The last chance cafe or the last straw?

The Laboured Party has elected their fourth leader since they were last in power. As that was only five years ago, this is not a good look. But have they got it right this time? Somehow I doubt it. Helen Clark was the last good leader they had. Of course she lost her head because she lost the election and that is a pretty common outcome for leaders who lose an election.

She was then replaced by Phil Goffisthatthetime who, nice guy though he is, was not made of sufficiently stern stuff and who surprised nobody (probably including himself) when he lost the next election.

Next up was an equally inappropriate contender in the form of The Shearer; a diplomat cut from a similarly limp bolt of cloth as his predecessor. I have always believed he was the compromise candidate when the party was at loggerheads over whether to elect Cunliffe (without the “t”) or (Nosy) Parker. As with many compromises in life he ended up pleasing nobody except perhaps those warming the treasury benches.

So now we have the recycled version of Cunliffe which to my eye looks very little different to the rather smug and abrasive version that surfaced at the last leadership stoush.

For those who watch NZ politics fairly closely it is no secret that we have a dearth of good leaders among the parties in our parliament. In fact dearth doesn’t really do justice to the situation. An almost complete absence of good leaders would seem to sum it up better.

This might not matter so much were it not for the fact that the party in power at the moment is laying waste to almost everything Kiwis have held dear and a change of government is urgently needed. In order to bring that about one would expect some good leadership would be a pre-requisite for any of the pretenders.

Of course we could all just bumble along and hope that Jianqi accidentally shoots himself in the foot and the Natsis self-destruct. You might think this could happen with their coalition partners are doing their darndest to emulate the leadership cock-ups of the Laboured Party. 

The Maori Party weren’t able to make up their minds how many leaders they needed until someone kicked Sharples in the goolies and he got the point and stepped aside. The Actors went through two leaders until their cunning election plan in 2011 misfired and their leader didn’t get elected and they had to elect a very short man with a very small brain because he was the only one they managed to get into parliament. And of course the No Future Party managed to retain the same leader but lost the entire party for a while.

However through all of this and despite the squinty-eyed little money-man dropping more than his share of passes the Natsis have stayed true to the one leader since 2006. Prior to that they had three leaders within the space of five years and they paid for that by remaining on the opposition benches.

Significantly the current ‘opposition’ parties have managed pretty much to remain stable. Winston First is still all about Winston, Mana is always going to be Hone’s party – he would leave and start another were it to be otherwise – and the Greens have been stable, only changing their leadership due to a death and a retirement.

But these three parties cannot muster enough support to govern without a coalition partner such as the Laboured Party and that is where the plan all turns to shit.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Laboured Party are a necessary part of any alternative to the NWO/Money worshipping/CIA lapdogs that run this show for now. This presents a big problem for New Zealand. I hate to think what this country will look like if they get a third term.

Unfortunately I can’t see Cunliffe being the one to galvanise the opposition and convince the electorate. He certainly doesn’t convince me. But then I am a picky bugger.

In my opinion Grant Robertson was the obvious choice. He is smart, charismatic and funny. He reminds me of David Lange before he got Rogered by Douglas. Maybe that was what the wider party was worried about. By all accounts the parliamentary party wanted him to lead them and it is that which worries me most about the chances of Cunliffe being able to get them onto the government side of the house.

Of course the unspoken notion is that the wider party was afraid NZ wasn’t ready for their first openly gay PM. I hope that wasn’t their reasoning because I personally believe they were grossly underestimating the electorate if it was. After all this is the country that was among the first to legalise homosexual practices nearly thirty years ago and has recently been one of the first countries in the world to legalise same sex marriage and who was one of the first countries in the world to elect a trans-sexual MP. I think that track record would indicate that the although the average Kiwi bloke or blokes might make jokes about people with different sexual orientation to themselves, they really couldn’t care less what people do in the privacy of their own homes.

It remains to be seen whether Cunliffe remains to be seen still at the helm in October next year. I hope that he does, despite my reservations about him, because a fifth leader in six years would almost certainly be the kiss of death for the Laboured Party and unfortunately for any hope of a coalition to replace the current unholy alliance that is in power now.

