The Aaron Gilmore saga has little to do with MMP. It has a lot to do with the way our culture now ignores character in favour of achievement. The latter can be stated (and indeed over-stated) in a CV. The former requires testing and assessment.
Yes Aaron Gilmore was a list MP. And there have been those who have made much of this fact. They suggest MMP is at fault for delivering him to Parliament and for the fact that until he resigned there was no way he could be removed.
However even if he was an electorate MP he could not have been removed from Parliament without his own resignation. Indeed he would have had an even stronger mandate to stay put and thumb his nose at his party.
Perhaps an electorate candidate selection process would have found him out earlier. However perhaps not. If those doing the selecting are more impressed by confident assertions of achievement (real or otherwise) than by character demonstrated through life and attested to by others, then we will continue to have Aaron Gilmores in Parliament.
To Mr Gilmore’s credit he has now resigned and expressed a desire to live his life with more grace and humility. If his life from here demonstrates this then it will confirm he has certainly learned a very hard lesson – a character lesson.
Ewen McQueen
May 2013
RenewNZ 
Yes I’m sure he’s learned a lesson – that the media witch hunt isn’t even handed.
The late much lamented Parekura Horomia was reported to have told attending staff at a function “…never mind the …just get me the !@#$%#$ crayfish”. Dover Samuels urinated in a hotel corridor, Shane Jones – well, the list goes on.
Aaron Gilmore offends the blinkered PC media and pays a huge price. His so called “friend” in Christchurch is probably politically motivated too.
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