Power to the people

Congratulations to the Green Party on their excellent proposal to give loans to homeowners to put solar power into their homes. This is an initiative I have personally been advocating for years. Hopefully David Cunliffe and his rather slow moving crowd will jump on board with this as well.

I am not surprised that Jianqi’s government has seen fit to ridicule the whole idea on (FFS) the grounds of expense! For a bloke who is supposed to know about money Jianqi is surprisingly dim when it suits him. Of course he is being ably aided and abetted by Simon the Pixie in his role as Energy Bunny – er I mean Minister.

Russel Norman’s policy involves the government loaning homeowners up to $15,000 to install photovoltaic panels on their houses. I gather that an average house can be set up with an adequate system for about $10,000 so this is a potentially good scheme. The loans would be repayable at the rate of around $900.00 per year via local body rates payments.

The interest rate of 4.1 percent that Russel Norman is proposing is the same as that at which the Government currently borrows money to fund all kinds of wasteful endeavours. The major difference here is that the money would actually be used for something that would bring tangible and worthwhile returns for both the voters and the Government.

Simon the Pixie has argued that the scheme would effectively be a Government subsidy because it involves a lower rate of interest. So what? At least it would be a subsidy which would save the entire country money in the long term.

The Government tells us that solar power is “more expensive than buying power off the grid”. Duhh! Maybe it might be until you have paid for your system, but how about taking a longer term view eh? I would be intrigued to see an argument that showed that over 10 years it did not work out cheaper for a homeowner and then get progressively cheaper to the point where it cost virtually nothing once the loan was paid off.

Simon The Pixie has also said that solar is “not a priority because of the abundance of cheaper renewable energy such as hydro, geothermal and wind”, which is a statement so extraordinary in its stupidity that I can’t believe even he said that.

In the first place hydro involves a lot of messing about with waterways and that can often involve unacceptable disruption to both the land and its natural inhabitants including plants and animals.

Geothermal is fine, but it is not readily available all over the country which means the construction of distribution systems which once again are likely to involve further disruptions to the environment.

Wind is good and even more renewable that the other two, but once again you are dealing with a system that requires distribution on a large scale whereas the very localised nature of solar power makes it much more practical and it poses no major disruption to the environment. Whether your house has an iron roof or a whole lot of solar panels really doesn’t make a lot of difference to the surrounding landscape.

The savings from the scheme the Greens are proposing would begin in the very first year and within a short time they would be providing most of those who took up the offer with free power for most if not all of their needs forever more. So what could possibly be wrong with that?

Well, I think I know ‘what is wrong with that”. It would mean smaller profits for the major energy companies and the industries that support them and ..... oh yes... the shareholders. But not the Mum and Dad investors that Jianqi and his merry men and women told us would buy these power shares, but the people who actually did buy them – those whose annual earnings sit in the top 1 percent of the population, along with major corporations and overseas investors. Boo- bloody hoo. In any case these people are in a position to cope with any loss of expectations they might suffer because of this and instead buy shares in solar technology companies.

There is also a prediction that this could result in 1000 new jobs although I am a bit more wary about that aspect as in my experience whenever politicians predict more jobs they tend to over-inflate the figures for effect. However it is quite clear from the comments made by those whose business it is to analyse these issues for a living that the basic figures regarding savings do stack up, and if you add in the lack of any environmental impact, then it is easy to see that we must go down this path. We should have started it decades ago, and there is certainly no sensible reason not to do it now.

I see the proposed scheme also involves setting up a system where homeowners would be able to sell their excess power to the grid for a reasonable price. But without legislation to compel the energy companies to honour that I suspect you would see very little movement there. However it would be an opportunity for enterprising folk to set up small scale power companies in various locations around the country to buy up and store that excess power to sell back to local bodies for their infrastructural needs such as street lighting and traffic lights.

I say let's power up. Power to the people and let’s see how many of us can short-circuit the power companies.

NZ Idle – the new series

In the year 2014 our television screens are going to be dominated with much fuss and bother and spin leading up to our biggest ‘reality series’ of the year. This series differs somewhat from the plethora of programmes that fall under that description.

As an aside I find it interesting that the word ‘plethora’ was once used to describe an unhealthy excess and that these days it is often used to denote abundance. I feel that in this context the word should be taken to mean an unhealthy excess especially as i learn that it had a medical connection and was used to describe a condition caused by dilation of superficial blood vessels which was characterised by a reddish face.

However, I digress....

The ‘reality’ series of which I speak differs in that it is a recurring series which takes over our media every three years. Yes; you’ve guessed it. I am speaking of that rag tag bunch of idle self-serving gits who come seeking our approval to keep sucking at the nation’s tit for another three years.

