Dom Post reviews the year

The final Dom Post editorial for 2007:

In politics, the Labour-led minority Government maintained the support of enough parties to keep a parliamentary majority, but it appears to be suffering from a severe case of third term-itis.

Former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field was charged with bribery, corruption and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Dunedin South MP David Benson-Pope lost his ministerial post after misleading Parliament and Prime Minister Helen Clark about the part he played in an Environment Ministry staffer losing her job. Colleague Trevor Mallard was charged with assault – the result of a private prosecution – after punching National opposite Tau Henare in Parliament’s lobbies.

And Labour and its allies used their numbers to ram through Parliament law changes limiting third party advocacy in election years and allowing MPs to subsidise their re-election campaigns with parliamentary funds, a practice previously found to be unlawful by Auditor-General Kevin Brady.

Sums it up.