Where’s the Wally?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whanganui – giving ‘h’ to Whilson

Every now and then something happens that carries within it the seeds of a great lesson. Often that lesson is not immediately obvious because it is obscured by other stuff. The fallout from the Stuart Murray ‘Wilful’ Wilson fiasco is just such a case.

In fact this one carries with it several lessons. The first and most obvious of these is that the current Government (and for that matter the last Labour one) don’t give a stuff about the welfare of the victims of crime or for that matter the welfare of those who could potentially become the victims of crime. If it was not so, they would have made some important changes to the law following the release of Lloyd McIntosh.

For those unfamiliar with the facts; McIntosh was another foul sexual deviant who was released from prison on a ten-year supervision order similar to that which Wilson is now being released under. At the time McIntosh was deemed to be too dangerous to ever cease to be a threat. But as with Wilson, as the law stands authorities were obliged to release him. That was in 2005 and at the time concerns were raised about the situation by then opposition MP Tony Ryall. He said in relation to a suggestion that Corrections staff might reduce McIntosh’s level of supervision from two-on-one to one-on-one, “He is the worst of the worst and the staff are very worried that the community is being put at risk for the sake of a few thousand dollars.". 

That is the same Tony Ryall whose bum is today firmly wedged in seat number six at the cabinet table and who holds ministerial portfolios for Health and State Owned Enterprises. He was concerned enough about the situation when he was in opposition and in no strong position to do anything about it, yet after four years on the Government benches when one might expect he has some degree of influence he still has done NOTHING about it. Now that’s commitment for you – commitment to saying whatever might get you elected anyway.

Hand in hand with the evidence of Government indifference to the plight of the ordinary folk in New Zealand in general and Christchurch and Whanganui in particular is the obvious conclusion that our laws have not been thought through. It would appear they have been drafted with the idea in mind that everyone can be rehabilitated – if you take a generous view, that is. However if you are somewhat curmudgeonly inclined, as myself, you might take that as a lesson that these laws are drafted to make for a quick fix and based on the theory that people have short memories. They figure the cost of keeping someone inside is so high that it is cheaper to let them loose among the rest of us. The potential costs (financially and emotionally) when all of that turns to shit have not been factored in or even considered.

But for me the biggest lesson coming from the release of Wilson that is being laid out for all of us to see is the reaction of the people of Whanganui.

Now I realise there will be two camps over this. Some will say the organised way in which the townsfolk have come together and are talking of mass trespass orders and the like is an example of a vindictive and cruel society. They might say it is an example of how a few rabble-rousers such as Michael Laws can home in on a key issue such as the general alarm and fear generated by having a dangerous sex offender released into your community to get together a lynch mob.

That might be the case and I can see why it might be seen that way. I think it is a sad reflection on our society that people feel they have to take measures such as this, but who could possibly blame them for (a) being afraid and (b) being prepared to DO SOMETHING.

Now that is what I mean about a really valuable lesson that we can learn as a nation from this. If we don’t like what is going on, we can take action. But the key to it is that you need numbers to make these things work. Time will tell whether the people of Whanganui actually do carry through with what they are proposing, but the fact they actually have got together and discussed some direct action and are seriously considering taking it is a start.

I hope they do go ahead with their plans. It might seem vindictive, but there is a bigger issue here than simply the welfare of Stuart Murray Wilson. People are understandably worried when they discover the state is obliged to release people from prison who are known to pose an unacceptable level of risk to them. This furore is more about the situation than any individual. And when it comes right down to it, I am afraid that some people are entitled to more rights than others. People like McIntosh and Wilson who have grossly offended against their society have lost the moral right to be treated like the rest of us. The safety of ordinary law-abiding citizens must take precedence.

But go Whanganui and watch this space New Zealand. People working together in numbers for a cause – that’s how you get change. Governments like the one we now have (and plenty before them too) are a bit Mutt and Jeff. They don’t hear petitions and letters to the editor, but they find it harder to ignore a noisy mob.   

It’s only money

The world seems to be universally in turmoil at the moment over the Global Financial Crisis. Having said that; it is interesting to not e how conveniently the GFC is invoked when Governments are asked to do something that will benefit the largest number of their constituents. You will notice how it magically evaporates when they want to tell you how why it is fine to get tough with beneficiaries who should just ‘go out and get a job’ (where?).

