyer was sitting in the back room advising the Veitch team as to what to agree to, then that means they are effectively part of the negotiations – just behind the scenes.

TVNZ’s denial is missing the point. The public don’t care about the difference between advising the negotiating team and being part of it. The core issue is were TVNZ staff involved in the confidentially agreement in any way, despite the public statements it was a private matter for Veitch and did not involve his employer.

The Herald on Sunday editorial:

Brownlee said in the speech that an estimated 70 per cent of the country’s mineral wealth – which might include zinc, lead, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten – lies under the surface of DoC-administered land and that almost half of it is in Schedule 4 land, beyond the reach of exploitation and locked up for ever. And, with the agreement of the Minister of Conservation, Tim Groser, he has ordered a review of that state of affairs.

This is scarcely high treason. Governments routinely review and repeal laws enacted by their predecessors. They know that they misjudge the public mood at their peril – when Don Brash as Opposition leader was sprung suggesting that the ban on nuclear warships would be “gone by lunchtime” if he were PM, he felt the chill wind of public opinion very quickly – but they are not elected to administer the decisions of their political opponents.

Well said. That applies not just to mining policy! Of course as I remind people Labour itself allowed mining on conservation land.

It was perhaps predictable that Brownlee’s speech would be greeted with horror by conservationists. Typical was Kevin Hackwell, the tireless advocacy manager for Forest & Bird, who, in an op ed piece in the Herald, conjured the images of an open-cast mine on the bird sanctuary of Little Barrier Island and a large pit scarring the face of Mt Moehau at the top of the Coromandel Peninsula. Others, including former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, spoke of the Schedule 4 land as “the jewels in the crown” of the conservation estate, by implication characterising mining as an inevitably destructive process which must, by its nature, consume something of beauty.

Yet good sense must see this as an overreaction: plainly there would not be more than a handful of people who would countenance the idea of mining activity that destroyed wilderness of surpassing beauty and conservation value. But conservationists need to accept that these values do not inhere in every square metre of every piece of Schedule 4 land. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder: an unemployed worker in a small provincial town may detect less lustre than a city yuppie who wants somewhere nice to go tramping. In this argument, as in most, no value is absolute and the minister is entitled to raise the matter for discussion.

As I said, it should be considered on a case by cases basis. What is the projected economic value of a specific area, and what is the environmental value of that specific area.

An excellent Herald on Sunday editorial:

Councillor Sandra Coney, who gushed that “the idea of lots of people going by bike to Eden Park is really great” has possibly not attempted the feat herself. If she had, she would have noticed the long slog up Queen St and the suicidally cycle-hostile wasteland of the uptown interchanges. And once she got to the park, she might have wondered where she could lock up her bike in the throng of arriving fans, who might good-naturedly let her tyres down. Add into the mix roads clogged with buses (never mind Aucklanders going about their business) and the fact that many of the cyclists will be inexperienced and full of the sponsor’s product imbibed at Party Central on Queen’s Wharf and you have enough work to keep the nation’s orthopaedic surgeons busy until 2013.

Maybe ACC could set up claim counters along the way?

Hulls’ claim that it will put Auckland on a par with London, Paris and Melbourne, would be laughable if it were not so frightening. All those cities have working public transport systems; here we are still learning how to compose a sentence that contains the words “train” and “on time”. But if this is the thinking that excites decision-makers at a regional planning level barely two years out from kick-off, we should start praying for the arrival of the Super City. With a bit of luck, somebody in the new council will realise that it’s time to stop mucking around.

Transport is the biggest unresolved issue for the cup I reckon.

The HoS proclaims:

The “teenager” who claimed to be selling naked photos of his mother on Trade Me has been exposed as a liar who ran the auction for a design school project.

As a result Michael Chal – the 22-year-old son of former United Future MP Kelly Chal – is set to fail the project and may be banned from the online site.

Calling Chal the son of a former MP is pushing it. Chal was never sworn in as an MP or declared elected as an MP, She was a presumptive United Future List MP for a week or so after the 2002 election – until the Chief Electoral Officer realised she was not a NZ citizen and ineligible to be an MP.

Anyway his crime is:

Chal claimed to be an 18-year-old student who decided to sell raunchy photos of his mother Jennifer after she forced him to clean out the garage of their Auckland home. …

Chal’s antics were reported by dozens of media outlets around the world – including the Herald on Sunday – and extended to him roping in an accomplice to act as his mother.

But it has emerged the stunt was part of his studies at Auckland’s Media Design School. Course leader Kate Humphries said students were set a project to use social media to “get people chattering”. …

Humphries said he was advised to tell official organisations the sale was part of his studies before doing any interviews and was “mortified” he had lied to media and Trade Me. …

She said Chal had told her he had been upfront – but at no time during multiple phone and email communications with the Herald on Sunday did he tell the truth about the project.

Chal also failed to be straight with TVNZ’s Close Up, on which he appeared on Wednesday night. “He’s lied through and through,” said Close Up producer Mike Valintine. “If he’d said that it was a project he wouldn’t have been on TV. It’s pretty despicable behaviour. The guy’s a fool, to be honest.”

Valintine said Chal wanted to appear on Close Up wearing a mask. “We wouldn’t even contemplate that. I have never seen the likes of this in 30 years of television.”

One should never lie to the media to keep a prank going.

Humphries said it was “99.9 per cent certain” his project would not count towards his final grade. The project is worth 20 per cent of his year’s work. She expected Chal in her office tomorrow to discuss the matter.

Well it did get people chattering, but yes I don’t think you can get grades for fibs.

Chal said yesterday he had no regrets about the project, which he worked on with another student, who he would not name.

And he had no concerns about his stunt affecting a future in the advertising industry. “Dishonesty in advertising? I think that might help.”

He doesn’t sound the most repentant person.

Whale Oil is in both the HoS and the SST. First the HoS is about the “feud” with Pearl Going:

A fixture of the social pages is at the centre of an alleged text and cyber bullying storm. Police are investigating claims from Auckland socialite Pearl Going that she has been subjected to death threats and abuse via text, Facebook and emails.

If there has been death threats, that is indeed a matter for the Police. However as far as I know, having nasty things said about you online is not a criminal issue – if it was I would be going to the Police every second day!

The 24-year-old, related to former All Black Sid Going, has also complained about a year of cyber-harassment involving two websites, neither of which she has anything to do with.

