Here we go with Judith & John or the ABC of NZ politics part 2

Last week I brought you the first half of a leaked document that is being used to train our new MPs. Of course since then there have been denials from the Government that this document is genuine and even suggestions (heaven forbid) that I made the whole thing up.

Clearly this is another case of brain fade from the ruling party and to prove that I publish for you this week part two of the MP’s primer.

Last week we learned the letters from A for amnesia (or had you forgotten that already – John certainly has), to M for mess which is what Judith and John will have to clean up this week after Smaug lashed out over the weekend. Trying to turn Wellywood in Middle Earth wasn’t such a good idea after all, was it Johnny?

N is for noes which is what you pick when you want to vote against a particular bill (in accordance with the party line of course). Lately it has also come to mean Novopay; a pay system developed to ensure teachers don’t get too powerful (or paid). It was teed up by the last Labour Government and its failings are therefore not the fault of the present Government despite being signed off by them in the face of advice from almost every quarter not to do so.

O is for obfuscation, which is an art you will be trained in for important occasions such as answering direct and confrontational questions from the press. (Does anyone in the Press Gallery still do this?). Simply put, it is a technique that involves using at least five words where one would have done. Your speech is delivered in a circular pattern that leads one inevitably back to the start without divulging anything that even vaguely resembles a direct answer. It has been unkindly suggested that “O” also stands for old-boys’ network, a club where your membership entitles you to preferential career advancement and wealth beyond your wildest dreams, but this is merely an ugly rumour perpetuated by the opposition. There is no such thing as an old boys’ network anymore. The name was first changed to old persons’ network and subsequently to ‘senior citizens’ network’, which as everybody knows is another name for Grey Power and nothing sinister at all.  

P is for posturing and populist. These two are a package deal. Posturing is the art of appearing to take a stand on the issue du jour. But the stand you take when posturing is the one in which the most votes lie so this makes it populist. There is no point in taking a stand on an issue that is likely to cost you votes and by implication, your place on the party list. It is important to remember when playing the posturing card to do so via an obfuscating speech (see under “O” above) to ensure you don’t say anything you might later be held accountable for. 

Q is for quisling. A quisling is not a small goose although the parallels with a bird brain are obvious. It is somebody who displays treachery and fails to recite the party mantra and sides with anything that emanates from the opposition benches. It also applies to coalition parties that join up with the opposition to form a government instead of helping the true party rule as they are born to.

R is for redacted. This is the process whereby dangerous information is removed from official documents to protect the press, the public and others from harm From time to time opposition members and media sources will unreasonably demand official documents and sometimes these will contain information that could compromise National’s security. Usually these are in the form of errors where it is incorrectly stated that a Government Minister knew about a certain person or series of events which that Minister has already repeatedly told Parliament they have no recollection of. To avoid humiliation for the compilers of these documents owing to their lack of accuracy the Government removes these damning pieces of evidence before releasing the documents and this is called redacting.

S is for SkyCity.  SkyCity is a philanthropic organisation that has the best interests of the ordinary New Zealander at heart. They are here to help the Government out by building a world class convention centre that will drag our economy out of the red that the Labour Party took it into and into the black of prosperity. The generosity of this great benefactor is so huge that it has agreed to fork out $402M of its own hard earned money to boost our economy by over $90M per year until the end of time. Furthermore they agreed to do this with no strings attached other than asking the Government to (quite reasonably) extend their gambling licence for a mere 35 years and allow a trifling 230 extra pokie machines and 40 extra gambling tables.

T is for taxation. This is the way Government funds all those free lunches free air travel for you and your family and expenses claims that you will have during your term in Parliament. It is collected by a fair process in which everyone except big business, which is the lifeblood of the country, pays their fair share. It is important to remember that big business has big expenses so it must be given big tax breaks to enable it to employ big numbers of people who can in turn pay big slices of their income in taxation to support us all (in Parliament that is).  

U is for unions a.k.a. the Anti-Christ. Unions are devious cults hell-bent on destroying the country. They are doing this in cahoots with the Labour Party and various other Pinkos. They seem to think that everyone is entitled to have a say in their workplace, the right to a fair wage and various other namby pamby rights such as holidays and sick leave.

