Allowing Carmel Sepuloni to appear on Celebrity Treasure Island is a terrible political blunder

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What the hell is this?

What the sweet zombie Jesus is this madness?

Celebrity Treasure Island: Carmel Sepuloni reveals what Chris Hipkins really thinks of her reality TV debut

The Herald spoke to Sepuloni at Te Whanganui-o-Hei/Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel, before filming for the show began, and can reveal that the deputy Labour leader was on full pay during her time on Celebrity Treasure Island.

In addition to her standard ministerial pay of $219,800 – the annual salary for a deputy leader of a party with a caucus of more than 25 MPs – Sepuloni also collected an undisclosed talent fee for appearing on the show.

With the cost of living, inflation, and a recent increase in politician pay packets on the minds of the tax-paying public, Sepuloni admits she understands that Kiwis might question why she was still being paid as a politician while appearing on reality TV.

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But, according to the 46-year-old, an MP can’t take voluntary leave without pay.

“You’re not allowed to not get paid when you’re a politician,” Sepuloni reveals, adding that the move and subsequent leave was approved by Labour leader Chris Hipkins.

Oh my God.

Oh. My. God.

Oh! My! God!

What the fuck are they doing?

1: Carmel Sepuloni is the arch matriarch of Labour. Her mana in the Party can’t be traded in for some cheap publicity on the same Network that was pimping ‘Fuck Boy Island’ FFS! It would be like Nicola Willis appearing on Married At First Sight NZ.

2: Carmel Sepuloni as Labour Welfare Minister was an abject failure. She refused to implement all of the 42 key recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, she threw 4000 disabled beneficiaries off welfare and most appallingly acquiesced to State Services to remove the Children’s Commissioner from overseeing Oranga Tamariki which will see vulnerable children in State care made even more vulnerable. We can lambast this hard right, racist, climate denying, beneficiary bashing, disabled abusing Government for their current vile welfare sanctions, yet Labour whenever in power sticks to incremental nothings that do little to make the lives of the poor better. Appearing on Celebrity Treasure Island doesn’t help in that debate.

3: She was paid the whole time she was on the show plus an appearance fee???? Oh FFS, this is going to metastasise quickly as every passing week reminds viewers she’s on full pay!

4: Why does Labour think their previous Welfare Minister will come across well on a celebrity holiday show while their voters shiver in cold housing?

5: Who is running things and why couldn’t they see the Red Flag Bingo this represents?

I’m speechless.

I’d suggest a dramatic re-arranging of media roles inside Chippy’s Office.

59 COMMENTS

  1. Meh, makes no difference as the rusted on Labour supporters will still vote Labour.
    Let her go for it, if she makes an arse of herself then it’s her own fault.
    If she does well and wins it, then it’s not so bad publicity wise?
    I don’t watch reality TV shows, but I’m sure the MSM/blogs will let me know how she is progressing….

    • Like the nutters and retard right who continued to vote Seymour after his embarrassment on Dancing with the stars. People like tighty righty still voted for him.

    • Yes the “rusted on” Labour supporters vote Labour because their parents and grandparents did. They are unable to make decisions based on reality/facts.
      Devoid of individual thought.

      • Yes the “rusted on” National supporters vote National because their parents and grandparents did. They are unable to make decisions based on reality/facts.
        Devoid of individual thought.
        That would be Bob the first.

  2. She should have taken unpaid leave, donated her fees to womens refuge and have her shown working on her ministerial work on a lap top between filming. Multi tasking . Great opportunity to sell the brand if you script everything , choreograph everything . Need to employ the company who have transformed Luxon from old fat slob to sharp suited fresh faced energrtic leader. Anything can be done with the right spin doctors.

  3. If you are in power, yes.
    But Labour are in opposition.
    90% of the country dont know who she is.
    There is no election for 3 years and Labour won’t be any where near winning for another 6 years at least.
    Free TV coverage is good value.
    She will come across as real and personable even naive sells well these days.
    But if you think it would make a difference.You spin everything.
    Take unpaid leave.
    Donate her fee to womens refuge.
    Shown working on her ministerial work on her laptop ( working from home).
    Spinning scripting sugar coating is everything.
    Look how Luxons image consultants have /trying to transform the PM from fat old bald slob
    to a slim fit suit wearing bouncy energeting leader look.
    I mean its ijust mage 101.

  4. Seymour danced with the stars and Muldoon narrated the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sepuloni might be fine. It’s a bit low brow but that’s NZ TV.

    • I agree and it is low-brow, like Dancing with the Stars.
      The Oxford Union Debate was much more classy.
      But some people like fluff like this because they don’t have to think.

      Even MPs should get to relax and do something unusual once in awhile.

