Dominic George: Terrible is terrible when it s dancing

The reaction to Tau Henare's tweet regarding Lorde's dancing this week has received a typically vitriolic response.

Of course most of the bleating comes from those who don't suffer from epilepsy but feel they must be the mouthpiece for every affliction, ailment and minority group on the planet. It was a bit of light-hearted humour that you can either laugh at or not, it's up to you. For my money, she dances like Elaine on Seinfeld.

Mind you, I'm not one to talk. I'm a terrible dancer -- in fact, I can't stand it and have tried it on only a handful of occasions when I was a young pub-goer and desperately wanted to gain the amorous attention of young ladies. Suffice to say it was a dismal failure and any success gleaned in this pursuit inevitably came on the back of my conversational ability.

It's a contentious issue whether my sparkling personality outweighed my dancing prowess but it was the lesser of two evils as I stood at the bar drowning in ale while my more desperate mates made complete losers of themselves as they uncomfortably gyrated around the dance floor before realising it was an exercise in futility. Fools.

As the character of Sick Boy said in Trainspotting, "personality, that's what counts right? That's what keeps a relationship going through the years." He could have been speaking of the old Channel 9 cricket commentary team. You knew summer had arrived when Richie, Bill, Tony and the crew assembled to bring us cricket lovers coverage of ball one at the Gabba, ushering in a brand new season of the glorious game. Those guys were all unique personalities and one of the great sports commentary teams of all time. They were often accused of being biased towards the Aussies, and while that may have held true some of the time, they pretty much called it how they saw it. The issue they had to contend with was the fact the Australian team from the late 80s through to the early 2000s was consistently very good and, for a time, one of the best teams ever to grace a cricket field.

The current crop of commentators is so void of personality, with the possible exception of Michael Slater, they can barely conjure up one between them. It's descended into sycophantic garbage that has done nothing more than steal one of summer's great pleasures. What it has done, though, is elevate our mob into a very good commentary unit indeed, led by Smithy, the likes of Richardson, Doull and Cumming have developed into a fine unit in their own right.

The same can't be said of the Labour Party, which has inexplicably left its Primary Industries spokesman, Damien O'Connor, so far down the pecking order he might as well not bother. He probably wouldn't were it not for the fact he once again won the West Coast-Tasman seat in the last election. He's clearly seen as too far to the right of the left, if that makes sense, and has been shunned accordingly.

It also shows how much emphasis Labour puts on agriculture. It may not be the party of choice for the rural sector, but Labour does have a reasonable history when it comes to the business of farming. This week on the Farming Show, Damien O'Connor outlined their track record and it's been surprisingly good. But that was then, this is now, and it seems to have slipped well off the priority list. The party seems fixated on appeasing every minority and fringe element under the sun.

Remember it was Andrew Little who outlined his preference for a female deputy based on gender rather than merit during the leadership campaign. Maybe a bit more Tau-like flippancy might see them regain some of that crucial middle ground they seem so willing to give up. But then again, they run the risk of offending left-handed baristas with confirmation names beginning with "F", and we couldn't have that now could we?