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?

Spy vs Spy and other funnies

If it wasn’t for the fact that this is ‘real life’ the antics of Jianqi’s spies would be almost as funny as the Spy vs Spy comic strips in Mad Magazine used to be.

There is certainly an equivalent amount of bungling going on anyway, all of which goes to show that our Minister of Spies couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

Call me naive, but I always thought that the point about spying is that nobody knows you are doing it. Stealth and subterfuge are the cornerstones of spying, surely? Spies are often referred to (at least in British TV shows) as ‘the funny people’, except I don’t think that was supposed to mean they act like the Keystone Cops. In this case I think the word funny had the meaning of funny peculiar rather than funny ha-ha.

However it seems that Jianqi’s funny people really are hilarious. Their idea of subterfuge would appear to be closing their eyes and saying, “You can’t see me”.

Of course we now live in the digital age and most of us are aware that we leave a large digital footprint almost everywhere we go, both in the real and cyberworlds. All sorts of people have been spying on us for ages. It’s just that most of them up to now have been comparatively harmless.

Advertisers and marketers have been dredging the cybercanals for a couple of decades trying to find the right fit for each of us so they can deluge us with special offers and products they think we can be convinced to buy. Annoying though this is, it is for the most part, pretty harmless for all of us apart from the truly gullible. But at the end of the day it is impossible to protect the truly stupid from the consequences of their own actions. We shouldn’t even try anyway, because as long as they exist it gives us all a chance to feel a little more secure about ourselves.

So what is likely to come out of this current furore about Jianqi and his funny people snorting up every tiny grain of information they can on everyone they think might pose a problem for them?

Probably not a lot, I am sorry to say, at least not from Parliament. Yes there will be a series of tiresome and expensive inquiries and a few more departmental heads will be dropping into the basket, but unless we are really fortunate it is unlikely that the power behind the drones will be brought to account. We can only hope and pray that the voters make up for that in 2014 – always providing Jianqi is not at this very moment attending the Robert Mugabe School of electoral practices.

If the opposition was sufficiently organised and ACTUALLY WANTED TO they could really make things tough and work on Peter Dung and get him to vote down the GCSB bill which seeks to legalise the illegal acts the Government has been caught out doing.

Sadly when it comes to matters of national security many people are easily captured by scare tactics and seem to think there are shadowy figures out there who might steal away our freedoms if we don’t implement all sorts of regulations and surrender our right to privacy in order to stop them.

Well, hello! There are such people but they ain’t so shadowy. They currently occupy the Government benches of this land and they have already travelled a long way down that path towards Big Brother. Doublespeak has been a feature of their speeches for a very long time.

But whenever a government is questioned about introducing these types of measures their first reaction is to try and justify their lunacy rather than deny the activity is taking place. No better example of that can be found in Jianqi’s rambling nonsense on his favourite (read most compliant and National Party friendly) radio station More FM. He tore a large leaf out of the George Dubbyah book of crowd control by claiming he had to give the GCSB more powers because there were people undergoing terrorist training in Yemen with the implication they were going to return to Godzone, blow us all to pieces and take over the country.

Duhhh! Let’s face it; with the devious lot we have running this country (into the ground) anyone who wanted to take it over would only need to chuck them 30 pieces of silver and it would be theirs. If you don’t believe me just look at how many large multi-national corporations have already picked up the deeds to much of our industry and land with full co-operation from the Government. Several have even had laws changed to suit them.

The other argument that has been put forward to try and justify these intrusions into our freedom is that if we don’t have anything to hide, then we don’t have anything to worry about. The trouble with that one is that not so long ago I can recall a couple of politicians who were apoplectic when they thought their little tete-a-tete had been overheard by a journalist. But surely you had nothing to hide, boys, so where was the harm?

I won’t be holding my breath for the combined opposition to do the damage to Jianqi, although I will be delighted if I am proven wrong about that. But what does give me some hope in all of this is that Jianqi has made one of the most fundamental blunders a polly can make. He has threatened the freedom of the press.

Now I have been very critical of the job the NZ press has been doing in terms of bringing this government to account, and I have suggested in the past that it is because they are poorly trained and lack the mongrel journos once had. I still think that is the case, but I have always known that they hold the principle of freedom of the press very close to their hearts even if they are rather slack about going after the rabbit.

