Dr Michael Bassett

The man:

Dr Michael Bassett is probably New Zealand’s best known political historian. He is the author of nine books on New Zealand political history and is currently working on several more. He also writes a political column every second week for Wellington’s Dominion Post and Christchurch’s The Press.

Dr Bassett was New Zealand Minister of Health and Local Government between 1984 and 1987 and Minister of Internal Affairs, Local Government, Civil Defence and Arts & Culture between 1987 and 1990.

He spent ten years (1994-2004) as a tribunal member of the Waitangi Tribunal that deals with the claims of New Zealand’s indigenous people, the Maori.

So a fairly reputable commentator? I have always thought so.

Money quote from an article that touches on the Tiato Philip Field farce:

Then I read the Taito Phillip Field report. Pure sleaze. A former union secretary diddling his employees as well as the taxpayer. And the government turns away from taking the obvious step to deal with him because it might threaten their hold on office. I always knew we’d regret MMP. I didn’t realised it would totally debase our political standards. To survive, governments have to ignore sleaze, at least amongst their own. New Labour’s ministers in Britain are daily held to account for lapses that are trivial alongside Phillip Field’s. Anything goes here, especially now the numbers are tight.

Kinda sums things up really. See you in an election or two...