March 2011

The Penguin has mischievously thrown Trevor Mallard’s name into the ring for Labour’s soon to be entirely vacant leadership. We support such a move with a Top 10 reasons Trevor Mallard is the best candidate for the job:

10. Smacked up Tau Henare. Who doesn’t want to do that?
9. Can outrun Parekura Horomia and Shane Jones.
8. Deals with gossip columnists.
7. Dislikes everyone equally.
6. Knows what to do with a bottle of Heineken.
5. Will prove contrast to “smile and wave”.
4. Short press conferences.
3. World’s first blogging potential Prime Minister.
2. Who can say no to a man in a wheelchair?
1. Actually knows the offside rule.

You just can’t make this sh*t up.

Phil Goff is so inept that he can’t even maintain a position in a single sentence now.  Seriously this is not edited…

On Checkpoint this afternoon he said there were things he’d do differently or better, then went straight on to say he’d do exactly the same thing!!!  Another screw up… I can’t believe that his caucus still thinks this chump is the best person to lead them.

Goff on Checkpoint by whaleoil

One of the most perplexing questions of this entire ongoing Phil Goff stuff up is what are the paid professionals saying? Labour are well known to have used Blue State Digital in the past, and at times like this you expect them to turn to their long term advisors.

The difficult thing for a professional firm to say is “Mate you are rooted, give up now and let someone else have a go.” Are Blue State telling Labour this at the moment?

Phil Goff is seriously deluded:

Labour leader Phil Goff has said the Darren Hughes affair has “strengthened” his leadership.

The senior MPs met for more than three hours this morning to discuss the Hughes fiasco, earthquake recovery and the sell-off of state owned assets.

The 11 MPs all presented a united front as they arrived at Dunedin’s Otago University this morning. All expressed support for Goff’s leadership.

And they have just emerged from the meeting flanking Goff as he declared they have his support.

Goff said they had a “constructive” discussion about his handling of the Hughes saga.

Labour was plunged into turmoil by Hughes’ resignation last week after a sex complaint was laid with Wellington police and it emerged that Goff had known about it for two weeks before it was made public.

Goff is a fool. There is no one, not a soul except Goff himself who think that he has performed well in dealing with the Darren Hughes affair. If Phil Goff thinks he has performed well then National will certainly not want him rolled. It is no wonder that I am receiving imploring emails from senior National party sources telling me to go easy on him.

Chris Trotter thinks that Labour should roll him with a powerful post recalling echos of 1990.

The very worst time to organise a leadership spill is when a general election is just months or weeks away. It smacks of desperation and panic – neither of which speak well of a party’s readiness to govern. The only justification for such self-destructive political behaviour is the reason of necessity. Making an active choice to do something bad, rather than allowing a passive choice to permit something much, much worse to happen.

This was the choice the Labour Party made eight weeks out from the 1990 general election when the caucus allowed Helen Clark to persuade it to abandon Geoffrey Palmer in favour of Mike Moore. It wasn’t that Ms Clark believed Mr Moore could win the election, merely that the polling data suggested that Mr Palmer was likely to lose it much more comprehensively. Giving Mr Moore eight weeks to weave his working-class battler magic on Labour’s deeply disillusioned voters simply made more sense than allowing Mr Palmer to drag his party into an electoral abyss from which it might never emerge.

With great reluctance I have come to the conclusion that Labour faces a similar choice in 2011. The scandal surrounding Darren Hughes (which shows every sign of getting a lot worse before it gets any better) has, I believe, fatally infected the leadership of Phil Goff and Annette King. While they remain at the head of Labour’s parliamentary team, controversy of a particularly distasteful nature will continue to, in Helen Clark’s memorable phrase, “swirl around them”. Questions relating to the soundness of their judgement will, fairly or unfairly, give way to questions relating to the quality of their ethics. New Zealanders will forgive a great deal in their politicians, but they will not vote for a party they believe to be morally compromised.

Trotter is dead right. Goff is finished, if it wasn’t for the cowardice of the rest of his caucus his corpse should be feeding the crows in the political gibbet. Duncan Garner has no such qualms comparing Goff’s leadership in this fiasco to the positions of Kings Cross hooker:

Labour’s decision to hang on to Leader Phil Goff after his woeful management of the Darren Hughes affair shows the caucus is clueless, gutless and talentless. And most of all, they have no collective balls.

