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We’ve had another brutal week in politics, this time with the demise of Iain Lees-Galloway who has let an office affair destroy his political career.
Some are blaming Judith Collins for his demise, but he has only himself to blame for putting himself in the predicament he faced.
Collins acted quickly and decisively in dealing with Andrew Falloon and thereby snookered Ardern into coming down hard on one of her ministers.
Some departing MPs have rather hypocritically had a whine about how mean parliament is. I’ll dish some dirt on their hypocrisy.
And how about that poll last night?
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Stuff’s survey is far more accurate and Newshub are going to look very embarrassed for even publishing that rogue poll.
But we will also have a quick look at what’s ahead for the cannabis referendum.
Finally, who would have thought the Green party was so bereft of ideas that they had to steal their slogan and promote another party.
Interesting times.
I’m Cam Slater and this is Insight:Politics.
Dehumanising, Brutal and Frightening
Two departing MPs, Maggie Barry and Anne Tolley have told a tale of their experience of parliament.
And they did it without even blushing over the rank hypocrisy of the both them.
Maggie Barry described parliament as “frustrating, dehumanising, and brutal.”
Anne Tolley said “I spoke with staff who were genuinely frightened to come to work at times. I spoke with MPs who were bullied by colleagues and tolerated sexual harassment as part of the job.”
Well, those two MPs are amongst the worst offenders in every respect that they mention.
Anne Tolley fails to mention how she and her office fed information to me to smack up the teacher unions.
She later denied all knowledge of dirty politics, but in my experience she was one of the dirtiest and a liar.
Both her and Maggie Barry harangued Judith Collins in caucus one day falsely accusing her of disloyalty and undermining Simon Bridges.
Well Judith has outlasted and outwitted the both of them.
Instead of being National’s first choice for Speaker, Anne Tolley now retires to a life of insignificance, while the woman she attacked may well be the Prime Minister by the end of September.
She is likely to enjoy a repeat journey to the High Court in coming months to explain inconsistencies in her sworn testimony and new facts which will be revealed.
Maggie Barry has a reputation for one of the nastiest and more spiteful of MPs.
That’s pretty bad given the venal self-serving attitude of most of them.
Maggie Barry’s problem was that after a lifetime in Radio and TV she had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice and the dulcet tones of her own PR.
Parliamentary staffers cringe at the mere mention of this bully. They recount hearing the screams of rage emanating from her office as the latest hapless staffer drew the ire of “Mad Maggie”.
As an aside, during the Botany by-election in 2011 Maggie Barry put her name in the hat for selection. I nicknamed her “New Zealand’s Favourite grandmother”. She was rinsed in the selection.
Eventually she went for North Shore. But during the selection process in Rodney, which Mark Mitchell won, she sidled up to me at the selection meeting.
She rather stridently told me that she didn’t like me calling her NZ Favourite Grandmother.
She pointed out that she wasn’t a grandmother and so it wasn’t true.
I simply thanked Maggie for her feedback and said, “Good to know it annoys you”.
I’ve used it ever since.
Thankfully New Zealand’s Favourite Grandmother and Anne Tolley will be joining the equally poisonous Paula Bennett on the retirement benches.
Let’s hope they disappear without a trace.
Though, I suspect we will hear from Paula Bennett come the local body elections. Word is she is touting to challenge Phil Goff for Mayor.
Polls, Polls, where for art thou?
By the time you hear this we will have had the latest Newshub poll.
And they’ve really whipped out a bad one that simply can’t be taken seriously.
Newshub should be asking for a refund as it is so out of whack it can truly be called a rogue poll.
I’m not one to call polls rogue, usually, but their numbers are just fanciful.
Stuff have been running a survey for weeks and yesterday they released details of the responses.
They show the dramatic effect of the Collins leadership of the National Party.
More than 70,000 people responded to the survey; a huge increase on the last election survey, when more than 40,000 took part.
The survey was started while Todd Muller was still leader of the National party, and it recorded that he was as bad as Simon Bridges.
The survey shows that prior to the leadership change, the number of people responding to the survey who said they would probably vote National stood at 23.7 per cent support.
After Judith Collins took over, that number jumped to 40.2 per cent.
It also showed that when people were asked about which leader they felt closest to, only 10 per cent named former leader Todd Muller, while 52 per cent named Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Again those numbers changed markedly after the leadership change, with 31.7 per cent naming Collins, while Ardern dropped to 47.2 per cent.
There is a different feel in the electorate now.
People are liking the plain speaking of Judith Collins as opposed to the wiffle-waffle of Jacinda Ardern.
I’ve heard talk back hosts exclaiming that when you ask Judith Collins a question you actually get an answer.
Newshub is going to look very silly in coming weeks and the result from last night is going to become embarrassing especially for Reid Research.
National has many areas to hit the government. Mostly it is for their lack of delivery on key platform promises from the last election, like Kiwibuild, transport and the tram to the airport.
With continued absconding from quarantine the government is also exposed there.
Watching the polls is going to get interesting especially if Newshub claim their latest as accurate.
Speaking of polls, What’s happening with the cannabis reeferendum?