Battle has already commenced with Little Bo Tox and Anne Offhertrolley trying to blow the Greens’ co-leaders house up into a mansion the size of their own dunnies and bitching about how much better she can look in expensive clothes than they both do.

Meanwhile Jianqi is rushing about turning over one stone after another trying to find enough slimy invertebrates to potentially form a coalition with. You’d have to wonder if there are any more possibles left now. Let’s consider those possibilities.  

·         The Acting Party have been pretty much squished out of contention following the demise of their only MP in this current Parliament and it is hard to see how their latest oddball will gain any traction over the next few months. The tea has been chucked out and I suspect that even a case of Red Bull won’t put any wings on that particular slug before November. He isn’t even the party leader so he will have to be operated by remote control from Acting Party headquarters. Mind you that would be less humiliating for him than being operated via Jianqi’s arm up his bum like his predecessor was. Should The Natsis choose to ‘gift’ the Epsom seat to these wallies again, it just might turn out to be the gift that doesn’t even give once never mind the one that keeps on giving.

·         Just what Peter Dung, the man with no real party has in mind this year, I have not heard. I seem to recall he was considering retiring a few months back. Mind you that was when he was still sitting on the naughty step and now that he is being welcomed back into the bosom (can I say that in this column?) of the Natsi Party he might reconsider that. However even if he does, and if the people of Johnsonville and Newlands are still in a coma and he wins; he will be there on his Todd Malone again. Neither of the other party members is likely to get elected and his voter will not be able to vote enough times to get them in on the party vote either.

·         What’s left of the Maori Parting is Te Ururoa Flavell and a couple of spaces where the other two sat. It is more of a comb-over than a parting now. In any case there is no guarantee they would wish to coalesce with the Natsis this time as they have suffered some pretty serious damage through their association with them over the last six years They could only manage to grab three seats after their first term supporting Jianqi and this time they will be starting all over again with a whole new set of candidates to try and support their only leftover from the previous hangi.

·         There has been a lot of talk about the Conservatively Dressed Party and I think that might well be all it turns out to be. These slightly manic types managed to pick up 2.65 percent of the party vote last time, which isn’t all that surprising really when you think about it. There must be at least that percentage of the population with undiagnosed stupidity. Ironically that meagre share of the party vote was still only 0.15 percent short of the combined party vote won by the current three coalition partners. However we must remember that it is still only slightly more than half of what they would need to get a seat unless they could manage to win an electorate seat. As we don’t have any electorates that are comprised of nothing but wacko people I would suggest the chances of that are not terrific. Leader Column Craig is certainly an odd individual and not really the sort who would inspire confidence in most sane people. He has a little of the aura that surrounds that new Acting Party twit. He seems the sort of bloke that might cause babies to cry as soon as they see him and the rest of us panic if we are left alone in a room with him.

·         This then (unless some amazing new party arises and sweeps the political right wingers off their feet) leaves the question of what will Winnie do? Winnie is always a dark horse or a dirty dog depending on how you see him. He plays his cards close to his chest at times like this until he can be absolutely sure which way the wind is going to blow. This way he keeps the door open for a ministerial warrant no matter who is behind that door. If he stays true to his party’s policies he would not be able to form a government with the Natsis without making some demand that would stick in their collective craw. However with the chains of office glinting in the sunlight Winnie could be swayed enough to jump into that big blue waka.

      
      So what of the opposition? It is abundantly clear the Laboured Party will not be able to do it alone. Although many think that is exactly what they have been doing for some time.

      But I digress again. Or is that regress when you do it for a second time?

     

      The point is that Laboured will need some friends in the house if they are to warm the treasury benches again as they have again chosen a useless leader who unfortunately will probably make an even more useless Prime Minotaur should they pull this feat off. He has shown an ability of late to launch himself out of the starting gates with a policy headline before his minders have had a chance to teach him his lines.  

      So who are the friends of the Laboured Party?

      

      I guess the most obvious one is the Greens who have been growing faster than my tomatoes in this climate. They would be the next largest polling party after the Nats and the Labs and a long way ahead of any of the others. Their participation in a Labour led Government goes without saying. The only unknown around them is how many players they would bring to the game.

      

      However this is where it gets interesting. Outside of the Greens; who would Labour be able to form a coalition with? 

      

      Unless Winnie goes with them they would probably not have enough seats to be able to do it. They might of course win the support of the Maori Party this time, but how much use that would be given the current state of that party is another matter. It could conceivably add only one seat to the mix.

