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.

I don’t want us to be number one

Well congratulations to us. New Zealand has had shameful placings in so many world tables lately, such as child poverty, the gap between rich and poor and youth suicide statistics. But now we have the chance to be winners again – and so soon after the RWC too.

So what are we winning? Well I think we are in the running for several trophies at the moment.

First of all our government should win the award for the most cynically rigged election since the last fiasco in Russia where Vlad the Imputin arranged for his mate to caretake the Presidency while he slid into the PM’s chair for a term so he can then jump back into the seat his mate has kept warm for him until next year. The National Disgrace Party started the fiasco by hand-picking the candidates of their potential coalition partners to ensure they were all on the same page. What the book was, we can only speculate, but it will have had something to do with silencing dissenting views and enriching themselves at our expense.

Because of the fact we have no written constitution to fall back on it would seem the party in power can do whatever they like. For example they are able to choose the date of the election, which obviously means they can arrange for it to be held at a time that is convenient to them.

This year they were able to play an absolute blinder in that regard by beginning the campaign straight after the RWC. This meant the whole thing was rushed through while everyone was still enjoying the ABs’ win and were probably still a little light-headed. It also meant that policy releases could be timed to perfection; that is to say they could be released at the last possible moment so nobody had enough time to check them out properly before they had to cast their vote.  

Then Jianqi decided he was too important to debate the issues with anyone other than Phil Goshisthatthetime. Phil foolishly took his cue from Jianqi and said well I won’t if he won’t. Television for some unfathomable reason also decided to get onto that particular bandwagon and gave the two twats what they wanted instead of giving the public what they wanted; namely a debate between all the major party leaders. The channels should have invited all the major party members to the debates and made a point of ridiculing anyone too pussy to turn up.

But once again – our political system allows this sort of nonsense, where candidates like STP (Simon the Pixie) and Toenail Vile can refuse to front candidates meetings in their own electorates and instead hold their own little bullshit fests with all the party faithful cuddled up close and cosy. Dissenting views are not what these people want at THEIR meetings. Heavens above if you allowed that, the entire fabric of their smug and selfish society would unravel and some of that poor underclass might turn up and stink the place out.

Then of course there was the teapot saga where Jianqi mobilised the force of the law to gag the press, sent the solicitor-general to ‘guide’ the High Court and goodness only knows what or who was sent to ‘advise’ the Ombudsman that his role has now changed overnight to that of Protector-of-things-the-government-doesn’t-want-you-to- know.

As you might have guessed our other table topping achievements also spring from this so-called election. The first of these is the neutered state of our press. In 2009 the freedom of our press was judged to be one of the best in the entire world. The annual international survey by Freedom House ranked our press freedom at a score of 14 where 1 is the top and 100 the bottom. The highest ranking in that survey was 10 shared by (not surprisingly) Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Only nine nations did better than us in that survey. We beat countries such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and USA. But that was before the Samovar incident. It was bad enough for Jianqi to threaten and intimidate our press over that matter, but it was far worse that they listened to him. What a bunch of nutless wonders. They just rolled over like big pussies to have their tummies rubbed instead of scratching the little shit’s face. November 2011 – the day the NZ Press committed sideways.

Finally the biggest trophy we will probably cart off will be decided this Saturday November 26. If my guess is right and so is the government we elect, then we will qualify for the dumbest nation on the planet.

Jianqi was publicly caught out in the following lies:

Standard & Poors have said they will downgrade our credit rating if there is a change of government

I didn’t lie about GST or Kiwisaver – it’s a dynamic environment

I can’t recall what was said in my meeting with John Banks followed by There’s nothing on that tape that is important and then It’s nothing to do with me what the police do (about the tape)

I have treasury advice that we can keep the asset shares in Kiwi hands

We have no plans to hold back on police recruiting

If the country returns this slimeball and his ragtag bag of greedies to the treasury benches then it rightly deserves the title of the most stupid nation in the world.

I can only hope that Kiwis wake up and the NZ press discover they only suffered severe bruising and still actually have everything intact and lift their game to ensure his ride is a very brief and bumpy one.

