He's my local MP and I've seen and chatted with him at several events over the years. Hard working, but I wouldn't see him as the sort of talent to be a successful PM or senior front bencher

Let's face it, the quality of the average MP is atrocious. Chris Bishop is not in that category, but if he's the best parliament has to offer now, then we're in real trouble.

Bridge's is gone burger

Just heard one of the tapes.

He was talking about list mps. Which ones to ditch. Said one was useless. Said 2 Chinese ones are worth more than 2 Indians.

I'm sure all parties have the same conversations, but there is no way he could live that down.

The donation is a bit irrelevant.

Far out

The mere suggestion of choosing potential MP candidates based on ethnicity to suit a potential donor is going to go down very badly with National voters, I would think.

You’d hope it’ll go down badly with anyone, regardless of who they vote for.

Well, yes, but it doesn't change the political landscape if a few people already voting Labour/Green take umbrage at this tape.

On the other hand, if Nats supporters are angry about this, there could be an impact on their polling. You'd think NZF would be the primary beneficiary, and they probably could do with it. Surely some real solid material for Winston to make hay with in there.

Just heard it too. The MP he slams is Maureen Pugh.

Maureen Pugh is f**king useless though. Isn't she also an anti-vaxxer?

MP Mark Richardson: just joking or a hint of the future?

AM Show sports presenter Mark Richardson is someone who wears his political affiliations on his (blue) sleeve, but could he be about to make his commitment official?

It may have been all in jest, but on the show on Wednesday morning he said he was "considering" standing as an MP for National, after party deputy leader Paula Bennett suggested she would interview him for the role of Botany by-election candidate.

After the mayhem within the party of the past few days, Richardson pointed out right at the start of the show he was wearing a blue shirt on the set to show his support for National.

Then when Bennett was being interviewed she said: "We're going to win that by-election. In fact, I could interview Mark now, if you like, as a candidate."

Richardson thought it was a great joke, and said he was "considering" the offer.

Later in the show, host Duncan Garner was reading comments sent in from someone called Penny, from Tāmaki. "We have an invisible remote muppet as an MP," she said, apparently referring to National's Tāmaki MP Simon O'Connor.

"Indeed it wouldn't surprise me if we don't have an MP at all. So I'll lead the campaign to get Mark Richardson on board. Mark is exactly what our area needs, although he will need to go through jetski re-education school, as civilised National voters hate them.

"My name is Penny and I approve of this damn fine political message. Mark please help us in Tāmaki."

At one point in the show, Richardson had said he was only prepared to represent "the good people of St Heliers, Mission Bay and Kohimarama". Those places are all in the Tāmaki electorate.

Richardson was chuckling away. News presenter Amanda Gillies asked: "What do ya reckon, Mark?"

"Oh, look I'll consider it, but at the moment I'm quite comfortable where I am," Richardson said.

"Wow, 'consider'," Gillies said.

Pressed for a decision by Garner, Richardson said: "Oh, I'm still considering it."

"Oh really," Garner replied, sounding surprised. "You wouldn't do it. You'd be mad mate, honestly."

"Thanks for turning your back on us. You wouldn't do that. How could you?" Gillies said.

"Actually that makes it a bit more appealing," Richardson said.

Garner said Richardson wouldn't do it because it would mean moving away from his "lovely family".

Laughing, Richardson said: "that would make it even more appealing".

Richardson is a former test cricket opening batsman, who played 38 tests for New Zealand from 2000-2004. He is also a former co-host of TV sports magazine show the Crowd Goes Wild, and is the host of The Block NZ.

The tone was set right from the very start of Wednesday's The AM Show.

"Can I just make the court aware of the fact that I am in fact wearing blue today in support of my party," Richardson said.

"Fading, fading fast, a faded blue," Garner said. Gillies agreed it wasn't as rich a blue as Richardson usually wore.

"This is the new National colour. Remember they changed the colour to a slightly lighter blue, a murkier blue," Richardson said.

Shortly after that, when Garner was wondering why anyone would want to be a politician, when supposed friends turn out to be enemies. Richardson said he still wanted to be a politician.

