I am getting more and more feedback from the depths of Christchurch about the upcoming Mayoral challenge of Lianne Dalziel. The tipline is running hot. It seems neither Lianne nor some of her team can keep their traps shut when they think no one is listening.
The other day she got all snippy and defensive about my suggestions that she would indeed stand, so I have taken a bit of time to think about her chances.
Lianne though, through her loud denials is proving she isn't much chop at strategy;
She thinks she would like to be but wont be back as a cabinet minister because the talented new Labour MPs, even if they are party apparatchiks, won't want a past-her-used-by-date liar in cabinet.
She better run this time because she can't keep waiting until Bob Parker retires, he could go on for another three terms even in the Socialist Republic of Christchurch, because he has bashed boy racers, stopped a lot of the mindless drunken violence, and most importantly kept rates low.
She clearly doesn't understand blogs or the new media.
Did I mention lying?
Labour will be in opposition for at least three terms, which kind of scotches any ambition she may have of ever making cabinet again.
I hope she isn't on any strategy committee within Labour for their sakes, on the other hand National would relish her staying on.
The word is that Winston Raymond Peters, 64, unemployed of St Mary's Bay is going to announce that he will stand for the Mayorlaty for Auckland's Super City on tomorrows Q+A on TVNZ.
I can promise readers and WRP, 64, UOSMB, right here, right now that I will mount a campaign against him if he does so. Here is a taste of what he can expect all across Auckland.
On another note he was seen clutching two bottles of Whisky crawling out of The Wine Vault last night.
Sir Roger Douglas might be the old man of the house but he is showing that he is coming to grips with new media. This is his current Facebook status and it is a commentary on creeping socialism.
Given that National is looking at its National Conference in August to select members for the board and in turn those members select a president I think it is timely to look at the 8 candidates for the 5 board positions.
Alastair Bell - popular and competent regional chair of the Northern Region, likely to be president one day, rated by other regional chairs and party hierarchy for not making too many mistakes in Northern, especially when considering regional chairs are a bit like referees, if they do their job well you don't notice them. Interesting he won nominations of electorates ahead of Scott Simpson and Grant McCallum. There is a strong case to have the Auckland Regional Chair on the Board automatically due to the huge importance of Auckland. He also appears to be well-liked outside of Auckland so that will certainly help him.
Dennis Catchpole - very much old school, and in a way that is detrimental. He is bullish which could be a strength however he tends to alienate members in the process. He also has trouble listening vs putting across his own agenda. Failed to shine at the recent Central North Island conference so was beaten to the regional chair position.
Wira Gardiner - As I have stated previously, this man is totally unsuited to a role on the board or the presidency. He is your classic fair weather friend and has been so on numerous occasions. Throwing your toys and having conflicts of interest aren't a good look for any prospective board member let alone the President. The National Party has traditionally eschewed Presidents considered to have close links with caucus preferring instead to have an arms length relationship between the party and caucus.
Kate Hazlett - Somewhat lightweight but is only candidate from South Island and a woman so likely to get through. Has a tendency toward moderation or backing down rather than staying true to her own case.
Grant McCallum - Currently on the Board. Solid performer. He has the farmer vote but also has the respect of many urban types. He appears to understand how a Board should and does work. Members seem to like him as he does front up when asked. Not a contender for President though as he is perhaps a little too provincial.
Bruce Mills - Solid agrarian type who may suffer because NZ is no longer an agrarian population. Close to Simon Power, which won't necessarily do him too many favours as Simon hasn't done the hard yards in the rest of the country to have a huge amount of support or friends he can get favours from. Also handicapped by Simon Power's presumption of stardom.
Pat Seymour - Tough and competent, will stand up to caucus would be a huge asset to the board, also second woman standing so likely to be selected on that basis as well. She is well-respected though has a tendency to put some members to tears. She has served in most parts of the party organisation so has a good feel how it works - plus kept the organisation running successfully in an electorate that had no MP for a number of years.
