Moral highground or moral hypocrisy?
I usually wholeheartedly agree with John Armstrong’s analysis of politics in the Weekend Herald. His column today, however, is a rare exception. He seems to have bought the National spin that it is Labour that has brought the campaign into the gutter. He concludes:
Brash was able to escape a torrid week and clamber for the safety of the moral high ground.
The election - he was able to declare yesterday - had come down to a choice between the party rolling out policy and the party rolling in the gutter.
That statement is something Labour might well reflect on.
As I noted yesterday, Brash said back in May:
Anyone who is prepared to read the Hansards of her answers to Parliament on the one hand, and her signed briefs of evidence to the Court on the other [about the Doone affair], is left with a sense of wonderment that Helen Clark’s nose hasn’t grown three feet long…
The credibility of Helen Clark, the ability of our Prime Minister to tell the truth, the ability of her Ministers to tell the truth and to give honest answers in our Parliament, is firmly on the agenda as an issue for the 2005 general election. I make no apology for that.
New Zealanders have had enough of the culture of evasion, deceit and half-truth which characterises not just this Prime Minister but her Cabinet, and in a few weeks’ time they will have the opportunity to do something about it.
Brash is not a man fighting the Government on policy, rather than personality. National is not a party trying to win the battle of ideas, rather than the battle of smears.
Brash’s minders may want voters to think that he is above dirty politics, that he is a gentleman who is a straight-shooter on policy and doesn’t bother himself with the games of normal politics. But this impression they’re creating is patently false.
If there is anything I will remember vividly from the last week, it will be Dr Brash’s attempts to use “evasion, deceit and half-truth” to get out of answering a very simple question about whether he would have, as Prime Minister, sent New Zealand into the war in Iraq. His credibility is on the line, and rightly so.
July 23rd, 2005 at 5:49 pm
This morning I watched part of Simon Dallow’s Agenda, TV One. ( had to go look for an errant calf so missed the opening salvos.)
I thought that Gerry Brownlee came across as very elusive on the matter of National party funding. He could not or would not genuinely answer the questions. Oh, he gave an answer, but not one that I considered to be satisfactory.
And as for Willie Jackson and the Destiny mob, I gave up and walked away. Joy.
July 24th, 2005 at 12:46 am
Joy:
Guess what, if Jerry (or Don for that matter) walked up to Party President Judy Kirk and asked for a full list of donors he’d be told to fuck off. Party rules are crystal clear on that fact.
But Dallow asked Mallard FIVE TIMES by my count whether he had any evidence to back up his charges. To quote your own words, his answer didn’t even qualify as “elusive”. Funny how you and Frog don’t actually seem to care about that
July 24th, 2005 at 1:23 am
To compare the statements of Brash and Mallard is not even apples and oranges but fruit and uranium.
To suggest that another party is evasive with the truth is almost a daily occurence. For people who work in Parliament I am staggered you regard what Brash said in May as even newsworthy. Sure it is not detaled debates about policy, but it is quite common and ordinary.
To come out and assert that a party is under the control of a foreign government, without a shred of evidence, is extraordinary. This is why Armstrong and the media have pilloried it. Your own ideological bias is what is blinding you to how appalling it is.
To try and compare it to the May speech is stretching credibility a long way. There is a world of difference. The correct comparison would be if Brash had got up and said Helen Clark is a North Korean spy working to destroy the United States.
July 24th, 2005 at 1:40 am
In the interests of accuracy, I consuted the relevant section of the transcript (available at agendatv.co.nz):
QUOTE
SIMON [DALLOW]: You do have some evidence you’re saying. You haven’t to date, are you saying you’ve got - have you got some evidence.
TREVOR [MALLARD] Just hang about and wait.
SIMON So you have got some evidence.
TREVOR Just hang about and wait.
SIMON It’s a very simple question, yes or no, have you got some evidence.
TREVOR I think that this area is going to be interesting over a period of time.
SIMON Evidence yes or no.
TREVOR Evidence is coming.
END QUOTE
So, that was four (not five) times Mallard refused to answer a direct challenge to back up his allegations National is under the control of a foreign government. You don’t seem to care about that Fog - moral high ground or moral hypocrisy?
July 24th, 2005 at 5:14 am
Craig,
I am not comfortable with Mallard’s original outburst and I was surprised by it.
My comment about Brownlee’s elusiveness was in respect of his reply with words to the effect that “the majority of our donations come from within NZ (or from NZers)”. Sure, the majority of donations most certainly will be from NZ or NZers, but the majority of donations refers to the number of donors, not the amounts they contribute. Joy.
July 24th, 2005 at 5:19 am
David, no, I do not consider that a correct comparison.
Brash has stated more than once his interest in Washington. I am not aware that Clark (Helen) has ever said anything that suggests her interest in supporting NK. Joy.
July 24th, 2005 at 11:42 am
David: Brash’s speech in May was newsworthy because his minders talked it up with journalists as a new strategy, of Brash “taking his gloves off” and bringing Clark’s credibility front and centre in the election campaign. If you go and read the speech, you will see that Brash was, indeed, trying to make Clark’s trustworthiness and election issue. This was National’s doing - not my reading too much into the speech several months hence.