Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
"Gotcha" politics
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Breakfast
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David Cunliffe
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Donghua Liu
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Grant Robertson
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Judith Collins
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Labour leadership
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Oravida
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TVNZ
TVNZ's Breakfast programme had Grant Robertson and Judith Collins side by side this morning. Unsurprisingly, the main topic of conversation was David Cunliffe; here's the piece:
What interested us the most was Grant Robertson's reinvention as a stringent opponent of "gotcha" politics. It's great that he wants to spend the next three months talking about the things that matter to New Zealanders, like jobs, and the economy.
Unfortunately though, Mr Robertson has been so obsessed with getting Judith Collins' scalp since he first raised the Oravida issue in early March that he hasn't had a lot of time to talk about the things that matter to New Zealanders.
Mr Robertson has asked at least 13 primary questions of Judith Collins or the Prime Minister since he first raised the Oravida issue, plus a number of supplementaries to primary questions asked by other MP's, most notably David Cunliffe and Winston Peters. In addition, the "media centre" on Mr Robertson's page on the Labour Party website has multiple media releases put out by the MP or his media staffers.
Credit to Judith Collins though. She must have been heavily tempted to shred Grant Robertson after all the unpleasant things he has said about her and her husband in the last few months. But she sat serenely and full of grace, although the twinkle in her eye suggested that she may know more about the Donghua Liu donations to Labour than she was letting on; time will tell.
Perhaps Mr Robertson's latter-day conversion to having a strong dislike of "gotcha" politics has more to do with Labour currently being the "gottee" rather than the "gotter", if you'll pardon us inventing new words. Or perhaps it has something to do with the date. After all, after tomorrow, Labour can change its leader without having to ask the party and the trade unions, and this might just have been Grant Robertson trying to differentiate himself from David Cunliffe.
It will be interesting to see how long Grant Robertson's rejection of "gotcha" politics lasts.
