Haven't jumped on the Hipkins nor Luxon beat up but old Benjie sure as hell was a bit dodgy.
Politics 🗳️ NZ Politics
- Thread starter wizard of Tauranga
- Start date
Don't laugh but I have a close family member (she's gone to bed) who petrolled up the farm diesel Hilux once and only once
As long as it's not Hobson's Choice I'll stick with you
Can you post the article please as I can’t locate one making the comparison
miket12
🏛️
I'm assuming it's this one which also mentions Doyle and Ardern/Clarke Gayford.
Chris Hipkins allegations: When politicians’ personal lives become fair game - Audrey Young
Some personal stories about politicians are in the public interest and some personal stories about politicians are simply what the public is interested in.
The lines are increasingly blurred, as the Chris Hipkins story demonstrates.
These days, when everybody carries a camera or a tape recorder in their phone, and social media behaves like the wild west, almost anything that surfaces publicly, reflecting on the character of our political leaders, is considered fair game.
Social media posts and comments have no boundaries. A pattern has been well established in recent years. Keyboard warriors fulminate about how mainstream media is ignoring the story – whether it is true or not.
Partisans declare with “certainty” that, were the same damaging allegations made about a politician from their side of the fence, the mainstream media would be crawling all over it.
More often than not, the politician decides that ignoring the social media storm is doing more damage than addressing it would, and makes a statement.
The mainstream media then picks up the story in a way that would survive a complaint to the Media Council or Broadcasting Standards Authority.
When Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister, it was her partner, Clarke Gayford, who eventually engaged a lawyer to help put an end to false and persistent rumours.
Last year, former Green MP Benjamin Doyle was subject to online rumour and speculation about some dubious social media posting before coverage hit the mainstream.
Police issued formal warnings to four individuals for breaches of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 in relation to Doyle, who has since left Parliament.
This week, right-wing warriors expressed disgust at how mainstream media (in fact very few) reported an unsubstantiated story about the Samoan Prime Minister saying Christopher Luxon had sought a matai title, a claim denied by Luxon and since retracted by the Samoan Prime Minister.
The same week, the same warriors expressed disgust at how mainstream media was ignoring claims against Labour leader Chris Hipkins by his ex-wife, Jade Paul.
Most would call that hypocrisy.
On Monday, a variation in the pattern occurred. After the claims by Jade Paul were posted on Facebook, mainstream media published stories saying allegations had been made by his ex-wife, with most choosing not to repeat the substance of them. Anyone reading or listening to the stories would have been left with a big question: What is Hipkins’ ex-wife alleging?
In my view, it goes against one of the fundamentals of traditional journalistic practice, which is to not run a story that poses more questions than answers.
Do we really want to see more stories about rumours and allegations without the detail – sending readers back to social media to find it for themselves?
There have always been rumours in Parliament, across the political spectrum and down the decades. The behaviour of MPs, rumours of affairs among colleagues, affairs with staffers, affairs across the aisle, and affairs with staffers across the aisles.
Some of those have done the rounds in Wellington in the past year, supposedly involving coalition MPs. Some have been repeated on social media. To date, none of the rumours I am aware of have met what I believe is the public interest threshold. If they did, journalists should and would investigate them.
By the way, here’s the thing about the partisans castigating the media for treading carefully on Jade Paul’s claims.
If the shoe was on the other foot, and the media avoided reporting rumours about MPs that those partisans support, they would not be accusing media of bias in the way they are now.
The reason journalistic norms didn’t apply in this case was no doubt threefold:
- Almost certainly because of legal advice that repeating the claims would leave media companies exposed to potential legal action.
- Hipkins is the alternative Prime Minister and the public interest in his character is higher.
- It was his former wife making the allegations, not some random posting anonymously.
Jade Paul’s post suggests she is very unhappy with Hipkins, that she had some awful health episodes when they were together, that she felt neglected by him at crucial times, and that she felt he put work first.
They may have had arguments about money after separating, but Hipkins’ parents, Rose and Doug, also appear to have supported her at various times.
