Kiwiblog

The Dom Post reports:

Former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky has been appointed New Zealand’s new high commissioner to Niue, launching a career in diplomacy after a two-year absence from politics.

He is already involved in tourism development on the tiny Pacific island, and is there at present.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said New Zealand and Niue were working closely together to help realise the island’s full tourism potential.

“In recent months Mr Blumsky has been leading the industry development project that was agreed as part of New Zealand’s assistance programme for Niue,” he said.

If Mark can do for Niue, what he did for Wellington, it will become a popular destination to visit.

I’ll put some video up later today,, but for now here are four stories on retiring MPs

1. Katherine Rich
2. Clem Simich
3. Margaret Wilson
4. Mark Blumsky

While totally respecting her decision, I am still really sad and cut up about Katherine leaving. Katherine would have been a superb Minister and she is just one of the neatest people you can ever get to meet. I have absolutely no desire to work in Parliament again, but if I did I would want to work for Katherine if she had stayed on.

Katherine, Clem and Mark are all from the socially liberal “wing” of National. National’s strength is that blend of conservatism and liberalism. There is a healthy acceptance that National needs both. The “liberals” don’t want to turn National into a conservative free zone, and neither do conservatives want to have National without its blend of liberalism.

The challenge for classical liberals like myself is to make sure the liberal wing is not so small as to be ineffective or invisible. But luckily both the 2005 and the likely 2008 intakes have or had reasonable proportions of “social liberals”.

Saturday’s Dominion Post had three article on Mark Blumsky.

The first confirms that Mark will stand for Mayor of Wellington in 2010, as Kerry Prendergast is not seeking a fourth term.

The second is about Mark’s term as an MP, and how unhappy he has basically been as an Opposition MP, and plans for the future:

Mr Blumsky’s future plans are mapped out on a long list. Among other commitments, he’s on the board at his daughter’s school, has bought the New Zealand rights to an electronic game cards product, and is considering two franchises. He is also a business adviser and he’s setting up a Cuba Precinct Business and Residents Association.

All worthy causes and interests, but his eyes are on a bigger prize, with a mayoral election in October 2010.

In the corner of his third floor office, Mr Blumsky has a fat red folder bulging with scraps of paper. It’s titled “Wellington Flavours,” and in it he has squirrelled away a year’s worth of ideas on what he’d do if he won the mayoralty again.

There are speeches he’d give, articles on successful cities, and pamphlets from councils around the world.

And the third is about that mystery attack in 2005:

Mark Blumsky says he has met the “lovely young man” who punched him in the face, blackening his eye and denting his campaign as a National candidate for Wellington Central in 2005. …

Mr Blumsky said a woman later called him and revealed her boyfriend was the assailant.

They arranged to meet, and the young man, who was 17 at the time, said Mr Blumsky had caught him smoking cannabis in the stairwell and had confiscated it.

The young man punched Mr Blumsky, sending him hurtling down the stairs.

“Story is: I tried to take his joint off him.”

Mr Blumsky said the youth was “a lovely young man” and very apologetic.

The youth had told Mr Blumsky that he was too young to be in the bar, and that was why he had run off.

Some people will by cynical about this, but Mark told me soon after the incident about the girlfriend of the assailant coming forward. She didn’t want her boyfriend to be arrested but was very sorry for what had happened. Mark didn’t want to break her trust by giving her name to the media, and it was thought that revealing what she said, without naming her, would not convince those who thought the injuries were not the result of an assault, and would just keep the story alive for longer.