It is truly sad that so often our worth, or quite often our self-worth is defined by the abundance or otherwise of our financial wealth. We’ve all heard people say, “It’s only money” or “It is easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than for a camel to enter the Kingdom of God’ (or some such), but as Berry Gordy once wrote, “The best things in life are free; But you can give them to the birds and bees; I need money”

And although money is only a symbol of the material world; for most of us that’s the one we are living in. It can’t buy happiness but most of us would prefer to be unhappy with it than unhappy without it. But I digress....

Money exists in great abundance and despite the fact it has very little value, given most of it is fiat money and of no real value to most of us. Governments know this because they gave the orders to print the stuff, yet they still go to extraordinary lengths to make sure you and I and anyone else not part of their club don’t get our hands on any of it. They will spend large sums of money to ensure ordinary folk don’t get any. Sounds crazy? Well check this out.

Some of you may recall a fight between the Ministry of Health and parents of disabled persons who were caring for their offspring full-time. The MOH had decided these people were not entitled to any payment for the care they were giving despite the fact many had given up their paid jobs to look after their kids and were effectively easing the burden on local services. The issue had been in the ether since about 1999 and in 2010 a group of carers took their case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. The Tribunal ruled the Ministry’s policy not to pay carers who were related to the patient discriminatory.

The Ministry was not prepared to give up and appealed the Tribunal’s ruling to the High Court where the Office of Human Rights backed the caregivers in early 2011. The High Court also ruled for the parents explaining that by being excluded from paid work meant they were being treated differently because of their family status and that treatment was discriminatory.

So the Misery of UnHealth has been through two hearings both of which would have cost a lot of money and they’ve lost both times. But do they give up and do the decent thing and pay these tireless and selfless workers? Do they ‘eck as like.

Immediately following their second loss the MOHOFOSOBOs up the ante (and the cost to you and me – but heck it’s only money) and appealed the High Court decision to the Court of Appeal.

The whole sorry saga arrived there in February this year and has been decided once again this week. The Court of Appeal confirmed the High Court’s decision in favour of the parents.

According to Fairfax Media this case has cost Crown Law $1.4M so far and the whisper is the mean-fisted, tight-arses are likely to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, now. But then I don’t suppose we should expect anything else from the Minestrone run by that horrible little oik Toenail Vyle.

Now it’s important to remember here that this is the Government that sets great store by money. It’s never out of their conversation. The budget is to contain provisions for getting students to pay their loans back quicker; we can’t have public service television because  we don’t have the money for it; we need to sell our best performing state owned businesses to get some quick cash; we need to change the gambling laws so SkyCity can spend millions building a convention centre they will charge us to use......Listening to them you would think there was nothing else in the world except money and that money was the sole answer to all our problems. So if we believe them (and let’s face it we are a pretty damned credulous country); then how is it that the parent caregivers don’t need any money for what they are doing? Their job is tough mentally and often physically, is 24/7 and offers no perks. Compared to them our useless Government Ministers have got it easy and they insist on being paid six figures (not including the cents) to do their job. How would they like the roles reversed. I’ll bet they wouldn’t do their job for nowt. But why shouldn’t they? After all; it’s only money.

Profiteers and wages the leeches of the ages

I must confess I kinda stole the title from Marc Bolan for this blog. I hasten to add, there are no royalties due as my title is really quite different to the Tyrannosaurus Rex album, in content and it is only the rhythm of the title that is similar.

This week I am getting stuck into those greedy bastards who prosper from the shredded remains of the rest of us.

The thing about profiteers is they aren’t really all that smart. They think they are because they make a quick buck, but in most cases they could make a lot more of their precious bucks by taking a longer term view.

A glorious example is that Vile little man who claims to be the Minister of Health. Minister is a noun and a pronoun derived from a verb which means to wait on, care for, look after, see to, accommodate, serve, supply, aid, help, assist or support – whew!

I see very little evidence that Toenail is caring for our health, or looking after our health system. Nor is he accommodating it, serving it, supplying it, aiding it, helping it, assisting it or supporting it. A cynical person (do we know any of those) might say he is certainly seeing to it..... Seeing to it that most of us never get any timely health treatment. And as for waiting on it; it is the sick that are waiting on it and for it.

The Vile one tells us his measures are to save us money and gleefully fronts up before compliant press (usually to be found in his own general geographical area) to tell us how well his waiting lists are working. Of course he deftly avoids mentioning all those who have been refused a place on the waiting list because the under-resourced system can’t handle them, and he also fails to appreciate that saving money on a $2000 operation now is only a saving if you don’t later have to perform a $10,000 one because the patient has deteriorated while awaiting surgery.