Still hope springs eternal, eh and spring is here now so who knows?

Year of the living dead

There have been a few deaths this year. I know this happens every year, but in 2013 we have experienced some rather unusual deaths.

The first of these was North Shore MP Madly Barry. She apparently died last week – or at least I have to conclude that she and some of her colleagues did because last week her beloved leader announced Government ‘support’ for the Auckland City rail loop.

Auckland head boy Lenda Hand Brown is thrilled to bits with this apparent u-turn although I believe it is more of a u-bend; i.e. it is full of shit. Closer examination of the announcement reveals that little is likely to happen before about 2020, which the more quick witted among the population, (that’s a small group including thee and me and bugger all else), have realised is outside their current term of office. Thus they are making promises somebody else will be expected to keep which is always a dodgy proposition.

Of course amid all this excitement nobody has noticed the demise of Ms Barry and her un-named colleagues. I have to assume that Madly has gone to that great compost bin in the sky because as soon as she was elected to Parliament she told everybody who would listen, and a lot of people who were trying desperately to block out her droning rhetoric, that there would be a CBD rail link before a second harbour crossing "over our dead bodies".

Just whose dead bodies apart from her own was unclear at the time, but obviously the North Shore MP herself is no more because she told us back in 2011 what would happen if that was the case. We believe her because in the Reader’s Digest poll to find the most trusted New Zealanders of 2013 we voted Madly in at number 51, which might not sound very good, but it was high enough to make her our most trusted politician. How about that for an oxymoron? Although perhaps the real morons here are the voters (again).

However I tuned in to Parliament after the announcement and I swear I saw the deceased MP for North Shore smirking away in the background and she looked alive enough to me. Either she has come back to haunt Jianqi for killing her off with his announcement or she has looked more closely at the announcement than the pussies of the press who have all breathlessly reported the whole thing as if it is really going to happen. You see we have three types of dead in New Zealand; the dead, the undead and the brain dead. Madly Barry is one of the former two, but so far I cannot confirm which.

But Ms Barry is not the only death we have had in public orifice this year. Maori Party co-leader Pita (Principle) Sharples has also apparently died just this very week. You won’t find this reported in the paper yet because the Maori Party are trying to keep it quiet until they figure out how to blame Hone for it.

In the meantime the news has been leaked in a careless press release about a leadership vote to be held in a fortnight’s time. This can only mean one thing; Mr Sharples is dead. He must be because he told us only a few months ago he would lead the party until he died. Therefore the fact that he is now being replaced can only mean he has shuffled of his mortal coil.

And here’s the scary part. I swear I’ve seen Sharples this week as well. So has he also joined the ranks of the living dead? This is becoming more unsettling by the day. There are already rumours that the corpse of United Featureless is roaming the corridors of the Beehive and I have also heard about an attempt to reACTivate another dead party.

These creatures were all scary enough in life, without malevolent forces re-animating them for eternity. Forget the economy; we need to deal with this imminent threat without delay.

To that end I have been doing some research on zombies and it seems that most ‘experts’ believe the best way to deal with a zombie is with a swift shot to the head. Their theory is that the brain is the only living thing they have. And here is where we have a BIG problem dear readers. We are dealing with politicians FFS. Where on earth are we going to find a brain among them?

Another ‘expert’ suggests removing their heads. Once again I have never seen a politician yet who can’t operate without using their head, so I guess that is not going to work either.

The most ridiculous method I came across was to nail them back into their grave beds with a steak. I ask you how the hell can you nail someone to anything with a slab of meat? (Hush your dirty mouths) I would have thought you would want something sharp like a spear or a dagger for that.

Unfortunately folks it would seem that for the present we are unable to rid the country of these hideous cannibalistic apparitions – at least not until around October next year. I have heard that a tick in the right place on a ballot paper can sometimes work and if that doesn’t work then I am reminded of an old rhyme; Remember, remember the fifth of November.

   

Stuff that would amaze even Mr Ripley

Fact or fiction? Statistics or lies? Those are the questions on the lips of many Kiwis today; or at least they should be.