The saga revolves around a dispute over her reputation, qualifications and background, and has drawn in many members of Auckland’s social set.

This is what puzzles me somewhat about the HoS story. I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of Ms Going and the accuracy (or not) of the various claims about her qualifications and background etc. So why doesn’t the newspaper investigate and find out who is correct rather than just report there is a dispute?

Slater said he took exception to Going being included in a list of up-and-coming Auckland socialites published in the Herald on Sunday’s Spy pages because he challenged claims about her background.

Several members of the Auckland social set this week contacted the Herald on Sunday unprompted to raise similar concerns about the background claims.

Again, the obvious thing to do would be to investigate the claims, I would have thought.

And in the SST, they do a full profile of Whale Oil. Some extracts:

Slater’s profane, occasionally rabid, vociferously right-wing blog Whale Oil Beef Hooked (to be read with an Irish inflection) gets 5000-6000 page views a day, including many readers in the media and political establishment. In the past year, it has broken a number of stories that have been followed, often unattributed, by news outlets, notably Winston Peters’ lingering post-election grip on his ministerial vehicle.

Heading home from a weekly yum char lunch with a close group of fellow right-leaning, Seventh Day Adventist-affiliated mates, Slater takes a call about a proposed visit to Fiji, as a supportive guest of the regime, to interview Frank Bainimarama. The Commodore has not been granting interviews with the New Zealand press, but one of his deputies is a Whale Oil reader.

I’d like to go to Fiji also, but am worried I might get shot at the airport as I am more sceptical of the Commodore’s intentions or more importantly his actions.

The local blogosphere is loud and volatile, the new frontline of political debate. But even in this fierce arena, Slater is infamous for dragging the discourse to new lows, with vicious, juvenile, sometimes misogynistic attacks.

Like American gossip juggernaut Perez Hilton, Slater routinely uses Photoshop to vilify his targets: grafting Helen Clark’s head onto the body of a crotchless starlet, or riddling her with digital bulletholes. On seeing an article titled “The World’s Ugliest Dogs”, Slater “couldn’t resist” reposting the story, appended with pictures of female Labour MPs. He has published bizarre sexual allegations against a female Labour official and challenged strangers to fights, including the sons of Folole Muliaga.

“I got sick of the way the media created a frenzy around a fat woman who was sent home by the hospital to die,” he says. “F— them.”

No doubt a genuine Whale quote!

Some stuff on his private life;

Slater found his after the collapse of the security systems company, of which he owned 49%, in 2004 amid rancour with his business partner. The failure ruined Slater financially he had to sell his second home to pay the IRD socially, and eventually, psychologically. The depression he had battled for years became disabling.

As a result, he is unable to work. Because he had income protection insurance, he now receives 75% of his former salary.

“The first year was dark, very dark,” recalls Slater. “I’d stay inside all day, the curtains pulled, unable to make decisions. You open the freezer and try to decide what you’re going to cook for dinner, you can’t even do that, so you go back to bed.”

To get him out of the house, one of his mates insisted he come and work in his office, free of charge. As “an outlet, a place to let off steam”, he says blogging has helped him, as do his daily workouts.

But he still battles despair, takes medication, sees a psychologist each month. Undoubtedly, the desperation of his circumstances has shaped his blogging persona.

“When you’ve got nothing to lose, you’re dangerous.”

“I’ve got no money. I’ve got nothing. What’s anybody going to do, sue me? Fill your boots! You’ll waste 100 grand,” he says.

The best advice I give about Cameron (and he now gives the same advice) to people is to avoid wrestling with pigs in mud, because you’ll just get dirty and the pigs will enjoy it

The HOS reports:

The Solicitor General’s office is investigating whether internet bloggers and social networking sites have breached contempt of court laws in the Sophie Elliott trial. …

Solicitor General spokeswoman Jan Fulstow said on Thursday the office was considering what action to take over a Facebook group called “Clayton Weatherston is a Murderer. He committed murder, not manslaughter” as well as comments on David Farrar’s Kiwiblog.

I commented to the HOS:

Kiwiblog creator David Farrar said he was generally “careful to avoid commenting on trials while under way”.

He gave the Bain trial as an example of him saving commentary until after the jury retired.

“In the Weatherston trial, the basic facts are not in dispute,” he said.

“Hence, there is no dispute about innocence – only whether or not he is found guilty of murder or manslaughter – a decision for the jury guided by the Judge. I understand jurors are usually specifically warned to not read information on the internet about the case.

“As I have done in other cases, if I am asked to delete comments that may be prejudicial, I will generally do so.

I think it is fair to say though that my anger at the fact the victim seems to being blamed for the murder, may have led me to not being as cautious as I should have been.

I am unsure as to what are the limits of acceptable discussion on criminal issues. Should you just not comment during the trial, any time after depositions, or any time after arrest?

If someone is found guilty I presume you can then comment, but what if they then lodge an appeal?

Anyway as I don’t wish to end up in judicial trouble, my interim policy is now going to be to now have any discussions on criminal issues except in a general law reform sense. In a way it is a pity because we actually have several defence lawyers comment here and I find their contributions welcome.

As I said I am genuinely unsure where the line should be drawn, and would welcome any advice on this. In the Veitch case we saw details published in Sunday newspapers for weeks on end, and that did not appear to be an issue.

Maybe there is no hard and fast boundary as to when you can or can not comment online, or as to what you can say, but perhaps a useful initiative would be the creation of a plain English guide for bloggers etc on what they can and can not comment on in terms of criminal justice issues. This could go on either Crown Law or Ministry of Justice website. I know I would find such a document bloody useful, and I suspect so would many others.  Unlike commercial media we don’t have lawyers on call.

I suspect the Sunday Star-Times enjoyed getting to print this article:

REPORTERS at the Herald on Sunday newspaper were instructed to steal stories out of the Sunday Star-Times in what the tabloid paper’s former assistant editor calls “industrial espionage” on an unprecedented scale.

The revelations are included in an early draft of a brief of evidence from Steve Cook, who was assistant editor at the Herald on Sunday until he was sacked following rumours of drug dealing.

Cook has taken a case to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) claiming unjustified dismissal he was not charged by police with any offence and although the authority struck out evidence relating to the industrial espionage claims, the Star-Times has obtained a copy of the initial brief.

