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Okay, let's review, shall we? New Zealand has a robust, bitchy Parliamentary system in which members will backstab, connive, pointscore, mudsling, in short, do anything to keep life interesting in the Beehive. The media usually stays far away from commentary on private life but everything else is open season.

May 2005, National opens up with accusing Labour MP David Benson-Pope of abusing his authority during his time as a teacher. B-P denies allegations (and mostly has the support of Labour); they remain fairly unsubstantiated (after he hit the news, there were plenty of students willing to come forward and say they'd suffered under his iron rule. But only after.) There was unbelievable rhetoric directed against him, including stuff that even if he did absolutely everything he was accused of doing it would have been inappropriate.

post-election, 2005, it is revealed that the Exclusive Brethren have been campaigning for National, spending up to 1.2 MILLION dollars advertising to support them; money that was not reported to the electoral officer. (This is way illegal because NZ parties have a certain amount they're allowed to spend, and no more.) It is slightly dodgy territory because they advertised using National's slogans - "Change the Government" - and EB leaders were transparent in support of National but they didn't actually put "vote Nats!" on the pamphlets BUT... anyway, you get the picture. More crucially, Don Brash actually lied about his knowledge of the pamphlet's existence. (there's a whole bunch of other dodgy stuff about them but anyways.)

There is a period of mostly quiet, which is nice for a change (anyone following parliament a bit more closely know much about what was going on here?) Jane Clifton describes it as a policy of "nuclear dirt-terrent."

Then this week, it is revealed that National leader Don Brash has been having an affair with a woman on the Business Roundtable. This is politically dodgy - not for the affair, for whom it was with - but it had been kept quiet by the media for about a year until, and this is important, National MPs brought it up in caucus and then leaked it to the papers. This really broke major NZ media taboos on commenting on the private lives of politicians; I was watching the news tonight and they came up with two examples of this happening before in NZ media (David Lange's affair, about twenty years ago, and Rob "I am an asshole and everyone hates me!" Muldoon's accusing a Labour MP of being gay thirty years ago.) I don't like this at all and the ONLY reason I could be even a little bit okay with this is that apparently the woman he was sleeping with has a lot of control over, for example, National party funding by the Roundtable.

HOWEVER.

Today? Someone (*cough* NATS *cough*) has started spreading rumours about Helen Clark's husband, Peter Davis being gay. Specifically, there is a photo of him hugging Ian Scott, a gay Labour supporter.

The problem for the smear campaign is that this photo was taken on election night. Labour had just won. Probably, if Don Brash had been in the room, Davis and Scott would have hugged him and it sure wouldn't be because of powerful sexual attraction, kids.

I just can't express how furious this makes me. It's bad enough that because Helen is PM, she's constantly being accused of being a lesbian. (The favourite conspiracy of right-wing jerkoffs in this country is the lesbian cabal running the country. Think the gay agenda, but with special political oomph.) But now, because it's been publicly revealed that Don Brash is having an affair, someone has to make these things up out of whole cloth? NOT FUCKING ON, NZ media. We're sinking to an international low, here.

The worst of it is, it detracts from commentary about exactly why Don Brash's affair might be politically (rather than morally or personally) dodgy. Apart from corruption, he's repeatedly campaigned on a platform of conservative marriage values, for example. But this thing frankly makes it all about the sex lives of our not-so-rich and powerful. Because the thing is, if Helen were a lesbian and Davis were a gay man, they'd a) still have a more functional marriage than Brash and both is ex-wives and b) they'd at least be being honest with each other and c) it still wouldn't affect Helen's fitness for office or Davis' fitness for, um, being professor of Sociology at Auckland University. Just like, in my opinion, Brash's affairs are not what's relevant to his unfitness for office.

Okay, I'm done.

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I absolutely agree with you here. All this political mud slinging is depressing, disgusting and irritating. I mean, don't we have more IMPORTANT issues to worry about *coughglobalwarmingcough* ?

I can't believe taxpayers are paying these people. They act like College kids: he said this, but she said that, he did it with her, but she did it with two other boys and a llama...

Seriously, when does it end?

Politics = As soon as somebody says anything bad about you, manufacture a scandal to make the leader of the other side look like even more of an ass.

*cynical*

It's actually sad how question time has lost ANY SEMBLANCE of meaning. I can't remember the last time I saw a mildly relevant question about government policy.
What really wories me is that the Exclusive Breatheren has been in the public gallery every single sitting day of parliment since the election.

Although there's a perception that New Zealanders are traditionally not interested in politicians private lives and that last week's mudslinging is a new phenomenon, I think that's false. Sure, it's been pretty intense lately, but there are multiple precedents for politician's private lifes coming under attack, not least National MPs attacking Helen Clark's childlessness, Labour MPs attacking Bill English's Catholicism and the resultant profusion of children, right on back to Michael Savage being savaged (no pun intended) for his at-the-time unconventional living arrangements.