      

      There is of course the matter of Hone and his little one-man band. He would never be courted by National and so the possibility exists for him to be asked to be part of a Labour led coalition. However I think he would be the last one picked for the game if he was and I think they would do well to consider what problems he could cause if he became disenchanted or had another of his famous brain explosions.    

     

      To sum up, I think the Laboured lot need to devise a decent strategy now. If I was in charge of that strategy I would be building a bloody great big bridge with the Maori Party and suggesting to them that a widely advertised intention to form a coalition with Labour would give them a better chance of getting more seats in the upcoming viewers’ vote and I would be offering Winnie some very cool robes of office and advising him to follow the same course of action that I had suggested to the Maori Party.

      

      It will be interesting (in an academic sort of way). But jeez it will be sickening for the most part. Stock up on bicarb I say.

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?

Where’s the Wally?

In the last couple of weeks we have gained a new catchphrase into our lingo and we have been ‘privileged’ (?) to become familiar with somebody few of us had ever heard of before. Having said that, most of us would have been no poorer for never ever hearing of this prick, but life is like that sometimes. We can’t go back. The prat is now well and truly out of the bag.

I am referring of course to the one and only (thank God) Arrant Grabmore, that lowly National list pillock with delusions of adequacy.

Grabmore is likely to have one of the briefest careers of any of the overfed, over privileged tossers with whom he soils the benches of this Parliament. He has in the course of a couple of weeks gone from zero to zero and back again, managing to completely miss out the hero part of that particular cycle. He has offended a waiter, some diners, some tenants, possibly also his partner and his idol/idle/leader along with every right thinking person in New Zealand.

Boorish little twats like this should have been given a good kicking in the schoolyard and had this sort of arrogance knocked out of them before they got out of short pants.

For the benefit of anyone who has been in intensive care for the last week or a medically (or otherwise) induced coma, I will give you a little history of this twerp.

He was born in Christchurch in 1973 and spent most of his working life either working for Government Departments or sucking up to National Party shakers and movers like the reptilian Ill Health Minister and State Sold Enterprises Minister Tony Vile. He spent some time working with a couple of accountancy firms as well where he apparently advised utility companies. That probably explains why so many of them are so arrogant, although I shouldn’t give too much credit to whippersnapper Grabmore as he is still pretty wet behind the ears in this regard. A really smart arsehole, unlike Grabmore, knows how to insult and throw his weight around without bringing the roof down on his own pointed little head.

Grabmore suffers from an over-inflated sense of self importance derived from his overwhelming inferiority complex. And who can blame him? He is after all clearly a twit and he looks like a Jianqi clone, which is enough of itself to make anyone feel inadequate.

His political career if you can call it that has been pretty much a disaster from day one. He began by putting out his own PR in which he managed to boast about so much he has been referred to satirically as the go-to man for everything. He claimed a qualification for himself that he did not actually hold and seems to have sung his own praises pretty comprehensively – but it must be remembered this has been a totally solo performance for young Grabmore, much as I suspect, like his sex life.

He stood for the Christchurch East electorate in the 2011 election and lost, but almost got in on the Natsis' list. However his election night celebrations were somewhat premature (and I am tempted to make another reference to his sex life here, but won’t) and following the final counts the Green’s became entitled to one more seat at the expense of the Nats. As a result Grabmore as their lowliest lister lost his spot to Mojo Mathers. I’ve no doubt that this loss must have rankled with him particularly. First of all he lost to a party he probably perceives as the anti-Christ; then he lost to a woman; and finally he lost to a woman with a disability. To Mr Perfect In Every Way, this must have really impinged upon his own mojo.

However the universe often moves in mysterious ways and because young ‘Grabbers’ was such a proficient arse licker he remained on the Natsi list and thus when Blockwood Smith resigned from Parliament last year he was ushered in to the back benches.

This appears to have inflated his already bursting sense of entitlement and so it was that he got sloshed at a Natsi conference and behaved like a buffoon in a Christchurch restaurant. Here he uttered that now famous line, “Do you know how I am?” when refused more wine due to the fact he was pissed as a chook. He then got stroppier and threatened to tell his ‘Dad’ (Jianqi) on the waiter and have him bash him up (fire him).

His behaviour was so bad that one of the people he was dining with was so embarrassed he wrote a note to the waiter apologising for the little shit.

Then when the faeces hit the fan, little Arrant wrote a note of his own (in crayon) in which he apologised for the behaviour of his group. This of course pissed off his fellow diners who had all been apparently behaving perfectly appropriately. His esteemed leader was then contacted as they always are in these cases and as is always the case with Jianqi’s particular style of ‘laissez-faire’ management nothing has been done. Jianqi has made some grumbly noises and delivered his usual po-faced response about the miscreant letting himself down and his behaviour falling below the standard expected etc etc etc... yawn; but sod all else.