In it, Cook says that for a period in 2005 soon after the Herald on Sunday’s launch, reporter John Manukia would be dispatched on Saturday nights to the Fairfax presses in South Auckland to get an early copy of the Star-Times.

Manukia, later sacked for fabricating stories, would take the paper back to the Herald on Sunday offices and, acting on instructions from executive staff, “would proceed to lift stories from the SST without any attribution for publication in the following day’s Herald on Sunday”.

Cook says the practice ceased in July 2005, following a “near catastrophe”. The Star-Times had obtained exclusive extracts from a biography of All Black Justin Marshall, which its rival wanted. Manukia was dispatched to the presses to get a copy of the paper.

“That night the Fairfax presses were running late, so when Manukia eventually got his hands on a copy of the newspaper there was only time to phone through details from the book. I asked Manukia to give me the title of the book but instead he gave me the headline on the SST story.”

The Herald on Sunday went to press with the erroneous title, and when editor Shayne Currie discovered the error, “was left with no choice but to stop the presses”, Cook wrote.

Currie yesterday said the behaviour was not “standard practice”. In a statement to the Star-Times he said: “I recall this happened on two, possibly three, occasions, in 2005. It has not happened since. On one of those occasions we did a `spoiler’ story on the new Justin Marshall book, which was being extracted in the SST.”

Media commentator Jim Tully damned the practice, saying lifting stories from another media outlet without attribution was “both unethical and potentially risky as past experience has shown. It is indicative of the intense competition between the Sundays and suggests a note of desperation in not being scooped by a rival.”

I think things are less intense now, but I do know newspapers hate nothing more than missing a story their rival covers.

Cook also gave details in his early brief of “the most incredible example of industrial espionage ever seen in the newspaper industry in this country”. A Herald on Sunday reporter had rented an apartment across the road from the Star-Times offices in Auckland and had a view of the editor’s office, including a whiteboard with details of upcoming stories. Cook claims the reporter was given a telescope and told to ring through details of what the Star-Times was doing that week.

But senior Herald on Sunday reporter David Fisher put a statement on the Public Address website on Friday, saying the telescope was his, and that the so-called spying was “a joke driven by a sense of mischief”. Currie said the incident was a “silly prank” which gained nothing and he did not find out about it until later.

David Fisher’s blog on the issue is here. I trust David entirely as to this being the context to the story.

The ERA heard on Friday that Cook was dismissed from the Herald on Sunday last year after a chain of events that began with a visit to the paper by two drug squad detectives.

They told Currie that Cook and a company car had been spotted on several occasions at a property they had under surveillance.

Currie said that over the following days and weeks Cook refused to provide a satisfactory reason for being there and would not hand over notes. Cook said he wouldn’t provide the notes because he did not trust Currie, who had given his home address to the police officers.

Even I had heard about the rumoured drug involvement. But the key issue will be whether Cook was legally entitled to refuse to hand over his (alleged) notes to his editor, and also whether the HoS followed correct process in dismissing him.

The Employment Relations Authority reports that it has been approached by Truth, Fairfax, NZ Herald, Sunday News, Sunday Star-Times and TV3 about reporting on the Stephen Cooks vs Herald on Sunday employment case.

The Authority has ruled media may attend and take notes, but no live recording of the hearing. Photos and film can be shot before the hearing starts (10 am Friday now).

I got this e-mailed to me:

HERALD ON SUNDAY IN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS AUTHORITY

The controversial and much-rumored-about court case between award winning journalist Stephen Cook and his former employer the Herald on Sunday – where he was employed as assistant editor until earlier this year – has been assigned a hearing date

This week’s hearing will be open to the public.

Date: 2 July, 2009

Time: 9.00am

Location: Employment Relations Authority, Level 10, The 280 Centre280 Queen Street, Auckland central.

Counsel for Stephen Cook – Chris Comeskey

Counsel for the Herald on Sunday – Champan Tripp

Cook is the former Assistant Editor of the HoS. His last articles appeared in late September 2008. Ironically he won a 2009 Qantas Award for feature writing for an article on the pain of parole.

He attracted some controversy in when he pressured Debbie Gerbich (who had complained about Brad Shipton) into giving an interview, amidst revelation that she was advertising for bondage partners. Gerbich later commited suicide.

There has been some interesting speculation on the nature of the parting of the ways, and the court case sounds most interesting.

The Herald on Sunday notes (after we blogged it):

The public pays $164,000 a year to Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party – which sits with Labour, speaks with Labour, votes with Labour, and now campaigns for Labour.

Yep.

Dr Joe Atkinson, a politics lecturer at Auckland University, said the Progressive Party funding was “an anomaly of MMP” as Anderton operated as a Labour MP. Anderton, the sole Progressive MP, sits on the front bench of the debating chamber among Labour MPs, and is the Labour opposition’s spokesman on agriculture.

Associate Professor Andrew Geddis, a constitutional law expert at Otago University, called the Progressive Party as “a convenient fiction”.

That is a great term – a “convenient fiction”. Superb. Anderton is good at these – in 2002 he remained in the House as an Alliance MP even though he had left the party months earlier.

The Progressive Party is allocated $100,000 a year plus $64,320 for electorate funding. And, as an MP and party leader, Anderton receives a salary of $144,500 a year. Anderton was defiant: “What’s the big deal?” he asked.

What is the big deal says Jim? Well Whale responds by quoting Jim:

NZ Herald, May 27 1999, by Vernon Small

News of the extra funding for the list MP and Mana Wahine Party leader provoked outrage yesterday among Opposition MPs, who alleged it was a jackup.

“In my view this action suggests someone who has no chance of being elected as dog-catcher … has been granted over $77,000 on an annual basis for helping to keep the Government of the day in power,” said Alliance leader Jim Anderton, from whose party Mrs Kopu defected.

Mr Anderton said he would seek a review of the funding decision, which follows official parliamentary recognition of Mana Wahine and grants the one-MP party $77,186 for research and office expenses.

…..But Mr Anderton said the funding brought the political process further into disrepute, and he would investigate ways, including a judicial review, to overturn it.

My goodness – back then it was a big deal when it was another MP in a convenient fiction party. Arguably Kopu’s party was more legitimate as it actually contested the ensuing elections.

And further:

The Press, 27 May 1999, Edition 1, on Page 1

Alliance leader Jim Anderton said the payment of extra money to Mrs Kopu was an outrage. He will write to the Parliamentary Services Commission seeking an urgent review of its decision.

