Jackson’s ‘skeletons’ haunt Labour
Switching support from one political party to the next has its downsides when past comments come back to haunt you.
Labour’s latest recruit Willie Jackson, who spent much of his time cheering on the Maori Party’s waka before boarding the Labour bus, was the butt of the biggest joke in Question Time yesterday as Labour’s attempted pointscoring went pear-shaped.
Maori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell, who is also the Maori Party co-leader, had his record of success questioned by Labour’s Maori Affairs spokesman Kelvin Davis as the war for the Maori seats heats up between the two parties.
After a series of queries, and a lot of beating about the bush, it was time to move on to the next question before Flavell’s co-leader Marama Fox jumped up asking the Speaker of the House, David Carter, for a supplementary.
Carter told her she didn’t have any spare but Fox pointed out she had ‘‘an agreement to have another supplementary question allocated’’, which she had sneakily co-ordinated with National’s chief whip Tim Macindoe.
After a bit of toing and froing and Carter telling them to be more organised next time, Fox asked Flavell, ‘‘has the minister read any reports about the very good work he and Te Puni Kokiri are doing?’’
Of course he had, and he was away with his prepared answer: ’’I have to take my hat off to the Maori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell for keeping the kaupapa of the Maori party beating while gaining wins from the government in the 2016 budget.’’
Then there was a catalogue of his successes over the last two years, followed by the punchline: ‘‘Mr Speaker, that quote came from the newest member of the Labour Party - Willie Jackson.’’
Right on cue the House erupted with the Government benches wildly applauding as Labour and NZ First were split between putting their heads in their hands and randomly shouting whatever came to mind. Even Carter struggled to keep the smile off his face as he desperately tried to get back control of the House.
Jackson was last in Parliament in 2002 with the Alliance Party, but there will be plenty of other blasts from his political past over the next six months that Labour will have to paddle its way through. Police found the bodies of a New Zealand mother and her 4-year-old son in their Sydney apartment, and barely decipherable words scribbled in blood near the pair.
Twenty-four hours after the grim discovery, police say they are still keeping an open mind as to whether a third person was involved in what happened to Stacey Docherty and young Seth, or if it was a case of murdersuicide.
It is understood rambling messages were written over the walls, some of which appeared to be in blood, when emergency services found the pair at 1.20pm on Monday.
Docherty’s ex-partner and the father of her son is believed to have raised the alarm when he knocked on the door and no-one answered.
It is unclear how the mother and son had died with police ruling out gas as the cause.
The mother-of-one listed her job on Facebook as a nursing manager from Christchurch.
Yesterday morning, a police spokeswoman said it was still unclear what happened to the pair. She said police were still investigating whether it was a murder-suicide or if another person was involved in the deaths.
Docherty was known to police after officers attended the street last year when she smashed three of her neighbours’ cars with a bat following a dispute over parking.