Two interesting profiles
Two interesting profiles in the SST. The first is of aspiring National MP Mark Mitchell:
HE’S HAD violent confrontations with gangs and criminals during 14 years in the New Zealand police force. He’s spent eight years as a top international hostage negotiator, at one point fighting for his life in a five-day siege in Iraq, a story which is set to feature in a movie made by Brad Pitt. He’s built a multimillion-dollar business from scratch.
As he is not a teacher, academic or a unionist I guess he is standing for National 🙂
So the company set up subsidiary Threat Management Group to take security in-house. As CEO and shareholder, Mitchell grew the company from eight staff to about 500 in the first year.
The quality of their work soon won them top-level contracts, including protecting crucial infrastructures like ports, and keeping supply chains open.
Mitchell also became adept at kidnap and ransom negotiations, dealing with more than 100 hostage negotiations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Darfur.
If Mitchell does become an MP and eventually a Minister, then I’d say make him Associate Finance Minister in charge of bilateral vote negotiations. His background in ransom negotiations should serve well!
Also a profile on current Green MP Kevin Hague:
Then in 1980 he was arrested during an anti-sexism protest at a Miss New Zealand beauty pageant; a moment he states is his “most embarrassing political moment”.
“I ended up in a police paddy wagon with a group of women who wouldn’t speak to me,” he laughs. “They were all lesbian separatists.”
Heh that is very funny.
In the late 1980s he headed the Aids Foundation, before moving to Greymouth with his partner, Ian, and his son, Thomas, to take on a role as the general manager of planning and funding for the West Coast District Health board, before becoming the board’s chief executive.
This is one thing that makes me respect Hague – he does actually have significant management experience. Becoming a DHB CEO is no small thing.
Hague said he had never been the target of taunting over his sexual orientation since entering the halls of parliament in 2008.
The same, he said, couldn’t be said for other gay MPs, citing “prejudice” directed at Attorney-General and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Chris Finlayson.
“Trevor Mallard, and also Clayton Cosgrove, refer to Chris Finlayson as `tinkerbell’. And I f—ing hate it,” Hague said. “That sort of overt taunting as a `fairy’, it is nothing other than prejudice. I don’t like that culture of abuse.”
Good on Hague for calling them out for it.