He said the action of giving Mrs Kopu the money, and the way the rules had been changed to allow it to happen, “comes as close to being fairly described as corruption” as anything he had seen in his 35-year political career.

So when Jim does it, it is no big deal. When Mrs Kopu did it, it was close to corruption.

So many comments today. First Cactus Kate comments on Phil Goff’s description of Complainant A is “strikingly beautiful”:

Imagine a man from the centre-right of politics objectifying a woman as “strikingly beautiful”. The left would be outraged.

Is it appropriate for a Party leader to be commenting on the physical appearance of one of his members? A member you are meant to be protecting the identity of? At what point did Goff feel the need to comment at all on her appearance? What possible context would it have been necessary to utter this stupid answer?

Kate mischievously suggests the feminist wing will be so outraged it may be BBQ at Maryan’s place!

The Sunday News reports that Richard’s daughter is standing by him:

THE only child of under-fire former minister Richard Worth claims the businesswoman who filed a complaint with police against her dad “has problems and needs help”.

“He is the best man in the world and I love him so much,” Worth’s 28-year-old daughter Virginia told Sunday News. …

“I am standing by my dad and that is all there is to it,” said Virginia Worth, a Newmarket, Auckland, rental car company manager.

“I am 100 percent confident and sure that everything is going to work out perfectly. I’m very proud of my father and he has been the most amazing and devoted parent anyone could wish for.”

There is enormous sympathy for Lynne and Virgina Worth, having to deal with all this.

John Tamihere writes:

The real target is not Dr Richard Worth or the complainant.

They are but a means to an end in the final game. In fact, they are merely unsuspecting pawns.

The head Labour wants is that of prime minister John Key.

He is new to the rough and tumble of bloodthirsty politics, of being in the gutter and having to slug it out.

While he is undoubtedly an outstanding corporate leader, and as such has had to deal with significant issues in regard to huge volumes of money and large numbers of staff and clients, the real dirty side of politics is now in play.

The question is, can he handle the constant and continual harassment and pressure the opposition will bring to bear? …

We see this by Goff insisting that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has to meet this “strikingly attractive” complainant despite the refusal to supply the text messages in advance.

Kerre Woodham writes:

What on earth would possess a man to think he could engage in this sort of behaviour and get away with it? Especially when one of the women was a Labour Party member.

He should be dismissed for that sort of poor judgment alone. There may well be no law against being a randy old goat but some of the allegations make for very uncomfortable reading.

Bill Ralston pronounces on the handling:

At 9.21 am on June 3, like the rest of the media, I received a short email statement from Richard Worth stating he was resigning his ministerial portfolio and would be making no further comment. Seven minutes later another arrived from Prime Minister John Key’s office saying he had accepted the resignation and would be making no further comment.

Hello? What were they thinking? A minister of the Crown resigns and the Government has nothing to say? Did anyone in the Administration seriously think journalists in newsrooms across the country would simply say, “Hey Richard Worth’s resigned but no one’s talking. Pity, well, where shall we go for lunch today?”

I think most people accept now the original press release was inadequate.

The problem with the Goff allegations is that he told Key only some considerable time, perhaps months, after first receiving the information that an Indian woman alleged Worth repeatedly made sexually inappropriate texts and phone calls to her.

He produced no affidavit from her and no texts were given to support the claim. Key instructed one of his senior staffers to investigate. Worth reportedly denied all, and threatened libel action against the woman. In a case where it was Worth’s word against an anonymous woman, Key was forced to accept his minister’s assurance.

And they still are refusing to provide the texts!

And finally the HoS editorial has some advice:

It is probably telling that, when asked on radio what he would do if criminal charges were laid, Key said that he could not sack Worth twice. It plainly implied that he did sack the minister and allowed the public announcement of a resignation as a face-saving gesture. If so, it is plainly the only slack the PM is cutting him. Helen Clark left a back door ajar or or at least unlocked for errant ministers to return; Key makes it plain that it will be a very cold day in hell before Richard Worth holds a ministerial warrant in one of his Cabinets. …

As to Worth himself, it may be beyond his capability to feel any shame. A man who exudes a sense of entitlement disproportionate to his status, he seems incapable of showing remorse about actions that plainly warrant remorse. After a private trip to India in which he spoke in his capacity as a minister while promoting an aviation company in which he had an interest, he was carpeted by his boss but would only allow, with a pained smile, that there had been a “perception” of a conflict of interest.

Well, the crystal-clear perception in that case was everybody’s but his – and this case is beginning to look remarkably similar. Rather than hide behind the niceties of legal procedure, Worth might like to act like a man: tell the public what he said and wrote, and when and to whom. And then he could explain why he considers it acceptable behaviour for an MP, never mind a minister.

This is Richard’s problem. He has the legal issue and the political issue. The best response to the legal issue is to say nothing, but that is the worst response to the political issue.

By coincidence, I’m quoted twice in the HoS this week.

The HoS did a number of stories on MPs expenses, and quotes me:

Kiwiblog’s David Farrar this week acknowledged MPs’ legal entitlement to claim up to $24,000 in Wellington accommodation expenses, but questioned the moral propriety of the way some did it.

In particular, he objected to the practice of MPs using their parliamentary superannuation scheme to buy a house, then renting it back to themselves – allowing themselves to claim $24,000 when their mortgage interest payments would amount to far less. “It’s a conflict of interest, you’re effectively landlord and tenant,” Farrar says.

They also did a story on Paula Bennett.

BENNETT’S SUPPORTERS love her for her Westie chutzpah and outrageous sense of humour – when Labour MP Annette King berated her for giving Grey Power the brush-off, leaving them with an impression that “a loud laugh will solve all the questions put to her”, Bennett emitted a loud laugh.

Says Waitakere Mayor and former Labour Party president Bob Harvey: “The West has taken a shine to her. They like her style; she’s brown and fun and she understands the job. I think they’re prepared to forgive if a person is genuine and good.”

And later on talking about the Rankin appointment:

Kiwiblog’s David Farrar agrees the Halaholo omission was a lapse of judgment, but argues the Rankin omission was valid and even tactical. “It’s probably best not to tell the Prime Minister stuff like that: it’s not relevant, and it also protects him if he’s asked ‘Did he know?’.”

After The Press earlier in the week alluded to issues around Christine Rankin’s latest marriage, it was inevitable the Sunday papers would go the whole hog, and sadly the HoS has.