Another of the genius strokes this Minister (most) Vile has pulled is to stop the DHBs from wasting money treating foreigners who have no entitlement to our public health services. Great idea, you might say, until you realise that he has hired people in every DHB to check on this. Given there are 20 DHBs in New Zealand that would mean there are 20 ‘Eligibility Review Officers’ or possibly ‘Eligibility Co-Coordinators’ and possibly more bum-stiffs and hangers-on associated with them. I don’t know how much was being spent on ineligible people but it would seem over $100,000 p.a. is being wasted on these people.

That might sound harsh, but when you consider that to prove our eligibility, all we have to do is submit evidence of NZ citizenship or possession of the appropriate category of visa, you might wonder why it can’t simply be handled by whoever sends out the letters already.

However the Vile one is not the only poodle in the kennel shitting all over us. Muzza McGillicuddy, the Minister of FAT is doing an amazing ‘do as I say, not as I do’ turn. Mighty Muzza, the man who dropped so many passes over the World Cup that he should have made the Black Caps (cruel), is cutting the fat at MFAT. But is he? He says he is, and he is a Minister so we should believe him, right? Wrong. I don’t know where Muzza learned his maths, but it would seem to me that chucking out 300 MFAT staff (despite the fact many are probably a waste of space) is a weird immediate move when you are set to spend $900,000 on upgrading an Olympic sized swimming pool for the consular staff in Japan. Furthermore we now learn these guys already have a considerable ‘complex’ in which their pool is housed and another $93,000 was to be spent on a badminton court, a gymnasium, and hot and cold running geisha girls. (Okay I made that last one up). Muzza has since decided the expenditure is unwarranted, but only after he had been sprung and publicly shamed over it.

It seems to me that flying a bunch of MFATs back to enjoy some RWC 2011 games wasn’t the best way to save money either. Nor was taking an expensive Air Force charter plane for a one-day meeting in Vanuatu, if Philgoshisthatthetime has his facts right.

Other supersavers in this government include Paula Bumfat who has figured out that beneficiary bashing and trying to force people into non-existent jobs is a thrifty habit and Heck Yeah Pariah who is saving us money on character and reference checks for teaching staff.    

Meanwhile while all of this saving is going on it would seem the only ones not trying to save a dollar are our councils who think nothing of splashing out on quarter and half million dollar salaries for their CEOs (read Cash Eating Oafs).

Of course, I nearly forgot. Things aren’t actually all that bad. Bill (Nospeakada) English approved a whole $0.50 per hour increase for the lowest wage earners. Wow, a whole $20 per week before tax. Let me see now what can they do with all this money? That’s $20 less roughly 20 percent for PAYE which brings it down to $16. Those who don’t know about these things would say that means low wage earners could save $832 per year – and they’d be right – if you are not a person on the minimum wage. Because if you are a person on the minimum wage it is almost certain you have been running a deficit in your budget and this will probably only reduce that slightly. By the way, before anyone passes judgement on those running such a deficit, just remember they are only doing what governments all over the world have done for decades. The only difference is that if they start printing their own money or issuing notes of credit they can’t back up, they go to jail.  

Knock-ons & hospital passes

Many people say rugby union is a violent game with the chance of serious injuries. But as a former player (about 100 years ago) and an obsessed fan of the game, I say you have to get things into perspective. (irony)

While it is certainly true the game is an aggressive sport, I doubt it is any more violent than our daily lives, today. In fact I would say it is less so because there are some pretty strict rules around the conduct of players during a game and pretty strict penalties are handed out for infractions.  Furthermore the game doesn’t involve anyone who doesn’t want to play.

I think it is also important to acknowledge that violence need not be of a physical nature to still be violence and frequently the non physical violence causes the most hurt. Quite apart from the obvious examples of child abuse, partner abuse and elder abuse that our society seems to be plagued with, there are plenty of examples of corporate abuse of staff, customers and investors.