It's retarded, really. As I understand it their sect's rules forbid them from partaking in the political process which is seen as wordly and corrupt and ungodly and bla bla bla bla. Among other things they're forbidden from standing for office and voting, but they are apparently allowed to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to political parties, which makes them far more politically engaged than the vast majority of New Zealand citizens, who can afford to do no such thing (and probably wouldn't if they could afford to).

What I'm most pissed off about at the moment is the assumption that two men cannot hug without being sexually involved. WHAT THE FUCK?

Yes, I agree with everything else you're saying, it's just the above has just got me going "Bwzah?"

Because a photo of two men hugging must mean they're gay. We don't take photos of women hugging and go 'Look a Lesbian!'

Too ineloquent to rant further and this is probably a good thing/.

Unless it was Helen Clark. Then it would be incontrovertible evidence of the lesbian cabal.

Clearly. I mean women hugging: that's a sight you don't see every day

This fucked me off, too.
Where's FaceLift when you need it?... good venting mechanism.

Hey that's the whole basis of real person slash ;)

(That two men can't hug without being sexually involved...)

I can't believe taxpayers are paying these people. They act like College kids: he said this, but she said that, he did it with her, but she did it with two other boys and a llama...

*spittakes* BEST EVER. <3

:-/

Ah, I keep missing question time - jeeze, I don't even read the paper up here... but you're so right, this whole thing is a ridiculous distraction from RUNNINH THE COUNTRY.

... which almost makes me approve.

I think MPs, absolutely, and in Parliament they can be absolutely awful. However I think the media generally leaves them alone - the rumours, not the politicians. I mean, the media will report on the crap that people say about Helen, but if Helen was actually having a lesbian affair I think they would keep it as quiet as they kept Brash's affair, or Lange's. etc.

I know. *rolls eyes* it's just so... yeah, gah, dumb.

Except the thing about RPSers, most of them don't think the guys in question are actually doing it, or that it would be any of their business if they were.

Domlijah... what would you call them, adherents? excepted, of course.

So true. It was a blow to the country when that show finished.

On, you know, election night. God, I don't know, new zealand, wtf?

Yes, it's all highly amusing (I burst out into hysterical laughter when I saw the Peter Davis thing on the paper) just because it's so ridiculous, but why is it even relevant to anything really? Why should we care? And why, in this day and age, do they need to have a headline like "Davis Comments "Disgraceful""? Why is being accused of being gay so awful and bad and disgraceful, still?

Meh. It would have been much more interesting if it had been news of Peter Davis and Don Brash having an affair.

(But anyway, if hugging a gay man makes you gay, would hugging a straight man turn you straight? must try it)

Oh, bloody hell. Hugging does not make someone gay!

*headdesk* Sorry, I just... it's bleeding out into RL, and that's absurd. Also, I do not want to be thinking about slashing politicians, thanks. It makes my brain hurt a little.

But, yeah, what you said.

Lol good call :P
I'm just waiting until computers become advanced enough to make our governmental decisions for us, either that or some sort of wiki-government

It's because Investigate really believes being gay is terribly scandalous and wrong, but doesn't feel able to say it because it's so out of step with public opinion, so they go on at length about public figures on the Left being secretly gay and if questioned claim that their outrage is aimed at the secrecy, not the gayness.

I thought any picture of Helen and Jude Tizard fit that standard. Also, how cool would it be if NZ was *actually* run by the lesbian cabal?

Well, to be fair, the photos do seem to show Scott kissing Davis. Although given that Scott was apparently "drunk and boisterous", this still doesn't mean anything.

I don't know. I think it could be a hug or a kiss. Regardless? Who really gives a damn? Oh, right. Stupid question. Rar.

Not the ones I knew... as far as Nick/Alex Franz Ferdinand slashers go, they really are convinced it's real. Fucking creepy.

Yeah, all well and good, but I thought we'd at least established by now that Investigate are the comical villain you can't help but harbour a secret love for, if only for the amusement they offer. But judging from media coverage, what Helen is saying etc, it seems accusations of gayness are A Big Thing with like, everyone. Funny, that, whenever I've been accused of being gay (ok, like once) I've felt a similar need to semi-refute it/qualify it (i'm generally bi), yet why should I?

"Makes you think"

VERY COOL. Would vote for party that ran with that slogan.

You know I completely agree with you, of course. I think to some extent though this stuff is really focused on media obsession with sex, particularly of course "deviant" sexual behaviour. *sigh* Prurient curiosity?

hahaha brash/davis otp.

ohgod, you're right, that's so wrong.

anyway, yeah, it's just... the whole thing is ridiculous.

In the context it could be the implication that Davis is gay is not remarkably in and of itself but the fact that he's married to a woman implies that their marriage is somehow a sham, hence it's as valid as Brash's affair (which I'm not yet convinced of the validity of). Got to say though, I agree that Clark is giving this accusation way too much time.

Eeek. Bad/wrong, dude.

I loved the page of Helen Clark in the Herald where she said as much.

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