Judith Tizard

Judith Tizard has announced on Q+A that she isn’t coming back. The threat of the Tizard Effect proves too much for Labour as they bully and cajole Tizard into standing aside. SHe has even accused Phil Goff of being a bully.

Instead of MMP delivering us the rightful person to parliament we now get the unedifying spectre of watching Labour manipulate the list so that 5 other people with more claim legally to a place in parliament get spiked so Louisa Wall can make her way back into parliament.

Tizard though has gone out with a bang accusing pretty much everyone, me included, of being bullies.

The lsit is perhaps the worst aspect of MMP and we can now all see why. Labour will now cynically manipulate the list and 5 people they told us were better than Louisa Wall will have to take one for team.

This is precisely why MMP needs to go and you should choose to Reject MMP in the referendum on November 26.

Judith Tizard is thinking of going back to parliament to “stick it up” David Farrar and me!

So she says she has reasons to return: unfinished business, the salary, supporting colleagues in their first opposition election, offering institutional knowledge and support. Acting as camp mother, essentially.

Those reasons … and to “stick it up them”.

Stick it up who? Phil Goff?

“I was actually thinking of David Farrar and Cameron Slater, et al. I wasn’t thinking about my former colleagues,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a particularly worthy thing to say, but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

Bwahahahahah….my sides have been hurting from all the laughing I have been doing since reading this.

In the rest of the article Jono Milne looks at the reasons why the T-Bomb is despised in Labour.

It probably all goes back to union firebrand Matt McCarten. In the middle of a mayoral election campaign, he dubbed former Auckland Central MP Judith Tizard the Minister Responsible for Assisting the Prime Minister with her Handbag.

The label stuck. Lazy. Ineffectual. Would attend the opening of an envelope. Effete heir to a political dynasty, elevated into Parliament and a ministerial post purely because of her family’s friendship with Helen Clark.

McCarten is unrepentant. “She may have been maligned a little too harshly,” he says. “But her reputation for a lack of constituency work and follow-through was strong.”

In WikiLeaks diplomatic cables made public by the Herald on Sunday last year, United States Consul General John Desrocher wrote: “Tizard is increasingly dismissed as Clark’s (literal) bag carrier.”

Right-wing bloggers like David Farrar and Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater popularised the slander – but Labour leader Phil Goff seemingly swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Goff denies it but his electoral strategy of the past 2 years looks as if it has been dictated by one thing: the Tizard Factor. The party seems convinced that the public will not stomach Tizard’s return.

Her spectre loomed over potential byelections in Mt Albert, Mana, Manurewa, Te Atatu and Botany.

Two mentions in one article. Awesome. Now we await the Tizard Effect when she announces that she is returning to parliament.

The NZ Herald editorial is scathing of Judith Tizard, Labour and MMP.

The last thing the MMP electoral system needed this year was an episode to stir up discontent over list MPs. Yet that is exactly what is being provided by the posturing and prevaricating of Judith Tizard as she decides whether she will take the list seat vacated by Darren Hughes. The Labour Party hierarchy has made it clear it does not want the former minister back in Parliament.

But, as the unelected candidate highest on Labour’s 2008 party list, she is, by law, the first cab off the rank. With the retention of MMP the subject of a referendum at the time of the general election, this is far from a ringing endorsement of its merits.

Exactly, and bizarrely the vested interests of pro-MMP lobbyists seem tot hink that these same people rorting the list should also be the ones to reform MMP.

Labour has itself to blame for much of its embarrassment. Not only does it not want Judith Tizard back – and earlier went so far as to stop Phil Twyford standing in the Mt Albert byelection to prevent this – but it also does not want any of the next four candidates on its list, Mark Burton, Mahara Okeroa, Martin Gallagher and Dave Hereora. None are standing this year, so they would occupy the seat for just six months. Party president Andrew Little’s choice is Louisa Wall, who is next on the list after those fellow former MPs and has already been selected for the safe seat of Manurewa.

The editor is of course talking about the Tizard Effect or the Tizard Bomb. Labour are ardent supporters of MMP, yet they are quite willing to chuck the intent of the list system aside because it doesn’t suit them. That makes the MMP system highly suspect that it can be manipulated in such a manner.

