Ken Mair looked rather anxious to leave Parliament on Monday night after a meeting between Maori activists and MPs over the foreshore and seabed dilemma.
It's no wonder. Back in Wanganui, his partner was in labour. We can report that he dashed back home with a few hours to spare.
His baby girl, Ngatatau Moana Tumango, came into the world at 4.20 am weighing 61b 13 oz. Mair says he had been invited to go on TVNZ's Last Word with Pam Corkery but if he had stayed to do that "it would have been the last word". The new father has four boys from a previous relationship.
David Benson-Busybody
Labour's chief whip and Dunedin South MP, David Benson-Pope, is becoming quite the sergeant major around the place. Not only does he email MPs about how to behave at parliamentary parties, and text-message instructions to MPs not to speak to the media on particular subjects, he is now trying to extend his influence to the press gallery.
Gallery chairman Mark Sainsbury received a letter from the MP complaining that some journalist, trying to get hold of MP Ashraf Choudhary urgently, had committed the heinous act of telephoning the MP's secretary at home to get a message passed on. Busybody Benson-Pope demanded assurances that such "intrusions" of privacy not be repeated. We call it using initiative. There were, naturally, no assurances given.
New love, new look, new feel
The Green Party's former musterer - the party's version of a whip - has been shorn. MP Ian Ewen-Street revealed his naked face when he arrived at work this week. The ruddy-faced MP, aka Romeo, self-confessed "boring old fart" stepped down from the primary production select committee's probe into corruption in the scampi industry after starting a relationship with one of the inquiry's lawyers, Sue Grey.
Asked about the dramatic move after being bearded for most of the past 30 years, Ewen-Street, aged 53, lapsed into talk about it mirroring major life changes. We suspect, however, it was just too prickly.
Once more, with feeling
Poor Graham Kelly. The Labour MP has now had four farewells from the foreign affairs and defence committee as he "departs" to take up his post as High Commissioner to Canada. Last year there was a cake and fond speeches the first time, then a heart attack delayed him; there were biscuits and a few kind words the second time, but a further heart trouble delayed him; there were cordial goodbyes after he sat on the committee filling in for someone else; then, back this week, he was greeted with "when the hell are you going?" by his committee colleagues. For the record, his valedictory speech will be on July 23 and he takes up his post on July 28.
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