We published David Farrar’s polling that has been tracking the cannabis referendum.
He is of the opinion that the legalisation of cannabis will fail.
The margin is substantial.
Of course the new Government could always do what every Government in the past has done and ignore the referendum result completely.
Weekly Round Up
Once again we’ve had a momentous week in politics.
The week before last Judith Collins took over and had to get rid of one creepy MP and weather the storm of others jacking it in as the winds of change blew through the party.
Last Monday more information came to light about Andrew Falloon, but the scandal had been deftly handled by Judith Collins who axed a troublesome MP.
The timeline of how Falloon’s demise occurred has all the hallmarks of a Labour party hit job.
And we know it was an attempt to fit up Judith Collins as slow to act.
Strangely the mother of one of Falloon’s victims chose not to go to the National party leadership, rather they sent the details to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, on Wednesday 14th July.
Nothing is done about that email on Thursday 15th of July.
On Friday the 16th of July the Prime Minister is finally told of the email at 9am.
Two hours and 20 minutes elapsed before the Prime Minister’s office emails the complainant to seek permission to pass on to the National Party at 11:20 am
A further hour and twenty elapses before at 12:42pm the Prime Minister’s office receives confirmation from the complainant.
Then, strangely, the Prime Ministers Office waits until 4pm on Friday afternoon before even trying to contact Judith Collins’ Chief of Staff.
And it took until just before 5pm that Friday night before contact was actually made with National.
This was now 48 hours after first being notified.
There can only be one reason for the substantial delays, and that was to make Judith Collins look tardy in dealing with this serious matter.
Judith Collins would have been in Auckland for the weekend, and Andrew Falloon in Rangitata, with reduced flights getting together to sort it all out would have been nigh on impossible.
Judith Collins summonsed Falloon to Wellington for Monday morning and by lunchtime he was toast.
But he lied and on Tuesday the 21st July Judith Collins calls for Falloon to resign from parliament, which he does.
That same afternoon Judith Collins receives an email about Iain Lees-Galloway, but declines to look into the details of the allegations, instead pulling Jacinda Ardern aside after question time to inform her that someone was making allegations about one of her ministers and an inappropriate relationship.
Ardern’s chief of staff contacts Judith’s chief of staff immediately and then the complainant is put in touch with the Prime Minister’s office that afternoon.
There is no delay from Collin’s office in making this happen. Compare that with the 48 hours it took for Ardern’s office to contact National.
The next morning, Wednesday 22nd of July, during an appearance on the AM Show, Duncan Garner asks if Judith has had any cause to let the Prime Minister know about wayward ministers. The answer was yes, but no further details were given.
Later that morning Iain Lees-Galloway was gone as a minister and will leave as an MP at the election.
Labour’s attempted hit job to embarrass Judith Collins blew up in their face and Ardern was forced to ask with unusual alacrity to sack one of her loyal lieutenants.
The tit for tat battle has resulted in a National victory.
But this won’t be the end of it. Labour sources are saying there are two, possibly three MPs that could be in similar trouble, two of whom are ministers.
One has had a relationship with his EA, and also had a relationship with his electorate staff. It is only a matter of time before the whole enchilada comes out.
This is all very messy but no one can really be surprised after Paula Bennett weaponised affairs for political purposes.
Let’s see who weathers the storm.
Which dickhead is doing the Greens marketing?
The Green party launched their election campaign in cloud of smug on Saturday.
Their slogan is “Think Ahead, Act Now!”
Just hours later they were face palming as Act’s deputy leader, Brooke van Veldon mocked their campaign slogan.
God knows what they were thinking.
Apart from the stupidity of imploring voters to “Act Now!” and mentioning another party name, the Green Party also lacks originality.
That slogan was also used by the Green Party in Ireland earlier this year. The logo design around the words is even similar.
And worse for the Greens, the phrase is actually a trademark of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
Remember the fuss when National used copyrighted material in their election campaign?
Now The Greens have not only lacked originality, but they’ve also stolen the intellectual property of the Irish Green Party and also of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
They really are smug and shameless to boot.
Summary
We’ve now seen the impact of the Government’s $50 million lifeboat for media.
The result of that is gushing commentary about Jacinda Ardern and a seriously dodgy poll from Newshub.
I know I harp on about supporting independent and conservative media, and as subscribers you are doing that.
But we are competing with huge state funded war chests and against a woke media.
We need, not just your help, but the help of your conservative friends.
If you are a member then please try and get your mates to sign up to the BFD. They can use the MATESRATES discount code. That gives them the first month free.
We have three signed Judith Collins books to give away to members too, so that means you as well, not just new members.
There is an alternative discount code, CRUSHER, which gives a 30% discount on membership.
It’s your choice.
This election is going to be close, don’t believe the Newshub poll.
Now more than ever we need conservative voices telling the truth.
Look at the lead The BFD has taken in the news. It was us who broke the news of the illegal lockdown. We’ve led the way in political commentary, and we can do even better.
Thank you for your ongoing support and stay tuned.
I’m Cam Slater and this was Insight: Politics.
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