"I didn't put these as allegations I put these as questions," he told National Radio today. Disgraceful.
"Is it true you've stopped beating your wife, Rodney?" That is a question, by the way, not an allegation. "Are ACT and National a complete waste of parliamentary time?" That is both an allegation, and a rhetorical question.
As I've asked before, where the hell is the real opposition?
[UPDATE 1, 12:05pm: Berend has an MP3
of Linda Clark's interview with a former student of Benson-Dope's. Decide for yourself whether it supports the specific claims made yesterday, and whether it is up to Linda Clark et al to dig for the evidence RH and Judith Collins haven't bothered to provide, ie., "Rodney Hide: Will he resign as Minister if it transpires that, indeed, he did throw tennis balls at his students in the classroom, and tie their hands up and stuff tennis balls in their mouths, as punishment for talking?"][UPDATE 2, 12:35pm: Russell Brown suggests in Hard News here that "I wouldn't put too much stock in Rodney Hide's apparent speedy withdrawal
of his claims of historical classroom bullyingagainst associate education minister David Benson Pope. I'd say the whole idea was to extract denials on multiple allegations in the House from the minister - so that if one of the alleged victims does come forward to claim anything in public, the Opposition can merrily kick around the idea that Benson Pope has misled Parliament." As yet, neither Collins nor Hide have fronted with anything remotely approaching evidence.Says Russell, "Good grief. Is this the sort of election campaign we're going to have?" It is if this is all the opposition we've got.]
3 comments:
I'm not even going to start on what a waste of time the Libertarianz are, but let's get to your criticism. Because Benson-Pope's denial was made in Parliament, he is as an MP legally unable to assert that BP is lying. However, I have no doubt Rodney will continue to pursue this issue as the accusers come forward.
Hi Blair, you said, " I'm not even going to start on what a waste of time the Libertarianz are..."
Good, since I would have to ask you why you're bothering to comment here then. That isn't an invitation to stop doing so by the way -- your questions are always welcome. :-)
"Because Benson-Pope's denial was made in Parliament, he is as an MP legally unable to assert that BP is lying."
Rubbish. If he and Collins have evidence they should have produced it, as Rodney was so keen to point out about a recent series of accusations he began by defending.
If he had the evidence to hand, RH could have relied on it and called Benson-Dope on it. Instead he's backtracked, he's withdrawn his assault claim, and we're left to assume he asked these questions with no evidence available to him to back them up.
What do you call that?
"However, I have no doubt Rodney will continue to pursue this issue as the accusers come forward."
So he was asking questions in order to invite accusers to come forward? I believe in courtrooms around the country this is known as a 'fishing expedition.'
I'm waiting for you to see sorry...
And the next update: TV3, did you see it?
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