Jianqi has foolishly assumed that because they have let him get away with murder before they won’t have the balls to stand up for themselves when he impinges on this final bastion of their pride. Wrong! Most journos see this sort of intrusion as the equivalent of doing something unspeakable to their mother. They will (and already are) going after him with implements designed to nip off the bits that offended them and they will not stop until something much bigger comes along. Already the papers are full of stories with unflattering pictures and little editorialising comments throughout them. Words like bungling and blunder are being liberally used and it is quite apparent that they are going after him.

There is an unspoken rule in politics which any politician should know. It is that you don’t upset the press because if they take a dislike to you they can and will make you look stupid. You can get away with being rude to them and failing to front for interviews but if you touch the sacred cow of press freedom, then you had better find another career because this one is over.   

Watch your papers and television news programmes over the next few months. The new game in town will be Pin the Tail on the Jianqi and when they’ve finished he won’t want to sit in parliament again.

Only the cronies (dum dum dum dum dee doo wah)

Want a great job, a sinecure, a safe un-sackable position for as long as you feel inclined to bother with it? Then try sucking up to Jianqi and his merry band of brigands.

There will always be a welcome in the hillside for those who toe the party line and suck the party whatsit.

The National Disgrace under Jianqi is hurtling out of control through their current term. The indecent haste with which they are making changes that are un-mandated by the wider electorate, despite the fact they were able to coalesce into a government (?) after the last election is truly mind-boggling.

But it is not just the damaging policy changes such as the asset sales and the ‘clarification’ of the laws governing the actions of our secret squirrels that are the worry. Although God knows they are wreaking enough damage to the economy and to our basic freedoms.

What is even more disturbing is the flurry of political appointments that are likely to continue long after this government has left office. These are people who are appointed to jobs that have traditionally been seen as being apolitical and although it has always been the way that successive governments have appointed people they like to these positions there has been a change in the way Jianqi’s lot have tackled it.

Ian Fletcher was appointed to the role of director of the Government Communications Security Bureau in January 2012. This happened after the State Services Commissioner Ian Rennie had told Jianqi he had a list of possible candidates but didn’t like any of them. Helpful Jianqi instantly had an answer for him and suggested an old friend of his for the position. But he went further; he actually contacted that old friend directly and told him to apply for the job (wink, wink).

Thus it was that Ian Fletcher was the only applicant seen by the SSC and was duly appointed to the position. It would seem that his lack of relevant experience did not count him out of being considered the most suitable candidate for the job. But then I suppose with nobody else on the short list then he must have at the very least been the best candidate on offer.

Of course Jianqi later denied knowing Jesus. er Ian (at least three times by my count) and then when he suddenly had a moment of recall he tried to say he knew of him, but didn’t really know him. Of course as we all now know that was also uncovered as an outright lie in due course and then came the real killer punch; Jianqi forgot he had actually contacted Fletcher directly and advised him to apply (wink, wink). This fact becomes even more disturbing when we learn that Jianqi had also forgotten to advise the SCC that he had done this, leaving Mr Rennie with a big eggy stain all over his dial when the story got out.

The timing of Fletcher’s appointment was also interesting; immediately after the GCSB had waded in illegally to Kim Dotcom’s home and trampled all over his civil rights so that Jianqi could cuddle up to the FBI.

This demonstrates that Jianqi, who claimed more brain-fades than an Alzheimer’s patient over this fiasco, knew very well that his bully-boys had overstepped the mark and that he was going to need ‘some friends in high places’ to ensure the whole sorry saga didn’t come back to bite him on the bum.

The next example of National Disgrace’s cronyism occurred when Judith ‘Little Bo-Tox’ Collins appointed Dame Susan Devoy as race relations conciliator. Another hopelessly under-qualified candidate for an important role.