I’m no fan of the Rankin appointment (mainly on political grounds), but I think this sort of scrutiny of personal life is way over the top. The Families Commission is not about Commissioners having perfect family lives, but about advocating for public policy that is good for families.

The Herald on Sunday editorial says:

The plan announced on Monday sensibly ditched the commission’s recommendation for six local councils – a recipe for more of the same paralysis – and provided for between 20 and 30 local boards, with between 125 and 150 members, to ensure that community voices are heard.

Apart from the Mayors losing their jobs, almost everyone seems to be saying that decision was the right one.

The HoS is concerned about lack of powers for the local boards. I think the ability to propose an additional rate for additional local facilities or services will turn out to be quite powerful.

What is more worrying is the composition of the council itself. It is a blizzard of confusing numbers but the proposal is for 20 councillors elected from 12 wards (which, for no good reason, will coincide with neither the community boards’ bailiwicks, nor Parliamentary electorates) and eight councillors elected at large. The mayor, too, would be elected by the voters of the region.

Again there seems to be a consensus that all the Councillors should be from wards. Hopefully the Select Committee will be able to make recommendations on this issue.

Talking of super city issues, one has to giggle at this story:

North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams accused Rodney Hide of lying about having met local Mayors – claiming he met John Banks only. Rodney’s response:

But Mr Hide said he spoke to other Mayors the day the Royal Commission released its report, a day when Williams was in the South Island.

“Andrew Williams wasn’t there when the Royal Commission released their report, and I don’t know why, so we did our best,” he told NZPA.

Williams seems exceptionally skilled at making himself look foolish.

Bill Ralston writes in the HoS:

The first 100 days programme was all about looking competent and appearing to honour National’s election promises.

Sadly, most of those promises were made in an entirely different pre-election economic climate when it seemed like we could afford them.

Still, Key seems determined to stick by those pledges even if it makes Bill English’s job harder when writing the next Budget.

As long as the Government doesn’t back away from its promised tax cuts it will survive even the blackest budget that English may have to devise.

In these times families are looking forward to even a small amount of tax relief and it is the one promise National cannot afford to break.

The Government can take a holiday on making contributions to the Super Fund. It can even axe the damn thing and nick the fast diminishing $12 billion to further boost the economy.

Most people won’t mind the loss of an abstract concept involving billions of bucks.

They will spit the dummy if they find the Government reneges on giving them that extra $20 a week.

Indeed.

There is of course a set of circumstances, where the out year tax cuts would be reconsidered. When everything else has been tried, spending reduced and the deficit still is unacceptably high, threatening the future.  The OBEGAL needs to be able to move back into surplus over time.

Bit what is pathetic is all the commentators and editorials demanding that the tax cits be surrendered immediately – before the Government has even started to make an impact cutting waste, reconsidering contributions to the Super Fund etc etc.

Even the HoS editorial today does the usual job of advocating they should go, and ignoring the reality that National’s extra tax cuts were fully funded by spending cuts:

It is almost dishonest, when people advocate that the tax cuts can not be afforded, without mentioning that National’s tax cuts were fully funded by cutting spending on KiwiSaver – something which actually will help reduce the impact of the recession as the KiwiSaver subsidies would have removed the money from the economy, while the tax cuts will see most of it spent.

Good to see Herald on Sunday highlighting the campaign for a memorial in London to Sir Keith Park.

I blogged on the campaign a few weeks ago.

You can help the campaign, through their campaign site.

Sir Keith helped make the world a better place, leading the defence of London during the Battle of Britain. If they had failed, well we might all have even funnier accents than we currently do

There is little new in the Sunday papers on the Paula Bennett story, but worth looking at what has been said.

The main story in the HoS quotes from the two letters released yesterday, and is pretty unexceptional. What I found more interesting was the HoS Editorial, which seems to be slightly schizophrenic in part prasing Paula, while part insisting the public had a right to know. I suspect their original story got a bit of a backlash. An extract:

On the face of it, and in the absence of any evidence arguing to the contrary, Bennett’s decision to take Halaholo under her roof and her pleas in mitigation on his behalf are unexceptionable, understandable and even commendable. At times of strife, particularly when the law is requiring an errant youngster to face the consequences of his actions, family bonds are tested, and those that do not break are precious indeed. It is difficult to imagine that Bennett’s motives in allowing her granddaughter’s father to be bailed to her home were anything other than entirely blameless. Her personal history, which has not been free of tribulation over which she has triumphed, would equip her to be an ideal guardian of a young man who needed watching over, and the non-custodial remand alternatives, presuming they existed, would very probably have been less satisfactory.

I think most people have reached that conclusion.

But that is not the issue. As a society, we quite properly regard election to any public office, and particularly to Parliament, as imposing duties of disclosure above and beyond those that attend on normal citizenship. This is particularly true of ministers, which is why they are required to declare their assets. It is for the public, not the executive, to decide what among their private financial arrangements is and is not relevant to the discharge of their public duties.

There are additional duties of disclosure, but I am not sure your daughter’s boyfriend qualifies. Where do you stop? Your brother’s P habit? Your uncle’s drink driving? Unless there are links to your actions as a Minister, I tend to think it is private business. If a Minister’s child crashes a private car, it should not be noteowrthy. If the car they crash if a Ministerial taxpayer funded car, then it is noteworthy.

So it is in this case. Only three years after being elected to Parliament, Bennett has been entrusted with an important cabinet portfolio at what might be regarded as a tender age. There is no evidence that the hospitality she extended to Halaholo compromised her, but the questions this paper wished to put to her and to her boss remain of public importance. When did she become aware that Halaholo was involved in a gang? What contact has she had with other gang members or associates? Did she, in the security vetting that all ministers undergo, disclose her relationship with a convicted violent offender? What discussion has occurred about the potential security risks involved?

I really don’t think the daughter’s boyfriend being associated with some gang members (I understand he is not in fact a member of any gang) is quite the same thing as having an affair with the girlfriend of a Russian spy (Profume affair).

John Tamihere has a brother who is a convicted killer, and probably knows dozens of gang members. Is anyone suggesting he (when a Minister) should have had to detail to the Cabinet Secretary every gang member he has ever associated with in case it somehow is a security risk?

