PM shoots at Senate

At the weekend reports were run that the PM would start to ditch some Labour List MPs, to make room for new talent, by the end of the year. They were sourced to a Mark Blackham who is with PR firm Senate Communications.

Now the PM has attacked Mr Blackham, saying he knows nothing about what is happening around Parliament, having not worked there since 1990.

The PM, as usual, is shooting the messenger. The newsletter was put out from Senate as a company, and they have some very close ties to her Government.

Michael Parker used to work for Pete Hodgson (a key Labour strategist) and Tracey Bridges has been appointed by Trevor Mallard (another key strategist) to various boards such as NZQA.

In fact generally Senate are regarded around town as having one of the closer relationships with the Labour Government. Hence I would take the PM’s dismissal with a grain of salt.