But was she under-qualified if you look at it from the Natsi’s point of view? Well, no, not really. In fact she was ideal. She was a sporting icon, a dame of the realm, and a really good supporter of the Jianqi government and all the principles it stands for. She had the ideal background of having been involved with a campaign to raise awareness of mental illness, which would enable her to understand politicians better. Then she was involved with a campaign to raise awareness of muscular dystrophy (I’m still not hearing anything about race relations yet). She is a good role model for women – she even wrote a support letter for Tony Veitch after he kicked his partner in the guts and then of course she made some stunningly tactful pronouncements on how Waitangi Day should not be a public holiday and then had a swipe at women in burquas. 

No I’d say she was well qualified to sit on a fence as she did the minute that rude cow from Denmark slagged of the welcome she got when she visited here recently.

With a dame like that in the position, we need never worry about any ethnic minorities getting above themselves or (gasp) having the damned cheek to seek some human rights.

But with her latest appointment Little Bo Tox has really bested herself and steals the cronyism title well and truly away from Jianqi. Given her latest enraptured adoration of Margaret Thatcher, Jianqi should be very afraid. Yon Bo Tox has the lean and hungry look (or in her case, the over made up and greedy look).

This time the hard faced one has appointed someone from within the ranks of her own (sorry Jianqi’s own – getting ahead of myself there) government to a plum role. Ooh hoo Jackie Blue has been appointed as Equal Opportunities Commissioner. This is another role that is supposed to be apolitical which is appropriate because Little Bo Tox’s phone is ringing but she doesn’t want to talk to anyone now, be it John Wayne or Chairman Mao.

Admittedly Jackie Blue has been a spokesperson on women’s issues so there is some sort of qualification there, but for her to be actually taken out of parliament to take on the role is dodgy to say the least. Blue hoo has been in parliament for three terms and never made it to a cabinet spot. One can’t help but feel that the job is some kind of compensation for that with the pay-off that the Jianqi Government has another friendly face in another high place and they can be sure their policy objectives will not be undermined by some disruptive soul who wants people to enjoy human rights.

With all this cronyism going on, I can’t wait to hear who the next ‘ideal’ candidate will be and what plumb job they will take. What’s your best guess? Mine is John Banks for Human Rights commissioner.

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’.

Dotting the coms and crossing the fingers

The FBI might want Kim Dotcom to be perceived as some kind of ‘Bête Noir’ but the New Zealand Police with no small measure of help from Government have made an absolute circus of his arrest and everything that has followed. The effect has been to elevate Dotcom to the level of a man who has been misunderstood and had his rights trampled on by jackbooted fascists.

Whether this is an accurate picture of the man still remains to be seen, but it is kind of hard to side with those who claim to be the good guys when you learn what has gone down here.

Dotcom is claiming police raid was an instance of ‘excessive police action’.  He has said that when police arrived they were not in police uniform and he had no way of knowing they were police. He says he bolted into his panic room when he saw a bunch of heavily armed men arriving on his property and I think I would have done the same if I had a panic room to dive into. He says once he became aware they were police he decided to sit tight rather than surprise them and risk being shot. Once again this is pretty sensible behaviour.

Dotcom further alleges that when police reached the panic room they punched him in the face, kicked him while he was on the ground and stomped on his hand.

But the entire raid appears to have been a gigantic over-reaction at the least and could well result in successful court proceedings by Dotcom against the New Zealand Police. You have to ask yourself whether it was really necessary to helicopter in a battalion of Police armed with pistols and automatic weapons to arrest three businessmen. It is very lucky this episode didn’t turn nasty because Dotcom’s bodyguards had weapons. While this is not a desirable state of affairs, I am sure many of New Zealand’s mega-wealthy citizens are also protected by armed men. If Dotcom’s guys had not realised soon enough they were facing Police there could have been a fire fight and then the coppers would really have had some explaining to do.

As it is there is already a judicial review under way regarding the legality of the warrant used in the raid and now we discover the NZ Police have handed over to the FBI material they seized in the raid which they had assured Dotcom’s lawyer they had not done and would not do without giving notice. What makes this worse is that among that material is footage from Dotcom’s security cameras which would bear out (or otherwise) his claims about the way the raid was conducted. Now those files are in the hands of the FBI, what is the bet they are ‘lost’ or ‘found to be unusable’ or tampered with?