In a case like this there is always more and you can rely upon the media to start finding it soon. They have already found another instance where Grabmore has chucked some tenants out of their accommodation in circumstances that seem less than fair and certainly less than polite. It looks as though he might have upset his partner at the same time, so he looks destined to become an even bigger little Johnny no mates than his steamed leader.

Of course more will unravel from all of this and eventually Jianqi will have to drop this Wally because he will become too much of a distraction. He certainly won’t be the first MP Jianqi has supported to start with, held on grimly for several weeks and then eventually had to chuck out. Pansy Wong-Number immediately springs to mind and I know there have been one or two others as well, especially if one includes coalition partners.

In any event even if Grabmore manages to stifle any further revelations you can be sure his list place at the next election will be expressed in three digits. Of course none of us should be remotely surprised by all of this as it is exactly the sort of arrogant attitude that most of this Government carries around with it all the time. The only difference between young Arrant and his fellow party members is that the others have learned how to tone theirs down when other people are watching or listening.

But I feel sorry for the waiter, who after all was only doing his job. It is illegal to sell alcohol to pissed pricks, so he was merely doing what he oughta.

But most of all I am sorry that he didn’t have the presence of mind to call for silence in the restaurant and announce that the person next to him didn’t know who he was and ask if anyone could come forward and help him in regaining his memory. It would have been an absolute scream if nobody had come forward.

Click go the shears (hopefully)

The Laboured Party is about to implode again. It looks like after this weekend the Shearer will have been shorn of his leadership and the party’s search will continue anew for the Golden Fleece.

I feel the ovine analogy is appropriate given the brainless ‘follow-the-leader” down the road of already failed policies behaviour of the current incumbents.

While I feel the Natzis will struggle to hold on for a third term, I think it is important for the opposition parties that the Laboured ones raise the level of their game and also their leadership. Party leaders need to have some ‘nads’. They need to be in control and appear to be so. They need to be able to deliver a crushing blow to the other side in the house on a regular basis without sacrificing credibility to do so.

The Shearer is a career diplomat; a man whose job is to keep everyone sweet and not rock the boat too much. His training is all about finding ‘nice’ and ‘non-confrontational’ ways to put his point across or to challenge those being made by others. I have always believed this method to be ineffective when applied to things that REALLY matter. As the old saying goes; You have to stand for something or you will fall for everything. Although perhaps in this case it might be Leaders have to stand for something or they will soon fall from favour.

I always felt the Shearer was the wrong sheep (er man) for the job and all the more so when facing that smarmy little twat that goes by the title of Prime Minister. Jianqi is such a superficial little gnome that it needs a REAL person to counter him. Unfortunately the Shearer is cut from the same bolt of superficiality as Jianqi with the only difference being that he is probably a somewhat nicer fellow.

What is needed is somebody who is bright, quick, and when it comes to showing that the bright new future is really just a nasty little laser that will burn your eyes out. For that reason the Shearer must be shorn at the very least and probably sent to the works. Under his leadership the Laboured profile has not been that sharp. Instead of being the lead opposition party as they should have been given they had the second highest number of seats, we have seen them reduced to third rank at best. Russel Norman is the opposition party leader who has most looked like a leader. He has been leading the charge ever since the election in no minor way. Laboured have looked like also-rans when you compare their performance with that of the Greens and New Zealand First, neither of whom have allowed the Natzis any wriggle room.

So what will the Laboured supporters do this weekend? Anybody’s guess, really as that party, like the Natzis is controlled by other interests (different to those of the Natzis – but vested interests nonetheless). The rank and file (or the smelly and abrasive if you like) are liable to do as they are told by the all-knowing all seeing ones and will shuffle into whichever pen their shepherds drive them into, but hopefully they will eventually elect somebody who can actually do the job that needs to be done.

For my money they should choose current deputy leader Grant Robertson. In fact they should have anointed him in the first place instead of messing about with the so-called Shearer experiment. That was merely an attempt to do what the Natzis did when they elevated Jianqi to the throne with indecent haste in order to have a smiling baby-kisser up-front who won’t scare off the voters by being coarse or outspoken.

Well bollocks to that. If they want to win the next election (with considerable help from the other oppos) they need a guy like Robertson who isn’t afraid to upset people to get an important job done. Hopefully for the sake of both Laboured and the other opposition parties they will see sense and elevate the only one they appear to have who could do the job.

But then this is politics in which it has been said a week is a long time. I think I have just fully comprehended that saying now. I think it means no bugger (especially among the voters) remembers anything a week hence!