Good riddance

Last night, Shane Jones dropped the bombshell that he would be quitting Parliament and the Labour party to work as a "roving ambassador" for Murray McCully. Good riddance. While pegged from the beginning as a "future leader" and "high performer", Jones has consistently underperformed in Parliament, his time there more memorable for scandals and blunders than any policy achievements. And while in recent months he's done solid work on exposing the shitty practices of the Australian half of our supermarket duopoly, at the same time he's been doing his best to ruin relations between Labour and one of the parties it will be relying on to be in government. And once he's gone, I suspect he'll be remembered for only two things: being the Minister of pornography, and having his Labour leadership campaign funded by the National Party. Again, good riddance, and don't let the door hit your arse on the way out. If you don't think you can win in September, if you don't want to win in September, then the Labour Party is vastly better off without you.

As for McCully: if he'd offered Jones a briefcase full of cash to resign, we'd call it what it is: Corruption and bribery of member of Parliament. I don't see how creating him a special job is any different.