I know Jianqi wants to become the United States’ bestest buddy’ so I shouldn’t really be too surprised that when the FBI snaps their fingers he races out and fetches their paper and sits panting at their feet and wagging his tail. But the American’s must be pissing themselves with laughter at the lengths this moron will go to prostituting our sovereignty and denying the usual expected protection to one of our own citizens. After all, Kim Dotcom might have been born in Germany and he might have spent a lot of time living all over the world but he does hold New Zealand citizenship and that should count for something. Can anyone imagine the United States rolling over like that and denying the rights of one of their citizens to appease a perceived ally? (Did I really ask that question?) Talk about allowing an FBI Sledgehammer (trust me I know what I’m doing) a crack at a nut, albeit an intriguing nut.

I have to admit I rather like Kim Dotcom and as this case unfolds I find myself liking him even more. He has a great sense of humour as evidenced by his “John Banks’ song and as a musician friend of mine recently said, for a bloke whose supposed to be a copyright pariah, he seems to have a good deal of support among the musical community. It is interesting to see how all the pollies who were only too happy to lap up his hospitality have all suffered severe memory loss and tried to distance themselves as far away from him as possible at a time when he needs support. But then they are politicians so this sort of fair-weather friendship is part of their culture.

But aside from the fact I like Dotcom and think he deserves a fairer suck of the sav than he has had so far; what concerns me most of all here are the actions of the Attorney-General’s office and the NZ Police. You might have expected the Police to be a little more cautious after the fiasco that was Tuhoegate; but they seem to have been pretty hyped up and clomping all over the show in their big size 13 boots. The Attorney-General’s office might have to spend some considerable time attempting to extract their much more stylish shoes from their big mouths. They’d better hope they’ve dotted all their coms and crossed all their fingers. This whole circus might be amusing were it not for two things. The first of these is you and I will ultimately pay for all of this when Dotcom sues, and that will be regardless of whether he does so successfully or not. Either way we will be throwing loads of dosh at legal fees. The second point is that once again we are being made to look like international Noddies by our Government. Thanks Jianqi and co! Oh, and lest we forget; thanks to all the pillocks that voted for this barrel of monkeys.  

Forgotten mammaries or how to make a tit of yourself

It would seem they have been putting something in the water at the Beehive because an awful lot of the b’s are having trouble with their tiny insectivore memory banks.

Banks’ blanks

We are currently all watching with increasing alarm the ridiculous spectacle of Banksia who it would seem is unable to recall flying in a flash private helicopter to a multi-million dollar home on the North Shore of Auckland where he dined with a man so large he darks out the sun. Banksia’s recall is also compromised whenever he is asked where all his election funds came from or whether he paid full price for his holiday accommodation. It would appear he also has forgotten the rest of us have not just arrived on a cabbage boat (whatever the fuck one of those is).

When it comes to a question of what Jianqi should do about Banksia, then politics aside it is obvious this man won’t remember what he has just voted for in the chamber ten minutes afterwards. This calls into question his ability to remember what he is being paid $217,000p.a. to do

Key blanks

As for Jianqi it is obvious he is also experiencing the first stages of memory loss. It is clear there are big blanks in his recall. For example he doesn’t seem to recall how he told Hell-On-Wheels that she should stand Whinny down when he was being investigated over alleged electoral expense issues. “That’s what a good Prime Minister would do – that’s what I would do” he lisped. So if he believed that he is then by his own definition either not a good Prime Minister, unless of course he is a liar or has simply forgotten.

Jianqi also seems to have forgotten he didn’t actually win the election with an earth-shattering majority. In fact he seems to have forgotten he didn’t win it with any sort of complete majority. While it is true he got more seats and more votes than any other single party, in both instances that still only amounted to less than half of the votes cast.

Finally little Jianqi seems to have forgotten he is no longer a Lone Ranger currency trader who can zoom here and there at someone else’s expense and cut deals of his own.

Brown outs

Another who seems to be having trouble with his short-term memory is Gezza Brown Eye. We already suspected Gez’s stomach had no memory and now we find the problem is not confined to that. Gezza has had a lot of trouble over the last year remembering to move his big foot from his mouth before trying to say something clever. So far he has referred to Bob Parkup as a clown (which is accurate though Gez himself only needs the funny shoes and the wig to be a much better candidate for that epithet.