Hey Rob Muldoon had a few sessions with gang leaders. That is a security risk I guess. Well mainly a risk to the gang members

Personally I think the security risk angle is merely justification for running the story. Not that I’m upset the story was published – I think it shows that Ministers are not some privileged elite with perfect families and lives.

Finally we have the SST story. It is largely unexceptional, except for this first paragraph:

PRIME MINISTER John Key has reprimanded his renegade social development minister Paula Bennett after she failed to tell him about letters of support she had written for her daughter’s jailed partner.

Paula is now a renegade Minister? Wow, let’s use the really colorful language.  Dictionary.com defines a renegade as:

1. a person who deserts a party or cause for another.
2. an apostate from a religious faith.
–adjective
3. of or like a renegade; traitorous.

So maybe we can agree that’s going a bit over the top. As in 1000% over the top.

But at least Paula is in good company if she is now an official renegade. That is also the Secret Service codename for Barack Obama, as detailed in the Telegraph.

My favourite codename is Kittyhawk for Queen Elizabeth II!

As final proof that Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is a true Westie, the Herald on Sunday reveals that the father of her daughter’s daughter is a young gang member.

The Herald on Sunday have worked hard to make this newsworthy, proclaiming:

Police said Halaholo, 23, was a member of the Thugs of Canal, a so-called youth gang based around Canal St in Avondale. The gang members reportedly have a history of violence and intimidation, creating the risk inappropriate pressure could be brought to bear on the senior minister and her decisions.

I don’t see that Paula gets much choice in who her daughter chooses as a partner, and her “crime” seems to be allowing him to live with her a couple of years ago. The article goes on to say:

Yesterday, Halaholo’s father Lolo Halaholo, 42, said Bennett had been trying to support her daughter and family by taking in her granddaughter’s father.

Viliami Halaholo left Avondale College aged 17 and got work with a road crew. He had been in regular police trouble because of his involvement in up to 10 fights, his father said.

Halaholo’s aunty, Tolo Langi, said her nephew had settled down after meeting Ana, but had still hung around Avondale with his gang associates.

Ana studied at Excel Ministries School of Performing Arts before becoming a mum.

Ana and Halaholo plan to set up house with their child and Halaholo’s other toddler daughter when he gets out, Langi said. The family hoped he would be up for parole this year.

I think this just shows that Paula continues to face the challenges of being a mum, and a grandmum.

The Herald on Sunday wrote an article in advance for their 9th of November edition. It was the one they would run if John Key had not won on the night. Normally these would never see the light of day, but they accidentally filed it , it seems. So here is what you would have read the day after the election if National had not won:

SO SURE OF AN OUTRIGHT WIN WERE NATIONAL STALWARTS LIKE FORMER MP KATHERINE RICH THAT SHE REFUSED TO COMMENT LAST WEEK ON THE POSSIBILITY OF KEY NOT BECOMING PRIME MINISTER “BECAUSE IT’S JUST NOT GOING TO HAPPEN”
865 words
Nov 9th 2008 12:30pm Newspapers/Nz Herald

On page: 26

IT WASN’T meant to happen this way. So sure was John Key that he had this one in the box that he didn’t have an option two.

So sure of an outright win were National stalwarts like former MP Katherine Rich that she refused to comment last week on the possibility of Key not becoming prime minister “because it’s just not going to happen”.

Now Key has fluffed his big chance, not by losing outright but by allowing Helen Clark enough room to stick a Labour toe in a door that he was supposed to have slammed shut.

Now the voters can do nothing but wait while the negotiators do the deals that will ultimately decide who governs. While Key is a master dealer when it comes to investment banking, it is Clark who has an extraordinary ability to negotiate coalitions, partnerships and support agreements that most people wouldn’t have thought possible. If the Maori Party emerges as the kingmaker, punters are predicting Clark will have the upper hand.

Now the Dream Team, Key and his sidekick Bill English, face another three years in Opposition, another three years before the ambitious 47-year-old leader of the National Party gets another crack at what has been a lifelong dream.

And have another crack, he will.

Broadcaster and political commentator Bill Ralston predicts Key will be “pissed off to hell” with the loss but will treat it as a setback rather than a failure. He would use the next three years to hone his skills, Ralston said. “This is a guy who has never failed at anything.”

Party insiders doubt there is a chance Key will spit his dummy, quit politics and go back to the lucrative investment banking career that made him a very rich man.

That there will be no leadership challenge is in little doubt. “There is no question he will remain a strong uncontested leader of the Opposition,” MP Murray McCully said. “He will be unrivalled, unchallenged.”

He, like others, doubts Key had thought about a Plan B.

“He’s always been the sort of guy who from the time he thought he might take the job on has only ever had one scenario in mind.”

That innate confidence grew more evident as the campaign progressed, as Key’s media training paid off and as he took more risks _ like discounting a union with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters outright.

Ralston said the only way the National Party would lose Key now was if Caucus voted him out. “And I don’t think they have another alternative leader there. Bill English might think he is but the Caucus are aware that Key is the man.”

One National MP said he had never seen a more disciplined and unified caucus.

Whether English would even want the job is up for discussion. A source close to the inner circle doubted English would make a run for the leadership.

“He’s got the best of both worlds. He’s a family man, a committed Catholic with a busy working wife. He’s got plenty of power and influence without carrying the top dog title.”

And despite this loss, National’s polling leaves the party as a strong Opposition, a position Key is credited with achieving. In the next three years Key would have “more mana and authority than any leader of the National Party going back a long way,” one insider said.

Yesterday’s achievement in terms of the party vote would be recognised as being “substantially the result of his [Key's] leadership”, he said.

“His stocks are very high. He’ll have a good deal of authority.”

He predicted he would be a “powerful and untouchable leader of the Opposition.”

Observers say Key will waste no time in reshaping the National Party, purging the old guard in the process. Ralston expects to see a new lineup which includes younger faces and a more diverse mix in terms of gender and ethnicity before long. Many of the old guard will “take the hint and the nudge”.

“I think he will very quickly take a knife to the party… that’s going to be a risky process because at the same time you destabilise your Caucus support.”

That he’s capable of the hard decisions is unquestioned. Back in the 90s, Key earned the nickname “smiling assassin” after implementing mass sackings for Merrill Lynch.

Ralston expects heavy scrutiny by Key of what went wrong in the campaign because there was “no shortage of money this time round”.

That would include looking at what tactics didn’t work, the party marketing and organisation, and the billboards and television ads.

