John Tamihere Labour MP John Tamihere has shocked colleagues with a scathing interview he gave to fundamentalist Christian journalist Ian Wishart, which is peppered with homophobic insults and rhetoric. In the interview published in Wishart's Investigate magazine, Tamihere labels gay MPs Chris Carter and Tim Barnett as "queers," refers to lesbian associates of the Prime Minister as "butch," and says gay sex is "unhealthy" and "violating." In addition, he calls Carter a "tosser" for daring to lobby him over the Civil Union Bill: "He came up to me and harangues me, because he wants to be the first to get married on 1 April, the tosser, and he says to me, 'But you're a minority John, you understand'," he said. "I tell you what, if I was on the other side mate I'd have cut the bloody Labour Party to pieces over moral issues. There's a huge pendulum swing against what my leadership stands for." Tamihere's attacks on women (or “wimmin” as he terms them) close to the Prime Minister even went as far as to suggest the government is being run by those with an anti-family homosexual agenda, playing right into the hands of Wishart, who last year wrote an unauthorised “biography” of the Prime Minister for his magazine in which he accused her of being a lesbian. “They [Prime Minister and associates] don't have families. They've got nothing but the ability to plot... Clark has been brutalised by people who have called her lesbian, no children and all the rest of it. Her key advisor Heather Simpson is a butch, and a lot of her support systems are, Maryann Street and so on, and she's very comfortable in that world and comfortable with it. I'm not." The “queer” insults were deflected by Tamihere in his weekly appearance on the Paul Holmes breakfast show on radio this morning, in which he told National MP Katherine Rich to look at the MPs on her side of the house that hadn't come out of the closet yet. Intriguingly, the liberal Rich – dumped from the National front bench earlier this year – said she agreed with much of what Tamihere said in his interview, including that the country was being run by a bunch of “one-dimensional” women who were out of touch with Kiwi society because they didn't have families. Alluding to the Carter comments, Rich said it was a prime example of the “bullying” that went on in the Labour Party over conscience votes, and how that never happened in National. Rather less surprisingly, Holmes noted that during Tamihere's appearance the conservative radio network had been inundated with calls in support of Tamihere's comments in “Investigate”, encouraging him to stick to his guns. Tamihere's abusive comments also come hard on the heels of another attack he made in his weblog last week – initially published on the Labour Party website before it was pulled – in which he made disparaging comments about ACT leader Rodney Hide over his friendship with embattled gay commentator Jim Peron, describing him as Hide's “soul mate”: “Hide stood up in the House and stated unequivocally that ‘Jim Peron is a fine upstanding citizen – he has had dinner at my house and I have had dinner at his house' I wonder what tricks and treats occurred at these dinners?” he wrote. The Prime Minister has refused to accept Tamihere's resignation, which was offered, telling him to stay away from caucus for a week instead. Some observers, including National's deputy leader Gerry Brownlee, have suggested Tamihere knew what he was doing and the statements made in the interview were given deliberately, but Tamihere vehemently denies this, saying he thought he was off the record. A HISTORY OF INDISCRETION Wishart claims the interview, conducted over lunch with a dictaphone on the table, was clearly on the record. Tamihere is adamant that the only thing he saw on the table during lunch was a mobile phone. Holmes raised the possibility this morning that perhaps it was a phone rather than a tape recorder, which Wishart had running back to a message service. Regardless, Wishart is now running audio excerpts from the 70-minute interview on his website. If Tamihere didn't plan on being exposed, Wishart almost certainly did. Tamihere backed up every slur Wishart has made against the government in the past two years, and as Christchuch Press political commentator Colin Espiner points out, had absolutely no qualms about using them in print despite the fact that similar off-the-record outbursts from Tamihere are nothing new. “Ironically, the parliamentary press gallery Tamihere so derides in his interview with Wishart often saved the MP from his worst excesses. Tamihere has said things about his colleagues to this newspaper that are unprintable,” writes Espiner. “That Tamihere would have lunch with Wishart and share such confidences with a tape running speaks volumes about what remains of his political judgment.” After the interview, Wishart says he received a voicemail message from Tamihere saying he thought his comments might have been "a bit too frank." Wishart returned the call and told Tamihere he'd be running a verbatim interview – Tamihere hung up. Wishart is taking full advantage of this opportunity to promote his low-selling magazine, infamous for its regular anti-gay articles and commentary, including Wishart's extraordinary allegation in 2003 that soy milk was turning New Zealand men gay. TAMIHERE'S POLITICAL DESTINY? Some commentators are already sounding the death knell for Tamihere in Labour, leaving open to speculation where he might end up. While he's burnt his bridges with his own party, Tamihere spent a good deal of time last year in building them with the fundamentalist anti-gay Destiny party. He was a VIP guest at Destiny's “Taking The Nation” conference in October last year, and during the final votes in Parliament on the Civil Union Bill was seen to leave the floor of the house and enter the public gallery, where he mingled with Brian Tamaki and Destiny acolytes. With disgraced ex-policeman Richard Lewis simply not cutting it as a Destiny political leader – his inability to capture the crowd's attention at Destiny's recent “Defend the Legacy” rally was painfully obvious – Tamihere at the helm of the Destiny party would be a dream come true for the political church, a perfect opportunity to escape the cult label and gain mainstream acceptance for their political movement. Tamihere clearly has nowhere to go in Labour, with his comments in “Investigate” seem almost calculated to get him fired. The last Labour government in the ‘80s disintegrated over far less, and if the current polling of the Maori Party is accurate, Tamihere could be out of a job anyway – the ACT Party newsletter reports that if an election were held next Saturday, the Maori Party would win all seven Maori seats. Could Brian Tamaki's ego stand up to another (self-labelled) red-blooded heterosexual in the fold? Maybe not for too long. But long enough to get Destiny past the magical 5% threshold and lay the foundation for New Zealand's very own counter-enlightenment. Chris Banks - 5th April 2005