The taping of private conversations at coffee or cocktail breaks is an interesting new development in New Zealand politics. We know of National MPs who won't give a speech and do a q&a afterwards without everything being taped, just in case they are accused of saying something they did not. We had been unaware that National Party delegates were needing to do similar things. Why one delegate chose to pass on this tape to TV3 is hard to understand, unless of course said delegate was planted by a hostile group and encouraged to ask leading questions.
We can't imagine the Labour Party encouraging this practice. Imagine what would happen if all the private comments on Winston or Helen or from Helen on others or on borrowing for infrastructure were released to the media? The Hive does not tape conversations but would happily swear affidavits on some comments. We are sure others would be in a similar position. Our Shane Jones collection would be particularly interesting to many.
What do the journalists in our readership think about the ethics of the TV3 story last night?