V is for vertical integration. This is not only a flash term you can wave about like a big willy and confuse the public, but it is also the secret to business efficiency. Big companies get the opportunity to grow even bigger and to move into more diverse business fields through the medium of vertical integration. To understand it better you could think of it as ‘keeping it all in the family’ which after all makes sense since the family that plays together stays together. For example if you were to start a business where you developed seeds for farmers to plant, then it makes sense that you would also develop chemicals to fight off the diseases and pests they might encounter. Then you would start developing drugs to fight off the diseases people will get when they eat the food grown from those seeds and using those chemicals. It’s only logical to have all those businesses under one banner so you can help everyone at the same time as helping yourself.

W is for whitewash. This is another name for an enquiry into scurrilous allegations from the other side of the house. It gained the name because it is a nice clean way of airing your washing and showing that it is all Persil white and not mucky as alleged by the stone throwing hypocrites on the opposition benches.

X is for Xmas. This is the time of the year when Parliament closes down and you get to mumble some meaningless platitudes before taking off for your holiday home in Hawaii while the voters fight over the last tin of baked beans at the City Mission’s Festive spread.  

Y is for Young Turks. This term does not refer to youths from the Dardanelles, although Turkey was at one time ruled by a party of that name. In this context it used to mean a young movement within the National Party that was named after a similar group in the American Republican Party during the 1960s. This term has now fallen out of use as the modern party is just that; i.e. modern. It doesn’t need stroppy little upstarts trying to change party policy which has been very carefully developed with maximum input from the voters – or at least the ones who make the biggest donations to the election fund.

Z is for Zilland as in New Zilland. This is the correct way to pronounce the name of our fine country as demonstrated by our fine leader who has been setting the bar extremely high in the development of New Zilland Inglush.

So there you have it; the unabridged version of the new MP’s training manual. No expense has been expended on this invaluable resource and as you will have noticed, it is bringing obvious returns with the standard of representation we now have.

But maybe with returns like that we should bolt the gates and not let the buggers back in.

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’.

A series of non-sequiturs

There are times when the world just doesn’t seem to make any sense. At times it seems everywhere you look you see something that is being broadly accepted by the sheep-like masses but which doesn’t follow in a logical sense.

The first of these to catch my eye over the last couple of days was the decision to induct Phil the Greek into the Order of New Zealand for ‘services to New Zealand’.

Clearly this is a case of Jianqi kissing HM’s arse big-time with a view to ingratiating himself and lining up a similar array of honours for himself in the future. It also goes to show how vain the royal in-breds are, and how the old matriarch couldn’t resist adding another title to her beloved’s already vast collection. I could fill an entire A4 page with all the honours and decorations and letters after his name. Most of them were awarded in a similar bum kissing fashion to the latest one and are equally irrelevant. He has such honours and awards from approximately 50 different countries, of which less than 10 are even part of the British Commonwealth. Oh and if you think my inbred remark is unfair, consider this; in addition to being Lizzie’s husband, Phil the Greek is also her third cousin. No wonder their eldest son wanted to be a tampon.

Those who have read my blogs regularly will have gathered I don’t have any time for the Royal Honours or even Royalty. However I recognise the need for some kind of recognition of genuinely good works and don’t mind people such as John Kirwan getting a nod for the work he has done for those living with depression or for Nancy Merriman for the great job she has done setting up the Katikati Heritage Museum and various others who do good works that they aren’t handsomely rewarded for.

However to return to my opening point; given the honours system we currently have in NZ it would seem only fair those inducted into the Order of New Zealand should be New Zealanders. It is our highest civilian honour and is limited to a maximum of 20 living New Zealanders, although they also allow extra members to be appointed ‘to commemorate important royal, state or national occasions’. This latter rider obviously gives them the scope to appoint Phil the Greek in the year of his missus’ jubilee. So okay they left the door open and before him his ma-in-law was awarded the same gong, but it still doesn’t seem right that a Danish/Greek married to the Queen of England should be awarded the Order of New Zealand.

Another item that caught my eye and didn’t seem right was about another institution I have zero time for; the beauty pageant circus. Granny Herald ran a story about the latest Miss Universe New Zealand who it seems might not be able to take part in the world contest because she doesn’t actually qualify to be Miss Universe New Zealand. Confused?