Scott Simpson - Good Regional Chair in his time but he wont be picking up many South Island votes as he has been a bit too parochial in the past, backing Auckland candidates to the hilt, rather than being willing to compromise a bit. We do have to win in Auckland but we don't need to gerrymander the list. Still he is way more qualified than Wira Gardiner and a loyal party man who has never quit even in the tough times. Scott also has an affinity with younger members (despite his age) and has the future of the party t heart (ahead of personal ambition).
Returning Board members are Roger Bridge and Peter Goodfellow.
Roger Bridge has done a good job in Canterbury, and may surprise because he has a track record of helping raise money for candidates outside his region, the kind of thing that ensures massive long term loyalty. Very solid strategic understanding. However, he does have a tendency to fall asleep in meetings!
I don't know enough about Peter Goodfellow to comment, however it suggests a great deal that I don't know anything about him.
The most important task for the new board is to elect a competent president. I think we can safely discount anyone not on the board at the moment, and leaving Grant, Scott, Roger & Peter, with Alistair being an outside possibility.
My view on it is:
must be willing to professionalise the party, which means a solid understanding of campaigning, the power of incumbency, the best way to increase the party vote is to run a strong, competent candidate who has a great campaign team
need to raise money, or be sensible enough to delegate this task to others
popular within the party
willing to stand up to the parliamentary wing and tell them the truth when everyone else is saying yes caucus you are all stars and brilliant and everyone does love you
There is also a lot of chatter about how we need a president from Auckland, however geographical location is not a proxy for competence, and last time we had a president from Auckland it was a total screw up, we ended up in massive debt and with the worst ever election result in the history of the party.
I reckon the biggest single problem the National Party faces is that the President, who is the chair of the board, is expected to be the top sales person also, raising all the money. In theory this works but in practice unless the person is extremely competent at fundraising then it doesn't really work. It doesn't work because the rest of the board can't really hold the chair to account for not doing a good sales job, and the general manager certainly can't as they are employed at the pleasure of the board.
Fundraising is a critical component that the party really needs to have a good look at. Perhaps a split in fundraising between strategic fundraising and standard fundraising could produce some results. There is strong case that a good portion of fundraising activity reports directly to the GM, who is accountable to the board. However an attempt was made to do this previously and failed miserably, mostly because people want the interaction with the President.
Shane Jones must be a very nervous MP right about now. His benefactor Bill Liu aka Yang Liu aka William Yan aka Yong Ming Yan has been arrested.
Police have charged a multi-millionaire businessman, who was granted New Zealand citizenship in controversial circumstances, with making false declarations on immigration papers and using fake identities to obtain a passport.
Yong Ming Yan - also known as Bill Liu, Yang Liu and William Yan - was supported in his citizenship bid last year by Labour MPs Dover Samuels and Chris Carter, and National MP Pansy Wong.
Police arrested him last Saturday as he was about to board a plane to leave the country.
He appeared in Manukau District Court, and is facing 12 charges in relation to false declarations on his immigration papers, having false passports and using deception to gain citizenship.
My understading of the case is that Pansy just wrote a letter. Dover Samuels and Chris Carter will be a little nervous but Shane Jones will probably be in a conference with his lawyers today and praying that Bill Liu doesn't squeal like a piggy.
Submitted by Whaleoil on Fri, 03/07/2009 - 10:53pm
I have a good friend who is in the midst of a crisis. Her sperm donor who likes to be called a father is a jerk and his new missus is worse. The child came home from a week with the sperm donor and new slapper and some interesting information came to light.
My friend, after some serious thought about her courses of action, decided to contact CYF for some advice. This is her email to me outlining her frustration with the whole process.
How dare I as a white, middle class citizen even consider calling CYF as a last resort!
It seems that's because of both my address & the sperm donor's address - 'We can afford lawyers to sort it out!" I am appalled!
I have spent years paying for my lawyers penthouse, - I am sick of paying ($350/ hr) for no real result!
Why when I finally request desperate assistance, do I not get /receive constructive help?
I am glad my child isn't in a dryer, missing fingers or got cigarette burns YET! However apparently this works against me!
Is it because;
Failed, I have a job and so does he!
Failed, wrong colour?
Failed, I pay for government support but perhaps I am not really entitled to it!
