GONE ROGUE

Paul  Henry, who  used TVNZ's Breakfast  as a platform to promote the Key Government, now thinks that Shane Taurimi's use of TVNZ facilities for Labour Party business  is a 'very serious issue' and totally unacceptable.

IT'S NEVER A  good idea to hand the enemy  ammunition to shoot you  with, so Shane Taurima did himself  no favours  when he used the  offices of the Maori and Pacific Unit  for Labour Party business.  He has since resigned as the manager of the unit.

It was TV3's  Patrick  Gower who took aim first with his wildly exaggerated claim  'that state broadcaster TVNZ is being used as a campaign base by Labour Party activists.'

In truth  Taurima and his staff appear to have  had the odd meeting and sent a few emails. Maybe the odd phone call.  Perhaps they talked Labour Party business over coffee.

I think that blogger Morgan  Godfery is more accurate in his  observation  that the  '... use was relatively minor. But the political ineptitude isn’t.'

Gower broke the story last night and then it was picked up by another National Party supporter -  Paul Henry.

On The Paul Henry Show  last night former TVNZ  Head of News and Current Affairs Bill Ralston was dragged from  his living room couch to join Henry in a late night beating up of TVNZ.

Henry thought it was a  very  serious issue (of course) and wanted to know if the Maori and Pacific Unit had gone 'rogue'. And he wanted Ralston to tell him that it had - which he did. How Ralston actually knows this was never made clear. 

At this point I thought a detected a whiff of something unpleasant in the air - and it was coming from the television. It was the stench of 'Rank Hypocrisy' by Paul Henry.

It wasn't so long ago that people were asking if Paul Henry had gone rogue on TVNZ's Breakfast. Henry
(a former National party election candidate) insulted, attacked, jeered and sneered at anyone who didn't like the Key Government. So it was open season on anyone  who was even just slightly left of  National. In contrast Henry's  praise for the government was invariably fulsome and his interviews with John Key were not so much interviews but party political broadcasts on behalf of the National Party.

In another election year - 2008 - a writer for The Standard, Ralph Malcolm, made this observation about Henry:

This morning’s performance on breakfast TV by Paul Henry was a disgrace. His complete lack of objectivity on the rail and ferry buy-back was even more biased and partisan than we have come to expect from him... Henry simply shouted about the government being idiots who can’t be trusted, and then proceeded to turn the show into the shambles it so often becomes.

This is election year, and there are obligations on all media to provide balanced coverage of issues. Henry is quite simply not capable of this.

People wanted to know how Henry was  getting away with using Breakfast as platform to promote the National Party.  Was there no editorial control? Had Henry gone 'rogue'? 

So accusing the Maori  Pacific and Unit of going 'rogue'  was certainly  'imaginative' on Henry's part.

But Henry is a true hypocrite. He lies with sincerity.

Meanwhile the rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer. 275,000 children are living in poverty. Capitalism is destroying the planet. And Patrick Gower is scurrying around Parliament, looking for another 'scoop'.  He's on the case, yes he is.