THE general election is still four months away and our politicians are already rolling in the mud ... or having it thrown at them.
National Party grandee Maurice Williamson was gone before lunchtime yesterday over his phone call to police about wealthy Chinese businessman Donghua Liu - the man who"is not his friend" - when the newly-approved New Zealand citizen was facing domestic violence charges.
Williamson, a 27-year parliamentarian, told investigating officers that the man who "is not his friend" had invested "a lot of money in New Zealand". It was a juvenile error for such a senior operator who has held a number of Cabinet posts.
At least the Pakuranga MP did not add that Liu - who has pleaded guilty to the charges - had donated $22,000 to National's coffers after Williamson and others had lobbied against official immigration advice to get Liu his citizenship.
In another Chinese puzzle, Justice Minister Judith Collins is still under fire for her "private dinner" with Beijing officials which is looking increasingly less private and more like a bit of networking on behalf of Kiwi food company Oravida where her husband is a director.
Of course, opposition parties will make hay while the sun shines, gouging away at any Government embarrassment or misdemeanour. But the phrase "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" comes to mind.
In the meantime, 25 per cent of Kiwi children live in poverty according to the Children's Commissioner and we have sufficient social ills - health, housing, addictions - that we might need all Mr Liu's wealth to put them right.
So, hopefully, the grandstanding and chucking of brickbats will subside and those who seek to run the country - or continue to run it - will put the same effort into sorting out those issues that they put into parliamentary point-scoring.
Of course, policies to help those in need don't play as well in the media as high-ranking politicos having the rug pulled from under them.
The most worrying factor in the Williamson debacle is not his phone-call blunder, but Liu's $22,000 donation. You only give that kind of dosh away if you are seeking to buy favours.
All parties have their friendly donors - look at Kim Dotcom's generosity - and what that say is that rich people can get special treatment from a supposedly democratic government that ordinary people are denied.
That's one big pile of mud that needs to be cleaned up.
