A novel defence of Len Brown

Herald "journalist" Bernard Orsman nailed his colours to the mast some time ago. His stories on the battle for the Auckland Supercity mayoralty have had a constant "Len Brown good; John Banks evil theme to them. He has been Brown's staunchest supporter in the media, aided and abetted no doubt by Team Brown staffer David Lewis, former chief press secretary to Helen Clark.

Orsman has excelled even himself this morning though; under the headline "Ex-mayor's mega credit card bill" he writes:

Sir Barry Curtis put $100,000 of spending on his council credit card in his final term as Manukau City Mayor.

Expenses for the former mayor, who is standing for a seat on the Auckland Council, included $31,938 on entertainment and hospitality, $44,004 on travel and accommodation and $10,683 on the mayoral vehicle.

He also spent $13,230 on other expenses, such as death and other newspaper notices, flowers, suit hire and dry cleaning.

Now apart from the fact that Sir Barry is competing for a bit part in the 2010 elections, his spending is old news. But Orsman them "manages" to put it in context with this bit (our emphasis added):

Sir Barry, 71, who retired in 2007 after 24 years as mayor of the most socially challenged council in New Zealand, yesterday defended the spending, details of which were obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.

The total of $100,139 compares with $16,977 run up by his successor Len Brown in his first 30 months as Manukau mayor.

There you have it dear readers. Team Brown can no longer defend the spending of its profligate mayoral candidate, so it has to get its pet journalist to run the "he isn't as bad as the last guy" defence. We're calling "bullshit" on that.

Bernard Orsman loses any semblance of neutrality with this piece of gutter journalism. Len Brown has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and his point-blank refusal to disclose who he dined with at Volare that fateful night (at Manukau ratepayers' expense) is shameful. It makes him, in our ever-humble opinion, unfit to hold the office of mayor of the Auckland Supercity.