Patrick Gower

Last night Patrick Gower covered the Labour party SkyCity hypocrisy. He also obtained comment from Metiria Turei about it:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei says it is embarrassing and a real concern that Labour opposes the company but are happy to take gifts from them.

“They have undermined their own approach to this issue and their own opposition and that is sad […] It does undermine their own integrity,” says Ms Turei.

Which raises an interesting ethical dilemma off of the back of Russel Norman’s conference speech where he also said;

We need clean politics to help achieve a fairer society. We need clean politics to help protect the natural world that we love. We need clean politics to help make the transition to a smart green economy that can get us out from under the huge pile of debt that National has built up.  Read more »

David Shearer has now had to admit that despite calling the SkyCity deal “sleazy” he is quite happy to pop in and avail himself of their hospitality, which he described and just saying hello.

Patrick Gower doesn’t think much of this:

David Shearer and some Labour MPs visited the SkyCity box for the ABs test on Saturday night. #rankhypocrisy

— Patrick Gower (@patrickgowernz) June 12, 2013

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David Shearer is hopeless when he’s put on the spot.

His media conference yesterday was yet another total train crash.

When asked to explain why the Phil Goff leak of confidential Cabinet papers was less serious than the early release of a public report, he was totally cornered.

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Almost everything Aaron Gilmore has said turns out to be a lie.

Danyl McLauchlan sums it up nicely:

Riches left a note for staff at the restaurant apologising for Gilmore’s behavior  He also seems to have been the person who took the story to the media. Then, when Gilmore made a public apology Riches came forwards, contradicted the apology and expanded the story, adding that Gilmore invoked the name of the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Then several days of media feeding frenzy later, Gilmore makes another public apology via a press conference. The next day Riches leaks the text messages between Gilmore and himself which contradict the version of events that Gilmore gave at the press conference.  Read more »

Both co-leaders of the Greens were attempting to bully Patrick Gower on Twitter last night.

Sensitive are they?

Patrick Gower asks if Kim Dotcom should be extradited. I prefer rendition. Nevertheless this is not a matter for public opinion it is a simple matter of international law but 3News are trying to run the public opinion angle hard:

3 News can reveal the United States’ most powerful lawyer, Attorney-General Eric Holder, will visit New Zealand next week.

He’s responsible for trying to extradite Kim Dotcom to face copyright charges, and will attack that issue head on while here.

Mr Holder is in charge of the Department of Justice. The buck stops with him when it comes to Dotcom’s extradition to the United States.

He’ll be here next week, speaking at the University of Auckland on a highly relevant topic: cyber crime and international cooperation.

Obviously, Mr Holder wants Dotcom back in the US to face copyright charges.

But 3 News asked 1000 Kiwi voters what they thought, and, while 48 percent said Dotcom should stay, almost as many – 42 percent – said he should go, extradite him. The rest didn’t know.  Read more »

Patrick Gower explains why the 3News political team threw Gareth Hughes and Clinton Smith aka James Henderson aka Steve Pierson under the bus this week:

The “Hey Clint!” moment – where Gareth Hughes stops mid-interview and asks a spin doctor what to say – has generated a bit of chatter here and there.

Some people – including even colleagues here in the Press Gallery – have suggested it was wrong to run it, that it was a big call, or even that there were journalistic ethics at stake.

To be perfectly frank, I don’t think this was the ethical issue of the century, or the year, or the week.

Because screening it was the right thing to do. In fact, it was the only thing to do.

I cannot believe there are journalists out there who would think otherwise.  Read more »

Gareth Hughes has been shown up as a glove puppet. Patrick Gower has really done a number on him and also on Clinton Smith.

Green Party energy spokesperson Gareth Hughes had to ask his spin doctor Clint Smith for some advice while the cameras were rolling.

Political reporter Tova O’Brien asked Hughes whether the party was “pleased” about their power policy damaging the Government’s asset sales program.

He started answering, stopped, and then looked behind the camera: ‘Hey Clint! Are we pleased?’

Clint responded: ‘Well, it’s not why we did the policy… we don’t want the assets sold”  Read more »