politics in New Zealand...

same as anywhere really but with crucial differences.
the press corpse in NZ is infantile and sclerotic.
back in the 1980's new zealand had a prime minister named robert mudloon.
a thoroughly unlikeable individual but very very smart and politically astute.
at the same time the Capitals morning daily hired a young cartoonist tom scott who like many kiwis was appalled by this man.
he tried to take him on with his cartoons and voice bubbles but muldoon was too smart for him and aced him every time.
however every new so called journalist tried to emulate scott and failed miserably.
the end result was reporting on politics in NZ became this puerile infantilised mawkish baloney  that has never gone away.
now you get dweebs like barry soper who never report on policy but on personal peculiarities and behavioural oddities instead of the meat.
they go on and on and on about trite trivialities and never address the real questions.
they are like children who have been given this great thing but think it is their toy to push round like babies playing with their turds.
they were old fogeys before they grew up and are now intellectually bankrupt and verging on dementia before they have ever accomplished anything of value
and then in the sunday press the commentators jumped on the bandwagon.
they are like people who have read half a page of sigmund freud who disagree with it and then disagree with the whole lot.
its like sport on teevee.
if you dont know what the hell is going on then you have to keep watching it tillthe rules become clear.
just because you dont understand it the first time round does not mean in any way that it has no substance.
it just means that you are ignorant of what is happening.