Even in a National government that always viewed the media as the enemy, Coleman was notorious among New Zealand's news journalists for his unwillingness to talk about some huge issues facing the health sector. He would only talk to reporters if they caught him in the hallways of Parliament, would never agree to a decent one-on-one interview with anybody, and outright ignored some pretty fucking important questions from journos like Kirsty Johnston for a goddamn decade.
As a lame duck minister who is only filling in time until he can fill his pockets in the private sector, Coleman obviously thought they would take it a bit easier now that he was no longer in power and agreed to talk to RNZ, but seemed genuinely shocked to be asked some hard questions about the state of some health department buildings, which were found to contain some dangerous mould.
Coleman was so surprised that somebody might confront him about the issue of this black mould in buildings that were under his charge that he did the obvious thing, and attacked the people asking him the question, saying they had ambushed him without warning.
It sounded lame, but it worked with the usual idiots, who bombarded RNZ with messages telling them that Susie was shrill and mean and rude to the poor politician and they were never going to listen to the station again, because being less informed about news and current affairs was definitely going to help their arguments. (The language of these complaints were, of course, riddled with the kind of sexist, misogynistic bullshit that Guyon never seems to get.)
But the idea that Coleman was blindsided by the questioning was a load of crap, and the delightful Ms Ferguson confirmed this with a tweet, which contained the message to Doc Coleman's people from the day before the interview, making it quite clear what they were interested in talking about.
Of course RNZ were going to go hard on the mould thing - four big Middlemore Hospital buildings were full of rot and dangerous mould that could make staff and patients sick. It was a news story they had broken and was a long-term issue that his ministry was responsible for. That's always going to be the angle of any interview, not 'my top five haircuts during my time in government'.
Frankly, Coleman was fucking dreaming if he thought he wouldn't have to answer for failures on his watch. The health portfolio is massively important, and the National government's determined bid to run it like a business has been a bloody catastrophe. We're literally talking about matters of life and death here, and anybody at the head of all that needs to acknowledge that they have fucked up, or we're never going to get anywhere.
Coleman can piss off to work for a private health company now, leaving behind a system full of aging equipment, underpaid & overworked staff and buildings that can make sick people even sicker. But he can not walk away from this legacy, and no journalist is ever going to let him get off that easy.
People in position of power have to be held accountable and that accountability doesn't just melt away when you slink out of office. The current government is a bit more willing to talk to news people about the issues they're facing and while that isn't going to last forever, no journalist is ever going to try and stop asking the questions that need to be asked. No matter how rude they sound.
- Katherine Grant
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