Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The rehabilitation of Shane Jones

It would appear that the rehabilitation of Shane Jones is almost complete; this morning's NZ Herald reports:

Disgraced Labour MP Shane Jones is set to be returned to glory by party leader Phil Goff in a reshuffle early this year.

He is tipped to be handed the Maori Affairs portfolio and placed on the frontbench as Labour prepares its lineup for the election.

In June, Mr Jones was stripped of all of his shadow portfolios and demoted as punishment for using his ministerial credit card while in government for personal purchases, including porn movies at hotels, the costs of which he later repaid.

Although applauded for his repentance, Mr Jones has remained on the backbenches since.

But Mr Goff, when asked if the country could expect to see the return of Mr Jones in the planned New Year reshuffle, said: "Absolutely."

He indicated changes would be made to the frontbench. Mr Jones is expected to benefit from those, as is first-term MP Grant Robertson.


I guess the one thing that we can conclude from this story is that Shane Jones is NOT one of the Carter Seventeen. Jones was always going to return to Labour's front bench at some point, but we hope that he won't be sharing a bench with David Cunliffe; there wouldn't be room for the two egos!

And might we offer Phil Goff some advice; instead of making Shane Jones Labour's Maori Affairs spokeman (is that a sign that Parekura Horomia will be retiring soon?), why not make him the Arts spokesman, with particular responsibility for the film industry?

7 comments:

jabba said...

I think Horomia must have indicated he was out awhile ago .. his Q time action is all but zero these days and he looks really tired .. I was going to saw he is goneburger but might get him excited

robertguyton said...

'Goneburger' is funny jabba.
Shane has a brain and will cause all sorts of anguish once he's sat up front.

Anonymous said...

It'll be interesting to see Jones in a tug-of-war with his opposing member. He couple potentially pull-off a great deal of support, eventually beating-off Cunliffe.

Inventory2 said...

Cheers for that Anon; I'm glad I put my cup of tea down before I read that comment, or I might have been needing a new keyboard!

alex Masterley said...

Shane will grasp the opportunity with both hands...

Siena said...

lol,Alex!

pdm said...

RG. - Shane Jones is not a brain. If he had a brain he would not have used tax payers money to watch porn.

Shane Jones is an arrogant twit.