Take our spectacularly failed finance companies as an example. Aorangi Securities, Belgrave Finance, B’On Financial Services, Bridgecorp, Capital & Merchant Investments, Dominion Finance Group, Five Star Consumer Finance, Hanover Finance, Kiwi Finance, Nathan’s Finance NZ, National Finance 2000, and South Canterbury Finance are just the ones who have been investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. There have been 38 others and they have all violently upturned the lives of many thousands of people who were naive/trusting enough to entrust them with their savings and investments. In many of these cases, if not all, investors’ money was treated like a piggy-bank for the directors. It is quite noticeable that few of those appearing before the SRO are destitute. For many of their investors, however it is a much different story.

Some might say investments by their nature are risky and those people were among the lucky ones who had some money to invest unlike many others who are just scraping by on a day by day basis. But a lot of these people were those ‘Mum & Pop’ investors Jianqi and his motley mob have been telling us will snap up our state assets when they go under the hammer. Many were just trying to ensure they wouldn’t need to rely on the state to make ends meet when they retired. What has happened to these people is far worse than a smack in the nose when the scrum goes down.

But the corporates and the scumbags living in (insert your favourite notorious suburb here) are just the beginning. Even more random violence and injury is caused by those in the public sector and those who pull their strings.

Our so-called social welfare services seem more geared towards warfare than welfare. ACC wriggles every which way it can to avoid paying for the treatment of people who through no fault of their own are injured. We all know of people who have fought long and hard to get assistance for rehabilitation and medical care (and I use that last term advisedly).

Our main social support organisation Working Hindrance to Innocent New Zealanders goes out of its way with various doorkeeping measures to ensure none but the totally useless get any meaningful assistance whatsoever ........unless of course you are the type of person who specialises in (metaphorically) kicking down doors and kicking arses, and can understand their regulations better than them. Which doesn’t take a lot of doing most of the time.

But ACC and WINZ are just babies at this game, really. The real masters of the cruel and unusual treatment doctrine are the masters of our glorious third world health system. This is a system so cumbersome that it can often barely manage to get out of its own way.   

Now while I am bagging the health system, I should qualify that by saying that for the most part I am not including the real health professionals. Most of them are very good, although there are some useless clock-punchers among them as well. But primarily it is the dweebs in offices on more money that most of us who dream up strategies to ensure they are able to sing from the same round sheet as the Minister.

Under the stewardship of the current incumbent (I’m sure there’s a good anagram possible there); we are told of great improvements every other week. Toenail’s grinning mug is plastered all over compliant rags trumpeting such things as how the DHB is getting more elective surgery done than ever and how nobody has to be on the waiting list longer than six months. This all sounds very encouraging. At least it would if it was even slightly true.

The reality is that people all over New Zealand are being denied timely medical interventions so Toenail and his mates can boast about how efficient they are. How does that work? It’s quite simple really. First of all they set the bar for a specialist referral high enough to exclude anyone who is not extremely ill. So rather than deal with an emerging problem, they choose instead to wait until it has not only emerged, but also gone to the second or third stage of its development. Hence a man with varicose veins that cause regular attacks of acute pain, cramps at night and eczema is told he will have to wait until he develops ulcers before he qualifies for so much as an examination by a vascular specialist. This keeps the patient off the waiting list and enables the DHB to report back to the Vile one that they are up to date with all their elective surgery. It might seem like a small point here, but I can’t help feeling varicose vein operations to relive pain and prevent thromboses don’t really sound like elective surgery to me. I would have though elective surgery would be just that. Something you want to do, but don’t need to.

The other waiting list trick the DHBs are fond of is the one where older people are kept waiting interminably, unless they can find themselves someone to advocate forcefully for them. This tactic appears to be a cynical ploy to keep them out of the system in the hopes they will fall off the perch before the need arises to do something about them.

However for those who manage to navigate their way through all the chicanes and blind alleys and scoop up all the golden apples along the way face another danger; admin mayhem. It would seem the hospitals are so busy trying to keep within the confines of what the DHBs want to report back to their shiny suited Minister that they are dropping the ball sometimes in a most alarming way.

According to the report released this week by the Health Quality and Safety Commission, there were 377 ‘serious and sentinel events in NZ hospitals last year. While that is not a huge number as a percentage of patients seen (2.7 million), it still works out to an average of more than one every day and I’ve no doubt every one of them was serious to the patients involved. The most common events that fell into this category were falls which probably suggest a lack of proper health and safety and/or supervision of vulnerable patients – the very sort of thing one would expect when work levels are high and manpower numbers are not.