Gez’s clodhoppers were still wedged in his gob a few months later when he decided to regale us all with his up-to date knowledge of life in Finland. Unfortunately it would seem Gezza’s knowledge of Finland was written on the back of a postage stamp in crayon and did not include the warning “remove hoof before you make a goof”. Consequently he became the very large butt of some very good Finnish humour.

That last gaffe should have Finnished (I couldn’t resist that) him off, but Ol Brown Eye still had blank to fire. About ten days ago he was asked about some comments from Christchurch City Councillor Yani Johansson but was unable to say much except that he didn’t know who Mr Johansson was. Given Gez was liaising with said Council and has been regularly since the shaky city shook itself to the ground, you might think he would remember this dude. Maybe the Scandinavian name confused him and he thought it was another fin trying to make a mockery of him.

No benefit of hindsight

Another NewCon who appears to be having trouble with memory is Benefit Minister Paula Bumfat. As a former solo mother who had to bring up kids and get herself an education you might think she would remember very well what a hard row to hoe that is.

However it is abundantly clear to this observer that Ms Bumfat has almost no recollection of those days. If it were not so, then why would she seem to think the rules should be changed for the latest batch of solos ensuring none of them get the opportunities she did at our expense. Nobody who could remember bringing up a child alone while trying to get a career under way could ever  see the logic in reducing student allowances for those who need the assistance of those benefits in order to become a self-supporting and worthwhile member of society.

Lest we forget

Another and possibly even more costly event involving memory also came to my attention this week. It has been revealed that Crown lawyers and others were aware when they authorised police to seize assets belonging to Kim Dotcom their paperwork was flawed and the seizures were illegal. This was discovered at the time and even Solicitor-General David Collins knew of it, yet they all chose to ignore this fact and go ahead anyway.

So what did this have to do with memory? Simply this; Justice Potter has already pointed out to KD that he has the right to sue over the Crown’s actions. Given he probably has more money than the NZ Government they must have forgotten you don’t piss off big wealthy men who can sue your arse on a scale you have only ever seen in your nightmares

Collapsing banks

It’s a slippery slope when you sup with the devil. The road to hell is paved with good donations. Pride comes before a rockfall. You are judged by the company you are funded by. Don’t air your dirty dealings in public.

How many more mixed metaphors can you think of to describe the shambles that is the current Coalition Government?

The SS National Disgrace has sprung more than a couple of leaks in her hull since that farce we called an election. But what is worse is that closer inspection shows the timbers are rotten to the core.

The election was built on a massive collection of lies, half-truths, deceptions and gagging orders so it should come as no surprise when those who were ‘robbed’ by it uncover more dirty deeds on an almost daily basis. You can’t steal an election using all sorts of dirty tricks and not expect payback.

Who can forget the hissy fit Banksia and Jianqi got into when their carefully staged PR exercise got out of their control?  Police were dragged away from important policing to harass a freelance photographer and apply subtle pressure to the media in general over an inadvertent recording of a discussion in public between two public figures. The court wrapped everything up tightly until. after the election and the police issued a heavy warning in support of the two little gnomes, despite the fact most of this was legally dubious at best and downright inaccurate at worst.

Let’s not forget the figures none of us were allowed to see that would have either justified (yeah right) or disproved the logic being Jianqi’s planned asset sales. ‘Trust me”, little Jianqi seems to be saying. But why would you? He’s been caught out that many times in the last 12 months; you might think the Teflon must be getting at least a bit tarnished.

I never thought I’d say it, but Whinny has been a very valuable member of this current Parliament. He has not given the National Disgrace so much as a centimetre of wriggle room. He has called for Banksia to be stood down until all his alleged sins of omission and commission have been dealt with. He points out that Jianqi insisted Helen Cluck do the same with him when he was a Minister and there was a matter of some donations to NZ First that were alleged to be outside the rules. At that time Key had said that was what he would do if he had a Minister in that position. Interesting how quickly things can change when the boot is in another mouth, eh?  

Jianqi says Banksia has told him directly he has done no wrong and that’s good enough for him. That might be all very well in certain circumstances but when there is evidence to suggest Banksia has had an amazing case of amnesia over so much stuff, you’d think the PM might be a tad more cautious.