If there was ever a time to roll Goff, it is now.

They have seven days before the next caucus to find a runner and present Goff with a letter saying he has lost the support and confidence of the caucus. If necessary, put it to a vote.

But it seems the caucus has chosen not to do that. It’s a defeatist and hopeless position to be in. Labour MPs appear divorced from reality.

Describing Labour’s caucus as having no balls essentially describes them as a bunch of pussys.

The Hughes scandal was always going to be a train wreck – 18 year old teenager, senior whip, alleged sexual encounter, Annette King’s house, police investigation, naked man etc.

Come on – what leader in their right and sane mind could think for one second that in Wellington that would stay secret?

Exactly! Yet Phil Goff still shows up on TV grinning like the village retard and mouthing words he clearly doesn’t believe. This has to be the case because he changes his story so often that now nothing he says can be believed.

Goff has so many questions he can’t answer. He looks like he’s stumbling around in a pitch black bedroom trying to put on his pyjamas. He’s got more positions than a King’s Cross hooker.

That is the nub of the problem for Goff, he has so many positions that no one believes a word he says any more, if journalists can’t believe him then why should voters.

I was watching Breakfast this morning and after getting the transcript it confirmed something that I picked up.  Clearly all is not well in the Labour camp, because this morning he basically said he did not trust his Caucus.  This augurs well for their chances of forming a cohesive Government.

CORIN DANN:     Andrew Little, is your – have you got a good relationship with Andrew Little, your president?

PHIL GOFF: Yeah, I have got a good relationship with Andrew, yeah.

CORIN DANN:     You said that – you – I’m curious. You said that it was a caucus matter this, and that’s why you didn’t tell him about the incident. But I recall being in parliament that presidents usually went to caucus meetings. I mean, why…

PHIL GOFF: That’s right.

CORIN DANN:     … wasn’t he mention… mentioned.

PHIL GOFF: Because I didn’t mention this to caucus and I didn’t mention it to him. And that was in line with my belief that the police needed to get on and do the job that’s their responsibility without interference…

CORIN DANN:     How could it be a caucus matter and then you didn’t even tell caucus?

PHIL GOFF: Well because, the fact of the matter is, if this had been spread out amongst a wider group of people, then it would have defeated what I believed was right and proper in the situation

Once again Phil Goff multiple positions on anything is exposed and this time in the short space of a couple of sharp questions by Corin Dann. Meanwhile in Dunedin, Labour has a meeting that has all the hallmarks of Silence of the Lambs. Dunedin Rising. Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?

The Whale hears whispers that not all Labour MPs are against Judith “T-Bomb” Tizard returning. The T-Bomb has never gotten over her loss to Nikki Kaye whom she despises, and is already an active member of scum list MP Jacinda Ardern’s campaign committee.

The problem that is being whispered about is that Jacinda is not full-time in Auckland Central as she is also a scum list MP for Coromandel, Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty where she has an electorate office.

But if Judith returns to Parliament, with much fanfare, then she can donate all her parliamentary funding to Labour’s activities in Auckland Central, to try and beat Nikki Kaye. So if Judith returns, Jacinda will effectively gain double the taxpayer funding.

It seems My Little Pony is playing a nice double game, publicly supporting Phil Goff and privately supporting the return of the T-Bomb.

Phil Goff just doesn’t seem to know when to stop digging. This morning in the Herald it reports:

Labour leader Phil Goff told Darren Hughes he would be stripped of his portfolios regardless of the outcome of a police investigation as soon as he became aware of the complaint against Mr Hughes.

Mr Goff yesterday faced further questions about his handling of the affair and decision to keep it a secret for more than two weeks. Mr Hughes resigned on Friday – two days after a complaint against him by an 18-year-old male became public.

Mr Goff denied there was any attempt to protect Mr Hughes by keeping it secret, saying as soon as he was told of the nature of the complaint “I made it clear to Darren that I thought given the circumstances there had been a lapse of judgment and that would result in his losing his positions.”

