I regard that as a threat Burt, and I’m sick of your wilful lies. Take the rest of the month off. Try to come up with something better to say than “Labour did it too!”.

[lprent: I was just considering much the same thing. Sounds like a scratched CD with a jump back error. My tolerance level was diminishing real fast. ]

I NEVER said that Labour did nothing wrong. It’s issue by issue. I know it’s all squashed together in your head Burt into one big single Labour Bad issue – but we’ve actually discussed many things over the years. Many different accusations against Labour.

You think Labour are always guilty (Labour Bad! Labour Bad!). I think they are usually not guilty (then I defend them), but sometimes they are guilty (then I admit it).

So yes, Labour (and National and ACT etc) were wrong to push the boundaries on election advertising. But no they were not wrong to (as usual) validate spending. Separate issues Burt. One wrong. One right. Try and get your head around it.

You also joined NRT pretending that the normal budget validations passed by national this year showed that what Labour did was normal.

You can just say you were wrong to defend the Labour party over the validations of their advertising. I might leave you alone over this issue if you show some remorse for defending corruption.

You are not helping yourself inviting a link back to that discussion.

Were Labour corrupt for deliberately spending unauthoruised money on advertising and validating it? (remember the chief electoral office warned them not to include the pledge card in the election spending total)

The same answer we can apply to National over this advertising – particularly if they validate it killing a court case for misuse of public money.

As usual Burt your are wrong about that. I said (during our long discussion of these issues) that Labour, and all other parties (except the Progressives) were morally culpable for pushing the boundaries on election advertising. I also said that they didn’t break the law (which they didn’t), and that there were some some mitigating factors (the AGs rulings being a trifle arbitrary).

The Plain English case is far simpler. The state funded advertisements are in effect party political broadcasts. That does break the law, and there are no mitigating factors, I think (as per links in the original post) that they knew exactly what they were doing.

You exist in an imaginary world Burt, constructed out of your false memories and your unreasoning hatred. And you make the same boring comment almost every time – Labour did it too! – r0b is a partisan hack! I ask again – don’t you have anything better to contribute than that?

The only lame duck is the one hoist on his own petard. Defend corruption when the flag is red scream about it when the flag is blue.

rOb is such an old school activist who although he blogs has failed to notice that what you say in defence of your team can be quoted back at you when you attack the other team. See before blogs the likes of rOb’s idols were massively two faced relying on short public memory to get away with their double standards. rOb may have managed to mirror the partisan nature of his masters but he has failed to notice the spectators don’t need to sit in the library pouring through thousands of pages of hard copy to find his previous positions on issues like this one.

It appears we both think National spending unauthorised tax payers money on party advertising is wrong. Only one of us thinks it was wrong when Labour did it – Therefore one of us is partisan hack.

I’m comfortable that in my position the party involved is irrelevant to the principles and ethics involved.

Feel free to direct me to his outlined alternatives if I have missed them, I’m interested to see them.

It gave English free air-time to push himself with the electorate…unfettered by the interview process and scripted at his leisure. It’s his credibility that was being sold here.

Did TVNZ know they were on dodgy ground…..YES.
Did they have opportunity to pull it but did not…..YES
Is this all more classic PR spin from TVNZ seeking forgiveness when they knew all along they were wrong……YES
Those responsible in TVNZ are far away from ever being attributed to it and some sacrificial bunny appears in emails…..YES smells like the Veitch saga to me.

TVNZ aren’t fit to carry a public broadcaster’s bag let alone pretend to be one so any attempts to make them behave as such are wasted.

IMHO Rick Ellis and his mates have a predesigned spin campaign, hatched in tandem with the events……worse case scenario for recycling Rick would be bunny onto the BBQ, look at us cleaning house aren’t we good……status quo remains.