We won’t hear Hipkins’ version of events because he has chosen not to litigate the minutiae of their marriage in public.
Suffice to say, his blanket denials are almost certainly not about some of the facts, but of her characterisation of them and what was going on in his mind at the time.
That is not actually something he can prove or disprove in 2026.
One of the questions Hipkins answered at a press conference yesterday was about an allegation from Paul about “an intern and an affair”.
Hipkins replied: “It’s a matter of public record that Toni interned in my office many many years ago, that was back in about 2010. I met Jade in 2013. My relationship with Toni started in 2023 – over a year after Jade and I had separated.”
He said there was “absolutely not” a relationship with Toni during the time he was with Jade. And asked whether he had a relationship with Toni years ago when she was an intern, he said “no”.
Jade Paul and Chris Hipkins had their two children, now aged about 10 and 7, before getting married in 2020 – just before Covid-19 struck. He was made Health Minister halfway through that year and the pair split in 2022.
Hipkins became Prime Minister in 2023 and revealed his new relationship with Toni Grace in October – on election night.
He was on holiday with her in Australia this week when Paul, on holiday in Fiji with the kids, decided to vent.
The closest historical comparison to Paul’s posts was the phone call Naomi Lange made to a newspaper in 1989 to reveal that her husband David Lange was having an affair with speech-writer Margaret Pope, whom he later married.
While it was something that was not in the public interest at the time – he had already stepped down as Prime Minister – it was most certainly something the public was interested in reading about.
One of the worst times for personal warfare over private lives occurred in 2006 when Don Brash led National in Opposition and Helen Clark was leading Labour in its third term.
Brash’s marriage break-up spilled into the public because an Independent Financial Review journalist found out that a National MP, Brian Connell, had confronted Brash at a caucus meeting about an affair and questioned his fitness to lead. That brought it into the realm of the public interest as well as interesting to the public.
Around the same time, Helen Clark accused the Sunday Star Times of running “vile, baseless lies” – rumours about her husband, Peter Davis.
The Jade Paul post has the potential to affect the political landscape.
Hipkins has not only led a surprisingly disciplined Labour Party to contention this election, the most recent poll has him edging out Christopher Luxon as preferred Prime Minister, just.
Her post could affect some people’s trust in Hipkins. A small shift in support could have a large consequence in a close election.
Audrey Young: When the personal becomes political - are MPs' private lives fair game?
Media outlets named Chris Hipkins but avoided repeating his ex-wife's claims.
Thanks MikeI'm assuming it's this one which also mentions Doyle and Ardern/Clarke Gayford.
Chris Hipkins allegations: When politicians’ personal lives become fair game - Audrey Young
Some personal stories about politicians are in the public interest and some personal stories about politicians are simply what the public is interested in.
The lines are increasingly blurred, as the Chris Hipkins story demonstrates.
These days, when everybody carries a camera or a tape recorder in their phone, and social media behaves like the wild west, almost anything that surfaces publicly, reflecting on the character of our political leaders, is considered fair game.
Social media posts and comments have no boundaries. A pattern has been well established in recent years. Keyboard warriors fulminate about how mainstream media is ignoring the story – whether it is true or not.
Partisans declare with “certainty” that, were the same damaging allegations made about a politician from their side of the fence, the mainstream media would be crawling all over it.
More often than not, the politician decides that ignoring the social media storm is doing more damage than addressing it would, and makes a statement.
The mainstream media then picks up the story in a way that would survive a complaint to the Media Council or Broadcasting Standards Authority.
When Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister, it was her partner, Clarke Gayford, who eventually engaged a lawyer to help put an end to false and persistent rumours.
Last year, former Green MP Benjamin Doyle was subject to online rumour and speculation about some dubious social media posting before coverage hit the mainstream.
Police issued formal warnings to four individuals for breaches of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 in relation to Doyle, who has since left Parliament.
This week, right-wing warriors expressed disgust at how mainstream media (in fact very few) reported an unsubstantiated story about the Samoan Prime Minister saying Christopher Luxon had sought a matai title, a claim denied by Luxon and since retracted by the Samoan Prime Minister.