It would be easy to say Labour should have seen this coming; that it erred badly in the drawing up of a list which saddled it with lacklustre choices in the event of incidents such as that allegedly involving Mr Hughes. But before the 2008 election, the party may have felt it would be wrong to demean and effectively disown sitting MPs by placing them far lower on its list. If the worst came to the worst, it could always appeal to them to stand aside for the good of the party.

Labour is not the first to seek to manipulate its party list this way. In mid-2008, the Greens tried to bring Russel Norman into Parliament by orchestrating the departure of MP Nandor Tanczos and asking Catherine Delahunty and Mike Ward, who were ahead of the co-leader on their party list, to stand aside. This came unstuck when Mr Ward stuck to his guns. Nonetheless, this blatant attempt at a rearrangement of convenience left a sickly taste, a state of affairs now rekindled by Labour.

Yes it does leave a sickly taste. We need to dump MMP, not reform it. If politicians can’t be trusted to stick to their lists then they can’t be trusted to reform MMP.

Issues surrounding list MPs, along with other aspects of MMP that have raised question-marks, will be examined by an Electoral Commission review if the public votes later this year to retain the electoral system. This would offer the chance to assess whether the situation in which Mr Little finds himself is reasonable.

On the one hand, the public votes for a party list, which, like policy, is announced before an election. It could be considered that a commitment has, therefore, been made to voters, and the list should be sacrosanct.

Yet is it fair that a party, and perhaps a new leader, should be shackled with unwanted people in what may be much-changed circumstances? Should, in fact, party lists be dispensed with after an election?

The common complaint about this would be that people could enter Parliament without any sort of public mandate. Party leaders would be free to exercise their whims. Equally, however, the present situation is unsatisfactory, and has blighted MMP at an inopportune time.

Louisa Wall is, clearly, the most suitable candidate to replace Mr Hughes. Something must change to ensure the country is spared a rerun of the current shenanigans.

That something is for us all to reject MMP.

via the Tipline

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.

I give you the T-Bomb.

Phil Goff is in serious trouble. TV3 has quotes from senior Labour MPs about him, Farrar has helpfully transcribed them.

“I wouldn’t say I’m on Phil’s side but there’s no one else.”

“A few of the guys are rattled but not enough for a spill.”

“Come on Bro – who would want that job?”

Judith Tizard has heaped even more pressure on Goff by saying she will take a week to think about saying yes.

Meanwhile, former Labour MP Judith Tizard said last night she may take at least a week to decide if she wants to return to Parliament.

Party leader Phil Goff rang her yesterday to ask if she was planning to take the spot vacated by Hughes.

Tizard said she had “some unfinished business” and it would also be nice to say “stick it up you” to those who didn’t want her back.

Tizard plans to speak to friends, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark before she decides.

Asked if she supported Goff as leader, she said: “He has to decide if New Zealanders see him as a future Prime Minister. Phil could be a Prime Minister. I think a Prime Minister has to lead, has to be very fair, very generous. The question for Phil is if he can step up to that.”

Chris Carter has also piled into the scrap.

INDEPENDENT MP Chris Carter last night renewed his plea for Labour to replace leader Phil Goff, saying he “made a brilliant bureaucrat, but was never born to lead a country”.

“I’ve said all along, he is a hard worker but he ain’t got the X-factor,” Carter said.

A cabinet minister in Helen Clark’s government, Carter said Goff had demonstrated by his handling of the Darren Hughes affair that he was a “hopeless” and “indecisive” leader.

The Te Atatu MP was suspended last year for trying to undermine Goff, and his comments are sure to infuriate him when speculation over his leadership is mounting.

Even Matt McCarten says Goff has to go. Worse he says that Goff has blown any chance of saving Labour.

Why is the Labour opposition so hopeless? I had assumed that leader Phil Goff was competent enough, albeit lacking in charisma, to survive until the November election.

Now I don’t. His performance this week has been appalling.

I reluctantly swallowed the line that he was the best of the bunch after Helen Clark’s departure and was handed a poisoned chalice to do the best he could to rebuild his party.

