Gower rightly apologises to Greens
Written By:
- Date published:
11:44 am, August 10th, 2017 - 35 comments
Categories: election 2017, greens, the praiseworthy and the pitiful -
Tags: metiria turei, Patrick Gower, witch hunt
Just one of many apologies he should be making:
Patrick Gower apologises for claiming poll result drove Metiria Turei to quit
Newshub political editor Patrick Gower has apologised to Green Party leader James Shaw for suggesting a bad poll result drove his co-leader to quit.
…
Her resignation came just hours after she was informed of the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll results, which saw the party’s support crumble by a third, down 4.7 points to 8.3 percent.“The truth is you had a terrible result in the Newshub-Reid Research poll today one of the worst results ever for the Green Party – and for the first time slipped behind Winston Peters,” Gower told Mr Shaw on Wednesday night’s episode of The Project.
…
Appearing on The AM Show on Thursday morning, Gower was contrite.“I actually got my tone wrong on this, and I apologise to James Shaw,” he told host Duncan Garner.
“I think things have moved on – Metiria Turei is gone. It doesn’t matter if she went because of this poll result, or more things were going to be revealed or not. New Zealand needs to get on with this election and stop talking about Metiria Turei. “I think she’d believe that herself. She has been a warrior.” …
Deep breaths.
See also:
Labour surges, Greens slump, and media scrap over Turei’s scalp
There is something distasteful about fighting over a political corpse.
“We drove her to resign!” “No, we drove her to resign!” bawled Checkpoint and Newshub. The RNZ programme had put a number of questions to Metiria Turei about her living circumstances in the ’90s when she lied to Winz and “instead of answering them, she resigned”.
Newshub was having none of that. Turei was gone, and “it has been a Newshub poll tonight which has forced her out”, was the introduction to Patrick Gower’s report. The poll, the first since New Zealand politics entered the mirror maze of the last 10 days, was awaited by some of us with an eagerness bordering on frenzy. It delivered a “catastrophic, disastrous result” for the Green Party, said Newshub’s political editor. For the Greens, “losing one third of their support in one week [is] an absolute political nightmare, and that is what has obviously forced Metiria Turei to go – she learned of the result just hours before she resigned”.
Boom time for the New Zealand scalp collection industry. While it’s unseemly at the best of times, there’s an added layer of unpleasantness when the scalp belongs to someone whose sins are, in the scheme of political scandals, kind of piffling. …
If you are angry about this – use your vote…
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I think we should be holding a petition calling for Patrick Gowers resignation for political interference. This sort of political sabotage should not go unchallenged.
totally agree, it is happening way too often and change is needed imo
and it just? just might cause a head pull in moment?
The right wing embedded media sycophants did it last election during 2014.
They constantly fed the public a diet of how bad Cunliffe was and talked up John Key. Right in the middle of Dirty Politics and John Keys obvious duplicitous statements regarding the XKEYSCORE program and mass public surveillance.
They deliberately misrepresented MANA / Internet party at its public launching and totally ignored any policy statements to get at and frame Kim Dotcom.
And these embedded National party media sycophants are still there.
They are a cancer , therefore, examples need to made of some of them to send home the message.
Expect more of the same if something isn’t done about them.
Yeah, I saw him do that apology. He seemed genuinely contrite. I suspect media colleagues gave him a hard time about it. Interesting to hear on the news just now that the Green caucus is negotiating with Kennedy Graham the possibility of him returning to it. Why not Dave Clendon also? Perhaps the list ranking differential?
Why would we want those two back, after they jumped ship when they were needed. Whatever the reason.
+ 1.
Who’s we? If you’re operating from a class warfare frame, I get it, but I’m not. Elementary that govt legislation only proceeds on the basis of consensus. So, to help the poor, you need sufficient middle-class support.
I don’t agree with the rationale used by Ken & Dave, but they aren’t the baddies depicted by some here, and they are the kind of mainstreamers normally referred to as liberals. They represent part of the green support base that is too large to ignore. I presume that’s why the Green caucus is having second thoughts.
Kjt +1
Interesting that he apologised to Shaw but not to Turei. It was her that he was calling a liar, and it is her who is hurting the most.
She is a liar. Can you not see that?
