Last night the Clutha Southland National Party selected Hamish Walker, a 32 year old business advisor from Dunedin, as the replacement for disgraced MP Todd Barclay. But if National think that will put to rest the questions swirling around their electorate operations in the Deep South they’re dreaming, writes Peter Newport. It’s a long drive … Read more
On June 21 the National MP for Clutha-Southland resigned his candidacy for re-election, in the wake of a scandal around alleged secret recording of staff. Todd Barclay remains on full pay and perks until September 23, however. What has he been up to? On the day he returns to parliament we scour the news and … Read more
Loaded to the eyeballs on performance enhancing mint chocolate, the Gone By Lunchtime beat combo pick over the remains of a momentous week in New Zealand politics. As the election build-up lurches through the gears, Toby Manhire is joined by Annabelle Lee, executive producer of The Hui, and Ben Thomas of Exceltium to discuss the scandal that led … Read more
Dismayed by the press gallery’s failure to interrogate the prime minister’s epistemological framework in the Todd Barclay scandal? Undismay yourself: New Zealand’s leading craft beer enthusiast and philosopher king Ben Thomas is here. Bill English is known as one of parliament’s deep thinkers. Never has this been more on display than Saturday, on Newshub’s The … Read more
The Todd Barclay affair has plunged the new prime minister into his first major political maelstrom, leading to claims of contradictory statements. Do they add up? Here’s our trawl of the key remarks. Text messages from Bill English to then Clutha-Southland electorate chairman Stuart Davie, February 21, 2016, via Newsroom: “[Barclay] left a Dictaphone running that picked … Read more
The Todd Barclay affair has prompted many memory lapses, but perhaps none as powerful as Prime Minister Bill English’s now-forgotten objections to cover-ups and deceit. Branko Marcetic looks back to 2002, when Helen Clark’s Paintergate and Corngate scandals were making the news – and Bill English was making hay. “Today we see the real story … Read more
Todd Barclay is going, but how much damage has he caused – to his party and especially to the leader who tried to cover for him? Or has Bill English brought this on himself? Remember when former PM John Key went on radio station The Rock and took part in a prison rape joke, and … Read more
Yesterday Newsroom posted a scoop on Todd Barclay’s weird, possibly illegal recordings of one of his former employees. Hayden Donnell keeps track of all the falsehoods unfurling out of the story. I went to sleep in London just after Newsroom broke its story about Todd Barclay, his secret recordings of a staff member, and the apparent … Read more
Newsroom today broke the story of the payments and coverup that followed allegations of clandestine recording by Todd Barclay. But the MP for Clutha-Southland remains something of a mystery on the national stage. Peter Newport, a former RNZ reporter based in Queenstown, has interviewed him on multiple occasions and shares his impressions. Over the past two years I’ve … Read more
The story of Todd Barclay’s behaviour towards his electorate staff has become a lot more interesting, as new details about efforts to cover it up emerge. A crucial question, writes law professor Andrew Geddis, surrounds claims of pressure put on his former electorate agent to withdraw her complaint Newsroom’s truly exceptional piece of investigative journalism into the … Read more