Dodgy ministers, secret meetings and corrupt behavior: What’s new in Toy Town?

This one wrote itself

Hey Kids, remember when Labour was the cool political underdog out to end the rule of the cruel and tyrannical National party and all its corrupt behaviours (like ministers attending secret meetings, not keeping notes and acting like they were above the law)?

Of course you do and you would also remember the rebel alliance of Labour, NZ First and the Greens striking from secret bases somewhere in the moral high ground by pointing out such despicable deeds while National clumsily stonewalled any OIA requests fired their way with faces like gormless fish*.

So what then are we to make of current Labour Government Ministers Clare Curran and Andrew Little (along with a posse of civil servants and lawyers) attending a secret meeting with Google and then refusing to speak or provide any information about it, when sent an OIA request, citing secretive Chatham House rules.

What we are going to make of it is to label it exactly the same way as we did when National got caught with its scabby paw in the cookie jar and then refused to comply with the Official Information Act (OIA) with terms like corrupt and dodgy.

However, as No Right Turn notes, “the government can’t contract out of the OIA” by citing Chatham House rules and this leaves Labour, Little and Curran looking exactly like the very scumbags in National they would have vigorously denounced just last year when they were in opposition, had this happened then.

Curran and Little are acting like they are above the law and inviting a horde of ironic comparisons given that they are/were the Spokesperson for Open Government and Justice Minister respectively.

And if Jacinda Ardern has any control of her cabinet left then Curran and Little have to be pulled in and made to fess up quick smart or she will become the Admiral Holdo of the Labour Party.

Thus our winter of our discontent continues for Labour because once again both the left and Right sides of the line are finding this to be distinctly unpalatable and far too reminiscent of the bad ole days under National to let this slide. 

However it would be nice if the mainstream media got off its ass and gave this some more coverage given how relentless they were in going after National for this kind of behavior when it was in power.

Secret government is not democratic nor is it for the people, its corrupt and Curran and Littles behaviour just reinforce that Labour is nothing more than National-lite in policy, people and behaviour.

That said this is Andrew Little and Clare Curran we are talking about so its not too surprising. Little was a complete failure as party leader and this is not Curran's first ride at the scandal rodeo either so as the saying goes "whats new in Toy Town?".

Meanwhile the buzz of my cognitive dissonance is starting to wear off as National (and Nick Smith of all people) get to sink their teeth in and do their job as opposition and call Labour out for acting like National used to.

How things have changed but still stay the same.



*-Think Bill english when asked about Todd Barclay or being lected PM and you have what I mean.