A newly formed Facebook group wants to project Dr Richard Worth as Ambassador to India.
"I think Richard Worth would be a good choice. He knows a lot about Indians and their business practices. And he likes bollywood films which is such a bonus. He could pick up some Zardosi at discounted prices," writes one member Dave Crampton.
Another groupie Ken Shock writes, "We need to get serious about trade with India – which Helen Clark deliberately deep sixed. After some of us started making a lot of noise about this, Goff trotted out to acknowledge that they were "working on it" – yeah, two low level meeting per year. man, could NZ use that FTA right now!!"
At the time of writing, the group had 15 members.
After John Key unceremoniously dropped former Internal Affairs minister Dr Richard Worth like a hot potato in the aftermath of the largely unsubstantiated allegations involving a Korean businesswoman and an Indian Labour party worker, a growing band of his friends and well wishers seem to be rallying around him.
Yesterday, the Sunday Star Times featured several of his friends and acquaintances who said they stood by him and a number of members of the Indian community that Indian Weekender spoke to pledged support to him and generally felt that the decision to put pressure on him to quit was unfair.
He has not been given a fair chance to tell his side of the story and the National Party leadership acted in an unseemly haste to turn the screws on him to step down before Tuesday's Caucus meeting, at least two Indian community leaders said.
Dr Worth is respected in the Indian community and is largely being seen as the fall guy in the increasingly crude political one-upmanship games of the two leading parties, though a large number does believe that he may have given ample cause for events to have come to this pass because of his indiscretions.
Dr Worth has vowed to fight to clear his name and is likely to take decisive steps in the following weeks, now that he has stepped down from his official duties. He is yet to be charged on any of the allegations.
Meanwhile fielding questions on talkback radio, Labour leader Phil Goff said he had not found it important to find out what the Indian woman, Neelam Choudary, had said in her replies to the numerous texts she has alleged she received from Dr Worth.
Neither had he any convincing replies to several pointed but decidedly rational questions that callers asked him.
At the end of it, it seemed as though the only agenda here was muck raking.
None of the politicians involved – Goff, Key and Worth – can ever hope to come out of this sordid episode unscathed. If the allegations are proved to be frivolous, Goff would of course look extremely silly and could well kiss any hopes of leading his party in the next election goodbye.
But then a growing number of people's suspicions that Key has a long way to go before he earns his spurs as a true blue politician would be confirmed beyond doubt. His pronouncements as the events unfolded and his seeming flip-flops have already given plenty of evidence of that.
As for Worth, his political career will go into indefinite hibernation but if the allegations come a cropper, he would have the public's sympathy on his side despite his apparent indiscretions and could well put it to good use in his life after politics.
As I finish this piece, the "Richard Worth for Ambassador to India" group on Facebook has grown to 22.