Campaign launch a bit of a fizzer

The campaign is supposedly under way for the 2011 General Election. But so far it seems this election is going to need some agriva or garvia or whatever other anagram they are using this week because it has had a dreadfully limp start.

I see Granny Herald is referring to the debate on TV1 on Monday night in far more glowing terms than it deserves. Leaders' debate's fiery exchange was the breathless headline on the Herald website on Tuesday morning. I’ve seen more fire in a dead matchstick.

Yes there were some tetchy exchanges, but overall the show was an enormous waste of time. Almost no policy was laid out aside from the short sound-bite type stuff they have been trotting out for the last couple of days anyway. There wasn’t a shred of solid policy from either of the two wastes of space who were extraordinarily given this platform to themselves.

TVNZ needs a thrashing for putting up such a pathetic excuse for an election debate. Guyon Espiner tried his best, under what I believe were circumstances beyond his control. Whoever decided in their ‘wisdom’ we needed a debate between these two no-hopers on their own needs shooting. Where have these idiots been since 1996? We have had MMP for 15 years now and the whole idea of the system is that we recognise the existence of and the need for more than two parties. It may also have escaped their notice, but every single government since that first MMP election has needed to be formed from a coalition of the biggest polling party plus one or more other smaller ones. Given that scenario I would have thought the views of those minor parties are every bit as important as those of the two largest ones because elements of them will have to be agreed to by the Government of the day in order to secure a working majority in Parliament.

Like many Kiwis, I hadn’t thought too much about the general elimption over the last couple of months (while the really serious business was going on). As a result I had no advance warning of the mighty election campaign coverage planned by TV1. So you can imagine my surprise when after picking myself up off the floor from realising TV1’s opener was a debate between Jiangqi and Phil Goshisthatthetime, I began to find out what other treats they had in store.

Well maybe like me, you haven’t got around to checking yet. But I can save you the time, because there appears to be nothing. At least nothing further this week. So the entire TVNZ contribution to the first week of the election campaign is one pathetic debate between the two twits who think they should be Prime Minister, neither of whom will be able to govern without the support of one or more other parties?

I’ve actually found the coverage on maori TV much better, but then they are only covering the Maori electorates, so it is a little limited in that way. You will notice I am not mentioning any election type programmes that might crop up on TV7 because there is still a sizeable number of people who can’t get that and an even larger number who won’t for much longer if Jiangqi and his motley crew have their way.

So what about the thing billed as a debate? Well the only worthwhile thing to come out of it was that Phil Goshisthatthetime (quite rightly) called Jiangqi a liar. I see that as worthwhile because the incumbent PM's response was worth seeing. “I am not a liar,” he squeaked, tears welling up in his little piggy eyes. “I don’t call you a liar and that’s actually because I respect the office of the leader of the opposition,” he blubbed. From which I can conclude it is all about respecting offices rather than the truth. As PG pointed out, Little Johnny told the nation before the last election he would not raise GST and then he did. Jianqi of course tried to be semantically pedantic insisting that he had said in 2008 he would not raise GST to try and balance the books. He then argued he had not done this because with the tax cuts his GST rise had been ‘fiscally neutral’. This of course immediately raises the question of why one would do it if it was to be of no effect. Labour has raised this before with him, but I don’t ever remember hearing an answer that made any sense.

I notice the fallout from the ‘debate’ (it was more like a mass one if you ask me), is all about little Johnny blubbing about Goshisthatthetime calling him a liar. And this from the man who lied to Parliament about Standard & Poors’ plans only a couple of weeks ago and got caught out in a fabulous press conference which you can view at http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjHJb1DB42rg%26feature%3Dshare&h=-AQFveKizAQEZB0BufjtIvqO3cYiVXJ1poTBAu7oOtMAafQ

It should be shared with as many people as possible because they need to see the body language and enjoy the thrashing about of a man caught out big time in a big lie. A lie – lest we forget, that was designed to win votes from frightened voters who might have been tempted to believe him.

Meanwhile the other six or more parties who actually have a chance of being part of the next government are left to have to make programmes of their own on the Internet as the Greens did. And worthy attempt though that one was; it doesn’t really do a lot when it is simply a platform for the leaders of the party to get some policy out there via some sympathetic questioning from Finlay McDonald. They needed to be having a debate with the other party leaders to do much of a service to the NZ voter.

