‘Seddon’ book just kinky sex, says M.P.

Press, 27 October 1977, Page 7

‘Seddon’ book just kinky sex, says M.P.

Wellington. A book containing ' tales of kinky sex and pornography” had been financed by the taxpayers’ money Mr P. Blanchfield (Lab., West Coast) has asserted in Parliament. “I went to the library, and I bought a book with a political name,” Mr Blanchfield said, during the debate on the Sport and Recreation Estimates,” I took away the book, but there was not a scrap of politcs in it. “There is nothing but filthy, kinky, perverted sex.” The subject of Mr Blanchfield’s attack was “Dick Seddon’s Great Dive,” by lan Wedde. Mr Blanchfield did not name the book inside the House, but said during the debate that it had been financed by a grant from the New Zealand Literary Fund. Mr Blanchfield asked the Minister of Sport and Recreation (Mr Highet) whether he was in proper communication with the grants advisory committee, and wanted to know why the t ax-ayers’

money had been used to finance such a book. Brandishing a copy of the book in the House, Mr Blanchfield asked: “How kinky has a book to get before it gets a grant like this? Where is the literary merit?” He singled out a particular page in the book, and wagered $lOO that no member would read any seven lines of it in public. Mr Highet agreed that that particular page had no merit. He had been sent a copy of the book but he tore it up and put it in the wastepaper basket where it belongs.” However, in fairness to the literary fund, it was impossible to pick out one particular page and judge the whole book, Mr Highet said. Outside the House, Mr Blanchfield said the book had no relevance to its particular political title. “It was a total disappointment to me. I flicked through it hoping to find something relating to Seddon, but there was nothing.”