      • Joy. Sure, some people like fluff, including the nincompoops who are running television, but why on earth would Sepuloni want to do this ?

        • Haven’t a clue and she has advisors, so can only conclude she’s gone against advice or that’s the advice, appear ordinary, appeal to the masses. It’s demeaning but some people will be all agog.

  5. This is plain bloody awful. Pollies have to stop confusing them selves with celebs. They’re not. We pay them to represent diligent hardworking Kiwis. It was bad enough when she issued photos of her thighs being tattooed by some blokes. What next ? Grow up, Labour. Connect.

  6. Agree – and I am a Labour suppporter! Politicians are publicly paid servant leaders NOT celebrities. It does not behove them to participate in puerile reality tv shows. Poor judgement given tghe main focus of Labour should be to rid Aotearoa NZ of the #CancerousCoalition . Bad move, Labour & Carmel.

    • Good on you Prunella, you can always vote against Labour to ensure a prosperous New Zealand,rid us of the corrupt pretenders that is Labour.

      • Good on you Prunella, you can always vote against National to ensure a prosperous New Zealand,rid us of the corrupt pretenders that is National.

  7. 100% Bomber!
    This is an epic disaster and the Coalition will now beat them over the head daily with it.
    It points to Labour and their lackadaisical attitude to taxpayers money.

  8. Didn’t do the twerker any harm did it. Plus we don’t know what she did with that extra money , she does live in a pacific island community after all and we all know what these people do to help their communities both here and the islands. Best you cast your eye on the most undemocratic government in our history Martin instead of welcoming them to your blog. A tad hypocritical don’t you think.

    • Martyn is be be congratulated on his willingness to call the left out when it is warranted while obviously a left supporter.
      It is good to see things from a different perspective.

      • I agree that Martyn is to be congratulated for allowing other points of view. We all learn from each other even if we don’t advertise it. The Working Group is a perfect example and it isn’t too far away from the thesis, antithesis and synthesis that Marxism used to value before id politics.

  9. Alas she’s likely thinking reality TV that’s how Seymour got his name out there and became The Leader.

    On the other hand there is a cost of living crisis and she’s just letting us know we all need a side hustle under NAct.

  10. ‘Bread and circuses’.
    “Bread and circuses” (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metonymic phrase referring to superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal (Satires, Satire X), a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD, and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.
    In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace,[1] by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses). Juvenal originally used it to decry the “selfishness” of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.
    ‘Idiocracy’. Film. Look it up dumb asses.
    ” In 2005, United States Army librarian Joe Bauers is selected for a government suspended animation experiment as the most average individual in the armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute, Rita, by paying off her pimp, Upgrayedd, and dismissing charges against her. A scandal involving the officer overseeing the initiative and Upgrayedd forces the closure of the military base under which Joe and Rita were placed in hibernation, suspending the project indefinitely. Over the next five hundred years, average intelligence decreases due to societal expectations, discouraging well-educated individuals from having children as the less-educated reproduce indiscriminately; genetic engineering is forgone in favor of hair loss and erectile dysfunction treatments. As a result, infrastructure deteriorates, low comedy and explicitness defines culture, and consumerism is left unfettered. ”
    And for those poor wee lambs of you who cling to the myth that we have a bi-segmented politic where greedy blue bald morons are brawling with giggly, red cheeked socialist intellectuals for the over all betterment of all of us then think again.
    Our politics? “All the same fuckin’ thing man” to paraphrase Janis Joplin. Our politics isn’t that. It’s far more a game show where we’re led to believe that we have combatant opposites striving for the best outcome for all of us. To that then I ask; look around? What do you see? I see us as slaves to foreign owned banking. That, is all I see.
    The final play of the freak show we think of as our politics will be that our AO/NZ will be given to someone else and we, as a people, will either be assimilated or die and we AO/NZ’ers are half way there already.
    Just like these guys.
    The Guardian.
    Revealed: how companies made $100m clearing California homeless camps
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/us-homeless-encampments-companies-profiting-sweeps
    The push to clear homeless camps from Venice Beach: ‘I don’t know where we’ll go’
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/venice-beach-homeless-camps-evicted-los-angeles
    So yes. Laugh it up at a lazy, sadistic sociopath making six figures plus entitlements as she drags her arse over a beach to scratch her ego.
    @ MB. You’re speechless while I’m not surprised.
    Chloe Swarbrick. help.

  11. Who in Labour would have had the power to stop her? Nobody! There’s no leader, there’s no enforcer. Labour is a party of jellyfish. It’s a beautiful thing.