However arrogance is a style Jianqi has always carried off well. He somehow manages to adopt a ‘what me?’ face and an ability to act incredibly disingenuously and give the impression he is an innocent in a strange world instead of the puppet-master he really is.

As Whinny so cleverly quipped, “Mr Key has certain principles, if you don't like them than he's got others.”

The Banksia/Dotcom/SkyCity affair is increasingly looking like the loaded gun that will have Jianqi’s eye out. It is clear Banksia has been economical with the truth over his dealings with the large, apparently genial and definitely memorable Kim Dotcom. As Whinny said, it is rather hard to forget the megasized boss of Megaupload and it would appear Banksia might have the first stages of dementia if he can’t remember meeting the man mountain at least four times over the last 18 months or so, especially when at least two of those meeting lasted for over two hours. Even Banksia’s old mate Mofo Williamson this week confirmed Banksia had approached him seeking approvals for Herr Dotcom with the OIO.

Of course Dotcom is not the only very animated skeleton in Banksia’s electoral piggy closet; there is the matter of SkyCity who very generously gave $15,000 each to Banksia and Lemon Brown, though only the Lemon seemed to remember it....or declare it.

The Oppos need work together and keep digging around Banksia as I believe they will find a lot more skeletons. If he goes down it will be a significant rockfall for the coalition who will then have a zero vote majority unless they can fool the Maori Party, which given its current leadership shouldn’t be too hard. But being able to buy the occasional vote on the occasional issue would not be a sustainable situation for them and the good old Vote of No Confidence could probably be rolled out quite successfully at that stage.

I would suggest the best place to start is to closely scrutinise all his electoral donations both for Mayor and for Parliament. According to Granny Herald his electoral return (for the mayoralty) contained 45 other allegedly anonymous donations and five of those were for $25,000. Given Banksia's reluctance to own up to the two Dotcom cheques and the SkyCity one, who knows who else might have their finger up his bum working him? People like Jianqi like to tell us everything is about transparency but from where most of us are sitting it would appear there is a lot of gunk on the windshield of our ship of state.

I reckon a couple more good shots across the bow could sink this tub. Action stations!

Weak tea and even weaker characters

Times are tough and we are all going to have to pull in our belts this year. Or so the saying goes from our shiny new government.

Why we would need to do this when we are confronted with a ‘brighter future’ I can’t understand; unless that ‘brighter future’ was simply a colourful pigment of Jianqi’s imagination.

I couldn’t help noticing how the Prime Munter leapt onto the front foot this week to try and damp down the fires of expectation.  The Government is still on track to get back into surplus by 2014/5 he told a no doubt credulous audience at Waitakere in his ‘State of the Nation’ speech (and what a state it is in, eh?). But added that the European debt crisis could stuff that up for him, and finished off on a positive (read: rehearsed) note by saying, “But outside that scenario, we remain firmly committed to our target for surplus in 2014 - 15." Which is another way of saying their policy is still the same even if their intentions are not. It is important in politics to distinguish between ‘policies’- (the stuff you tell people you want/intend to do) and ‘intentions’ – (what is really going on).

I heard the teapot tape today and it is a sadly disappointing item, to be frank. There were no really big hairy skeletons leaping from the closet, but it is clear those who claimed to have heard it earlier obviously did. It contains some less than charitable comments about poor old Dong Rash and writes of the NZ First supporters, but aside from that there is nothing particularly damning. It also shows the two Johns in a pretty cocky mood, but then we already knew what jumped up little farts both are, anyway. It makes you wonder what sort of a long game Jianqi is playing by making such a fuss and involving the cops. My guess is that he was embarrassed not so much by what was on the tape as he was for being such a dufus as to not notice it earlier.