We awoke this morning to read a breathless account of how the ruling National Party – the one under whose stewardship we have seen a massive rise in unemployment, a huge drop in living standards and for the average worker, no increase in income - has scored a 51 percent approval rating in the latest 3News political poll. This is the same party that has presided over the school closures/non-closures debacle in Christchurch and signed off on and continued to persevere with the Nonopay method of not paying those teachers who still have a job. It is also the same party that bailed out finance companies and offered tasty deals to SkyCity Casinos in return for them building a massive convention centre while ignoring those at the bottom of the economic slag heap.

And let’s not forget the Stormtrooper tactics they employed against Kim Dotcom, a naturalised New Zealander whose privacy is supposed to be guaranteed, while trying to cuddle up to the FBI over charges they have yet to prove.  These are also the same people who have covered up one cock-up after another, developed a condition I shall call amnesia convenientus whenever they were nailed with some particularly damning evidence. They also tried, Stasi like, to muzzle a photographer who accidentally overheard a conversation that was held in public between two public figures, while flagrantly compromising the privacy of beneficiaries and ACC claimants.

And 51 percent of us approve of all this? I feel a fucking great Tui billboard coming on.

Of course what this simply proves is that you can’t trust these sorts of polls. They are completely unscientific although the pollsters would tell you otherwise. The pollsters live in the world of statistics and probabilities where everything can be answered by a mathematical equation. The trouble is, when you are dealing with people, that mathematical equation has so many more variables than anyone can sensibly ever take account of. If you were to factor in every possible variable that could affect a poll’s results you would soon realise that you cannot ever accurately project such results.

For example how do we know that 51 percent of respondents weren’t died in the wool National Party members or supporters? Or that the respondents weren’t simply taking the piss? The fact is we don’t and neither do the pollsters, because even if they were to ask the respondents such questions, there is no way they could ever verify the answers. They reckon they can extrapolate the results and even give us a ‘margin for error’. That too is a fiction because it is only a mathematical probability based upon previous observations which could have been equally inaccurate. It has often been said that the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day, and that is hard to argue with. It is the only one you can trust, (always providing there is no jiggery pokery going on at the polling booth).

I wouldn’t even bother commenting on this were it not for the fact that I think polls like this are influential. The sheeple out there in Godforsakenzone actually think these things are correct, and of course because they ARE sheeple they like to stay with the flock. Of course the fact this poll was conducted by 3News, a company owned by Mediaworks, a company that was given a $43M loan guarantee, by... let me see who was it now? Oh, yes; the National Government might explain a few things. I’m just sayin’.

However the slippery poll is not the only unbelievable thing to catch my eye in the last week. The one day cricket series between the Black Caps and England was another. To be fair this one was pointed out to me by my very observant wife who is not slow to see connections others often miss.

The series began as those of us sad individuals who want to cheer on the Black Caps had hoped but not expected, with a three wicket win by the Kiwis. We watched it free to air on Prime and enjoyed the tense finish. Then came the second match where the Black caps suffered a severe drubbing by the visitors and lost by eight wickets. The two performances by the Kiwis were so different that it was actually very frustrating to watch that game which was also shown on free to air on Prime, but as the commentators reminded us; this now set up the final game to be a thriller with the series standing at one apiece.

It was only when we checked the TV Times to see what time we could sit down and watch that decider that little doubts began to creep into our minds. The third one dayer was not scheduled to be shown free to air on Prime at all; it had always been planned to be shown only on SkySport for those who had a Sky subscription. Now there’s a coincidence. Of course England went on to win that match as well (this time by five wickets) which was totally in keeping with their form, and that of the Black Caps. 

Now call me a suspicious old bugger, but I can’t help feeling that it was extremely convenient for SkySport that the Black Caps should shock everyone by winning the first match that was free to air and lose the second which was also free to air leaving the ‘exciting’ decider to be shown only to paying viewers. All the more so, given the current fuss about match fixing in regards to cricket matches and given also that we were constantly shown a little graphic in the top left hand corner of the screen during the second match that showed the odds one particular agency was giving for England to win the game. I’m just sayin’.

