Rudd’s strip club visit

I don’t expect it will have a big impact on how people vote, but the revelation that Kevin Rudd not just visited a strip club when he was on an official trip to the UN in New York in 2003, but allegedly was overly touchy with the staff won’t exactly be helpful (well maybe in Queensland it will be).

I have to say it was a bloody stupid thing to do when you are travelling on a diplomatic passport in an official capacity.  Voters not so much resent the strip club, as the taxpayer money going towards the trip.

Not that New Zealand MPs are immune from poor judgement.  I recall hearing in the 1990s how one Minister was due to speak at the UN, and on the day they were due to speak, still had not emerged from their room.  Finally one of the officials got a spare key, and entered the room to find not only the Minister much the worse for wear, but also a dancer from the nightclub they had been to the previous night!

Rudd’s defence that he doesn’t remember much of the night is one I can have some sympathy for.  I’ve only been to a strip club three times.  Once earlier this year at the insistence of some Young Labour girls et al (as the bars had all closed for Easter), and twice as part of a stag night for a mate getting married.  Now the two times that were on a stag night, I have no recollection of having been there.  If you asked me to describe the interior I would have no idea.  In fact I doubted I had even attended but for the testimony of others.