Former Rangitata and National Party MP Andrew Falloon is the latest casualty in a succession of South Island MPs whose political careers have crumbled in recent years.
Former Rangitata and National Party MP Andrew Falloon is the latest casualty in a succession of South Island MPs whose political careers have crumbled in recent years.
Is there something in the water?
Privacy invasions, extra-marital affairs, sex-texts and unjustified entitlement have all plagued various South Island-based MPs in recent years.
The latest political career in tatters is that of former National Party and Rangitata MP Andrew Falloon, who dirtied women's inboxes with unsolicited pornographic images.
Hisstory is particularly murky given his apparent lying to explain his behaviour - he said someone else had used his phone - and the way it was initially framed as a mental health issue.
Falloon was going to serve his electorate until the election, but that became untenable as further indiscretions came to light.
His sudden resignation has prompted questions about whether his sin was as bad as Clutha-Southland and National Party MP Hamish Walker's, who hasn't quit immediately and is staying until the election.
Walker's political implosion stemmed from sending private Covid-19 patient details to three media outlets, including the Herald, which sparked a series of events that decimated the upper ranks of the National Party.
He did this to justify his press release - slammed as "racist" by the Government - about people flying in from "India, Pakistan and Korea", but the information he sent through proved nothing except that he had improperly shared confidential information.
Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker (left) is stepping away from politics after he leaked private Covid patient details, while Michael Woodhouse was stripped of the shadow health portfolio.
Selwyn and National MP Amy Adams also re-retired, ostensibly because she wasn't offered to keep her role of co-ordinating the party's Covid-19 response, which might mean she could re-return if she was re-offered such a role by the current or a future leader.
National and Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie is also quitting politics after the election, and while it's her own choice, her career was beset by the scandal of an extra-marital affair with MP Jami-Lee Ross.
That came to light after revelations of a text message she sent him - "you deserve to die" - was being investigated by police.
She later admitted that it was "a stupid decision to send that text message", but she had pulled herself back up to be re-selected as National's 2020 Invercargill candidate before deciding that her heart wasn't in it.
The exodus of National Party MPs prompted Christchurch-based former Labour candidate James Dann to note the unintentional but automatic promotion of National's West Coast-based list MP, who was previously described by Simon Bridges as "f*cking useless".
"Maureen Pugh is rocketing up the South Island National MP Power Rankings," Dann quipped on Twitter.
National's South Island curse may be traced even further back to Walker's Clutha-Southland predecessor, Todd Barclay, who secretly recorded his own staff, or even to Christchurch East-based Aaron "do you know who I am?" Gilmore.
But other parties have also suffered from the apparent geographical voodoo.
Dunedin North and Labour MP David Clark is running again in 2020, but resigned as Health Minister after he dared to dump on national Covid-19 hero Ashley Bloomfield while the director general of health was standing behind him.
The public outcry was in many ways unfair. Bloomfield had already accepted the blame for lapses in border security, and Clark hadn't said anything that day that he hadn't been saying for the previous week.
But he had become a political liability, as evidenced by the number of "sack Clark"-type messages that appeared with relative frequency during Jacinda Ardern's Facebook live updates.
Dunedin North MP David Clark resigned as Health Minister, but PM Jacinda Ardern was a potential beneficiary of the South Island curse earlier after it indirectly propelled her to the Labour leadership.
Fellow Labour and Dunedin-based MP Clare Curran was removed from Cabinet in August 2018 after she didn't properly record a meeting with tech entrepreneur Derek Handley. She resigned as a minister a month later.
Asked why she hadn't disclose it in answers to written questions, she said she had forgotten about it.
Nor had she disclosed a coffee date with then-RNZ news executive Carol Hirschfeld, a controversy that saw Hirschfeld's head roll after she had told her RNZ bosses that the scheduled meeting had been coincidental.
The bombshell admission was part of a keynote speech to underscore the unfairness of the welfare system, but following public and political pressure, she quit because she felt she was hindering rather than helping the Greens' chances.
But there was a silver lining for Labour.
Turei's speech saw an initial surge in support for the Greens, and the subsequent drop in Labour's support led to then-leader Andrew Little stepping aside.
That, of course, was how Jacinda Ardern was propelled to the Labour Party leadership.
