Mr Gager replies:

Like Mr Hirshfield, Murray Rowlands, the Labour Party's only anarchist, does not anywhere in his article attack any fact, sentence, idea or even piece of punctuation in my article.

He just attacks me personally. No doubt this is very satisfying as a vent for Rowlands's frustrations.

But it is no answer to anything I said. It merely shows that the truth hurts.

Does Rowlands's recent election to the Wellington LRC and his possible candidature for Wellington Central account for his ur-anarchist concern for Order, Discipline and Orthodoxy in the Labour Party?

Surely, one can hear him thinking, it is worthwhile attacking the freedom to criticise if being a good bully-boy for Kirk can make him the world's first anarchist MP.

Rowlands does not like me because I attack Labour's leadership, I dislike the Auckland academic establishment, and I believe in political impartiality in making appointments as Publications' Officer.

One can take it, conversely, that Rowlands supports the Labour leadership, (which opposed the university branches at conference), the Auckland academic establishment and political partiality—as well, of course, as being an anarchist.

Apart from stating his principles, or absence of them, on these points, Rowlands is merely inaccurate.

I have never criticised the Labour movement (why is Rowlands afraid of that word 'party'?) in McGrath's living room.

I have never shared a flat with P. J. Wedders-spoon. Mr. Shand has never put his hand on my shoulder. I was actually inside the Town Hall during the Labour Party Conference.

I did not oppose Labour's selection for Eastern Maori.

I do not expect Rowlands to apologise for his inaccuracies.

It is only too evident he prefers, like any would-be Labour candidate, fiction to fact.