Molesworth & Featherston (Weekend) – 11 Nov. 2005

Direct Link To This Week's Weekend Update Edition:
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0511/Mand11Nov05L.pdf

Parliament
Bye Rod – Kiwi made.

The tragic death of co-leader Rod Donald last Sunday morning has left Parliament, the media and the country stunned and saddened in a way that belies his status as a small party player. Partly that reaction is because his death was so sudden and unexpected and partly because of the environment into which the body-blow came … with the party one of the few (along with Act and the Progressives) to be able to hold its head up as principled and with its integrity fully intact after the post-election deal-making.

The Greens have, as a consequence, been the recipients of a fair amount of public sympathy (and there has been a degree of left wing self-flagellation that their tactical voting did not deliver a more leftist administration).

But it is also the measure of the public man – a popular, unfailingly positive and almost always cheerful and - that word again – principled figure. We don't want to spoil the mood of the nation's grieving on such an occasion, but we have talked to those close to him who are just wondering: Couldn't some of this praise of the man and the politician and his principles have been expressed before the election?

Molesworth and Featherston, like many in the media, were on Rod Donald's speed dial and we talked to him last on Friday. He was in Hamilton (where there had been some grumpiness in the party about the campaign strategy, which he had gone to hose down despite feeling ill most of the week). He wanted to check the poll numbers he had heard on the grapevine. His mood can best be described as low-key angry tending towards frustration. The Greens were back at the 7 per cent level they needed to form a Government with Labour (on 44 in that poll) and NZ First was down at 3.5 per cent. Yet he would have to walk into Parliament on Monday and watch Winston Peters and Peter Dunne take their ministerial seats.

So here are the current numbers

ALSO IN THE WEEKEND UPDATE…

ECONOMY

Treasury has updated its regular advice to ministers on the shape of our economy - we continue to be lions at home and lambs overseas. Page 3.

JOBS & WAGES

With unemployment dropping to a new record low, wages have been rising at the fastest rate since records began. Page 4.

GOOD WOOD

Susan Wood’s contract battle with TVNZ has been a wake up call on the soundness of fixed term contracts. Page 4.

MEDIA TATTLE

The best business and financial hacks get a prize, and new radio ratings put the Irish ahead of the Canadians. Page 5.

The Weekend Update is a complimentary, condensed edition of the paid-subscription only Governor’s Edition published last Tuesday.

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