Failed, my address is in a 'good middle class white area'!
Failed, child still has all its limbs!
Failed, the child is still alive!
Failed, oh dear I'm not on drugs!
Failed, whoops I haven't deprived child of access to the sperm donor!
Pass, should I resign from my job, claim indigenous lineage of some sort, join a gang, turn into a crack addled medusa and shift to a real bad arse area to get attention?
Did i miss anything? I guess 'Hi ho it's off to family court again I go' $$$$$$$
Let me assure dear readers that there is more on this story that I will blog in due course. For now though, CYF just can't seem to be bothered protecting a child for some reason.
Matthew Hooton writes in the NBR about the evil of Helen Clark. Why his clumns aren't online is beyond me and the weekly traipse up to the Howick Stationers is a bore. However todays column made the fee for the whole NBR worth it.
Everyone should read at least the summary of this week's Foreshore and Seabed report, for a timely reminder of the true nature of the regime defeated last November.
From 1999, Helen Clark set about controlling all sources of public discourse in New Zealand.
Clark ultras were progressively appointed throughout the public service, including even the upper echelons of the police, or moved into influential roles in state broadcasting.
Actors, artists and screenwriters, who normally play an important subversive role in society, were purchased with taxpayer indulgences and prime ministerial patronage.
This march through the institutions created a left-wing fog so thick that, even today, the public still perceives a mostly positive picture of Ms Clark's nine grisly years in power.
That fog is lifting and historians will eventually assess Ms Clark to have been a political monster in the mould of Nixon or Muldoon.
Perhaps Matthew is prone to some hysterics but in the cold light of the truth that has emerged from the dark days of Helengrad we can see that there is some accuracy in his opening gambit.
From the outset, Clark's regime had a bloodlust for the politics of personal destruction. Whether Peter Doone, Roger Kerr, Kit Richards or "hater and wreckers" Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia, anyone who opposed its agenda was viciously smeared.
Her government stole money, passed retrospective legislation to cover up its crimes, defended criminal wrongdoing by its ministers, outlawed effective criticism of the regime in election year, lied shamelessly even on trivial matters and brazenly removed basic legal rights even from its allies.
Thus, while most intelligent people didn't care whether there was GE corn in New Zealand, the Clark Government said it did care, and insisted there wasn't when it knew there was.
Government PR budgets were brought under the control of party activists like Clare Curran, and taxpayers' money used for pledge cards and other propaganda as if it were party funds.
Whenever caught, Ms Clark would smear anyone from the auditor-general to the charity to which she sent a fake painting. Where necessary, she'd change the law to declare what she had done to be legal.
Again a little theatrical, yet somehow very accurate. We can see a picture of true evil starting to appear.
Against such competition, it's difficult to identify the most evil act of the Clark years, but the Foreshore & Seabed Act probably takes the title.
This was legislation introduced to Parliament by attorney-general and Clark puppet Margaret Wilson to overturn a unanimous Court of Appeal decision in which she herself was the losing party.
The decision did not award ownership of anything to anyone, being merely jurisdictional.
Nor did it invoke potentially-contentious Treaty law, instead resting entirely on the ancient common-law doctrine of aboriginal title.
If Ms Clark and Ms Wilson disagreed with the decision, they could have appealed to the Privy Council, but they decided not to because they were then trying to abolish that right for everyone else.
Instead, immediately - just four days after the Court of Appeal decision - they announced legislation to blatantly deny a group of New Zealanders the right to explore their common-law property rights in court.
It was a despicable attack on the rule of law and due process, strongly opposed on principle by the business community and a wide cross section of the community, including me.
Inded it was a despicable act, robbing a whole section of our population from recourse before the courts purely on the basis of race. A more racist act in the history of New Zealand would be hard to find. What can Goff do to undo the damage.? All indications thus far on Goff though are that he is contuniing at least with the politics of persaonal destruction, not the least for himself by running dirty little sting and pimping operations. However Matthew Hooton disagrees.
Today, Labour still struggles with these truths, absurdly claiming its hand was forced by Bill English and Don Brash.
