Barry Soper: Climax of dildogate shows we have a sense of humour

Peter Jackson waves a new New Zealand flag with a picture of Stephen Joyce being hit by a dildo at Waitangi. Photo / Supplied

It's been a funny old week in more ways than one.

It began with Pommie funny man John Oliver, who works on telly in the United States, taking the proverbial out of God's Own and in particular Steven Joyce, hitherto known as Dildo Baggins for, through no fault of his own, having a sex toy thrown at him on Waitangi Day.

Okay Oliver was taunted by Baggins to have a go, and that he most certainly did. You'd think it was the end of the civilised world as we knew it if you listened to the Labour Party though.

They harped on about New Zealand again being the international laughing stock and you could be forgiven for thinking it was Joyce who threw the toy as himself, given he was literally taking it on the chin, and in Labour's book was clearly to blame.

Rather than embarrassing this little country at the bottom of the world though, it showed we had a sense of humour and could laugh at ourselves.

Surely having a laugh was Peter Jackson, who looked more like the Lord of the circus ring, waving a phallic flag for the American television audience. Or perhaps he was sending Key a message to flag it!

And showing he had a sense of humour during the past week was Winston Peters who blamed shonky free trade agreements for another fall in dairy prices. It's true the Chinese have been stockpiling dairy product and aren't as active in the market but it's also true they bought plenty of it to arrive at that state.

Free trade deals have over the years given us far more than we could ever have gained without them and even though Peters now wants us to strike a deal with Russia, the second biggest dairy importer in the world, he knows they're diplomatically off limits at the moment for a number of reasons, not the least the finger pointing following the shooting down of a passenger liner a few years back.

All smiles as he touched down in Sydney last night was Key, there to see the man who sees him as his mentor, Malcolm Turnbull. He's in Aussie battling for the Kiwis living there being treated like second class citizens and for the second class Kiwi citizens being sent packing after they get out of jail.

Even though Turnbull might see our PM as his role model, he'll wipe the smile off his face when he refuses to budge on either issue. And who can blame him with an election to fight later this year?

There are no votes in going soft on kiwi jokers!

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