Well it seems Avianca Bohm who was given the title over the weekend is not a New Zealand citizen. Ms Bohm is South African born and was apparently told by contest organisers that she could enter the contest but she could not win it because the contest rules state you must have New Zealand residency and citizenship. While Ms Bohm has residency she does not possess the latter, making her ineligible.

At a moment like this two obvious questions arise (or three if you count ‘why should anyone care’); the first is why did an ineligible bimbo get chosen ahead of all the eligible bimbos? And the second is why was an ineligible contestant allowed to contest?

Well the answer to the second question is simple. Every contestant has to pay a ‘sponsorship fee’ of $3000. It would appear the organisers have no problem taking that money from someone who can’t win and I’d have to say that any dim-witted bint who entered under conditions such as that deserves to lose her $3000.

The answer to the first question is a little harder to ascertain as it involves handbags at ten paces between pageant director Val Lott and chief judge Jack Yan. She says it shoudl be an embarrasment to the judges and not the pageant because she told them Ms Bohm couldn't win. Meanwhile Yan says   no she didn't make it clear (blub, blub) and she shouldn't blame them.

There are a number of competing beauty pageants around the world and it’s a bit like professional boxing you never know who the champion really is. Not that it makes much difference anyway as in my opinion both activities are ones that should be consigned to the garbage bins of history and done away with altogether. Both rely upon the exploitation of people who don’t possess any really useful talents. This particular one is run by the Donald Trump organisation and they had a bit of a hoo-hah earlier this year when a Jenna Talackova, a transgender contestant entered the Canadian contest. Initially she was told she couldn’t enter because the contest was only open to ‘naturally born females’ which is an interesting phrase that reminds me of a jolly jape the Bard pulled in the play whose name we dare not mention. It cost the mad Scot his head. But when Ms Talackova tooled herself up with a serious legal eagle the contest organisers decided that as long as she satisfied the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions’ she could enter.

Actually I found out this year’s Kiwi leg of the contest has also had a rather tricky history. Only a couple of days out from the final five of the contestants were struck down by a stomach bug and one of the judges tripped on a pothole and wound up in hospital. Perhaps the Universe is trying to tell them to stop taking its name in vain.

My next non sequitur involves the money man who has a problem getting figures correct. Jianqi spent his working life in the world of high finances before he was eased into his currently well-paid sinecure by his ‘connected’ mates. You might think somebody in this field would have an affinity for figures or at least be able to quote figures with some modicum of accuracy.

But it would seem our Prime Minotaur cannot handle even the simplest of calculations. There has already been considerable doubt cast over the figures he quoted for the benefits that would accrue to the country after he has sold half the family home, but now it appears our gallivanting leader couldn’t even get the figures correct around the number of jobs we would get in return for selling our gambling laws to SkyCity.

When he put the deal to us, Jianqi said the convention centre would provide over 900 construction jobs and create work for a further 800 people at the convention centre. If these figures were true it might make sense for the government to fund this venture themselves, but of course he would have known those figures were mere spin, which is why they aren’t.

Stephen Hamilton of Horwarth Ltd, a company employed by the Jianqi Government to do a feasibility study on the project is alarmed at the figures released by the PM. He says their study put the number of jobs at between 318 and 479 or roughly only half the number Jianqi was trumpeting. Furthermore Hamilton says the figures include total extra staffing including extra taxi drivers and people working at the hotels rather than just those actually employed at the convention centre. Hamilton also says their report estimated 150 construction jobs each year for five years making a total of 750.

Of course our Prime Moron is away overseas kicking up his heels at Liz and Phil’s royal bash as he has been every time the shit has been about to hit the fan this term. So he is unable to comment on how he could have overstated the number of construction jobs by more than 20 percent and the number of convention centre jobs by almost 50 percent.

But the most puzzling non sequitur of the lot is why did New Zealanders vote this prick back in and how come the opinion polls don’t seem to show any major drop off in his popularity. The answer to the first of these is difficult unless you simply accept we are living in a nation of dimwits, while the second is much easier; someone is messing with the figures again.

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!

Different strokes for different strokers

It is interesting how situations can be given different interpretations according to who is interpreting it or for what purpose they are interpreting it.

An example of this is the Global Financial Crisis (or GFC for short). Ever notice how this phenomenon is described as a recession by anyone trying to explain their inability to improve their business performance or that of the country while those who are trying to kid us they have made a difference tell us ‘things are looking up’?

