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’.

Intensive care awards – Primary care

Another year has come to an end and if you believe the seriously deranged, (and who wouldn’t – look at the government our fellow citizens elected), the entire world is actually ending as I write this.

Traditionally at year’s end people look at the high achievers for the year just gone and hand out plaudits*. These are very difficult little things to wrap as they aren’t actually physical objects; more like the mean man’s present. In fact you can’t really do much with them at all, despite the fact they are relatively easy to hand out. To be precise, the only way you can offer plaudits is by hand, so I guess what I am handing out is something less substantial than a plaudit as there are no hands involved apart from the two fingers on the keyboard (and possibly pointing upwards for the benefit of some of the recipients of these – audits. That’s what we’ll call them. Audits for idiots might be more accurate.

It has been a busy year on the idiot front and thus it is impossible to rank the recipients n order of merit (?). So I will simply randomly select a few over the next couple of weeks in particular order or all over the place like a mad woman’s shit as an old mate of mine used to say. And that is probably the appropriate description because it mirrors pretty accurately how most of them performed over the last twelve months.

First cab to crash into a truck in this careless coterie would have to be HeckYeah Parata or Lady Gardiner as I think she will soon have to become again. HeckYeah’s list of cock-ups in her role as Minister of Illiteracy is far too long to list here. Suffice to say she is likely to be back at home as a Lady of leisure sometime soon because even that simpering little twat of a Prime Monster is getting tired of all the flak he’s copping because of her.

Actually it should come as no surprise to him that she has failed so monumentally. Cock-ups and controversy have followed this dozy cow about for years. The fact that the National Disgrace Party took her on as an MP and gave her a ministership to run aground tells you (a) what poor leadership can get you and (b) how much they care about education.

A quick scan of HeckYeah’s CV reveals that in 1995 she and her equally self-serving husband Sir Weary Gardiner were the subjects of an investigation by then State Services Commissioner Don Hunn over the purchase of two vehicles for Weary who was the CEO of Te Puni Kokiri at the time. Although they were both cleared of any illegal activity at the time, significantly both cars were returned to the Ministry for re-sale by auction.

In 1999 HeckYeah was under scrutiny again. This time her consultancy firm had provided ‘ongoing high quality Maori advice (which is presumably different altogether to ordinary high quality advice free of ethnic tags) to WINZ at a cost of $207,500. How ‘high quality’ it was I’ll leave you to judge apart from mentioning that the late Rod Donald raised it as a criticism in the house due to the fact that the Maori unemployment rate rose by 2% following this ‘high quality’ advice.

Then in 2003 HeckYeah raised the ire of Murray McCully after the Ministry of Economic Development had wasted, I mean spent $240,000 of taxpayers’ money on Treaty of Waitangi training courses run by (you guessed it) HeckYeah’s company again.

In another move that shows her consummate lack of judgement HeckYeah was appointed to the board of Maori Television in 2001 and resigned two months later citing a lack of funds. I’d say that was a pretty lucky escape for Maori TV, because she would have been sure to fuck it up if she’d stayed around.

HeckYeah stood for the Wellington Central electorate at the 2002 election and thankfully the capital’s citizens proved too smart to elect her. Thankfully she also missed out on her each way bet with the Nats not getting enough party votes to bring her in either. It got a bit sticky later on when MoFo Williamson got himself offside with the party hierarchy and it was only thanks to the elevation of well-known Maori basher Dong Brash to leader that HeckYeah wasn’t hauled in to replace MoFo.

Interestingly Dong nearly saved us all from this useless woman with his Orewa rotary club speech. After that Weary and HeckYeah contemplated leaving the Nats. Unfortunately for us and the teachers of this nation they did not and after a suitable period of blubbing over her 2002 disappointment HeckYeah came back in 2008 and stood for the Mana electorate. Once again the voters had more sense than the Nats and rejected her again, but this time she had secured (begged, borrowed or stolen?) a suitably high place on the list and this time her each way bet paid off and she was elected despite being roundly rejected by the electorate.  

In 2010 HeckYeah became a Cabinet Minister when another of the party faithful slipped and grazed her knees. Pansy made a Wong decision to use taxpayer money to help her husband promote his business and she was toast and HeckYeah was slipped into her portfolio.

Also in 2010 HeckYeah actually won the Mana seat in a bye-election after sitting member Winnie Laban had resigned to pursue greener pastures. It was nothing more than a lucky break as she was the only candidate for the seat with others realising there wasn’t a lot to be gained from holding a seat for just a few months before a general election. However HeckYeah with that impeccable judgement we have seen since she became a Minister went for it with the idea of securing it into the future. Fortunately the electorate turned out again in halfway decent numbers in 2011 and she lost it again, but by now she had enough clout having been a Minister albeit for about four and a half seconds and only as a subbie off the bench, to be well enough placed on the list to get in again after being rejected by the voters.

HeckYeah therefore is a worthy recipient of the inaugural and inauspicious Money & Titles Talk award because it is hard, given her history to imagine what the hell else caused her to become the Minister of Illiteracy.

*a plaudit is actually a round of applause – so I guess you could say we are giving the winners the clap. 

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.