New Zealand’s political twittersphere has been buzzing with rumours of a big political scandal, known now as the #motherofallscandals, which is expected to come to light at some stage today.
Newsroom.co.nz has apparently got their hands on something juicy, and a number of top journalists and politicians are hinting that they know what it is, but potentially either don’t have full confirmation or are still in discussions with lawyers.
NZ Herald Columnist Rachel Stewart indicated she knew what was going on when she tweeted “One word: Dominatrix. (I've had the phone call too).”
She later revealed that was a joke, “Now that I've thrown you all a dummy pass - and it's nearly Monday - the story is about a certain person with the initials PB. Not S&M.”
That didn’t seem to stop random commentators from speculating about everything from a John Key Affair to a Bill English sextape, or an MP secretly working as a sex worker.
Luckily that doesn’t seem to be the case. New Zealand journalism has a proud history of keeping politicians private lives out of the public light, and frankly if this supposed ‘scandal’ turns out to be about any sexual activity between two consenting adults, it’s none of our business anyway.
Critic thinks the ‘PB’ hinted to in Rachel Stewart’s tweet may point in the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett.
Peter Dunne seems to know something. After Winston Peters was revealed to have been overpaid $18,000 in superannuation, the former United Future leader tweeted “Let's see how the Superannuation overpayment story looks 24 hours from now”.
Right wing pundit Matthew Hooton suggested the whole thing was a dirty politics operation by the left, tweeting, “Lovely campaign where @jacindaardern is ‘relentlessly positive’ while her staffers put out stories of sex work against her opponents”.
Whaleoil blogger Cameron Slater published an article titled “It seems the mother of all political scandals is stuck at Legal”. The main picture? Paula Bennett. Not exactly subtle. He claims he tried digging into the same issue a while ago, but “even though it may be rooted in fact, there simply isn’t enough of it to make the story defamation-proof.”
Rachel Stewart wrote, “That woman, Mrs Peanut Butter, clearly has some stroppy lawyers doing their biz for her. I hope @NewsroomNZ hold on tight to their reveal.”
If the lawyers are still working on this story, we can only hope that they find a way to release it. Twitter seems convinced of some kind of benefit fraud, but after that same issue already took down Metiria Turei and plagued Winston Peters, what are the chances that it shows up a third time in just one election?
Hold onto your seats, this could be a rocky ride.