The “Mr Nice Guy” strategy would be called into question, he said, and whether the party should have used “attack” advertising and Key should have come across as more assertive.

Blogger Russell Brown of Public Address described the Labour victory as a “bugger the pollsters” moment. “In the end people have responded to the trust message. Maybe in the end they didn’t trust John Key enough.”

Ralston predicted that Key would spend the next three years making sure he earned that trust.
Source: Herald On Sunday
Credit: Herald On Sunday

Katherine was very smart in refusing to comment in advance on the possibility of National not winning. I presume all the other people quoted in the article did comment hypothetically.

Incidentally congrats to Katherine for her appointment as CEO of the NZ Food and Grocery Council. The FGC represents $15 billion of sales and $3.5 billion of exports, and Katherine’s background in agri-business make it a great role for her.

The Herald on Sunday has a story criticising Bronagh Key because the jacket she wore to John’s swearing in, was the same she wore to the party’s campaign launch.

I like the HoS generally, but sorry guys but that is pathethic. And it gets worse later on with this unsolicited advice:

“We would accentuate her legs and waist, changing her tomboy look into a slightly more feminine and sexy version,” she said.

Sigh.

Some interesting and amusing aspects in their Goff profile:

“I don’t regard myself as being arrogant,” he says. “I’ve never regarded myself as being nakedly ambitious. I’ve actually set out, rather, to do the jobs that have been given to me as well as I could.”

Did he manage to say that with a straight face?

There are numerous superficial similarities with Helen Clark: both became involved in Labour when they were young; both were pointy-headed young political scientists at the University of Auckland; both were elected to Parliament straight from university; they ended up in adjacent Auckland electorates.

But Goff is anxious to highlight the differences: she was a farm girl, his dad was traditional Labour blue-collar, a fitter and turner with the railways. His grandmother, widowed in 1934, lost her house in the Depression. She thought that Michael Joseph Savage, the first Labour Prime Minister, walked on water.

Goff worked in the freezing works in his school and university holidays, with men who had been there since the 1940s. “I learned a lot at university, but I also a learned a hell of a lot working on the factory floor.”

And Goff is much much more centrist than Clark. If he gets Labour to drop their almost unique ban on asset sales (which would outflank National) I would almost vote for him.

The Herald on Sunday interviews Bronagh Key – possibly her first mainstream media sole interview. Extracts:

Bronagh Key is a woman of contrasts. She wears subtle jewellery that could be the equivalent of Niue’s GDP.

Yet, she says, she is a “bit of a tomboy actually”, who’s learning how to kickbox, avoids make-up during the day and can’t cook properly.

Kickboxing – cool! Who needs the DPS

She will, however, talk about Helen Clark. The two women have never met but Bronagh has admiration for her husband’s rival. She insists Clark was wrong in the first leaders’ television debate when she implied John Key shouted over people at home.

“I think [the comment] was in the heat of the moment and it was a bit unfortunate. What she said couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Considering that Bronagh could have aggressively attacked Clark for her comments, she is being very gracious.

They next met, accidentally, at the Russley Hotel, where Bronagh was waitressing. She was in a “long gaberdine maxi skirt and a peach chiffon blouse with a big bow… very tacky,” she laughs.

John, who was with his mum, didn’t know Bronagh worked there but she certainly made an impression. He told his mother: “See that girl, I am going to marry her.”

John seems very determined to suceed at whatever he pursues

A few weeks later he invited her to the A&P Show. “My mum and dad liked him straight away _ he was always very good with them _ and he would come around a lot on his skateboard… it’s not a pretty sight!”

Oh my God – a skateboarding John Key – now that is the dirt that Mike “Batman” WIlliams should be trying to dig up.  A photo of Key on a skateboard after age 12 would be enough to turn off 5% of the vote

KEY PROPOSED during her last year at Canterbury University, at the Chateau on the Park restaurant. “I remember saying to him on one condition _ that we had to buy a laundry basket on the way home, because he is really bad at dropping his clothes all over the bedroom floor.”

Heh.

I ask the same question I posed to Peter Davis, which appears to have upset a few readers _ the matter of their love life. In good spirits, Bronagh brushes it off. “I don’t even talk about that with my close friends, so I’m not going to tell you!”

Key has infamously said he’d turn gay for Brad Pitt. Bronagh says: “I think he’s more interested in Angelina Jolie _ but I’ll have Brad!”

Funnily enough many women also name Jolie as the woman they would go gay for. One can understand why of course!

The Herald on Sunday also interviews John Key. Some interesting stuff:

How would your voters feel if you turned around and supported the entrenchment of these seats, when your policy is to abolish them?

I think there would be very mixed views. Some people would accept that, but others would have real concerns, I think… MMP is inevitably about compromise – compromise from smaller parties and compromise from bigger parties.

That is one of the ironies of MMP – all manifestos are starting positions not final positions.

You don’t live in Helensville. Your electorate vote is in Epsom – Richard Worth or Rodney Hide?

I’m voting two ticks for National.

So presumably you’ll be advising all other National voters in Epsom to do the same? To give their electorate vote to Richard Worth?

We’re running a party vote campaign around the country. It’s no secret that we have a good relationship with Act. Obviously we’d encourage anybody to give two ticks to National, but we acknowledge that there will be people who split their vote in Epsom.

That was delicately handled!

After the past week, are you fairly comfortable with your decision to rule out Winston Peters?

Ultimately a Winston Peters government is always one that has dramas and scandals around it, and I think that New Zealanders want a fresh start.

Why do you think Helen Clark has been willing to wed herself so closely to Winston?

I think she’s desperate for power. She’s trading away the principles she campaigned on in 1999 that she was going to hold ministers to account. She’s fired ministers before Winston for a lot less… The only reason she hasn’t [fired him] is because he’s her only hope to get a fourth term.

You know I can’t actualy think of what more Winston could do, that would cause Clark to fire him?

You said you regretted your slip-up over the Tranz Rail shares. Why shouldn’t that erode voters’ trust in you?

Because that was a genuine mistake, and when I made it I fronted up about it. What I did find out about a week later was that I had more shares than people had originally thought, but they were for the same time period… Now, for good order I should have gone back and corrected that, and if I was faced with that situation again I would.

Could people perceive that as you being “economical with the truth”?

Well, they could do, and that was certainly why Labour went to such great lengths to find that information about me – but people make mistakes.

