PM on Parker allegations

I find it very interesting that the PM is resisting calls for any investigation into whether the Attorney-General has broken the law, on the basis of the story coming from Investigate Magazine, rather than any reliance on the actual facts of the case.

This is crude political behaviour where you attack the source of the allegations rather than the substance of them. The PM does this a lot such as over the leaky homes fiasco where she basically accused the NZ Herald of whipping up hysteria on the issue rather than admit there was a problem.

Now I will agree that some of Investigate’s stories in the past have been silly such as the one on the PM’s sexuality (which I felt was highly inappropriate) and one on associates of Clinton dying in mysterious circumstances.

But it would be unfair to not recognise that in recent times they have produced some very well substantiated stories. The Benson-Pope allegations were all backed up by pupils coming forward. The Tamihere interview was a stunner, and also their work on Peter Doone got material out there which had been ignored by others.

Allegations of misdeeds by Ministers should not be dismissed out of hand based on their source They should be judged on the veracity and facts of the case. The media should demand that Parker front up with his version of how a shareholder of one of his companies is disputing that consent was given as claimed in an official filing.

Of course as a few wags have joked, we could just all fast forward four months to the Police report concluding there was a prima facie infringement but they have decided not to prosecute 🙂

UPDATE: Parker has stood down according to a commenter. This is the correct thing to do. That was a very quick turn about from there being no issue.

UPDATE2: My goodness. According to NewstalkZB he has not just stood down but he has resigned all together. Sounds like he is keeping his other portfolios for now, which will be an issue for the House tomorrow.