vested interests

a friend sent me this link to obama's scrapbook, which is actually quite a nice background with old photographs. something to look through at leisure on a lazy sunday afternoon.


here's a story about a last minute smear against kate sutton in the epsom electorate. i have to say that i was totally shocked by the nasty email i received from mr keesing on friday 7 november. it was sent to all labour candidates, and was absolutely appalling. i certainly don't intend to publish the contents here. but i'd have to say that of all candidates, kate has had the most difficult time in this campaign, when it comes to personal attacks. i definitely put it down to having the ACT party as the opposition. given how awful they are in the blogoshpere, it's not surprising that a candidate standing against their leader would face the worst kind of crap.

i seriously hope that charges will be laid, and i also hope that this won't put kate off from being a candidate in 2011. she's a wonderfully strong person who will definitely be an asset in our parliament.


it turns out that the standards predictions of current journalists taking jobs in the new national administration have turned out to be correct. here's the prediction:

It works like this: gallery journos need access, that means they have to get the new leader and his ministers to trust them, and that means no critical articles. To protect their ability to gain information for writing stories, the media have to only write nice stories. The new government has the power to shut them out, so they’ve got to protect their own arses. The new leaders are also building relationships. Flush with victory they are in an open, welcoming mood and with the media being so nice to them, they are minded to be even more open and friendly toward them. When you’re getting to be friends with people, and when your job prospects depend on good relations with them, it’s easy to have a honeymoon.

It’s not until one of the half-dozen people who essentially control our political discourse starts writing critical articles and others follow them that the honeymoon ends. That never really happened to Key during his time in opposition. Sure the political editors all got in their pro forma critical pieces but all were afraid of getting offside with someone they were certain would soon be PM. Moreover, some of them have a career change to consider. Watch over the next few weeks for at least one, possibly more, of the top political journos to join Key’s office.

and here we go:

The change of government has resulted in an exodus of press secretaries and staff from Labour's ministerial offices and a rash of new appointments under National.

Among them are New Zealand Herald political reporter Paula Oliver, who was confirmed yesterday as joining Prime Minister John Key's office.

Mr Key's chief press secretary is another former Herald staffer, Kevin Taylor. Former TV3 political reporter Stephen Parker is also being lined up for a job as Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee's press secretary.

which leads one to wonder whether these people failed to provide the critical reporting and analysis that was required during the campaign, in order to improve their personal post-election earnings. not a good state of affairs for our democracy, any way you look at it.


and the final excerpt from deborah mackenzie's speech is now up at the hand mirror.