I think it is time we had some major reforms in our parliamentary system. Too much is left to the whims of those in power to decide. Election dates should be set in stone. Big stones that are too heavy for politicians to turn over (or crawl out from under). Likewise at least one leaders’ debate per week should be should be mandatory for the last three or four weeks of the campaign. Participation in these should be mandatory for every leader of a party that has an MP or who polled close to the threshold at the last election. Any wimps, prima donnas, or pussies who don’t want to debate with the other leaders get no other airtime at all. It’s time to make these bastards accountable. Who do they think they are to tell US who they will and won’t debate with? WE pay their over-inflated wages, even if we don’t have any control over how over-inflated they are.

Now if we were to move the election forward three weeks................we’d certainly have a good choice of ‘Guys’.

Making indicatives of ourselves

Okay it’s started and we are about to be bombarded with promises of things that will never be, by people who can make them safe in the knowledge they will probably never be elected. Things will get really heated with the usual name-calling reaching fever pitch and the current incumbents throwing out lollies to the huddled masses while claiming credit for every positive thing that has occurred in NZ in the last three years and shifting blame for every negative one to the opposition.

The more observant of you will have already noticed a number of ‘windfalls’ coming the way of various communities and Government Departments. Here are just a few from the last two months:

·         Health Minister Tony Ryall announces Whakatane Hospital has a new six-station satellite renal unit– September

·         Transport minister Steven Joyce says $55M Welcome Bay underpass could begin within the next three years- September

·         The Bay of Plenty is getting 12 new police recruits. - October

·         Education Minister Anne Tolley announces four Tauranga schools have ultra-fast broadband as part of the government’s rollout.– October

·         Environment Minister Nick Smith announces $15.2 million to clean up Te Aroha’s Tui Mine – October

·         Health Minister Tony Ryall announces $10 million into the health and justice system to combat drug and alcohol abuse – October

In addition to these sorts of ‘conveniently timed’ announcements there has been a welter of ‘good news’ stories. Many of these have appeared in papers and on news sites that make no attempt to question any of the apparent inconsistencies in them.

For example we learned earlier this month that crime in the Bay of Plenty and wider New Zealand had dropped and that within those figures murders had dropped. Sexual assaults and child abuse had increased but Western BOP Area Commander Mike Clement was allowed to explain that rise away by blaming it on increased reporting. He was not asked if the drop in other offences might have been down to decreased reporting. After all, many people can’t be bothered reporting smaller thefts and less serious assaults because it takes so long to get a police response and then the courts simply let the offenders off, rather like the local press did with Mike Clement.

In the midst of all this is a sneaky referendum about the voting system. I say sneaky because we will be asked two questions at the same time; do we want MMP to continue and which of the other four systems we would choose IF New Zealand decides to change. There are many things about this referendum that concern me. First it is now only four weeks until the election and there has been a zero information campaign to explain to the general public what the various other options entail. Then we will be asked to second guess the result of question 1 and choose another system ‘in case’ the majority vote MMP out. You can, however simply vote in the first part and ignore the second, and it would be interesting if everybody did that.

However what worries me more is that if more than 50 percent of us choose to keep MMP there will be a review to recommend changes to it. But it appears our input will not be required at that stage as we are obviously not smart enough to look at such things that parliament has previously decided including the thresholds to be eligible for a share of list seats, whether voters should can change the order of candidates on a party list and whether candidates can continue to have a bob each way and stand in both an electorate and on the party list. The Electoral Commission will have that job and it’s a fair bet they will give the Government of the day whatever they want. Although their brief does not include considering the size of Parliament, which is what many people are upset about, and they won’t consider the issue of Maori representation, they will be able to consider any other aspects of MMP they choose to.

If more than 50 percent of us choose to chuck MMP out, there will be another referendum in 2014 (this time a two-horse race) to run MMP off against whatever most people chose as the preferred option in part two of the poll this year.

But probably the most alarming thing about all these referenda is they are merely indicative referenda. Government does not have to take any notice of them if they so choose. It is merely an indicative referendum.

Wanna play democracy anyone?

Only if I can win!

