Who would want to be an MP anyway?

Aren't the media hypocrites having fun? These tossers for whom work consists of knocking out an article or two per day and who spend the rest of their time propping up the bar at their local watering hole, are pointing the finger at Ministers and MPs who use their entitlement to take partners on trips. And the blogosphere is just as bad with the lefties crowing about Rodney Hide and the righties crowing about Chris Carter.

To quote Rhett Butler, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Let's get something straight here - Ministers and MPs are not well paid. Certainly I wouldn't do what they do for anything less than several times their salary and allowances. Most of them work seven days a week and, when Parliament is sitting, all hours of the night. They draw the odium and contempt of at least half the population even when they are doing a good job. Sure, there are some lazy fools amongst them who don't pull their weight and who would have trouble holding down a regular job at McDonald's, but most of them work damned hard for bugger all reward. And they are ENTITLED to take their wifes, partners and lovers with them on overseas trips. They are not stealing, they're simply claiming what their employment terms allow them to.

So I think it is time the media backed off and turned their tiny minds to the real issues facing this country - the economy, crime, government spending and bureaucracy.

Incidentally, I do think it is time to reform Parliament again - and we shouldn't have to wait to 2017 as John Key has proposed (god, will that guy ever commit to anything?). We should abolish MMP, return to first-past-the-post, and reduce the size of Parliament by a half. We would be left with a better standard of MP and the whole show would cost a lot less. Anyway, that's another blog...

Credit Where Credit is Due

Anyone who has read my older blogs, and friends who have heard me ranting, will know that I am no fan of the New Zealand news media. In fact that is an understatement and just to avoid doubt, let me reiterate - I think the NZ news media is the worst in the Western world. Our broadsheet newspapers are pretentious versions of English tabloids, our television news reports are infantile and our radio station hosts are poor imitations of American shockjocks (and the worst is National Radio, which is simply talkback for the liberal left intelligentsia).

However, giving credit where credit is due, this afternoon I heard an interview that was the exception to the rule. Maggie Barry's interview of Michael Bain, brother of Robin and uncle to David, on Radio Live was superb. She asked all the hard questions such as, why go public now (is it because David is about to seek the return of the estate in court) and why does he have so much faith in his brother's innocence when he had only seen Robin three times in the last 25 years? What's more, she did it without interrupting all the time and being otherwise offensive to the interviewee.

The interview made me remember what a great current affairs journalist Maggie was before she was put out to pasture as a gardening programme host. Around the same time, we had another great journalist and interviewer in Lindsay Perigo. The amazing thing about Perigo was that no one knew he held rabid right wing political views until after he retired as a political journalist. These days no one is in any doubt of the political persuasion of most NZ news media people (witness John Campbell, who was disgracefully sycophantic towards Helen Clark in his pre-election coverage last year).

Bravo, Maggie Barry. The country desperately needs more of your kind in the media.