I mean, if you thought that Mongrel Mob fiasco was bad before, it's got so much worse for Labour. Their candidate has quit and Chris Hipkins himself now looks like he's been fibbing to the public.
It turns out, now that we've seen the video of Kerrin Leoni at the Mongrel Mob event, that it wasn't at all the family gathering Labour told us it was. She was there in her red Labour jacket with a placard featuring a picture of herself and Chippy, telling gang members to enrol and change the government.
That doesn't look like a family barbecue, does it? I don't know how many family barbecues you turn up to wearing your work jacket.
I also don't know how many voters are going to believe Hipkins when he says he didn't know about it and that Leoni misled him. Anyone paying attention would have seen Labour doing a fair bit of misleading themselves.
When Leoni was first accused of meeting the Mongrel Mob the week before the Green and Māori parties had, Labour said it wasn't true. They said she hadn't met the gang the week before. But she had. It was nine days before, not seven, and that looks very much like Labour playing silly buggers with the timeline so we'd never know the event had happened.
If they were prepared to mislead us on that, do you really believe they didn't try to mislead us when they said, "Hey, it's just a family event," when it was actually a political event?
This is devastating for Labour because it's no longer just about whether you share Labour's values or what you think about criminals and gang members. It's now also about the integrity of the party leader and whether he and the party tried to hide this from voters.
My suspicion is that, yes, they very much did.
And that, with only two weeks until election day, is, in my view, unsurvivable for Labour short of a miracle.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
Yes Labour are gone = Hipkins mislead the nation on Covid = locked Auckland down late into 2021 when there was no need but because he thought it would help his own popularity, shafted his own colleague David Parker before election 2023, and produced not a single sensible policy. His ridiculous freebie bus fares and GP visits were canned to me even by a former Labour PM. Hipkins campaign has been run by PR & comms salesmen who threw out any semblance of a coherent platform when I tried to help Labour produce one. Those who live by the PR comms sword die by the comms PR sword & that wraps up Hipkins deservedly failed career in politics, one which cost NZ its mojo, tens of billions of bucks, derailed economic & social performance and led to our youth abandoning the country. Nats and Labour are both awful now but Hipkins has made Labour way the more awful one when he had the election sitting on a plate. An own goal by the ginger bread man.
Labour are unelectable and have been for over a decade .
The public have shown National in the polling that they are marginal, but have the huge advantage of Winston and NZFirst and David Seymour leading ACT and his excellent team that stretches right through the list.
Electorate Vote Blue - Party Vote -ACT or NZF
Many of us would be delighted if Labour would confirm that it is not associated in any way with, nor condones, online harassment of professionals who are working currently on the reforms in education, including the new curriculum.
I have asked Ginny Andersen (Labour MP based in Hutt South) personally (face-to-face), and emailed her office in Petone several times, to ask that objectionable and even defamatory social media posts about colleagues and associates of mine be taken down. I have received no response, and the posts remain live - possibly causing reputational and professional damage to others.
Some of of us who have made such requests have ourselves been attacked online. Let Labour dissociate itself clearly from such behaviour before the election.
My personal disappointment over this situation is that I voted for Ms. Andersen in both 2017 and 2023.
Looking back I see that I received an email from Ginny Andersen, dated 21 September, asking for my telephone number - which I provided. However, she did not telephone me. OK, Ginny Andersen is a very busy public figure and I understand that point. I have no criticism about not receiving a call.
Shortly afterwards, in a message to another person, an education professional, Ms. Andersen said:
"I do want to be very clear that I am not aware of the social media posts you have referred to and have not seen them. I also do not monitor other people’s social media accounts or their activity online.
As I have said previously, I am not in a position to comment on disputes between private individuals or to make judgements about the actions of others based on correspondence. I do, however, take concerns about online conduct seriously, and I agree that respectful professional discussion is important, particularly when we are debating issues that matter for children and education."
OK. Fair enough and we are willing to take her at her word. Maybe she was indeed unaware, although she does know the blogger personally, but why are the offensive and defamatory posts about private individuals still live?
I'm with Basil Walker (08:52)
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