Didn’t she just recently have several press releases where she told the truth about things? Which politicians rarely ever do? But Phil here thinks that she’s the liar. Sure Phil.
Sure, She told the truth as the axe was falling. Should have told the truth about her situation from the outset. I for one believe the Greens are much better off with Turei out of the picture. My only wish would be leave the socialism to Labour and get back to the Environmental roots from which the party was forged. A socialist Labour and Environmental Greens would have been a formidable option for governing.
And if Labour ever tries to be socialist then maybe that can happen. But the survival of society and the environment are linked, so until others step up to the plate I guess the Greens will be the voice of reason
She led with the truth on her benefit actions. When someone pointed out the electoral thing, she told the truth on that.
You also clearly don’t understand how the Green party works. You cannot have a sustainable environment without social justice, and you cannot have social justice without a sustainable environment. Both are intertwined and fundamental to the whole existence of the Greens.
Plus, when Labour aren’t being socialist, someone has to.
“You cannot have a sustainable environment without social justice, and you cannot have social justice without a sustainable environment.”
The Greens like to link these two but the logic is rather self-serving and clearly trying to unite two quite different agendas.
For example, it could be argued that supporting people having more children is not environmentally friendly, as the world is overcrowded as it is. If we had less people, there would be less strain on environments.
The Greens support the children people have, not to have more children. With higher incomes in society generally comes a reduction in birth rates anyway.
It was a major political mistake to make herself and her circumstances the centre of the Greens welfare policy.
That never works as they go after your background in order to destroy both the policy and the politician. Have any ambiguity in your background and you are toast
She may as well put a target on her back when this happened.
… and how many year’s ago was that Phil? I think you got your present and past tenses confused.
definition of lieing?
run that past the pm perhaps
@ Phil, I wonder why you and your ilk still get any oxygen.
Yeah – there’s quite an element of sexism there. Maybe most men don’t see it, but as a woman who has experienced apology second-hand thru a male, I certainly do.
Don’t be sorry Patrick – be careful.
Now sod off – NZ needs real journalists not self-serving clickbait artists.
If the traitors are accepted back onto the Green list, I will have difficulty sending my vote to the Greens.
Why? Were you going to vote Green because you wanted their policies implemented? If they (the two MP’s) are accepted back, that doesn’t change the GP’s policies going into the election does it?
Patrick should apologise by resigning and moving to Saint Helena, permanently.
The St. Hellenans deserve better. Give him a job where his character flaws are in the public interest – in the corporate fraud section of IRD.
Amongst the penguins in Antarctica then. There’s a few eggs that need to be kept warm. Oh hell… what am I saying? Even the penguins deserve better…
God they are horrible, who needs Dirty Politics?
He is part of the dirty politics landscape. Recall his near vein bursting antics over DC at that labour conference, it bordered unhinged.
A half decent media outlet would’ve ripped him off air and chucked him on court stories/police rounds/fluff end of show pieces.
He stays on air because he does a job…..which isn’t unbiased intelligent political commentary.
At one stage Gower said something “…with these numbers we ( as in, the royal we ) would be calling for her to go..”” . Listen you arrogant shit, you job is to REPORT, not to direct the democratic process.
You are the one that should go.
Exactly. Enough of this.
Patrick Gower,
aka “Mr Second from the Left ” ( https://tinyurl.com/y7osqojv )
Gower is an apology – for a journalist.
Would it be wrong to assume that those on a benefit are effectively excluded from parliament, the expression of our ‘representative’ democracy?
Gower’s self-serving apology is too little, too late. Now any former recipient of a benefit who improves their circumstances and is elected to parliament (fairly few and far between) will think twice before publicly recounting personal experiences (no matter how ancient) to highlight issues of poverty and social justice – feel the chill.
What was it about Metiria’s AGM comments that the media and middle New Zealand found so confronting? Having a frank, open discussion about poverty in NZ is like drawing attention to an infected leg wound – many Greens want to save the leg, but it seems that for most necrotising fasciitis or amputation are preferable.
The MSM message to beneficiaries from non-beneficiaries (and the message from all political parties other than the Greens tbh) – you and your experiences are politically toxic; be grateful, BE QUIET, and (above all) know your place!