And finally another item to deserve mention in Mr Ripley’s ripping tales is the ongoing saga of the Act(ing) Party and little Johnny Banksia. The short-arsed one is under the spotlight yet again for allegedly being less than honest. No! Surely not! This time it seems the diminutive career politician (I don’t care where as long as I am elected there) is under scrutiny in relation to statements made in the prospectus of finance company Huljich Wealth Management of which he had been described as an executive director. It seems the prospectus contained a number of things that misled investors. No! Surely not! Another of the company’s directors, Peter Huljich has already 'fessed up to the fact that the prospectus contained misleading information and he has been fined $112,500, which would be a pathetic slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket for someone in his position. 

However the petite politician who was described as an executive director up until 2008, then later had his job description amended to simply director has now been asked to answer the allegations that he as an executive director was also liable for the veracity or otherwise of the statements in the prospectus. Interestingly his former partner in (political) crime, Dong Brash is facing the same allegations over the same prospectus. This all coincided with the Act(ing) Party’s national conference held at Allan Gibbs’ modest we two up two down, north of Auckland. There the miniature member managed to suck in the TV cameras to film him pretending to run up a hill, presumably to show that he was moving the party upwards. He enthusiastically told the reporter that Act could have six MPs if they get five percent at the next election (still clinging to the coat-tails rule). However he blithely ignored the fact that at the last election they Act(ually) got ONE percent and in the aforementioned 3News poll they got 0.1 percent. 

But given how inaccurate the latter might be that could just as easily be 0.0001 percent. I’m just sayin’.

Chumps’ tea party

Long before this election began I expressed the view that (sadly) there was probably only one way Jianqi could lose this election; and that would be if a really bad scandal erupted at a critical stage of the game.

The teapot tape might just be that, er smoking teapot. It is amazing to think a cup of cha could have such a potentially explosive charge. In fact, given the way Jianqi and Banksia have reacted I am more interested in what might have been in that teapot than what is on the tape. After all the tape is perfectly innocent, isn’t it? I mean it must be because His Right Honourable Prime Ministership said so. (Cue Tui sign)

There are many questions arising from this affair and not all of them will be answered by us hearing the tape. One that immediately springs to mind is, what is the offence Jianqi alleges has occurred here? It is clear there is nothing in the Privacy Act that could actually relate to this and in any case, that Act is administered by the Privacy Commissioner, not the Police Commissioner. So what piece of legislation is our toady little Prime Munter using for this?

My guess is the wanker is trying to drag something out from the National Disgrace’s considerable war chest of hastily passed legislation dealing with public order or National (geddit) security. Don’t forget an awful lot of flustering went on following 9/11 when ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation was shoved through at breakneck pace and further ‘amendments’ were whipped through following the Christchurch earthquake under the guise of ‘public order’ so it could be something from here.

I also thought it was interesting, nay damned troubling that police saw fit to deliver a warning to people not to publish. I don’t believe they are in a position to do this because I don’t believe there is a legal justification for it. But what troubles me more is why are they leaping to the defence of the PM and making an unnecessary and some would say, reckless and stupid statement about the legal position. Clearly little Jianqi has pulled rank and asked (read demanded) his big bully-boy mates come and support him and let everyone else know they’ll get the bash if they step out of line.   

But whatever he is trying to do, it seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for a ‘principle’. In any case I’d have thought principles and politicians did not belong on the same page never mind the same sentence. As I told Granny Herald this week, in an effort to encourage them to publish the bloody thing; why hold back on ethical grounds? That’s hardly a quality one could associate with Jianqi or Banksia – especially if, as I suspect they were running down old Duffer Dong and planning a coup de space. (That’s where one space cadet replaces another).

Clearly summat is afoot and someone is a liar. I sincerely hope we get to find out whom – BEFORE November 26!