In fact, when Ms Clark and Ms Wilson decided to legislate, Bill English's National Party was dying in the polls and Dr Brash was merely his disloyal finance spokesman.
The Orewa speech was more than six months away; the Iwi/Kiwi billboards two years.
Before it can be redeemed, Labour needs first to be honest about its past. It must admit that it alone was responsible for the outrage, and that it knew what it was doing was wrong, but that it did it anyway.
After the excesses of Muldoon, Jim McClay became National's leader. Mr McClay proved to have no hope of ever becoming prime minister but he valiantly began the process of eliminating the Muldoon legacy from his party. History judges him kindly.
Like Mr McClay, Phil Goff will never be prime minister but history too will judge him kindly if he uses his time as leader to distance his party from the disgrace of the Clark years.
If Goff is Labour's McClay then that makes it highly likely that David Shearer is Labour's John Key.
Trevor Mallard the self professed tough man of Labour has taken to blogging like a drunk to the bottle.
However if you are going to draw attention to your post on Kiwiblog in a blatent attempt at link whoring and you are Labour's education spokesman then the least you coudl do would be to use the correct word. I guess he was right though when he said his post was "not so eloquent".
Lianne Dalziel is still in a snit over the rumour that she will stand for the Christchurch Mayoralty.
Once again this heads up of her snit, like the original tip about her mayoral tilt came through the tip line and it was a Christchurch listener who thought I should know.
Have a listen. It is radio gold as she denies that blogs have an influence. I hope she running Labour's online strategy and advising Labour to ignore blogs.
The strangest part of this entire debate was Lianne continuing to bag Sam Lotu-Iiga. Labour appear directionless, tactically attacking a strong new MP, rather than thinking about the strategic implications. Labour have always used council as a stepping stone, and all they are doing is ensuring Whaleoil nails every single one of them that tries to stay on council and be an MP - jobs that many back benchers have coped with in the past.
Whats his name, or that other bloke, you know who I mean, the leader pro-tem and the president of Labour, need to tell caucus to stop screwing up chances of good Labour people in the future for a minor tactical victory. If they really want to beat up on Sam they need to get rid of that no hoper union hack and get a proper candidate in Maungakiekie.
Sex allegation against Worth withdrawn - The woman who laid a complaint with police against Richard Worth has withdrawn her allegation of a serious sexual nature, saying the political fallout is punishment enough and she "wants out". Her friend, who helped her to go to... [NZ Herald Politics]
The MSM won't name her, yet the police have investigated and deemed there is no evidence to support her allegations. Note the difference here between "not in the public interest"...this is not one of those, it is not even a prima facie case...there is actually zero evidence to support her allegations.
Now don't get me wrong. Richard Worth is a sleaze and I am in no way condoning his conduct of preying on drunk women and trying to get his leg over at every opportunity. However this woman thinks she has got away scot free after getting a woman's revenge for a night of drunken sex she regretted.
WOBH is not so squeamish that we won't name the woman. She is Jennifer Kim, a company director with a chequered history. In the Korean community here it is well known that false accusations are her stock and trade. The local community is also somewhat more forthcoming with details of this woman. The New Korea Herald published an article about this whole sordid affair. Don't bother Google searching it, it is in Korean. I have taken the liberty of obtaining a translation. Excerpts below;
" Richard is an innocent and foolish man".
New Zealand media is heating up to find out what is the true motive of Ms Kim and her boy friend. They came to National Party office with a compliant saying Richard Worth had an inappropriate sexual relationship with Ms Kim.
The general sentiment in NZ is leaning towards sympathy for Richard Worth who stepped down from the minister posture. They seem to believe the things happened is far from the alleged "rape" considering they had sexual relation last March and had breakfast next morning in the same hotel then they met and enjoyed some time together at a Karaoke bar in downtown Auckland.
Chinese media including New Zealand Herald and Dominion called us and mentioned Ms Kim's full name. They were questioning who she is and the sex scandal involving her and ex- president of Korean community 6 years ago. They also sought for the articles of an immigration scam she is believed to be involved in. They even tried to get an interview with Ms Kim's family member and already finishing meeting up with the ex-president of Korean Community who claimed himself as a victim.
