JimmyH: Pity, he was one of the more sensible ones.
At least he understood that you need a strong economy to have prosperity and jobs, and that mining, fishing, forestry and using energy resources are all part of this. Plus, being more than a career politician, he had a grasp of how the real world actually worked.
I think he was frustrated at being muzzled, and realised that he was never going to prosper under the current regime - even if they won. I think he knew he would never be close to the core of a Labour administration - particularly given his obvious attraction to many as an alternative leader (which means the incumbent wouldn't want him getting traction), his failure to belong to one of the core party factions, and his thinly veiled dislike for the Green's economic policies (who they now need to cozy up to, given current poll ratings).
All in all, he probably made the right decision. It is a shame tho'.
i dont disagree, but where does watching pron on taxpayer funds stand?
From memory He repaid it therefore it wasn't on tax payer funds.
I often agree with you, but a BAD mistake
if we hung every politician that misused public funds or their position we wouldn't have any. Not saying I agree with it at all but given what it was is it that much of an issue compared to some.
I agree he was better at understanding the economy and also the Greens aren't green at all and for those reasons I thought/think he was worthy of a higher position. As it stands we have an opposition going to the far left which isn't conducive to a healthy economy in fact the opposite as they can only succeed if the economy fails.
JimmyH: Pity, he was one of the more sensible ones.
At least he understood that you need a strong economy to have prosperity and jobs, and that mining, fishing, forestry and using energy resources are all part of this. Plus, being more than a career politician, he had a grasp of how the real world actually worked.
I think he was frustrated at being muzzled, and realised that he was never going to prosper under the current regime - even if they won. I think he knew he would never be close to the core of a Labour administration - particularly given his obvious attraction to many as an alternative leader (which means the incumbent wouldn't want him getting traction), his failure to belong to one of the core party factions, and his thinly veiled dislike for the Green's economic policies (who they now need to cozy up to, given current poll ratings).
All in all, he probably made the right decision. It is a shame tho'.
i dont disagree, but where does watching pron on taxpayer funds stand?
In the scheme of things, it's irrelevant. Good for the usual media beat up, but really a side show - plus he paid for it.
I could never quite figure out whether the outrage was just because he had charged a film to his expenses - or some sort of faux outrage about what he had watched. I suspect that if he had been away from home on a work trip and watched Gone With the Wind or Bambi to relax, or spent the amount the film cost on a glass of wine with his dinner instead, then there wouldn't have been a story. I doubt there would have been shrill demands for him to pay for it either.
So it's more a case of "Grown man spends $6 watching a perfectly legal film which I don't happen to like story" than any great scandal of waste, corruption or extravagance.
Personally, I'm more interested about his basic competence, and where he stands on important policy issues, than his taste in (legal) films.
If we always took the uber-high moral ground and never let anyone be an MP who had ever watched an R18 film, been drunk, slept with someone they weren't married to or inhaled then we wouldn't have many people eligible to stand.
Well, it wasn't just 'a' film it was a fairly large number over a long period of time adding up to a lot more than $6. Not that the number really makes any difference. As for admitting to it, he discussed it only after journalists investigated by matching the prices on the credit card statement to the price of the 'porn' 'adult entertainment' category available in the hotels he stayed at, and then faced him with it as you would expect. So it is not really the same.
A whole lot of other MP's (both opposition and government) were busted at exactly the same time for similar breaking of the rules when credit card use information became public. There are only a couple of those still in parliament therefore I imagine it was career damaging for all of them one way or another. The rule was/is no personal expenditure on the government credit cards and they broke it. Government is not a convenience for the personal expenditure of politicians or to provide an interest free period end of story. This was an error of judgement which caused the public to question the competence of those politicians.
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