Shane Jones announced last night that he was not going to seek reelection at the coming election, he is leaving Parliament at the end of next month, with talk that he is going to take up a position with MFAT as a Pacific Economic Ambassador. I blogged earlier on this year about what I thought Shane’s increasing use of Twitter might mean.
The reaction and discussion on Twitter has been interesting. I will start off with Felix Markwick’s observation.
Morgan Godfrey has also been reflecting on events and asks an interesting question.
This resulted in a number of replies, prompting him to ask:
There were some interesting responses to this question, some of a party political nature, refer David Farrar, others provide interesting insights, not just into Shane Jones and his retirement, but also other political battles.
LewSOS also made some interesting observations that really should be causing the Labour Party leadership to question how the party has ended up in the situation it has.
The last tweet in that string, from Morgan, is the real kicker in the whole situation.
Later in the evening, LewSOS added this to the conversation:
So unlike when Tau Henare retired, where the over all reaction was one of congratulating him on his time, and wishing him well for the future. The reaction to Shane’s announcment has been more of a debate about why he is going, should he have gone, it is good to see him going. This may be because it was less expected that Tau’s, but it is also a sign of how divisive Shane is in New Zealand politics, and especially in Labour party politics. There are many out there, on both sides of the political divide, who are excited about Shane going. However, just as with Tau, I believe it will be a loss to Parliament. Shane is someone willing to tell it how he sees it. He is not as afraid of the party whip as other MPs are. This is not a bad thing.
I will leave the final observation to Twitter.