NZ Media said that Ms Kim's sister who grow apart from her for the last 4 years is worried about the situation and was afraid to tell her mother in Korea what is going on. A former business associate said " I know Ms Kim's personality very well" adding " Richard Worth is a innocent fool. He didn't do anything wrong."
Dover Samuel who was stood down as a Labour Cabinet minister amid swirling allegations of sex with a woman in his care aged under 18. Police cleared him of any crime, but he was never reappointed to the Cabinet. He said he was willing to offer support to Worth.
Very interesting. It seems we have some common threads between Neelam Choudary and Jennifer Kim. They are both dodgy. They both sought interaction with Richard Worth, Choudary at the prompting and pimping of Phil Goff. They are or were both involved in immigration scams.
The boyfriend mentioned is Jennifer Kim's business partner, Feroz Khan of Kaukapakapa, Auckland. My sources tell me that again there is a common link here between the two cases. Mr Khan is very well connected in the Indian community along with Neelam Choudary. Mr Khan and Jennifer Kim though aren't that popular as property developers having had at least one of their companies liquidated on court order by Inland Revenue.
Is all this sounding familiar? The similarities are striking between the two cases. I am sure there is more to this story than meets the eye.
Treasury bungles travel bill - The Treasury has apologised for an error that embarrassed the Government and led Labour leader Phil Goff to accuse it of hypocrisy. [Stuff Politics]
Whoopsy, Labour looks stupid now. Treasury bungled the travel details when they released them this week.
Ministerial travel costs released last week showed that in the first three months of this year National ministers spent $739,000, more than double the $336,000 Labour ministers spent in the same period in 2008.
That wasn't only wrong, it actually reversed the true situation.
The Treasury had been right with the $739,000 figure for National ministers, but it said today Labour ministers spent $783,000.
So, instead of National Minister spending up large it was in fact labour's minister and we also know now too that their normal practice was to travel first class so that amount relates to far less travel than National's which with the exception of John key's travel which was booked by Helen Clark when she thought that she would be going to Peru.
Treasury's deputy secretary for the state sector [non] performance group, Peter Mersi, said he deeply regretted the error and apologised for it.
I bet he does. His balls would have got a right good kicking for that embarrassment. Now though, Phil Goff needs to explain why it was common and usual practice for him as Trade Minister and Foreign minister before that to travel first class.
Complaint against ex-MP dropped - The Korean businesswoman who laid a sexual complaint against former Government minister Richard Worth has dropped the matter, it has been reported. [Stuff Politics]
Oh there's a surprise. The dodgy Korean woman who shagged Richard Worth, stayed the night and then had breakfast with him in the morning has dropped all the charges she laid.
The Korean businesswoman who laid a sexual complaint against former Government minister Richard Worth has dropped the matter, it has been reported.
3News said the woman had withdrawn her complaint after being told by police there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.
Dr Worth quit as a minister on June 2 then resigned as an MP 10 days later.
When he quit Parliament he said in a statement that the Korean businesswoman had no credibility or evidence.
He said that while he may have done things that were unwise, he was innocent of any crime. Allegations against him were part of an unfair "avalanche of rumour and innuendo".
3News tonight reported the woman said the political fallout for Dr Worth was sufficient for her and she would not prosper from pushing for court proceedings.
The interesting part is the last sentence. My sources in Korea have given me an extensive portfolio on this woman and also sources in new Zealand. She has a legacy of broke companies, dodgy real estate dealings and attempted blackmailings. She has form on this type of honey-trap, She failed in this one, but contributed to Richard Worth's downfall. If he hadn't been such a rooter he would never have fallen into the traps set by the Korean woman and Phil Goff.
With regards to Phil Goff, he is yet to supply the media or the public with a factual statement about his involvment in the Neelam Choudary honey-trap. His statement do not line up with established facts. He must come clean on his involvement.
A fantastic attack on the evils of the Labour Party and Jacinda Ardern is just hopeless. If she is the future of the labour Party then they are rooted. Simon Bridges puts the giggling silly girl in her place over Labour's constant lies around the Foreshore and Seabed issue.
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