But one thing is for sure; the GFC is not all bad – at least not for all people. Take the banks, for example. To look at their performances you wouldn’t know there was anything amiss with the economy at all. If KPMG’s latest Financial Institutions Performance Survey can be trusted, the last year was one of the most profitable for bankers in recent times. Combined net profits of banks in NZ last year amounted to $3.3B compared with $2.77B in 2010. That is an improvement of more than 20 percent.

So the banks are doing very nicely thank you while the rest of us are seeing our income stalled and prices rising and have to dip into our savings to make ends meet.

But don’t worry; Jianqi is going to sell our top performing State Owned Assets to pay for our health and education. But wait a minute wasn’t education going to be funded by the great charter school scheme?  That’s the great plan where McDonald’s Secondary Modern and the Coke Adds Life Intermediate both start churning out a whole new generation of burger flippers and people with no teeth.

Of course the stars of last week’s blog are doing very nicely as well during this ‘downturn’. Figures released by the casino company in February of this year show its profit for the six months ending December 31, 2011was $78.8M. In the previous year it made a profit of $123M and expects this year to reach $140M. It is easy to see why they want more machines. Revenue from their slot machines increased by a whopping 17 percent.  It’s harder to see why they NEED them though.

What was that somebody said about ‘harm’? Don’t talk rubbish. I have it on good authority (SkyCity CEO, Nigel Morrison) that Lotto is more harmful than pokies, although given he runs no Lotto games and a shitload of pokie machines, he might be just a tad biased, don’t you think? However in addition to being biased, our Nige is also stupid and he doesn’t do his homework. Had he bothered to check before opening his independently operating gob, he would have found some very handy and interesting figures in the Gambling Helpline New Zealand Report which show that in 2010 NO problem gamblers contacted the Helpline due to their problems with Lotto and in 2011 only six had a problem with Lotto. On the other hand... there is a fist and it should leave Nige with his ears ringing and fully informed about the more than 800 people who contacted the Helpline after having problems associated with their use of gaming machines, casino tables and cards. Admittedly most of those on the gaming machines are accessing pub ones. However it doesn’t take a genius to work out that if pub machines reduce in number while SkyCity ones increase, then the problem gamblers are going to migrate to SkyCity in ever increasing numbers.

So it seems, somewhat ironically, that the financial crisis is affecting everyone except the money people. Am I the only one smelling putrefying rodent flesh here?

We bailed out a load of finance companies when this all kicked off and the insurance companies following the Christchurch earthquake. It is hard to find out exactly how much this has cost but the scheme was originally designed to ‘guarantee’ $133B of deposits. It would appear that the fund has actually paid out at least $2B. That amount of money if added to our health budget would have given us around another 14 percent to spend or 20 percent more for education.  It gets really crazy when you consider that bailout fund was also guaranteeing a further $131B. How about guaranteeing expenditure on things that actually matter to most of us, eh?

However we are unlikely to get that with a gnome like Jianqi who, let’s remember also took up an appointment with the Federal Reserve before becoming our PM. (How handy was that?). Thus he is in a perfect position to understand what it is like in the real world (Yeah!). With a mere $50M to his name, Jianqi really knows what a struggle the last few years have been for the rest of us and sees no problem in taking our shilling (or $411,510 p.a. plus allowances) for his troubles.

It’s a wonder to me that he can actually tell when the economy improves. It is hardly likely to make any difference to him either way.

I spy in my little Sky something beginning with ‘C’

Ain’t private enterprise wonderful? Actually, yes it is, in its purest form, when an enterprising citizen sets up a business to supply a useful good or service to a willing public.

However it begins to take on a far less sweet and pleasant odour when it gets too big for its boots and thinks it deserves consideration over the needs of the majority of us. While it is nothing new to learn that ‘big business’ is usually in a position to gain concessions from politicians that serve only them (and possibly the pollies as well); the current dirty deal being considered with SkyCity is something new.

What is new about it might only be the fact that we all know about it. Most of those opposed to Jianqi’s offer to change gambling laws to suit the casino in return for them building a convention centre are appalled we could be auctioning our laws for some mythical windfall for the City of Sailors. Personally, I would be extremely surprised if this was a first. However I would think it is the first time anyone has been so blatantly obvious about it. And I don’t see that as a matter of ‘transparency’ (the latest buzzword of the conversationally challenged).