As for the cameraman who allegedly accidentally left his recorder on, I have to say it is entirely plausible. I say this because I have done exactly the same thing on a number of occasions. What happens sometimes is you are interviewing somebody and you have to interrupt to take a picture of someone else because they are about to leave and it is very easy in the heat of the moment to leave the thing on. Several times I have been and done an interview and left and when I got back to the office found that the last 20 minutes of my tape are the sounds of me cursing at other motorists on my way home. It is much easier to do than most people would realise, especially when you are being rushed along by deadlines.

But to get back to my original point; this just might be the turning point in this election. At this late stage I would doubt it could completely sink the Nats, but it could certainly cut into their vote enough to make things really interesting. It might just expose the ACTors for the bit part players and pantomime dames they really are and sink them without a trace.

I don’t think little prissy Jianqi has a leg to stand on as far as obtaining any sort of prosecution over this, but I have urged TV3 and Granny Herald, and I urge all of you to urge them, to publish without delay, because if they don’t Banksia and Jianqi could seek injunctions to tie their hands. Then they could well face prosecution if they publish.

So carpe diem, Herald and TV3 and anyone else who knows what’s on that tape. It might be nothing, but then I might be two metres tall and the next All Black captain! We certainly can’t believe anything our incumbent Prime Munter says because he continually lies like a bloody flatfish. Oops sorry it’s not telling lies is it? We’re in a dynamic environment. Where is that dynamite when I need it?

What if they held a party and nobody stood?

I wasn’t going to do another election blog before the end of the RWC (kerchang – sound of copyright lawyers tallying my sins), but events have driven me to it. I mean the idea of Don and Rog sharing a toke or two and sniggering about how JB just ain’t hip, was too tempting to leave.

I can’t help but wonder if Don HAS actually been at the weed, and consuming far more than is good for him, because to pull an idea like that out without first sorting things out with the one horse they are backing who might just get over the finish line seems, well pretty out of it, actually.

Without it ever being one of their poster campaigns, ACT has always been in favour of decriminalisation of dope, albeit more because of their views around personal freedom, but to chuck it out front at this stage of an election year does sound a tad desperate. It is all the more bizarre when espoused by somebody as unlikely as old Dong.

But then I guess the ACT Party has become a bizarre animal that just keeps getting weirder by the day. I don’t know how many of you have visited their website lately, but it is fronted by two grinning geriatrics and a younger male who appears to be gurning. Either that or he is from Dannevirke or Tasmania or Barnsley or...(fill in your own local inbred capital here).

First stop should be the ‘People’ tab which reveals ‘ACT’s People’. The only trouble here is that this includes Rodders who has basically been fired, Bosco who has allegedly just quit, Hevva who was also shown the door, Hills who has also been rather unceremoniously dumped and the aged incumbent Rog who has also signalled his retirement from Parliament.

And if that isn’t bizarre enough; take a look at their 2011 Party List. Now here we have a really funny situation. When you click on any of the three links in the top of the site to meet the team you encounter a most unusual ‘list’.

Grinning inanely back at you from the top is Dong and sitting in number two spot is one of the more shadowy members of the ACT of Stupidity Party, and number three slot is also occupied by a similar dark silhouette of a man. To save you looking it would seem that candidates two and three on the AoS Party list are top secret and we not only may not see their faces; neither are we allowed to know their names. Just fills you with confidence, doesn't it voters?

In other words the ACT list currently has nobody at numbers two or three. This seems bizarre enough on its own, but how do the others sitting at positions four to ten feel about that? I can imagine Dong having to explain how they are all worthy of their respective positions, but it’s just that none of them are good enough to fill places two or three. Dong apparently doesn’t want any of his current batch getting too close to him and presumably has a couple of tame patsies lined up to fill those spots nearer the date when it is too late for any of the others to make a fuss.

That seems the most logical explanation to me. Either that or the AoS Party simply doesn’t want anyone to notice they can’t even muster a list of ten candidates for the election. Perhaps Dong thought the voters were too stupid to notice he had not named anyone for slots two or three?