In retrospect, maybe the Labour Party should have picked someone else as a break with the past.

I think that is what Labour are doing right now. There is blood in the water and Goff is a poor swimmer.

The handling of the Darren Hughes incident exposes Goff’s hypocrisy, his lack of judgment and, more importantly, his political smarts. You couldn’t get a more inept management of a crisis.

It was always a long shot for Labour to win November’s election, given the dismal polling of the party and their leader.

Goff’s mismanagement this week has taken any chance now. The Hughes affair will now dominate the media and cloud any positive profile Labour was sure to get in the period leading up to the Budget.

The failing economy and a record deficit budget is a gift for Labour. Goff had two weeks, for goodness sake, to work out a strategy over Hughes – and he blew it. He appeared confused and then changed his mind about Hughes staying on, probably under pressure from his caucus. Because of that, Hughes is certainly a goner whether he’s charged or not.

Labour has no chance in the next election if Goff remains. Labour needs more urgency, more mongrel and more seriousness about its obligations to its supporters who are really hurting under this Government.

They desperately need a circuit breaker.

I’m sad to have to say it but Labour needs to face the reality that its leader is now a liability and has to go.

Goff is a corpse, if Labour leave him stinking up the joint then they will start to smell like him. The birds are already picking out the eyes but once the maggots  start then the stench is really going to permeate everything about Labour.

Time for the undertaker and the body bags.

There is talk in Labour of ignoring their published list and side-stepping the intent of our electoral law in replacing disgraced MP Darren Hughes. They are doing this to avoid the Tizard Bomb but in doing so will play right into the ands of Anti-MMP campaigners by doing much worse than the Greens did when parachuting in Russel Norman.

What this really shows in Andrew Little’s attempt to spike not only Judith Tizard but 5 other equally useless MPs in order to anoint Louisa Wall is a shameless power grab by the union factions who were sidelined under Helen Clark who assiduously favoured personality and lifestyle factions rather than class factions. With the coup on and Andrew Little yet again on the outside of parliament unable to achieve his goal all he can do is build his numbers for after the 2014 loss.

The txts are flying:

Labour face a real problem. When Darren Hughes finally accepts that his position is untenable and not even Helen Clark can save him, they have to pick a new List MP from the following in this order:

38 Judith Tizard – Anti-MMP campaigners wet dream

39 Mark Burton – a man so useless even Helen Clark fired him and no one in Taupo could stomach him in local body politics either.

40 Mahara Okeroa – Who?

41 Martin Gallagher – Beaten by Tim MacIndoe…need I say more

42 Dave Hereora – Union thug

43 Louisa Wall – Unlikeable Maori dyke, not even the Rainbow Labour faction likes her

44 Lesley Soper – The sole remaining pro-life campaigner in the Labour party and long haired hippy

45 Clare Curran

46 Grant Robertson

47 Chris Hipkins

48 Iain Lees-Galloway

49 Brendon Burns

50 Hamish McCracken – perennial loser, couldn’t win a raffle at a bowling club

So if they have a deal with Judith Tizard for her NOT to come back to parliament, the price has just gone up. If she sticks with their deal then Labour have six more even worse options if that were at all possible.

Looks like serious trouble brewing in Labour today.

From Stuff: Labour in crisis talks over allegations against MP – sources

From NZ Herald: Labour stays silent on MP allegations

From what I understand about this story there is likely to be a resignation unless Labour goes all Philip Field again. My good Labour sources tell me that Annette King is advising to tough it out. I hope Labour and the MP concerned does that, it will mean weeks of headlines.

If a Labour Mp was going to get snapped for indiscriminate rooting I would have picked The Mangrove, but since the victim here is apparently a bloke it can’t be him. Unless he has turned.

Meanwhile iPredict stocks for Judith Tizard to return to parliament have sky-rocketed, suggesting it is a Labour list MP in trouble.

Labour better hope their secret deal with Judith Tizard NOT to return holds tight, but then again the next 5 on the list are a bunch of useless twats too.

For now I better go looking through Youtube for some old Tina Turner songs.