Instead I see this as further evidence of the utter contempt in which Jianqi and his overpaid and under-skilled gang hold the voters of Aotearoa. Six months ago they won an election. Well when I say they won an election, I guess the word ‘won’ needs some clarification.

Under our electoral rules they gathered more seats (59) than any other single party. However as there are 121 seats in our Parliament they did not win the majority of them and they needed the electorate seats of coalition partners United Fiasco and the Actors to reach a one seat majority. Furthermore if we turn our attention to their percentage of the party votes cast we can see that 47.31 percent is not a majority either and even adding in the pathetic contributions from the aforementioned ‘collision’ partners that still only gets them to 48.98 percent. It is only by adding the Maori vote in that this unholy cabal makes it over the 50 percent line (by a whole 0.41 percent. Now that’s hardly the stuff of blank chequebooks and unlimited mandates for one’s entire policy.

But back to the issue at hand.

Paperwork has emerged showing that on the strength of this ‘win’ or ‘mandate’ or ‘travesty’ depending on your viewpoint, Jianqi saw fit to order officials to cease work on plans for a major convention centre in the City of Seals and advise himself (at least he was telling somebody!) to chase SkyCity to build one for us instead.

This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact our laws seem to be up for auction in return. The National Disgrace is quite prepared to alter gambling laws which would allow SkyCity to put in bigger better faster and greedier gambling facilities. This is an interesting policy in the light of an oft mentioned mantra that our legislation is supposed to be some kind of sinking lid on gambling and a disincentive to the unlimited greedy growth plans of the casino barons.

There is another aspect to this barrel of rotten fish that should also be of concern to us. It is easy to imagine SkyCity had special treatment over this matter. Consider the following:

1.      Ministry officials began a feasibility study on the proposed convention centre in August 2009.

2.      In the same month Ministry officials heard of SkyCity proposals to expand their facilities and Jianqi ordered them to stop work until he had heard more about what SkyCity was planning.

3.      At their AGM in October 2009, SkyCity chairman Rod McGeoch told shareholders the company’s relationships with Government were as good as they had ever been and that he now had opportunities to meet high ranking officials and cabinet Ministers. He added that situations like that were changing how the company was seen by key influencers.

4.      At the same meeting Mr McGeoch said SkyCity wanted changes to the Gambling Act because it barred them from expanding their casino activities. He said the Act should take account of the contribution the casino industry makes to employment and tourism.

5.      A valuable piece of background information here is that SkyCity employ the services of Mark Unsworth who is a professional lobbyist and one of only about a dozen such people who can walk into Parliament whenever they like to see Cabinet Ministers and officials on behalf of their clients.

6.      On November 4, 2009 Jianqi had dinner with SkyCity bosses and where he discussed the convention centre and they talked about the possibility of relaxing the gaming laws for SkyCity. Key says he was relaxed about this because it was a way to get the convention centre without spending any Government money.

7.      In March 2010 Cabinet called for expressions of interest for the building of the convention centre and decided the feasibility study with Auckland Council for the centre and for which a budget of $250,000 had already been approved must stop.

8.      Over the next nine months or so the Ministry of Economic Destruction spends $277,698 on legal fees and various (no doubt useless) reports vaguely connected to the project.

9.      In June 2011 it was announced SkyCity would be building the $350M centre contingent upon gaming laws being changed to suit them along with a further ten year extension to their gaming licence.

It certainly seems like nobody else got a look in and it appears pretty certain the favourite was picked long before the race began and it appears the punters are the ones that are being asked to jump over the fences while the horse just ties on a really big feed bag.

An interesting aside to this that I discovered while researching this blog (yes, I do actually check stuff), was that when SkyCity applied for permission to new gaming tables and machines to ‘fund the building of its new convention facilities’ (that sounds like a familiar turn of phrase); the Chair of the Casino Control Authority who ruled in favour of them was Judith Collins, our current Minister for something or other quite major. She agreed with them that it would have a positive effect on tourism, employment and economic development. Now where have I heard that phrase before? Spooky, eh?

You see there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Or put another way; “Lot 23 the New Zealand Gaming Act, now who’ll give me an opening bid of $350 million?”