Tuesday 28 October 2008

lowering the tone even further

got back from the waikato times debate for hamilton west candidates. yup, it was noisy, and yes i totally participated from the audience, as i did last week. i'm waiting for the attack this time, after the nasty little incident last week. the national party candidate took my name in vain a few times during the debate. i say in vain, because often it wasn't even me who was saying anything, but he wanted to blame me. i can think of one reason why.

we were sitting in front of a few national party stalwarts. before the debate even started, one woman said "there's sue moroney, she's got that sneer she always has in parliament". i couldn't believe the nastiness, and told them in no uncertain terms that the comment was just not on. to which, her husband (or at least, he appeared to be) said that he was "obviously in the wrong country". can you believe these people? if that's the kind of support mr macindoe enjoys, well (as doug woollerton says) God bless him. it certainly doesn't reflect well on him. and i'm sure he was trying to highlight me as a heckler to tap into just that sentiment. shame on you mr macindoe, i'm sure you can do better.

mr macindoe has spent much of his campaign over the last few weeks complaining about the EFA. he has a particular beef about the fact that as a non-MP candidate, he doesn't get parliamentary services funding for advertisements. he uses this to point out how bad the EFA is. what he fails to tell you is that the rules in this regard are exactly the same as in the previous legislation. martin gallagher spoke about having to face exactly this barrier back in 1993 (?) when he first stood as a candidate.

this is the level of debate we have to deal with, and it's pretty sad.

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