The same week, the same warriors expressed disgust at how mainstream media was ignoring claims against Labour leader Chris Hipkins by his ex-wife, Jade Paul.
Most would call that hypocrisy.
On Monday, a variation in the pattern occurred. After the claims by Jade Paul were posted on Facebook, mainstream media published stories saying allegations had been made by his ex-wife, with most choosing not to repeat the substance of them. Anyone reading or listening to the stories would have been left with a big question: What is Hipkins’ ex-wife alleging?
In my view, it goes against one of the fundamentals of traditional journalistic practice, which is to not run a story that poses more questions than answers.
Do we really want to see more stories about rumours and allegations without the detail – sending readers back to social media to find it for themselves?
There have always been rumours in Parliament, across the political spectrum and down the decades. The behaviour of MPs, rumours of affairs among colleagues, affairs with staffers, affairs across the aisle, and affairs with staffers across the aisles.
Some of those have done the rounds in Wellington in the past year, supposedly involving coalition MPs. Some have been repeated on social media. To date, none of the rumours I am aware of have met what I believe is the public interest threshold. If they did, journalists should and would investigate them.
By the way, here’s the thing about the partisans castigating the media for treading carefully on Jade Paul’s claims.
If the shoe was on the other foot, and the media avoided reporting rumours about MPs that those partisans support, they would not be accusing media of bias in the way they are now.
The reason journalistic norms didn’t apply in this case was no doubt threefold:
It may not have reached the threshold it did if Hipkins had been a backbencher, or if it had been an anonymous post. But the fact his ex-wife was making such serious claims was too big to ignore.
- Almost certainly because of legal advice that repeating the claims would leave media companies exposed to potential legal action.
- Hipkins is the alternative Prime Minister and the public interest in his character is higher.
- It was his former wife making the allegations, not some random posting anonymously.
Jade Paul’s post suggests she is very unhappy with Hipkins, that she had some awful health episodes when they were together, that she felt neglected by him at crucial times, and that she felt he put work first.
They may have had arguments about money after separating, but Hipkins’ parents, Rose and Doug, also appear to have supported her at various times.
We won’t hear Hipkins’ version of events because he has chosen not to litigate the minutiae of their marriage in public.
Suffice to say, his blanket denials are almost certainly not about some of the facts, but of her characterisation of them and what was going on in his mind at the time.
That is not actually something he can prove or disprove in 2026.
One of the questions Hipkins answered at a press conference yesterday was about an allegation from Paul about “an intern and an affair”.
Hipkins replied: “It’s a matter of public record that Toni interned in my office many many years ago, that was back in about 2010. I met Jade in 2013. My relationship with Toni started in 2023 – over a year after Jade and I had separated.”
He said there was “absolutely not” a relationship with Toni during the time he was with Jade. And asked whether he had a relationship with Toni years ago when she was an intern, he said “no”.
Jade Paul and Chris Hipkins had their two children, now aged about 10 and 7, before getting married in 2020 – just before Covid-19 struck. He was made Health Minister halfway through that year and the pair split in 2022.
Hipkins became Prime Minister in 2023 and revealed his new relationship with Toni Grace in October – on election night.
He was on holiday with her in Australia this week when Paul, on holiday in Fiji with the kids, decided to vent.
The closest historical comparison to Paul’s posts was the phone call Naomi Lange made to a newspaper in 1989 to reveal that her husband David Lange was having an affair with speech-writer Margaret Pope, whom he later married.
While it was something that was not in the public interest at the time – he had already stepped down as Prime Minister – it was most certainly something the public was interested in reading about.
One of the worst times for personal warfare over private lives occurred in 2006 when Don Brash led National in Opposition and Helen Clark was leading Labour in its third term.
Brash’s marriage break-up spilled into the public because an Independent Financial Review journalist found out that a National MP, Brian Connell, had confronted Brash at a caucus meeting about an affair and questioned his fitness to lead. That brought it into the realm of the public interest as well as interesting to the public.
