Shock Jocks, Bin Faces and the Destruction of Legacy

Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson, Cross Party Lines returns with a week so packed it barely fits into an hour — Paul Henry joins ACT, Andy Burnham becomes Britain’s fourth Prime Minister in five years, Farage faces a comedian with a bin on his head, and back home, the government’s RMA and consent law moves prompt one of Chris’s angriest moments yet.

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In this episode:

* Paul Henry, celebrity candidates and the history of profile without substance — ACT’s announcement of Paul Henry as a candidate generates the most entertaining segment of the episode. Phil goes through the long and largely undistinguished history of celebrity candidates in New Zealand politics — weather forecasters, All Blacks, broadcasters, and one pair of underpants — and concludes that profile without policy preparation is a recipe for disappointment.

* Andy Burnham kisses hands, Farage resigns and Count Binface enters the arena — Britain has a new Prime Minister, its fifth in four years and seventh in ten. Phil and Chris welcome Andy Burnham’s communication skills, his record as Mayor of Greater Manchester, and his promise to rewire the economy for ordinary people and take power out of Westminster — while noting that the fiscal constraints facing him are identical to those that sank Starmer. The episode closes on Farage, who has resigned his Clacton seat to avoid scrutiny by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over his undisclosed donations, triggering a by-election against 34 candidates — including Count Binface of the Recyclon Party, whose deputy is General Waste, and whose campaign slogan is simply that he is not Nigel Farage.

* Treaty arrangements, consent law, move-on orders and a government undoing its own party’s legacy — Chris makes his position unmistakable: the government’s move to overturn local council agreements with iwi is a betrayal of the National Party traditions built by Jim Bolger, Doug Graham and Ralph Hanan, done without proper process, without submissions, and in direct contradiction of assurances that such arrangements would be grandfathered. He calls the MPs responsible two-bit careerists who despise the party’s history and says so without qualification.

This episode is a reminder that the traditions that hold a political party — and a country — together are easier to destroy than to build, and that the people doing the destroying rarely understand what they’ve lost.

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