Point of Order: Media focus on Davis’ advice against looking through a “vanilla lens” while Chhour’s questions go unanswered

It is tempting to liken the political hacks of the mainstream news media to piranha, rather than ever-vigilant watchdogs of the Fourth Estate.

With the exception of the NZ Herald, they have lamentably ill-served the voting public by failing to muster a whimper, let alone a snarl or a warning bark, about issues raised by the awarding of contracts to family members of Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta.

The hacks were aroused from their indifference to those contracts only when another watchdog – the Public Service Commission – announced it is looking into government departments’ management of the contracting process.

On the other hand, the imagery of piranha seems apt when they engage in a feeding frenzy of the sort that followed the hapless Kelvin Davis’ derogatory – and racist – remarks about ACTs Karen Chhour.

Cam Slater: Unfair? It Looks Like Nepotism to Me

Grant Robertson certainly has a strange way of looking at things. He has said that he thinks it is “unfair” that there is so much focus on Nanaia Mahuta. This is a rather strange way to describe what in reality is nepotism.

Graham Adams: Mahuta imbroglio a quagmire for the Government

Even a quick scan of the Cabinet Manual’s advice to ministers who are dealing with potential conflicts of interest will convince you it must have been written by someone with an unusually warped sense of humour.

While it proposes various ways of handling such conflicts, it also warns that perceptions of a conflict of interest can be every bit as damaging as an actual conflict. In short, you can follow the rules exactly and still be in a world of pain.

This is a classic Catch-22, which has been defined as “the circumstance or rule that denies a solution”. An example is the show-business Catch-22 — “No work unless you have an agent; no agent unless you’ve worked.”

Given there is no way of controlling public perceptions, a more considerate writer would simply have spelled out in big letters at the beginning of the section on conflicts of interest: