Susan Wood holds Michelle Boag’s feet to the fire (June 5, 2012)

Susan Wood holds Michelle Boag’s feet to the fire
NewstalkZB, Tuesday June 5, 2012

PR trout and ex-McCully squeeze Michelle Boag has an established reputation as a brutal National Party power-broker. She is feared and resented by a substantial section of the National Party, including the Bill English faction, since her campaign for the Double Dipper to be ousted in favour of Don Brash in 2003. She is also persona non grata with the influential right-wing blogger Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater, not because she is morally disgusting and contemptuous of democracy, but because of her vicious behaviour towards his father John, who was president of the party before she lobbied against and replaced him in 2001.

Most people will be familiar with Boag’s frequent appearances as a cruel and malicious media commentator. She is a regular guest on Jim Mora’s National Radio show The Panel, where she takes the opportunity to indulge in free-ranging right wing rants without fear of being contradicted by either the host or by Brian Edwards, with whom she is almost always paired. The only guest to ever challenge her was Bomber Bradbury, who on one memorable occasion goaded her into a snarling display of incoherent fury by asking her to justify her contention that self-exiled tax dodgers like “Sir” Douglas Myers were a loss to this country. She couldn’t, of course, and I would not be surprised if she had then used her influence with the Radio New Zealand board to initiate steps to get rid of Bradbury, who was fired a year or so later, after daring to criticize the prime minister on the programme.

In 2008, after the Radio Sport blatherer Tony Veitch publicly confessed to pushing his fiancée to the ground and repeatedly kicking her until he broke her back, Boag went on TV1’sCloseup to praise what she called Veitch’s “great performance” and pointedly demeaned the woman he had crippled by holding up and waggling her fingers as quote marks when she said the word “victim”. Of course, Mark Sainsbury said nothing, and neither did John Tamihere.

So, as an eloquent and aggressive bully, with hardly anyone daring to cross her and provoke that acid tongue, Boag enjoys pretty much of a dream run when she comes on the radio.

Listeners to NewstalkZB would have been surprised, then, to hear her being given a hard time during Larry Williams’ Drive programme. She was on the programme to speak about the Bronwyn Pullar versus ACC case. Boag has acted as Ms. Pullar’s “supporter” in her battles with the ACC, and has unwisely decided to support the right of her friend to hold onto thousands of confidential files which were accidentally sent to her.

Unfortunately for Boag, the not very intelligent, and always supine, normal host, Larry Williams, was not there yesterday. His replacement was Susan Wood, who immediately put Boag on the spot….

SUSAN WOOD: let me ask you this: if you were sent more than seven thousand confidential files, would YOU have held onto them?

BOAG: [long pause] That has never happened to me.

SUSAN WOOD: I’ll try again. Do you think it was right to hold onto more than seven thousand confidential files?

BOAG: [another long, uncomfortable pause] I… I…. that has never happened to me.

SUSAN WOOD: I’ll try it again. If you found thousands of dollars had been put into your bank account, would you or would you not tell the bank immediately?

BOAG: [barely concealing her anger] You’re asking me a hypothetical question. That has never happened to me.

Susan Wood never got an honest or straight answer out of her, but the discomfort and the omissions spoke volumes.