I like people who can admit their mistakes. I don’t think Helen has ever admitted an error – not even signing a painting done by someone else as her own. She just tried to claim she autographed it, not signed it!!

The Herald on Sunday editorial calls for a clear mandate for a new Government, so they can cope with what might be the worst economic crisis in 70 years.

To have a real shot at cobbling together a majority, Labour would need the support of NZ First, an option unlikely to be available since the polls strongly point to extinction both of the party and its turbulent leader, Winston Peters. He cannot be ruled out entirely; history shows that if anyone can rise from a political deathbed he can. But if that happens, Helen Clark will have to ask herself whether she can – or should – work with him again.

Asked and answered. Yes, yes, and yes. She almost soudns enthusiastic about doing so.

For no matter how much Peters harrumphs and blusters, the donations fiasco has revealed him to be both a hypocrite and a man whose doubletalk has been hard to distinguish from calculated deceit. Clark would need to ask herself whether she should rely, like every administration in the MMP era, on such a perverse dissembler to keep her on the ninth floor of the Beehive. She may believe that she has a political mission to fulfil and that it is fair to resort to any expedient within the rules that allows her to do that. But a real leader knows when the prize is not worth the price.

A perverse dissembler. Now that’s a phrase I like.

It is almost sad to see Clark cling so tightly to Winston, even after the latest revelations.

In the end, Clark may not face that choice, since Peters will probably be consigned to the oblivion he so richly deserves. But she also faces the question of whether a minority Government she leads would have a legitimate claim to power. If Labour were to win significantly fewer party votes than National and yet assemble a ramshackle coalition with the Greens, the Maori Party and the Progressives, Clark could end up with a constitutional hold on power to which it had no moral entitlement. A Government so formed would risk being seen as cynically corrupting the intentions of MMP, which could lead to a regrettable backlash against proportional representation. And a Government whose very existence runs counter to the plainly expressed will of the people is not likely to go down very well in the country that invented the concept of the fair go.

Now there is no doubt that Labour has the legal and constitutional right to form a Government even if it gets less votes than National. I have never argued otherwise. But voter expectations of parties is another matter.

For example in Canada there is a strong convention that the largest party gets the chance to form a Government. This is, like in NZ, not a legal or constitutional requirement – it is a cultural or political expectation. You actually have the main opposition party (the Liberals) voting in favour of supply, to allow the Government to continue. They know they would be punlished by the electorate for causing the Government to dissolve, or not allowing it to form.

So while there is no question about the legal and constitutional position, there are cultural and political issues about how NZ would react to a party that came second, forming the Government. To my mind it depends on the exact situation.

If National beat Labour by only 2%, and Labour and Greens formed a majority Government I don’t think anyone would blink much.

If National beat Labour by say 14%, and Labour, Greens, NZ First and Maori Party and Progressive all combined to form a Government, then I think there would be some significant disgruntlement, regardless of the fact there is no legal barrier at all.

If National actually got over 50% of the vote, and didn’t get to form a Government due to overhang there would be very significant backlash I would say. And if the overhang was as a result of a deliberate strategy, then I would say things could get very messy.

The legal position is quite clear – any MP can be made Prime Minister and lead a Government so long as they can win confidence and supply in the House. But the political and cultural acceptability of those arrangements is not the same thing and will depend (if the biggest party does not form a Government) on how big the gap was.

And so, with a week to go, the polls suggest there is a mood for change. But the incoming Government needs to have a clear and unequivocal mandate. The crisis enveloping global financial systems will call for strong leadership from decision-makers untrammelled by the need to pander to the competing desires of coalition partners. The worst thing that voters could do on Saturday is to try to second-guess the main party leaders with so-called strategic voting.

We need a clear result to strengthen the hand on the tiller in the stormy seas ahead.

A clear result would be great. And it is worth remembering that National has said it will try and strike deals with ACT, United Future and the Maori Party even if it can govern without any or all of them. So you would have a Government able to govern with strong leadership when necessary, but one that voluntarily chooses to bring as many other parties as possible into Government – not to give them a veto and rule by committee, but to recognise talent and good ideas across the board.

The Herald on Sunday interviews Helen Clark. Some extracts:

When I last spoke to you in this room, a week out from the last election, you said you didn’t know Winston Peters that well.

That was true. It probably still is.

You said you’d never actually governed with him, which you hadn’t at that point. You have now. Do you feel you know him a bit better now?

Yes, a bit better… And I have to say that, working as a minister, I believe he did a pretty good job.

Would you have confidence in him as a minister in the future?

I would have no difficulty working with him in the future.

As a minister?

No difficulty. I take people as I find them, and I’m perfectly satisfied with the job he did.

You’d be happy to see him as foreign minister again?

All I’m saying is, I’m perfectly prepared to work with Winston Peters again, and I consider that his party operated honourably in the relationship it had with us.

Well I’m speechless. I guess what Clark means is he kept voting for her and honoured the confidence and supply agreement. She doesn’t regard any of the other stuff as important, such as:

• Having lied to her over Owen Glenn
• Having lied to Privileges Committee
• Pushing through policy for special interests that fund his party and personally donate to him
• Having filed false donation returns for 2005, 2007 and maybe 2006
• Having filed false pecuniary interest returns for 2006 and 2007 (and maybe still false)

None of that has anything to do with operating honourably – so long as he votes for her.

I really do hope there are enough principled people on the left who will vote Green if they can not bring themselves to vote for a non-left party. But surely they can see it is time for Clark to go, when even after the Meurant revelations she is saying she would have “no difficulty” workign with Peters. That is almost condoning his activities.

How can the voters of the left ever think they will have any sort of moral high ground on political finance reform, when you vote for Clark who just doesn’t care about false donation returns, false pecuniary interests returns, documents recommending her “partner party” refocus itself to be a party of sectional special interests in order to attract money from them, and plenty of evidence that such a strategy was implemented using her Government.

I would like to ask you what your biggest regret is about your handling of politics and policy in the past three years.

I have no regrets, and I wouldn’t even dream of trying to manufacture them.

I’m sure you do have some regrets.

No regrets. Never look back.

I hope that isn’t the case. I know it may not be the smartest thing politically to admit to your mistakes, but learning from them in very important. Hell I can name plenty of things I regret – now I don’t think about them constantly but I would never say I have no regrets.