Very curious. If you accept Goff’s first timeframe, that he knew two weeks before it became public, then this statement today must be a lie because on 23 March just two days after the scandal broke Phil Goff was saying:

“He is asserting very clearly that he is doing nothing, he believes, that is wrong. I accept his word for that… he’s well regarded as a friend and colleague.”
Goff said Hughes retained his roles as senior whip and education spokesman, but someone would be appointed to act in those positions if he remained on leave for more than a week

The two statements simply cannot exist together. It of course is made worse by the fact that just 24 hours later Phil Goff firstly stood down Darren Hughes from his portfolio responsibilities, in the morning, then accepted his resignation, before not accepting it, that afternoon. Scoop’s own sources say that Hughes resigned even earlier but Phil Goff wouldn’t accept it.

Phil Goff is lying about the timeframes, lying about discussions held with Darren Hughes and lying about his own involvement in the attempted cover-up of the whole scandal. We know this because he hasn’t held a single position on any issue associated with scandal for longer than a day, and in some, like when he knew, he has held at least three positions. Once someone is telling fibs then everything they say is suspect.

Phil Goff needs to come clean and tell us which of the many, many, stories are true, if any.

I give you the T-Bomb.

Since it is very confusing given all the many positons that Phil Goff has outlined for us on the Darren Hughes affair let’s do a little re-cap and exploration of the issues.

NewtalkZB today:

“I never think that it’s a good thing for people to undergo trial by media, I never think that it’s a good thing that the complainant is at risk of having his privacy breached,” he says. “I stand by that and I think that is how most New Zealanders would actually think about it.”

Uhmmm –excuse me?  ‘Never’ is a strong word: Certainly during June 3 & 4 2009, Goff felt quite differently.

In  the same ZB story Phil Goff is continuing his spin about Darren Hughes position when he declares:

“I think the advice given there would’ve been that it was best for that decision to be made after police had made the decision but I think frankly that his standing for Otaki would’ve been in doubt.” Phil Goff says that’s because Mr Hughes judgement involving an 18-year-old youth was questionable.”

Very strange utterance considering as recently as this morning Phil Goff was saying Hughes could be back if the police cleared him.

But how does any of this reconcile with his original stance?  It simply doesn’t!

As recently as last Thursday, Phil Goff was more than happy to keep Hughes acting as his Education spokesman:

By Friday he was toughening up and was saying he believed Hughes displayed “poor judgment”

And by today Hughes was being well and truly cut adrift.

The man can’t hold a solid position on anything between sentences, let alone allowing a day or two to elapse.

Imagine what would have happened if Phil Goff had got his wish and there was no media coverage?

Darren Hughes would have continued as Labour’s Education spokesman and been confirmed as the candidate for Otaki.  This would have happened despite Hughes being the subject of a police investigation into his behaviour with an 18-year-old student who laid a complaint after an event where the former MP had been acting in an official capacity.

The media would have crucified Phil Goff when the truth came out.  Labour should be thankful it did. At the same time you rally have to question the credibility of the Labour caucus that they still keep Phil Goff in place as leader. Perhaps Chris trotter is right in assessing that the venality and ambition of the Labour caucus is such that they prefer to look after their own interests rather thank those of the country, the party or their local constituents.

via the tipline

Labour are at sixes and sevens dealing with the fallout from the Hughes affair. Andrew Little helps sow the seeds of confusion.

Little confirmed that Hughes had also resigned as Labour’s candidate for Otaki – though electorate chairwoman Jan Nimmo said she had not been informed.

Little said the party’s national council would discuss reopening nominations for the seat when it meets this weekend.

In the same story there’s another contradiction/movement/position from Phil Goff. Why does he always have thre or four positions on anything?

Labour leader Phil Goff says it would be very hard for Darren Hughes to return as an MP at this election if he is cleared by a police investigation into a sex complaint. Goff said the events leading to Hughes’ resignation from Parliament raised questions about Hughes’ judgment and he could not come back “in the short-term”.

However…on Radio Wammo Goff said Hughes could be back if he was cleared (whole interview at http://www.wammo.co.nz/2011/03/28/phil-goff-under-pressure/)

Excerpt here:

Goff on Hughes return by whaleoil