New Zealand Idle

Suffering from declining advertising revenue and the governments decision to reallocate broadcasting spend ( to getting John Key onto North American prime time television) the producers of "New Zealand Idol" have had to rethink how to stage this popular and cutting edge edutainment event. They have taken inspiration from the comedy Outsourced : here for the first time anywhere is secret footage of the finalists to appear on next seasons contest:

BEST BLOG OF THE DAY

Lindsay Mitchell always has a considered take on political events and today is no exception.

She puts politics and the Darren Hughes Affair in its place.

Read it here.

We also watched Goff on Q and A today - he was not impressive. And tonight TVone news focussed on the disconnect between Goff and party prez Andrew Little.

While we think that Labour would be stupid to replace Goff leading up to the election we were quite surprised to see a clip on Marae of Shane Jones in a potae and a tie today -and he was minus the humourous banter. He was all serious and statesman like. So what, we wonder is he up to?

He has been a numbers man in the past and will be again. He is one of the few in Labour to have an ok relationship with Cunliffe.

And of course the Tizard factor is delicious.. We are confident that she will not step aside.

One thing we think is for certain it aint over for Labour until the fat lady sings

WAITANGI TREATY IRRELEVANT?

The Treaty of Waitangi is holding NZ back was the topic up for debate yesterday on TVNZ's Marae.

It was an interesting debate. And it came to the conclusion that the Treaty is not holding NZ back.

Marae is well worth a watch if you want to keep up with Maori politics and views. This debate was well structured and the best prepared speeches came from Matthew Hooton and Stephen Franks. However Hana O'Regan came into her own in the free for all. Shane Taurima is a broadcaster to watch. He was the perfect ringmaster for this intellectual circus. The audience, were a good mix.

Anyway for those who missed it - it is definitely worth a sit down look see.