My confession: I like Trevor

This may surprise many, but I actually like Trevor Mallard, our new Ambassador to Ireland. Like does not mean approve of everything he says or does, but we have had a friendly relationship for over 15 years. That revelation is probably enough to get me booted out of National, and possibly vice-versa for Trevor.

I first started to have interactions with Trevor when he was a frontbench Minister in the Clark Government and I was a new blogger. I was surprised to get e-mails from him pointing out minor errors in a post etc. I was bemused that the No 4 or 5 Minister in the Government had enough spare time to be reading Kiwiblog.

Since then over almost 20 years we have had a friendly relationship with semi-regular texts, calls and e-mails on issues of shared interest such as Standing Orders and the like. We’ve had conversations which rely on trust in each other to not repeat them, and speaking purely for myself I’ve never had a bad encounter with Trevor.

Now this is not to say I have agreed with all or even most of what he has done I had been outraged, along with many others, from time to time and have even let off the odd curse. Most people in National probably feel towards Trevor, what people in Labour felt towards Murray McCully.

I agree with what Audrey Young once wrote about him as Speaker – there were parts he was excellent at, and parts where his temper and dislike of certain MPs meant he was not. But on issues of making Parliament run better, I do think he made many improvements and would have liked to have seen him Chair the latest Standing Orders review.

So I do wish him well for the posting to Ireland, and hope the new Speaker manages a less antagonistic relationship with the Opposition and Opposition leaders.