On the other hand, with this talk of decriminalising the old electric puha, maybe Dong has an even more bizarre agenda. What if he intends to actually run that list as is at the election, and he was simply too stoned when he put it together to noticed his omissions? And what if the electoral commission accepted said list? And what if the ACT of Stupidity Party actually pulled enough votes to land more than one of their space cadets in Parliament? – I know it’s a pretty wild concept, that last paragraph, but bear with me. What then would happen? Would they have to allocate an empty seat in the chamber for the invisible ACT list member?

I know this sounds nonsensical; but let’s not forget a certain John Hadfield who was able to jump parties mid-term, and win a bye-election on the ticket of an unregistered party. Furthermore he now draws a larger draught from the public trough on the grounds he is the leader of a Parliamentary Party that wasn’t even registered to contest the election that put him in as its leader.

Maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss wild speculation where our political system is involved?      

Out with the old, in with the older?

Wonderful news! In election year we have another new party to deliver us from the boredom dished out by all the other losers in this un-beautiful game.

Well actually, strictly speaking it isn’t a new party; it’s actually a rather old(er) one that appears to be getting a new face-lift (or is that Botox injections?).

You see the new re-vamped and dynamic party that is going to take New Zealand by storm is the Association of Consumers & Taxpayers (that’s ACT – not Act as so many nitwits write).

Yes the old party is getting new life – or should that be the new party is getting old life? God help us there are enough dried arrangements among them to hold a florists convention.

Time was (and still is, I hope) when we had begun to celebrate the fact that most of us live longer than our forebears. Ref: the forebears were: Mummy Bear, Daddy Bear, Baby Bear and Lodger Bear.

We were proud of the fact we carry on activities long after the use-by date our ancestors thought appropriate. And for the most part it has been a good thing – apart from a few horrendous old bats dressing up in clothes designed for their grandchildren or great grandchildren and some silly old buggers fathering kids in their 70s, which I think is just plain wrong, not to mention an abomination for their 30-year-old wives.

Repulsive those these images are they are like a beautiful vision upon which to meditate compared with the implied rejuvenation of the ACT party. I think all politicians should be required to complete an Enduring Power of Attorney in regards to their care and welfare so that when they go completely ga-ga we can remove them to a place of safety and (more importantly) AWAY from the corridors of power.

Just look at the new face of the ACT party. It is not the sort of visage one associates with bright NEW opportunities. Their front bench even includes one old bugger who’s still on the reserves bench at the very least until after November. As for the rest of them, I doubt if there are more than two who could possibly be under fifty years of age. Sir Rogernomics is nearly 80; Dong Brash is 70 odd; Rodders is for the high jump (probably because he is too young for their new vision; Boscawen can’t be far short of 60; and Hilary Calvert must be 50 odd, given she was a lawyer for 25 years.

I reckon ACT will be lucky to return with as many seats as they have currently. But if they do it is going to be with an extremely aged caucus. Voters might do well to give thought to whether they would have enough years left in them to still be on the perch come 2014.

If you consider Brash, Boscawen, Banks & Bob the Builder (who seems to be their latest bright young thing) as likely then between them their combined ages must push close to 300 – and with all this surge of geriatric energy old Rogernomics might decide to stand again and take tea average age up to around 70.

So what is it with the ACT party? Why do they imagine that a bunch of old farts would be better than some new blood? Well first of all I doubt that anyone under 50 would have a bar of ACTs policies and secondly, and I think this is the real reason; these old buggers are suffering from a rare type of dementia. It’s called Prick’s Disease; rather like Pick’s disease which causes changes in character, socially inappropriate behaviour, a decline in the ability to speak coherently and poor decision making, The difference between Pick’s and Prick’s Disease is the type of people it affects.

Thankfully this is all just a sideshow and ACT has about as much chance of getting good voter support as I do. Nobody much under 60 will vote for them anyway and most of their potential voters will forget which day is polling day or get lost on the way to the polling booth. Should they manage to conquer those two obstacles they will the n have to remember what it is they went there for and who they were going to vote for should they remember the first bit.

So roll on November. May you roll all over this useless shower that are going to be draining the money from our wallets for the next three years. Hopefully we will wake up in December and realise it has all been a nasty dream. Alternatively, if ACT does any good, it will be free mobility scooters and incontinence pants for all in the first budget next year.