- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday, January 26, 2009

Paula ‘Soprano’ Bennett (Herald on Sunday writes from the gutter)


PM expresses support for MP with gangster link
Prime Minister John Key has expressed "full confidence" in Social Development Minister Paula Bennett after it was revealed a violent street gang member was bailed to her house while he awaited trial. But a spokesman for Mr Key today said he had "full confidence" in Ms Bennett and ministers' and MPs' private lives should remain private. A spokesman for Ms Bennett said it was a "family issue". The man, Viliami Halaholo, has been jailed for causing grievous bodily harm, but his girlfriend - Bennett's 21-year-old daughter Ana - visits him once a fortnight in Mt Eden Prison. Their daughter Tiara-Lee is aged 2.

Ugh, what an ugly little rag the HOS is, remember that dreadful Carolyne Meng-Yee having the awfulness to ask Peter Davis if he liked having sex with Helen Clark? God how despicable to have your sex life asked about during an election that should have a media focused on asking what the fuck they intend to do if in power, not a media focused on how they fuck. How yucky, how trashy, how Herald on Sunday, the Sunday Newspaper you pick up after a sleazy night on the town and don’t want people seeing you reading at the café the next morning. Here we have an ‘exclusive’ where Paula Bennett is put on trial for her daughter having a relationship with a young guy whose been in trouble and Bennett having the compassion to put him up for a while. Is this really journalism? “Minister’s life with gang thug” screams the headline - WTF? Isn’t this just an example of how both political parties have fed the angry dogs of the electorate so much raw meat policy on law and order that the mere connection with that most despised cancerous tumour of society, da yuff gang, is enough to suddenly be the centre of attention with a “news” story from the HOS that sounds more like a late night Sensible Sentencing press release personally written by Garth McVicar after a couple of bottles of cheap sherry.

Da Yuff gang the “thug” was a member of was the “Thugs of Canal”, which sounds more like some sort of Venetian porn than organized crime, the HOS breathlessly informs us that the “TOC” reportedly has a “history of violence and intimidation, creating the risk inappropriate pressure could be brought to bear on the senior minister and her decisions”. Are you fucking kidding me, the TOC “reportedly” have a history of violence and intimidation and this yuff gang might threaten the Senior Minister Paula Bennett, isn’t “reportedly” journalistic euphemism for “anonymous bloke down pub told me”? This sounds more like a fantasy story dreamed up by the more royal blue bloods within the National hierarchy concerned someone of Bennett’s Westie class gets to be a Minister than any real security issue, didn’t we all see Paula kick some butt in her own neighbourhood last week, you think that woman would put up with some half-arsed yuff gang wannabee threaten her for one second? Pfft, there are questions the new Minister should be answering, but they sure as hell aren’t to do with who her daughter is in a relationship with by a sleazy news story aimed at capturing the media inspired loathing of da yuff gang cancer and injecting it via association into a Cabinet Minister. The questions Paula Bennett should be asked are what is Rodney Hides razor gang going to cut from welfare spending and has she been set up as a patsy to soft sell those deep welfare cuts? Who the Ministers Daughter dates pales within context of the real issues that confront the welfare issues of NZ, and it is those issues the media should be focused on asking.

7 Comments:

At 26/1/09 1:18 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The bit I don't understand is how come a grandmother was selected to be the Nat 'young gun' to be featured on the execrable TV1 'breakfast' by the that nastie little winger, back in 07 when he was searching for a way to maximise National's exposure on his show.
As for the self proclaimed Westie herself, Bennett has been hoist by her own petard here.
just a week back when the shameless self promoter was in search of column inches, she wove some fantastic yarn about how walking past a mob of 12 and 13 year olds being exuberant in the school holidays was 'breaking up a gang brawl'.
Those kids weren't patched members of any gang, her son in law is, yet media interest in her son in law is vicarious and irrelevant?

Bennett has been at the forefront of stoking prejudice against young NZers who feel so disempowered by the elements of NZ society they come in contact with that they band together seeking strength in numbers. If gangs are the evil that Bennet and her party claim them to be, why does she bail gang members to her home.
If it were anyone else's kid the nats would be denouncing the 'Labour created system of injustice' that doesn't lock up gangsters as soon as they are apprehended.

Voters have a right to know that sauce for the goose isn't sauce for the gander when the Nats confront the issue of gangs and youth pregnancy in their own private lives.

 
At 26/1/09 2:11 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

TOC are just a group of guys who grew up on Canal Street and do little more than binge drink, get into fights at parties and tagging. I am reasonably certain one of Hone Harewera's nephews is in TOC because I remember the rest of them giving him shit for his grandma always being on TV at Waitangi.

 
At 26/1/09 5:14 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Normally I think Nationals fearmongering about crime and their populist non soloutions to it are a bad joke.

But through having a young person in trouble with the law staying at her home it seems that she is doing something about it on a PERSONAL level.

You cant critisize some-one for that and I see it as showing a sliver of good in her.

 
At 26/1/09 6:16 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If she can't even control her own child from shacking up with some piece of shit gang member what hope do we have with her as a minister?

Do as I say, not as I do.

 
At 27/1/09 9:10 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

God who cares....of course she could break up a fight....it would be like a tank heading toward midgets!!!!

 
At 27/1/09 11:23 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh dear, visiting the boyfriend/parner/husband/kids dad .... in jail, it can only end in tears.

Surely there are men avalable who manage to get through life without a stay in jail. Is this the best this young woman thinks she can do, a self-esteem issue here perhaps.

Mother is relevant because her reasons for having a criminal (and a violent one at that) as a partner will go back to what she learnt from her parents, particularly her mother - sad really.

Don't normalise jail, the overwhelming majority of people have little or no contact with jail or those who live there. Sadly some people don't get that, they grow up in a crime/violence/jail is normal culture.

 
At 14/4/09 9:39 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who are the TOC's and is Canal Street a dodgy street?

 

Post a Comment

<< Home