February 2007

National has again gazumped Labour on the caring stakes.

This time it is National’s just released Charitable Donations policy. This will of course be labeled the "Tory Charity" scheme by the scum of the left.

Under National’s plan, the $1890 cap on donations will be lifted and donations of any amount will be eligible for a 33.3 per cent rebate.

I know a couple of guys who persoanlly have given in excess of a million dollars to charities and continue to give, I spoke to them last night and they both were enthusiastic about this proposal and both said it would encourage them to give even more. Sounds like a winner to me.

Would some leftist apologist please tell me how this policy is bad from the charities perspective?

This probably qualifies for a Darwin Award.

A fool mugger in Costa Rica pulled a gun on a bunch of US tourists only to be attacked himself and have his neck broken by one of the US mugee’s. You see the mugee is a former Marine.

Oh well, how sad, never mind.

Tui has joined in the Pro-Billboard attack with a brilliant billboard facing the motorway. I guess it is no surprise that they are into this in a big way.

In other news the Action Hobson poodles are being shamed into a u-Turn or flip-flop if you wish.

They called for support from the rest of the council to withdraw the proposed blanket ban on billboards in central Auckland in favour of an improved regulatory regime which would include the removal of signs on designated heritage buildings and tight controls in character areas.

The poodle can’t win with Scott Milne fron C&R Now giving them a good spanking, "Action Hobson councillors have realised they are on a hiding to nothing and now want to cuddle up to the industry they sought to decimate," and the leftists also having a flick at the turncoats with Bruce Hucker uttering this entirely risible profundity, "While Action Hobson may have sincere intentions, they are undermining the integrity of a process we have put in place,".

That would, of course, be the "hopelessly compromised" integrity of a process, eh Bruce?

I think Scott Milne sums up the new turn of events rather nicely, a desperate bid to head off "political suicide". Indeed.

Mayor Dick Hubbard just really seems like a slow learner.

He is copping a flogging for another ratepayer funded junket that has come to light.

Mayor Dick Hubbard, councillor John Hinchcliff and Caroline Lassiter, the city council’s manager of international affairs, went to Hamburg last October for four days to discuss forming an "economic alliance" flying business class after that they went to see some films in Busan, Korea again all business class.

More frivolous waste and the Government thinks it needs a rates inquiry to work out why rates are going through the roof.

The evidence is mounting that Labour’s so-called "Independent" Inquiry is far from independent, in fact it is appearing to be a Labour Party set up.

Check this out, independent rates inquiry panel member Christine Cheyne is a former worker in Helen Clark’s office.

And that to the other things I blogged about yesterday and it has all the hallmarks of a fit up.

UPDATE: Trevor Loudon has even more on this sorry pack of socialists.

UPDATE TWO: The irony is that John Carter tried to draw attention this shabby state of affairs last year.

[quote]John Carter: Is the Minister aware that Mr David Shand twice stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Wellington Central electorate, and that Dr Christine Cheyne worked in the Prime Minister’s office in 2001 and 2002; what steps has he taken to ensure that no conflict of interest exists that might undermine the independence of this much-needed inquiry, and is he sure that we will not end up with the same sort of thing we had with the Ingram inquiry?[/quote]

Cameron Brewer in the Herald this morning shows how "hopelessly compromised" the councilors who support the billboard ban are.
[quote]However, there comes a point when passionate champions need to step aside, invite the public to have their say, and then assess submissions fairly. Without doubt, the majority of submissions on council’s proposed regulations will disagree with Fryer’s perceived position. These submitters deserve to be given a fair hearing.

Having this councilor chairing the hearings panel is not a fair hearing. It can only be viewed as a kangaroo court, not helped by the fact that the four other panel members have also already voted in favour of the proposed bylaws. None of the councilors who voted against the draft bylaws will hear the public submissions or have a say on the final recommendations.[/quote]

Great democratic processes being exhibited by our elected official huh!

This government really knows how to screw over the handicapped.

First up they brought in their stupid minimum wage rules which saw many workshops happily keeping handicapped adults busy close because they now had to pay the "workers" minimum wage despite the fact they could neither do a minimum wage job or do it without supervision.

That stupid decision cost my brother-in-law his workshop…now he does "activities" like visiting the library, and swimming and going to the zoo instead of a structured "work day". He no longer talks about going to "work".

Now we hear that disabled families are having to fill out annual reviews or have their benefits cut for thing slike Down’s Syndrome. Like that is ever going to get better. You have Down’s Syndrome, you have it for life. It doesn’t change or improve or anything, it just is.

But, oh no, the silly bureaucrats want you to fill in an annual return to see if anything has changed. Let me tell you the only thing that changes is if you have died.

This leads me onto a tirade about the welfare system. I believe that people with disabilities should have gold plated welfare. Sucks to be them, right now having to share the pie with a bunch of ingrates, ne’er-do-wells and lazy fuckers. If we made welfare truly for those through no fault of their own have had a bum hand dealt to them then our welfare system would be truly world class. Instead we have a bunch of leeches sucking it dry so those who are genuinely in need get almost nothing and even then have to fight for every penny they deserve.

Welfare has become a hammock instead of a safety net.

And if the government has been so successful in getting people off welfare, why does WINZ keep growing and recruiting more staff and leasing more premises? Why has the welfare budget not reduced? Why is there not more money going to those who truly need it? Huh? huh?

Tough questions, yet all we get are pansy answers. Time for a change.

Pete Hodgson describes the Treasury reports , of hopeless productivity in our hospitals, as "arrant nonsense".

That rates up there with Cullen’s "ideological burp".

One wonders if we really need treasury when all they produce for this government are "idealogical burps" and "arrant nonsense".

So despite $4 billy more spent on Health nothing has improved.

Hodgson spins away with this statement;
[quote]New Zealand spent less than the average per capita on health, yet New Zealanders lived longer than the average.

In that sense there’s a lot to be celebrated around our health system.[/quote]

That would be the Health system that has seen sickness beneficiaries grow at a huge rate despite our celebrated health system huh?

Why Sue Bradford of course.

[quote]When Sue was starting her life, working at the Auckland People’s Center (1992ish), she would often bring her kids into work. When they ran wild (as they often did) she would smack them really hard where-ever her hand would make contact, not just the smacking but yell at them (even though they were less than one foot from her mouth).

Isn’t it ironic that someone that shows such a dislike towards smacking is the one that was smacking her own kids??[/quote]

Goose, Gander, pot, kettle, etc etc etc

I can’t believe this woman has bashed and assaulted her own kids, she couldn’t have, surely.

Yep she did, hypocrite

The answer to this one is easy.

When Labour created the Independent Inquiry of course.

The three on the panel are:

David Shand - former Labour Councilor in Wgtn, former student activist and former Labour Party candidate for wellington Central (in 1972). I note Mark Burton neglected to mention David Shand’s Labour affiliation when announcing his independent inquiry.
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-BarVict-c9.html#name-036205-1
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0611/S00016.htm

Christine Cheyne – A so called specialist in community welfare, who appears to be a Marxist judging by her 1991 essay on Post Marxism and Retro Marxism: Theorising the impasse of the left.
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~nzsrda/nzssreps/journals/sites/sites23.htm

Graeme Horsley – a professional valuer who appears to have been appointed by Labour to various boards in the past, including the BOPDHB.
http://text.labour.org.nz/AnnetteKing/news/dhbapts/index.html

So much for independence….I wonder if perhaps the MSM might bother to do a little research for once instead of leaving it to the blogs?

Chance would be a fine thing.