Trevor Mallard is one of the most awful people I’ve ever had the bad luck to run into. He’s a graceless bully and a coward to boot. Yet the Prime Minister has seen fit to reward him by appointing him as our representative offshore, presumably to Ireland. John McDonald from the Herald thinks the decision is “not just galling – it is outrageous.” It is hard to disagree with his ‘if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck’ assessment of just how appalling Trevor Mallard is.

I think it’s outrageous that the Prime Minister has given him such a cushy role, when we all know he is a complete plonker.

Which is being generous really.

Because he’s just awful. Well, that’s my honest opinion – anyway.

NZ Herald

Not only honest, but a fair opinion. McDonald goes on to outline precisely why Mallard is so awful.

Who can forget the ridiculous way he behaved during the big protest at Parliament earlier this year. Turned the sprinklers on the protesters – even though it was pouring with rain anyway – and blasted the Barry Manilow songs over the loudspeakers.

An absolute embarrassment. It was cringing. Behaving that way, as the most senior person not just in Parliament but at Parliament. In charge of pretty much everything, and there he was cranking up the sprinklers and blasting the music.

Which was bad enough on its own but let’s not forget either the time he accused someone working at Parliament of rape – and then had to backtrack and reach a legal settlement over it all.

Judith Collins called for his resignation at the time, saying he acted as a bully, was a disgrace, and unfit for the job.

And I can’t argue with that.

NZ Herald

The sheer malice and brutality in the way he dealt with the protest was appalling. Worse still he seemed to revel in watching the brutal Police resolutely stomp and smash their way through a peaceful protest.

The great glee he took in destroying a man’s career, then fighting tooth and nail to avoid any responsibility for his callous action, leaving the poor taxpayers with the massive bill for settling the issue was another example of his rather psychopathic behaviour towards people he clearly thinks of as mere minions.

I saw him on TV the other week when he appeared before a select committee at Parliament and he was grilled about his handling of the anti-mandate protest.

From what I saw, I thought he was menacing towards the MPs asking the tough questions. And I thought he was just a bully-boy the way he barged through journalists when he left the meeting room.

Just an awful, awful person – in my honest opinion. And others seem to think the same way.

NZ Herald

That’s our man in Ireland. A bully-boy, menacing, nasty, mean, unkind even. Yet Ardern thinks he’s just wonderful. The public think otherwise, however.

It was only last week that a poll done for TVNZ found that only 17 per cent of people approved of the way he’s been performing as Speaker.

NZ Herald

Only Joe Biden has worse numbers. God knows why Ardern protects him. Perhaps it is the fond memories when she was seen as Trevor’s handmaiden, on his arm at many, many events?

But, despite the way he’s behaved, despite what the people who pay his salary think of his performance (that’s us taxpayers I’m talking about), and despite the things he’s done and the misery he’s caused, Trevor Mallard is moving on to be our diplomat in Ireland.

I looked up a definition of diplomat and this is what I found. A diplomat is “a person who can deal with others in a sensitive and tactful way”.

Sensitive. Tactful. Trevor Mallard. I don’t think so. Yet, the Prime Minister thinks he’s the man for the job in Ireland and so he’s off.

If there’s a silver lining in all of this, it’s the fact that we won’t have to put up with him any longer.

And let’s hope his successor is nowhere near the national embarrassment Mallard has been.

But it is galling, isn’t it, that someone like him can be rewarded in this way.

In fact, it’s not just galling – it is outrageous.

NZ Herald

It is galling, it is outrageous, it is awful. But it is temporary.

Winston Peters on the saga and the cover up:

Now, there is a very good reason to want to elect Winston Peters. So he can exact some utu on Trevor Mallard as Foreign Minister, recalling Mallard from Ireland, to be sacked and dispatched to oblivion in ignominy. That is something I’d pay good money to see happen.

But I’ll leave the final word on Mallard to Boomslang:

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