Editorial: You have to feel sorry for Lotu-Iiga

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

I have a rule of never feeling sorry for politicians.

But this week I have had to break it ... I couldn't help but feel a wave of sympathy for Sam Lotu-Iiga.

Sam was the Corrections Minister who got ambushed by the fight club, the drugs, the cellphones, the attacks, etc, etc, at the Serco-run Mt Eden prison.

He didn't appoint Serco and probably knew nothing of that organisation's plans for world domination (it looks after several nuclear arsenals and other military hardware around the globe).

He did his gallant best, but was duly bustled aside for the returning Judith Collins on a comeback trail that should see her as the National Party's next leader just in time for the re-release of Both Sides Now.

Sam slipped into the less-troubled backwaters designated for the Minister of Local Government and might never have been heard from again, but for this week ...

With all the top bods away on their holidays or otherwise engaged, he was left holding the fort as the "duty minister" when, on Tuesday, North Korea allegedly set off a hydrogen bomb.

As if trying to tackle unofficial world superpower Serco was not enough, our man at the Beehive now had to face down Kim Jong Un, a despot with one of the largest and best-equipped armies - 3.6 million military personnel - on the planet.

One might have been tempted to look the other way and give Kim Jong a pass on this one ... but not Sam.

With New Zealand now on the United Nations Security Council, appropriate action was needed and the duty minister did his duty, firing off a stern rebuke that "strongly condemned" the nuclear blast and called it "highly provocative".

No word yet on how his message has been received in Pyongyang.