Rodney puts on his best chastened little boy voice

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 am, November 9th, 2009 - 28 comments
Categories: act - Tags: , , , ,

Rodney Hide sad simian noYou just have to listen to this.

After “solid reflection” Rodney has realized that despite being adamant for several days that he’d done no wrong, he now understands that no, he has done wrong and has already returned the cash to the government coffers. Did it last week apparently, which is a bid odd in terms of the timing of events and stated motives for doing the right thing, but no matter.

Rodney convened a solemn press conference late Sunday afternoon in an effort to quell the flames engulfing him and stop the damage spreading too much further into the new week. No doubt he hopes that by prostrating himself and pleading for the nation’s mercy in a voice positively redolent with remorse, his cock-up abroad will soon be forgotten. We’ll see.

His formal confession (and believe me it played like one) was short and sweet and did quite well in terms of script if not acting. Of course he fell apart a bit when it came to spontaneous answers to the follow-up questions, saying he “stuffed up… lost sight of how to spend the money” and was suffering from being too busy, too excited and getting too used to the job [WTF?] But good on him for finally coming clean about the hypocrisy of his act.

It’s great that Rodney has acknowledged the wrongness of his actions and decided to refund the money. It’s great too that Rodney has decided to apologize to the country for his misuse of public funds to shout overseas trips for his girlfriend. Amazing it took so long to realize but better late than never.

No word from Buster Perky however about the wrongness of his boss Roger Douglas’s hypocritical squandering of taxpayer money for personal travel.

28 comments on “Rodney puts on his best chastened little boy voice ”

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  1. r0b 1
    9 November 2009 at 12:27 am

    So what. I’d rather he apologised for prostituting his portfolio to fund raise for ACT.

  2. bobo 2
    9 November 2009 at 12:30 am

    Crocodile tears and cheesy acting the whole show was pathetic. The only good thing to come out of this might be the end of Wodney and ACT but I wouldn’t hold my breath..

  3. Trader Jack 3
    9 November 2009 at 12:38 am

    Mate I’ve seen better acting on Home and Away

  4. Kitty 4
    9 November 2009 at 12:48 am

    Well if the perks are there, why not?

    Basically the government allows this ‘subsidy’ or whatever it is.

    It is his hypocrisy that does it ‘in’, for him.

    He should just ‘admit’ he took the ‘advantage’ for his ‘own reasons’ and this would help his case.

    You can’t blame the man for wanting to take his lady friend away, can you?

    The ‘people’ will be just ‘oh so shittypoo’ with this.

    Don’t be so angry-all-the-time, when there are bigger worries, like the starving kids in Africa .or ‘south-Auckland’ huh?

    • Regina Falangie 4.1
      9 November 2009 at 12:56 am

      ROTFL

      • Dora Maar 4.1.1
        9 November 2009 at 12:44 pm

        Regina,

        Are the ‘perks’ allowed or not?

        This is the point.

        You cannot ‘expect’ a politician to be ‘moral’ all the time. Politics is a dirty game; you have to be partially slimeball to be involved (in politics) anyway.

        All politicians will work ‘loopholes’.

        Maybe the ‘perks’ need to change. A lousy suggestion from John Key won’t do it.

        Like Kitty said- it is his hypocrisy that ‘entangles’ him.

  5. Irascible 5
    9 November 2009 at 1:48 am

    Hey, my anti-spam word is IRRITATING – so appropriate for such a fulsome hypocritical fawning apology from a totally unbelievable garden gnome of a “man”. From prostituting his position as a Minister outside cabinet to rorting the taxpayer this is an act by a poor actor strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage – a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.

    • prism 5.1
      9 November 2009 at 9:05 am

      Nice quote! This spending up reminds me of the attitudes that came to the fore from 1984. There was huge spending by someone I think took over the ARC. It came out that he took his wife on a jaunt overseas staying in VERY expensive hotels. It seems that the right have a double-faced attitude to government, first they hate and seek to subvert it, so it can’t do its actual job serving the people, second they despise it and try to rort it to prove that they are right in declaiming that its corrupt and inefficient.