Still this incident will pale into insignificance when Parliament really gets started. We haven’t heard the last of the Kim.com saga yet. Some awkward questions will have to be answered about how somebody who passes the residency ‘character’ test doesn’t pass the same test for buying a home. Methinks some ‘second thoughts’ are involved here. The Coalman probably (actually certainly) stuffed up granting him residence in the first place and then Mo Fo Williamson pulled the rug out when he wanted a home. Well why not, eh? They already had his $10M. I notice Judge David McNaughton – the nitwit that let Akshay Anand Chand out on bail resulting in him killing the woman he was charged with abducting – has shown wiser counsel in assessing the likelihood of Mr .com (why didn’t he choose.de given he is German?) fleeing. His lawyer, Paul Davison showed how naive he was by saying his client’s assets were frozen and therefore he was not a flight risk. Wake up, Paully; people this rich ALWAYS have other funds available to them. Having said all of that; something about this case makes me very uneasy. We seem awfully keen to please the Americans over this and I smell a large political rat somewhere in this pile of shit. Has Mr Domain name upset some big money players (apart from Hollywood that is)? I suspect he has and this is more to do with that fact than any alleged illegal file sharing or ‘racketeering’. But I could be wrong.  

Of course the next fly in Jianqi’s Vix is likely to be the sale of the Crafar Farms. In the light of the hoo-hah over Kim.com this has become an even more hot potato for the Government. A decision from the OIO is due any day now. Some unkind commentators have suggested it is being timed for when the PM is out of the country. Settle down. Little Johnny is not a pussy and always knows how to man up. Look how he dealt with the media over the teacup saga. He wasn’t running away he was just very busy as Prime Monitors are, saving us from our wasteful ways and greedy excesses. Well you can’t waste what you don’t have, can you? And we ‘one percenters’ can only dream of wasting stuff these days.

That light at the end of the tunnel is sounding its horn

Now that the dust from the collapse of the Laboured Party has begun to clear and their new bright hope has been anointed, we can see a few things a little better.

One such thing is the brighter future Jianqi and his band of merry revellers offered us once they regained access to the slush fund – I mean treasury benches.

Education is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? At least it can be if you can actually get a decent one. The National Disgrace has given us a glimpse of what the brighter future they have in mind for education is.

Jianqi and I agree on one thing; our current education system is failing far too many people. However when it comes to fixing that system we clearly have a different idea about that. For example I wouldn’t have thought a positive way to fix the education system would be to appoint a disgraced school principal to a specialist advisory role with the Ministry of Education. I especially would not if that unprincipled principal had tried to cover up some naughty noodlings of her husband with an underage pupil and was still subject to disciplinary action. What sort of a lesson is that?

I also wouldn’t have thought it a great lesson for the then Education Minister Anne Folly to lie to media about it, either. But hey, the Ministry of Ed knows best and as they very cleverly explain it; Folly was asked if they had a suspended principal working in the role, but as Mrs Mutu had resigned from her role she wasn’t technically suspended at that time. I guess I just keep forgetting it’s a dynamic environment!

Charter schools are not something I would have put forward as a fix for our education system either. This is partly because until a couple of weeks ago I had not heard of charter schools. I suspect I am not alone in this and I am pretty sure that if we were to conduct a poll of every New Zealander who was eligible to vote at the last election we would find very few who had. I am equally sure almost none would have heard so much as a whisper of charter schools during the election campaign.

This raises a couple of questions: What is a charter school and why the secrecy?

In answer to the first of these, as far as I can tell a charter school (in the USA, anyway) is a school that is funded by both the state and possibly private funders. It does not have to adhere to the national curriculum, but cannot charge tuition fees as it is still a part of the state system. I don’t know how accurate that is, nor what is envisaged by Jianqi and Heck Yeah and Banquo, but I’m buggered if I can see what it would achieve. I have heard talk of it picking up the kids who fall through the cracks in the current system, but surely a re-jig of the current system and regional support services assisting the schools would be better. Why re-invent the wheel, especially if that wheel has had a habit of falling off wherever it has previously been fitted?

As for the secrecy; you can only conclude there is something about them they know we won’t like. They must have been afraid it would have made some of their voters nervous, because if it was such a whizz-bang great idea, why weren’t they boring us to death with it all through the election campaign?

It has also become blindingly clear that Jianqi and his government are hell-bent on passing legislation through OUR parliament to please other nations. A really creepy example of this is the NZ Food Bill.

