The latest Parliamentary sex scandals have "opened the floodgates" on what's appropriate to be discussed publicly, two experienced political journalists claim.
Newshub political editor Tova O'Brien believes the resignations of National MP Andrew Falloon and Labour's Iain Lees-Galloway have uncovered a variety of salacious details which are distracting from the looming election.
Falloon quit amid accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by at least five women, while Lees-Galloway enjoyed a 12-month affair with a former staffer in his capacity as Workplace Relations Minister.
O'Brien told The AM Show on Thursday that recent incidents appear to have changed the goalposts on what's deemed acceptable public discourse.
"It's been really interesting talking to people around this place [Parliament] - veteran journalists, people who've been around for a lot longer than I have - and they feel like this has opened the floodgates," she explained.
"What was once out of bounds is now in bounds, and people might start talking about things that perhaps weren't discussed in the Parliament or weren't part of the public discourse before. This has changed all of that.
"We don't want to be talking about MPs' sex lives - we are sick of this. Everyone wants to just move into the election campaign and talk politics and policy, not this stuff."
The AM Show host Duncan Garner, who was a political reporter for 3 News for more than 10 years, agreed that the new scandals marked a notable change from what's come before.
"It's game on now. For years and years and decades and decades, this sort of stuff was gossip. It was talked about, but no one really knew if it was true or not."
But while the conversations around sex scandals in Parliament may have changed in recent times, the behaviour itself has not.
Here are the other high-profile scandals to have rocked New Zealand's political landscape over the years.
David Lange
Former Prime Minister David Lange is perhaps the best-known contributor to an extra-marital affair in New Zealand's political history.
On November 10, 1989, he issued a brief press statement explaining that, after 21 years of marriage, he was separating from wife Naomi, who he'd had three children with.
Just two days later, Naomi would go to the Sunday Times to explain that he'd left her to be with Margaret Pope, his speechwriter. She said Lange had privately revealed he was leaving her for Margaret six months earlier.
Lange stayed with Pope for the rest of his life, enjoying 13 years of marriage and having another daughter with her.
Jami-Lee Ross
National MP Jami-Lee Ross faced allegations of affairs after infamously hitting self-destruct following his sudden resignation in October 2018.
After attempting to topple National leader Simon Bridges with accusations of corruption, he was also accused of harassment, bullying, and incoherent rages by four women in a Newsroom report.
In a live radio interview, Ross admitted to two extramarital affairs.
In January 2019 it was revealed one of the women he'd had an affair with was National MP Sarah Dowie after a police investigation was launched into a text message she'd allegedly sent Ross. Police later decided not to pursue charges.
Colin Craig
Two nights before the 2014 election, Rachel MacGregor quit her job as press secretary to Colin Craig, former leader of the Conservative Party.
She alleged he had sexually harassed her on multiple occasions from early 2012 to 2014.
Craig was found guilty of moderately serious sexual harassment, but the allegations set in motion years of legal battles made up of defamation lawsuits, High Court cases, and widely publicised love pt.html
Len Brown
Just days after he was re-elected as Mayor of Auckland in 2013, stories about Len Brown's extra-marital affair with Bevan Chuang broke.
Chuang, a member of Auckland Council's advisory board, went public after a member of the election team representing John Palino - Brown's closest rival for the mayoralty - pressured her to.
She admitted the pair had sex both in Brown's office and in the Auckland Town Hall's Ngati Whatua room.
Brown later released a statement confirming the affair. A subsequent investigation was launched into whether he spent council money on Chuang, which backed up claims he never did.
Colin Moyle
The Colin Moyle scandal was quite different from the others on this list and a deeply sad indictment of New Zealand's former legislation on same-sex relationships.
In 1977, Robert Muldoon accused the Labour MP in Parliament of having been questioned by the police on suspicion of homosexual activities, which were illegal at the time. David Lange suggested in his autobiography that Muldoon only brought it up because he saw Moyle as a leadership threat.
After coming up with a range of different stories, Moyle eventually resigned as an MP, later telling The Evening Post he did so because "the whole thing just made me sick".
A few months later a bill was introduced legalising homosexuality.
In 2017, Justice Minister Amy Adams apologised to more than 1000 men who had been convicted for homosexual acts.
