Barry Soper: ZB Senior Political Correspondent's weekly political wrap (1)

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper speaks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about whether Darleen Tana will walk next week, Jacinda Ardern becoming a Dame, and the Solicitor-General reversing her guidelines for the judiciary.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soper, Senior political correspondent, rapping the political week that
was welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Barry, Hello again.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
What did I say? What did I say? The Greens
were going to regret taking her on because she will
actually win in the.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, well, she won't win in the end.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
She will make it hard for.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I said earlier. She won't win in the end.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
She will make it hard for that.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
But as I've said all along too, that they will
use the Wacker jumping legislation, and that's what they are doing. Normally,
you'd have to give somebody like Darlen Tana twenty one
days notice and give her that twenty one days to
decide on what she's going to do. But she usurped
them by going to the Court of Appeal. The Court

(00:41):
of Appeal has accepted her decision, so her case, yes, sorry,
her case, it's all up in the air now and
that's the problem. So I would imagine, as I said earlier,
don't expect her to walk on Tuesday. So she's padded
it out for a bit longer. Made it even more
all embarrassing for the Greens, even though Chloe Swarbrick came

(01:04):
out very impressive and said that you know, we had
to eat humble pie. We're back down, and of course
they had to eat humble pie. Of course this was
going to happen in the end. But I'll tell you
what the central ingredient to this whole story. The full
report on Darlentana.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Has not to be released. And what did I say
to you at the very start of all of this, Berry,
I am very suspicious of that. I want to see
that report.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Why if I have the courage of their conviction, this
wonderful Green Party, why haven't we seen the color of
that report. We've seen the executive summary. Yeah, but as
we know, and many reports that are written in this place,
executive summaries are not enough. You've got to marry between
the lines.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm loath to raise this with you because you know
you've got a dodgy ticker. But you want to talk
about just Sinda again.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, I found an entry that Jasinda Dern, who's a
die was was I say, a die hard Republican goes
to her mate, Prince William to get her knighthood, knighthood
obviously bestowed by her Labor Party colleagues before they were

(02:18):
thrown out of office at the last election and didn't
even have the common decency to come back and get
it come here to Government House. Perhaps she felt too
guilty in receiving it. Nevertheless, she's accepted the accolade and
well now I'll go around the world, no doubt using it.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Mark Sainsbury's on the huddle with me yesterday, and he
made such an excellent point where he says to me, yes, saying,
so this is what he said. He said, Remember, Helen
Clark never took it right, and it's a rite of passage.
They all say that there was a right of passage
for primary business. Yes, okay, but Helen never took it
because Helen was a woman of principle. And the contrast

(02:56):
between Helen the woman of principles and justinto the flake
could not be greater than on the subject.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Right, Absolutely, that's very true that Clark always declared herself
a Republican. Remember she was told off, strictly told off
for wearing trousers in front of the Queen when she
is at a banquet at the Beehive, and for goodness,
say there was a slack suit as they called it

(03:24):
in those days. And you know, I thought she was
perfectly entitled to wear it, but all the royalists said
it's an insult.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
But the point is she had the courage the pointers.
If you want, if you want people to respect you,
behave like Helen right, have some principles. Look, do you
think do you think have you thought much about whether
Chris Luxen is out of touch or something else is
going on here?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
No? I don't think he's out of touch. I think
you know, the poor buggers tried as hard as he
possibly can to relate to the public. And I wrote
a column I think several weeks ago saying that he's
got to learn to be more relatable to the public.
And the problem is because the media are fixated on
this man's wealth, as they are with Old Albow buying

(04:11):
his cliff top mansion in Australia. I mean, if you
had a prime minister that was penniless, he would be
praised for getting where he is.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
To wealth is the problem because he wasn't a problem
for JK.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
No, it wasn't. But then he made fun of his
wealth and you know, he was more of a joker
than what he's more earnest and his boardroom earnest, and
that's the problem. But if you look at the opinion
polls in terms of preferred prime minister, I mean he's
very low down at twenty five percent. That was down

(04:47):
three points on the TV one Valerian pole. But then
you look at Valerian Varian Varian Valerian. I think some
people need it, isn't it. And if you look at
Chris Hopkins, the man who has put one thousand dollars
on it this week that he'll be the prime minister

(05:08):
after the next election, I think he's got to read
the polls, not only his own personal polls, but those
of the Labor Party as well. The notion that they'll
be back at the next election is fanciful.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, Barry, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Barry so for senior political correspondentrapping the week that was.
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
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