Around the same time, Helen Clark accused the Sunday Star Times of running “vile, baseless lies” – rumours about her husband, Peter Davis.
The Jade Paul post has the potential to affect the political landscape.
Hipkins has not only led a surprisingly disciplined Labour Party to contention this election, the most recent poll has him edging out Christopher Luxon as preferred Prime Minister, just.
Her post could affect some people’s trust in Hipkins. A small shift in support could have a large consequence in a close election.
Audrey Young: When the personal becomes political - are MPs' private lives fair game?
Media outlets named Chris Hipkins but avoided repeating his ex-wife's claims.www.nzherald.co.nz
That’s the only one I could find but it doesn’t tie in with what Wiz posted
- Thread starter
- #23,288
Lumping the Luxon Somoa issue with the Hipkins story as a non event not worthy of publishing…
Yet the usual on here posting internet fake news
j_p
🦋
Disagree. Look at the timing of this. They broke up in 22,why wait till election year. Anf if there's any truth to her working in some capacity with nz first it just adds further fuel to that possibility.
- Thread starter
- #23,290
Probably did do it to hurt him politically. Probably been festering for years and as she said, keeps missing jobs due to a conflict of interest. She was in politics herself interning in political parties so is probably politically savvy, knew what she was doing and aimed to do as much damage as possible.
End of the day it had to be her decision to post this and attack him, no one else made her.
She alone is making the allegation, she has to answer to him and the fallout. Rightly or wrongly, this is all on her.
But just as we shouldn’t attack Hipkins over this, we should stay out of her issues as well. It’s all a messy private fallout really. I just hope she’s now getting the apples she needs…
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- Thread starter
- #23,291
And just out.
Peters has issued a statement, however, clarifying that Hipkins’ ex-wife, Jade Paul, does not work for his party or have any affiliation to or role with it.
“We are not interested in a politician’s current personal relationship issues and won’t be commenting at all on the matter – apart from the fact that there are lies now being spread, including that the person involved works for New Zealand First. This is false.
www.nzherald.co.nz
Peters has issued a statement, however, clarifying that Hipkins’ ex-wife, Jade Paul, does not work for his party or have any affiliation to or role with it.
“We are not interested in a politician’s current personal relationship issues and won’t be commenting at all on the matter – apart from the fact that there are lies now being spread, including that the person involved works for New Zealand First. This is false.
'Lies are being spread' linking Hipkins' ex-wife to NZ First – Peters
Chris Hipkins says he considered quitting politics but is 'absolutely committed' to stay.
Another coalition disaster
View: https://bsky.app/profile/marcdaalder.bsky.social/post/3mhebjefcys2o
View: https://bsky.app/profile/marcdaalder.bsky.social/post/3mhebjefcys2o
How about addressing the appalling decision?
I honestly don't have an opinion on the decision. Good / bad / indifferent. Like many NZers, I have pandemic fatigue, so don't tend to read much about planning for the next one
However, I do have an opinion on Helen Clarke. She was once a great leader. One that I even voted for! Now, she's a 76 year old woman living in a leafy suburb near a stadium and opposes hearing people enjoy using it. And who provides her opinions on topics from an ivory tower.
She lost a bit of credibility recently by providing an opinion on NZ's reaction to Iran being freed from a tyrannical dictator that removed women's rights (legalised spousal rape, allowed husbands to detain their wives), persecuted LGBQ and minorities, etc. She preferred to live a world where the US did not kill him like they did
So yeah, she's impotent and irrelevant nowadays
Interesting. Can you provide the quote from her that you find the most offensive when it comes to the situation in Iran?
Noitall
👤
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Sorry Took so long to find
Busy day
I am suspicious about this second article popping up on Facebook a few hours after the initial Hipkins story broke
Attachments
You can use your critical thinking skills and google
I’m not here to provide a ChatGPT service to collate public information
What I’ve provided is my opinion on her. An opinion doesn’t require quotes and reference sources
