(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

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.

Comments

[angry-in-pink.livejournal.com]

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?

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

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*

[mandor700.livejournal.com]

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.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

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.

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

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?"

[aim-toothpaste.livejournal.com]

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/.

[deinacrida.livejournal.com]

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

[jo-nzl.livejournal.com]

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)

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

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.