Hard News 29/08/05: Brash & The Roundtable

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Public Address 29/08/05 - What Would We Like You To Say About Us?

What would we like you to say about us? | Aug 29, 2005 08:27
Russell Brown's Hard News
http://publicaddress.net/default,2462.sm

The main news angle on the Brash emails must surely be that they apparently came to light as the result of an internal National Party leak.

After all, they really only confirm what was widely assumed at the time Brash took the party leadership: that he was a stalking horse for Act and its friends in the business lobby [http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3391873a6005,00.html].

Perhaps those involved, including the Business Roundtable's Roger Kerr, simply had an inflated sense of their own influence on the new leader. They certainly didn't get everything they appear to have thought they might.

Even so, it's hard to read about the two and a half pages of talking points Kerr offered Brash for use any time he was asked to discuss the Business Roundtable ("What would we like you to say about us? Here are some possible lines:") and not muse on whether there is an irony in National depicting its leader as a puppet in TV ads.

The story also explains how National's campaign coffers got so fat [http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3391944a6442,00.html]. For two or three years, Act's main benefactor Alan Gibbs had been losing patience with the party (well, who wouldn't?) and he appears to have taken Brash's rise as a chance to back another horse. Indeed, Brash was able to tell his caucus that if he didn't get the nod, the money would dry up. It's not improper, but it's hardly helpful that it has emerged. And somebody certainly wanted it to emerge, given that the Herald on Sunday got the selfsame "exclusive".

Act blogger Andrew Falloon is running a poll on who done the leak [ http://andrewfalloon.blogspot.com/].

Is there any more? Perhaps. On Morning Report today, Roger Douglas said that Star Times political editor Helen Bain had "a hundred pages" of emails.

Anyway, after his useful contribution on the matter of Donna Awatere Huata on Sunday last night, can we expect a David Young kiss-and-tell on this one?

(For Much Much More… including the words of the New All Black Haka Translated see…
http://publicaddress.net/default,2462.sm)

ENDS

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