Place your bets

I’m not usually a betting man, apart from my weekly Lotto ticket. And even that should be called a donation rather than a gamble, because up to this point it seems to be an entirely one-way street; I buy a ticket and am lucky if even one of my numbers comes up. The result is of course a donation to the Lotteries Commission. I don’t know why I don’t just set up an automatic payment and save the time of purchasing the ticket, as well as the weekly disappointment around 8pm each Saturday.

However this week, I am fired up with a few tips I have and think I should at least share some of these ‘sure things’ with those of you kind and patient enough to be reading these ramblings.

Now I should preface this with the advisory that you might not be able to get terribly good odds on some of these tips at the TAB. In fact some you might not be able to get any odds at all, unless you count the odd looks you get when you ask to place a bet on them. However, I believe life is for living and who cares what the boring people think? Life is for living and having fun.

My first tips are for the Rugby World Cup 2011:

1.      New Zealand will win the cup and I believe they will do better than the 1987 team. To do this they need to win by 21 or more points. At the time of writing this was a fairly good bet considering the All Blacks’ dominance at $3.30.

2.      Wales will beat Australia in the third and fourth place final. I think it will be fairly close which is a shame because if they win by 13 or more they will pay $6, whereas at under 13 they are paying $3.20

3.      The Rugby World Cup 2015 will be a very different beast to the 2011 one. Look out for changes to the turnaround time during pool play and a change at the top of the IRB.

4.      My long shot bet here would be the SANZAR countries, Argentina and the Pacific Islands leading a breakaway movement that will see the entire cup re-jigged and something like the mess that happened with the Packer circus emerging as the IRB lick their wounds in the aftermath of 2011.

My next bets centre on the Rena or RENA as I prefer to think of her (Really Environmentally Nasty Atrocity).

1.      The ship will break up before all the oil has been removed. I know that is hardly Nostradamus territory, but I just thought I should record it since so many with a vested interest in happy outcomes prior to a general election keep defending the inactivity of Maritime NZ and making out they have taken the best approach, which clearly they have not.

2.      The effects on wildlife in the Bay of Plenty will be measured in months at the very least, and quite conceivably in years. This is NOT a five minute wonder.

3.      The Rena skipper and his 2IC will get a pissy fine of a few thousand measly dollars that will disappear into that black whole known as the Consolidated Fund. Once the sentence has been passed the offenders will be smartly repatriated to their homelands before you can say oil slick.

4.      We, the taxpayers, and especially those of us unfortunate enough to be Tauranga ratepayers will be stumping up several times over to cover the full costs of this disaster.

5.      If re-elected, (see political predictions below) the National Disgrace Party will cite this disaster as a reason for their continued financial mismanagement.

And then there are the really political tips.

1.      National Disgrace will pitch themselves as saviours of the nation in the final run-up to the election, citing their ‘magnificent handling of the Pike River Mining Disaster 2010, the Christchurch shake festival 2010/11, and the Rena Obscener fiasco’ as examples of their ‘steady hands on the tiller – as opposed to sticky hands in the till, which is probably nearer the truth as more dodgy contracts emerge from the rubble of Christchurch. They will also claim credit for winning the RWC and say nothing about their mismanagement of the event.

2.      New Winston First will trip over their shoelaces at the start of the race and quite possibly (we live in hope), never be heard of again.

3.      The Ancient Codgers Together Party are so old with a collective age, I believe of about 98 that they might well have a couple fall off the perch before the election is over.

4.      Despite Hatfield making a lot of noise and insulting as many people as he can in a bid to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the most obnoxious arsehole in the most pointless party in the world, they will be lucky to retain any of their deposits. That’s always providing they stump them up in the first place. Don’t laugh; they managed to get a member (and that’s a good name for him) into the wasp nest without even being properly registered, so anything is possible. However if and when they do come up with nada, expect Shonkey to spit the dummy big time and accuse all and sundry of electoral malpractices.

5.      Finally – unless the National Disgrace gets caught in a major scandal (and it would probably need to be something as bad as an active kiddie porn ring in their caucus), they will unfortunately win the election and we will have to live with the mantra: Three more years.

All of the above are to a greater or lesser extent, risky bets, but I do have one dead cert for you; Muammar Gaddafi.