The report says 86 of these people died though not necessarily as a result of the ‘events’, which seems a rather pointless statistic to publish. I would have thought it would be more worthwhile to find out how many did die as a result and print that. But we can’t upset the Minister’s plans, can we?

But there were also 25 medication errors which I find completely unforgivable and 11 cases of wrong patient, site or procedure which is really scary. But worst of all there were the 108 clinical management events which is DHBSpeak for wrong diagnoses or treatment.

If you think these figures aren’t too bad, consider this: a sentinel event is only one that results in death, serious injury or disability for the patient. A disclaimer also advises the figures are not necessarily all of the events and are only those the DHBs chose to voluntarily report.

I don’t know about you, but I think I might have to dig out my old rugby boots again. God knows it can’t be any less safe on the field.

Only the names have been changed to protect the idiots

The year has barely begun and already we have the contenders lined up at the starting gates of Bedlam all vying for the coveted title of stupidest New Zealander in 2012.

Somebody at CYFS who shall remain nameless; (but only because the agency has circled its wagons) is off to a flying start. He or she is the dufus that let someone else I can’t name escape from the agency’s custody. The reason I can’t name the escapee is another ridiculous situation. You see this little scumbag escapee is the 15-year-old boy-racer charged with the manslaughter of another young man who by coincidence also liked car racing, albeit properly organised racing.

To make matters worse, (if you can here) this little scrote had stolen the car he was driving when he crashed into 22-year-old Shaun Fitzpatrick and killed him. He then absconded from the scene. He has now absconded again, but the chances of getting him back quickly must be slim as we can’t know who he is because ‘he’s just a little boy’. Clearly this crucial lack of identification is going to be a major obstacle to locating the little shit. What I can’t get my head around is why the suppression should continue. The court has already indulged him in the first instance by suppressing his name, but the only thanks they got was him doing ANOTHER runner. In such cases the suppression should end immediately.

And while we are on the subject of his latest escape; CYF operations general manager Grant Bennett (surely a misprint – it must be Gordon) says “Child, Youth and Family had appropriate steps in place to monitor him, including round the clock supervision until his next court appearance. Unfortunately, there was a brief opportunity for him to abscond and he took it."

So who gave him this ‘brief opportunity’ and under what sort of circumstances did it arise?

Unfortunately this Bennett pillock refuses to say how a bunch of grown-ups could be so stupid and incompetent as to lose a 15-year-old who has already been remanded into their custody.

Clearly Bennett, G has about as much affinity with the truth as Bennett, P. CYF cannot have had ‘steps in place’ to monitor this kid around the clock like he says otherwise he would not be on the lam now. I shouldn’t really be surprised though because I reckon Baldrick could have come up with a much more workable plan than  anything devised by one of CYF’s ‘crack strategists’.

So congrats to the un-named nong, who I suspect we will never find the identity of as the Bennett’s will be too busy trying to cover the entire lazy corporate arse of CYF (and themselves). He or she is off to a flying start for the coveted title of NZ’s stupidest person for 2012.

However the CYF twit has some early competition from the slow-witted staff at Middlemore Hospital who let a woman walk into the hospital and then walk out again carrying somebody else’s baby.

I suspect this will be another incident where we will never learn the full details of how it happened in order to protect the terminally stupid – and of course Toenail Vyle the Minister irresponsible.

It is a lucky thing the parents of the baby spotted the woman otherwise who knows what might have happened. The offender was clearly mentally ill as she had already been faking a pregnancy for the previous nine months and had managed to fool her partner, (who also must be in with a chance for the title).

I am flabbergasted that someone is just able to walk into a neo-natal unit completely unchallenged. Furthermore in this particular instance the woman had earlier in the day been spotted holding another baby in the unit. When the baby’s mother challenged her she said she was just comforting the baby.

Middlemore’s idiot spokesperson, Lauren Young offers up the gem that Middlemore's birthing unit is a large ward with 45 beds which could be ''difficult to monitor all the time''

Difficult?  Er, perhaps, but hardly like trying to solve the world economic crisis or trying to get the truth out of a politician. This is easy shit. If they can’t manage that I would be extremely worried about allowing them to undertake medical procedures!

However it’s not PC to criticise these people who are ‘only doing their job’ (very badly). And since we don’t know who any of these anonymous clowns are; they will be spared the embarrassment of public ridicule.

But I can’t help feeling the public humiliation or the threat of same might be a useful weapon in getting public servants to serve the public properly. Nothing else seems to have worked so far.