    • @ Jonzie. As I keep writing…But there really never was a ‘Labour Party’ as we think we know of it as being. ‘Labour’ was a red-herring label for a clone tumour of greedy natzo scumbags. The two team crime wave were working as a tag team for the greedy scumbag Prime’s the natzo’s and their bankster, privateer urbanites who found it far too difficult to get off their lazy arses to earn a living so they manipulated our farmers into having to do that for them. That other gang of scumbags came to be known as ‘Labour’.
      Our politic is one thing only. An opportunity for institutionalised criminals and narcissistic and sociopathic self servers who came to being proper from about 1936 to make fortunes off our farmers without lifting a fat, pink little finger. Aye boys?
      @ jonzie. Before you attempt to stir up a storm in you tea cup you should probably get the facts straight otherwise you end up looking like a dick as do so many others who come here.
      AO/NZ’s economy and its society today isn’t so much a politic as ructions for supremacy within a crime syndicate.

    • And Lex Luther an airline between Te Puke and Hawaii with black Mercedes 50 Metre transfers, complimentary corruption.

    • Bob the first Wellington lost its iconic pie cart a while back, and Chippie could do well setting up another. Marama could flog chocolate bars, with song and dance courtesy of the Mad Hatter Party.

  12. “Incel Dave” the Epsom Twerker, if not started, certainly continued this “celebtrity TV” trend way back–anyone recall Act fat bastard “Hideney” was a dancer too and dropped his bundle. I don’t really give a continental what happens to Ms Sepuloni after her limp performance at MSD/WINZ when a Minister.

    Labour needs to dump Mr Hipkins and finally repudiate Rogernomics if they are going to make a comeback meaningful to the NZ working class.

  13. I actually read the evil Herald and got the facts not the fukwit assumptions. She is donating all of her salary, all of her appearance money and any prize money she might win to charity.
    She has been a hard working and loyal mp cabinet minister and Deputy since being elected in 2008.
    Now she is going to go have some fun. Good on her.

  14. Does anyone actually watch TV and if so what programmes the only thing I watch now is a bit of the news and on Friday night’s the Repair Shop and Q&A. The rest of it is dumb dumb reality shit. We are now missing out on anything that looks at what is really going on in the world.

  15. Thank you for referencing Carmel Sepuloni axing the independent Commissioner for Vulnerable Children. That alone would have stopped me from ever voting for Labour again. She may choose to flaunt herself on crap television, that’s her choice, she may double-dip, that’s her her choice, but what she did as so-called Welfare Minister to those without choices or voices defies description. The so-called Minster for Children back then also shamed himself with his silence on this issue.

  16. Embarrassing to have someone with such little self awareness and low IQ in parliament. Recently it was shown that a jobseeker was financially better off if they didn’t work than take a menial job and lose money to costs. We need people in parliament fighting for these people not treating government like a clown show.

  17. I am not convinced this as a disaster at all. You have Sepuloni doing nothing more than other MPs have done (and she will look good on the programme ) against Epsom Girls Chloë who can’t spell her name correctly, seems a bit angry/flustered most of the time and cannot invoke the waka hopping legislation. Sep is going to do well.

  18. Towing the line is what I associate with Sepuloni. Not a sprig of anything else.

    Between her and her mother she describes the bullshit ship of Labour.

    Labour, everything but labour, everything but the Left, everything but reality. And ‘never’ the neediest we left behind by their govt in 1984.

    Labour isn’t Left. Laugh out loud. We must stop pretending the non-rejecting heirs of Prebble and Douglas are for the ‘people’.

  19. ” Martyn is be be congratulated on his willingness to call the left out when it is warranted while obviously a left supporter. ”
    ” It is good to see things from a different perspective.”

    Those comments shows why some people on here are utterly deluded and brain dead when it comes to accurately observing the current political reality.

    The neo liberal un regulated capitalist economy and the politicians that work within it and prosper from it i.e. the National and Labour parties are one and the same with very few discernable differences.

    They are all captured by Milton Friedmans economic theory in place in Hobbiton for 40 years as the economic consensus. Which is why the last majority Labour government could not and did not do anything to address the serious imbalances that are creating so much hardship and unfair level of burden on many exploited New Zealanders after all the hype , vague promises and ignoring all official advice like the many working groups convened by Labour urging major reform to address the many inequities around tax and basic human rights that include a dry home , decent wages , affordable food and health care and electricity to name just a few.

    The left is dead and you only have to take your head out of your arse Trevor to understand that.

    Sepuloni is really only good for playing a celebrity on a Island and Hipkins by encouraging her shows how far away he and his colleagues are from real Labour ideals and the intelligence and mana to represent all those who are not financially independent , don’t own a property portfolio and can only dream of living on a six figure salary.

    There is no longer a clear left and right only the interchangeable free market representatives of New Labour and National ACT and NZF.

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