Trotter on Nandor

Chris Trotter writes in the Dominion Post on Nandor Tanczos.  He refers my blog post on Whoar stating that Nandor will stand down for Russel Norman this year.  It’s actually Whoar which should be credited incidentally.

Captain Oates’ heroic act of self-sacrifice is probably the best remembered episode in Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole.

And now, if we are to believe David Farrar’s Kiwiblog, a similar one-way journey is to be made into the political storm currently immobilising New Zealand’s parties of the Left.

Tragically, the man about to step outside the tent would appear to be the most colourful, the most original, and the most principled of all the parliamentarians ushered in by the age of MMP: Nandor Tanczos.

Like Captain Oates, it seems that Mr Tanczos is motivated by the conviction that his departure will give his comrades a much better chance of survival.

I have to say when Nandor first became an MP, I have a particularly strong dislike of him. I thought the skateboarding stuff looked try hard, and he seemed to be a single issue politician on cannabis.

But my opinion has certainly changed over time.  While obviously still disagreeing on most policy areas, I’ve seen him  as a consicientous and hard working MP who takes his job seriously.  The clean slate legislation is due to him (I actually think it is bad law, but that doesn’t affect the fact he achieved a good result for something he supported) and he has been one of the best informed and well researched MPs on technology issues.  He even got The Parliamentary Service to allow him to put Firefox instead of IE on his laptop!

So I do agree with Chris Trotter that it will be a pity if Nandor does resign before his term is up.

Also Nandor is from the anarchist side of the Greens while Russel Norman is from the communist side, and given a choice between an anarchist and a communist, I’ll choose the anarchist 🙂