I am working my way through the ramifications of this and I can tell you it is one helluva doorstop. So far I have picked up that ‘Food Safety Officers’ would be given the power of search without the need for a warrant and the Minister may adopt a joint food standard (for example aligning us with some other country’s regulations). There is a little waffle about him ‘being satisfied adequate consultation has taken place under the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991 (Australia)’. However it could just as easily be rammed through during a holiday period or rushed through under urgency with the excuse it was ‘vital to trade.’ They’ve already tied us into Australia’s medicines legislation and I really don’t think we want to surrender any more of what little sovereignty we appear to have.

I also notice the Minister will be able to designate some standards for New Zealand only while others will link in with Australia’s. Now that should make things blindingly clear – having two different Acts to keep an eye on! I have yet to find any references to seeds as has been claimed by opponents of the Bill, but as I said it is a weighty tome and I’ve barely scraped it’s slimy sides. However it is quite apparent the intention is to regulate us a lot more and there could be some tricky issues surrounding the harmless bartering of goods with neighbours. In any event; I think this Bill has enough things wrong with it for it to be a worry and I urge everyone to sign the petition that is trying to stop it in its tracks. You can find more about the Bill at   http://nzfoodsecurity.org/2011/07/19/food-a-controlled-substance-not-in-my-back-yard/

And finally the brightest future appears to have been saved as usual by the National Disgrace Government for those in our society who are most vulnerable – and no I’m not talking about those struggling CEO’s like the one at Christchurch City Council.

I am of course talking about the children of the nation – those who come under the ‘care and protection’ of that wonderful generous and efficient organisation run by Paula Bumfat. This week we saw how much Bumfat cares as she faced the nation, upper lip trembling to try and explain how it wasn’t her fault or that of the wonderful people at CYFS that a 9-year-old Auckland girl was given a taste of Abu Ghraib in the Waitakeres.

And of course it wasn’t. We all know that a monster a.k.a. the child’s mother inflicted all the injuries and has been jailed this week for those acts. But what should have happened is that various individuals from the 25 agencies that had been dealing with this family since the child was a few months old should be sharing her cell for their abject failure to come to grips with what was plain for anyone to see.

Bumfat was blubbing about how ‘manipulative’ the woman and her partner were and wants us to believe they managed to cleverly pull the wool over the eyes of all the so-called experts and even the Minister herself.

That is just ten foot deep bullshit. Granted many of the social workers involved WOULD have been taken in; but not because the woman was so smart. How smart can an uneducated dropkick with a bunch of kids who have all been taken away from her at one time or another and who probably only has a vague notion of who fathered whom amongst those kids, be? Lets’ face it; she is another scumbag (probably from some sort of local Westie scumbag dynasty) that anyone other than a brain-dead CYFS employee would have sussed out in five minutes. The CYFS personnel aren’t all so stupid, though; some would have been only too aware of what was going on, but too hidebound by ridiculous internal procedures to do anything meaningful (or timely) about it. As for Bumfat, she like most useless Ministers would simply have seen what she wanted to see. The scummy beater should get some credit for asking for help (albeit the serious abuse was already occurring), but letters like that need to go to opposition spokespeople. Sitting ministers never do anything that might uncover a slip up on their watch.

It is unfortunate the new Parliament only sat for the one day and there wasn’t time for the opposition parties to make a meal of Bumfat’s situation. Hopefully they will get together and give her a hard time when they come back next year. And as for the lame report by former ombudsman Mel Smith; stupid shit like better communication between departments and better training are just fatuous school kid comments. The best way to sort that particular department out is to de-politicise the entire health and welfare sector. Only that way will they be able to get the workers focussing on needs rather than political agendas. Professional standards of conduct would need to be raised, so strong and focussed management would be needed to change the slack ‘civil service’ culture that exists today. Finally individuals (and that includes Ministers) would have to be accountable for their actions or lack of them.

So we have already seen a glimpse of this bright new future and I have to say it looks about as dim as those who voted for this lot must have been on November 26. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact Jianqi is still standing in that Egyptian river over asset sales. Let’s hope he doesn’t notice how quickly the waters are rising – until it’s too late.

Have a great Christmas everyone and recharge your batteries for the battering we are in for in 2012. Either that or the battering we will give the government. It’s your choice.

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?