  6. BLiP 6
    9 November 2009 at 1:55 am

    What simpering, snivelling example of abject political expediency. I’m sure he’s sorry, though – sorry for being shown up as the hollow man he is.

  7. tsmithfield 7
    9 November 2009 at 6:25 am

    So will Chris Carter now follow Rodney’s lead?

    • Nick J 7.1
      9 November 2009 at 6:55 am

      Tsmthfield, you can be relied upon to reveal a surprising level of stupid comparisons and lack of insight. If you think Carter compares in straight dishonesty and open contempt for the taxpayer as Hide I would have to question whether you are an equally sizable pillock as Rodney?

      • gitmo 7.1.1
        9 November 2009 at 7:36 am

        No Carter will continue to trough until the day he dies ……..and anyway he’ll be gone next election so doesn’t need to worry about perceptions amongst the voters he’ll just happily potter off with his partner on the taxpapyer for evermore.

      • tsmithfield 7.1.2
        9 November 2009 at 8:45 am

        At least Hide has apologised and paid the money back, which is a lot more than Carter has ever done.

        • the sprout 7.1.2.1
          9 November 2009 at 8:50 am

          that is true, but then Carter never made a central campaign platform of fighting MPs spending taxpayer funds for personal benefit.

          former perk buster Hide did, hence the loud moans of hypocrisy.

          i’m sure you already get all this eh ts? if not, re-read the last dozen posts or so for a bit of background 😉

          • Tigger 7.1.2.1.1
            9 November 2009 at 10:58 am

            When did Carter organise his travel so he could take his partner to a wedding and also organise a fundraiser and slammed the PM behind their back then come out with meaningless apologies for some of his transgressions?

            • Pat 7.1.2.1.1.1
              9 November 2009 at 11:14 am

              It would be interested to know how much of Carter’s travel coincided with school holidays, since his partner is a school principal. Otherwise how did his partner manage so much time off to travel so often with Carter?

    • RedLogix 7.2
      9 November 2009 at 7:52 am

      It was Rodney who spent many years in Opposition making very good political capital out of attacking MP’s travel allowances. Hide is no inexperienced political neophyte, rather he’s been around Parliament longer than most…and must have known exactly what he was doing.

      I can readily forgive mistakes made in the heat of the moment, or because of inexperience or confusing unclear circumstances; we all do silly things from time to time… but none of this applies to Hide’s mis-use of funding. He was even warned by the PM not to, but he went ahead and defied Key by using a different funding source.

      Then for a week he brazens it out, insisting the most emphatic terms that he had done nothing wrong, even that he would ‘do it again’.

      It was not until the political damage became apparent to him (as evidenced by some sincere comments made here by at least several ACT party supporters, burt and vto come to mind)… that suddenly we get this performance.

      Sorry guys, it does not cut mustard.

      • burt 7.2.1
        9 November 2009 at 1:03 pm

        I agree. Hide of all people should have know better – for the sake of the ACT party and to demonstrate that politicians can’t do anything they want and just so “oops” he must resign.

  8. exbrethren 8
    9 November 2009 at 7:43 am

    What a hippo-crit.

  9. Winston Smith 9
    9 November 2009 at 8:11 am

    Next cab off the rank… Hone’s apology

    Oh that’s right, Hone doesn’t do apologies, only invective

    • Armchair Critic 9.1
      9 November 2009 at 8:48 am

      Next cab off the rank – Bill English pays for the free self-promotion he received.

  10. the sprout 10
    9 November 2009 at 8:53 am

    i can’t help but think Bill’s going to pay for that one anyway,
    a bit like how Bush paid for the rather premature “Mission Accomplished” stunt

  11. Donnatella 11
    9 November 2009 at 9:58 am

    ‘his cock-up abroad’

    ehehehe

  12. SAL 12
    9 November 2009 at 10:06 am

    As someone who once knew him: be assured he would do the same thing all over again tomorrow if he thought he could get away with it.

  13. SAL 13
    9 November 2009 at 10:24 am

    Ooops. I’m referring to Hide!

  14. randal 14
    9 November 2009 at 12:59 pm

    well wodney is on a wun way twip to nowhere after this election anyway.

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