"But I'm doing it for the right reasons."

"Which is a decent pay when you go into retirement," Gillies said.

"Yeah, I'm just going to sit on the back benches and basically do nothing," Richardson said.

At one point in the show, he did say he was only prepared to represent "the good people of St Heliers, Mission Bay and Kohimarama."

After AM Show host Mark Richardson's show of continuing support for National, party deputy leader Paula Bennett offered ...
NEWSHUB
After AM Show host Mark Richardson's show of continuing support for National, party deputy leader Paula Bennett offered to interview him for the job of National candidate for Botany.

The mere suggestion of choosing potential MP candidates based on ethnicity to suit a potential donor is going to go down very badly with National voters, I would think.

He talks about choosing additional candidates of a certain ethnicity to suit the donor. That's a real problem as it basically says you can influence the make-up of Parliament by putting enough money through the books. Other countries might call that corruption, but there is no corruption in New Zealand - so I've been told.

Read the post properly...

“To suit a potential donor” is the bit you’re looking for.

Forget about ethnicity for a a second and consider something more basic such as 'interest group' and this sort of thing has been going on forever

When Labour stack their list with union people in order to ensure the hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from the unions, is that really any different to National stacking their list with people who'll pander to the Chinese business community to attract donations from the Chinese business community ?
Do you think Et Tu, NZMU, EPMU etc would donate so much to Labour if it didn't bring any influence inside the party including representation on the list?

At the end of the day, this sort of thing is one of the main reasons political parties exist and shouldn't be that surprising that it happens. Or is the real reason that people are making such a fuss about it because the donors were Chinese?

I doubt Labour would want to go down that particular route considering how many of their MPs are ex union officials from major union donors.

And the unions even help chose their leader

Sorry

Missed this

^^^

This

The difference being that it’s public record that unions donate and Labour have union hacks. It’s not public record that Donations from particular ethnic groups then lead to potential appointees from that group. I’m sure many voters would see that distinction, where you wish to imply that’s racist or not.

What do I mean? That the Labour Party is built around the premise of union participation. A Labour voter can hardly be shocked by union representation. National voters on the other hand could be somewhat surprised by the fact that special interest groups can be promoted with a very minor donation in the grand scheme of things.

These are not equal or comparable issues.

What is concerning is the illegal and deliberate splitting up of the donations in order to hide them from the electoral commission. If that is indeed what's happened it's quite serious stuff. That's the bigger issue here.

Unions are still a special interest group and not that many people even belong to them anymore

What do I mean? That the Labour Party is built around the premise of union participation. A Labour voter can hardly be shocked by union representation. National voters on the other hand could be somewhat surprised by the fact that special interest groups can be promoted with a very minor donation in the grand scheme of things.

These are not equal or comparable issues.

Bridge's is gone burger

Just heard one of the tapes.

He was talking about list mps. Which ones to ditch. Said one was useless. Said 2 Chinese ones are worth more than 2 Indians.

I'm sure all parties have the same conversations, but there is no way he could live that down.

The donation is a bit irrelevant.

Far out

Everyone will work right up to the line and a bit over it. What hasn't helped over the years is Plod's refusal over and over again to investigate and / or prosecute where there have been clear abuses, and of course Labour's disgraceful retrospective law to clear itself. That sets the line further towards corruption that we should want it to be.

The only Chinese MP on the National list is Jian Yang way down at #34. Whatever influence they're "buying" it doesn't seem to be very much. We'll see again in 2020 but unless there's more than a couple in the top 30 it would hardly be out of the ordinary.

What is concerning is the illegal and deliberate splitting up of the donations in order to hide them from the electoral commission. If that is indeed what's happened it's quite serious stuff. That's the bigger issue here.

No he didn't. That was JLR. If you're going to make such bold statements, the least you could do is get them right.

Sorry, you are right.

My mistake

As far as bombshells go that’s a really shit one .

JLR comes across as a complete cock .
Labour Party holding the high ground , while NZF rolling around in the shit as per .
Bridges is fvcked whatever happened.