February 2009

The good ship Labour is heading for an iceberg of titanic proportions. Bill Ralston has blogged about Labour’s need to win and win big in the pending Mt Albert by-election but also he blogs about the Tizard problem.

That brings me to the Tizard problem. National can argue a vote for Twyford in Mt Albert is a vote to recycle Judith Tizard as list MP.

Many people dislike the idea that an MP defeated in a constituency seat can sneak back into the House on the list and may baulk at voting for Labour’s Twyford because of that.

Also, Judith Tizard has a bit of an image problem. One reason she lost Auckland Central was the perception that she did nothing. This is not entirely true and even her opponents privately say she worked hard behind the scenes but the image in the minds of many is that she was a waste of space.

A vote for Twyford is a vote for Tizard.

I’m not sure that slogan will inspire the voters of Mt Albert, especially the internet literate who blame her for the draconian Section 92(A) of the Copyright Act foul-up.

It seems Twyford has the backing of the party hierarchy and has, in some way, been anointed by St Helen to carry on her good work.

That may be a tidy solution for the party leadership but it’s a recipe for a by-election disaster.

I am so looking forward to the Mt Albert by-election.

There has been much moaning about the cost of prisons. I for one am a fan of recycling. Recycling shipping containers and making a prison out of them

Then I came across this article in BoingBoing about prison barges and so I googled prison barges. Turns out there are plenty plus available and much cheaper than building a new prison from scratch.

The Vernon C Bain Prison Barge in New York. Houses 800.

The Dutch Detention ship

I have been following closely the shenanigins surrounding the up-coming fight of Tua vs. Cameron and it seems with good reason.

I have previously blogged about promoter Duco being given short shrift by Cr. Aaron Bhatnagar for their demand of $400,000 of ratepayers money for the “privilege” of having the boxing in Auckland. Yesterday I raised several impertinent questions about the viability of having a boxing match outdoors in Hamilton in the coldest month of the year.

I also hear rather alarmingly that the Mayor and council in Hamilton didn’t even look into the return for the ratepayers or undertake any sort of study into the likely returns of hosting a boxing match in the middle of winter in Hamilton before deciding to stump up cash to promoters Duco.

I also got a troll on one of my comments threads sticking up for Duco and when I responded alluding to the serious allegations about Duco and their fund-raising habits.

That comment got me an 11.30 pm phone call from promoter David Higgins of Duco Events. This is behaviour more expected from the Cock of Campbells Bay Andrew Williams. Mr Higgins wanted to discuss my comments and provide a line by line accounting for every fundraising event they have conducted. That would have been fine if only his second sentence uttered hadn’t included the threat to take me to court for defamation and having my site taken down immediately.

As you could imagine this suggestion is simply risible. I laughed at him and politely informed him that I’d like nothing better than to discuss this in front of a judge and that I had been threatened by better people than some boxing promoter.

I explained to him how this little situation that he was taking exception to would pan out if he kept on making threats to me. It involved this post and the many subsequent posts I will now do on Duco to bring some sunlight to the serious allegations I have sitting in my inbox. He kept referring to my alleged defamation. He later changed that to derogatory statements. I can live with derogatory, after all I am a rude man. The world however needs rude men.

You see, if someone rings you at 11.30pm to “discuss” what you said about them, orders you to take down the comments and threatens you with lawyers then that all sounds like the actions of someone trying to hide something.

I give fair warning to Duco and to David Higgins, the same warning I give to anyone taking on me. If you wrestle with pigs there are two things for certain. You will get dirty and the pig will enjoy it.

For his part, Mr Higgins has offered to meet with me and address any questions I may have. So dear loyal blog readers, please add your questions for Duco and David Higgins to the comments on this post and I will endeavour to get some straight answers on them. Alternatively send questions or other information you may have on Duco to my tipline.

Report: Former Finance Minister Cullen to quit before budget – Former finance minister Michael Cullen is expected to resign from Parliament before the May 28 budget, it has been reported [TVNZ News Politics]

Great news, TVNZ is reporting that Cullen will quit before the budget. He must have been successful on his begging mission around cabinet for “a job, any job, just get me out of here”.

Tactically it would be good politics for National to give the prick a job. Personally I don’t think he deserves the steam off my shit but it would be good politics. National would no longer have his pedantic points of order to contend with in the house and his supercilious smirking from the rear benches.

Lots of whinging today.

First up is the daily whinge from increasingly irrelevant Phil Goff. He is bleating about the so called “Cullen Fund”.

“John Key’s unwillingness to categorically rule out any significant changes to the Super Fund should greatly worry every New Zealander,” Phil Goff said.

“The fund was created to ensure quality of life for all Kiwis in retirement. Tinkering with it by reducing the Government investment levels will only lead to reduced entitlements for future generations.

“Those who are today in their 30s, 40s and 50s could be put at extreme risk of being left short in their retirement.

“We must remember that Super Fund investment is a long-term game with long-term benefits to New Zealand,”

Ok let’s start by ridding the New Zealand lexicon of this bullshit called “entitlements”. Someone has to pay for them so let’s start paring them back to reality. Next, It is simply crazy to borrow money today and stick it in a savings account for tomorrow. You wouldn’t do it with your household finances so why do labour think it will work for the country. Finally if people in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s think that doing nothing for their retirement and leaving it to the government is a good plan then they deserve to live on the dog food that government superannuation will provide them.

It defies logic why anyone would think that working your arse off until 65 and then retiring to live of a fraction of income you earned in your last year working is a good plan. It is stupid plan and if you ask me is a damn good incentive to sort your bloody life out otherwise doom yourself to a retirement of rationing.

Another notable whinge came from Sue Bradford today. She is miffed that the Greens and “anyone with frontline experience in grassroots community economic development or the creation of Green jobs” and in particular losers from “Peoples Centres”.

Quite what 200 permanently unemployed drop-kicks or trough snufflers can tell us about creating jobs is beyond me. Labour is also miffed at not being included but then again why would you include Labour or the Greens. The only job creation programmes they know about are filling in board positions for their mates or growing the civil service at truly stellar rates.

Mt Albert

1. Why is Glenda Fryer now canvassing in Mt Albert?
2. Won’t that upset Jordan and Kate?
3. How secure is Phil Twyford’s nomination?

Boxing

1. Hamilton on June 6?
2. Does any City in New Zealand have more fog than Hamilton?
3. What is the average low for June in Hamilton?
4. Which month is the coldest in Hamilton?
5. Has any other New Zealand city ever recorded a temperature below Hamilton’s record of -9.9°C?
6. What is the average precipitation for June in Hamilton?
7. Which month has the highest precipitation on Hamilton?
8. What Cost Benefit Analysis was done by the HCC before agreeing to fund the fight?
9. What budget approval process did the council go through?
10. Is Bob Simcock a fool?
11. How could Duco seriously say that “on all counts Hamilton was first choice”?
12. Are the Hamilton City Council crazy?

Other

1. Why is Parekura putting his CV together?
2. Why is he padding around TPK a lot these days?
3. Should Cameron change his surname to Brewer-Newmarket to improve his media whoring?
4. What on earth is Kordia doing with our money?
5. Why would the Ministry of Defence pay TV3 $1.2 million last year?
6. Why can’t the MoD black boats get certified?

It is appropriate that today the day Nikki Kaye opened the first National MP’s electorate office for Auckland Central ever in over 95 years of trying that the erstwhile Member of Parliament bursts forth on the Copyright law she amended at the last minute against official advice.

The former minister who help design a controversial internet piracy bill is accusing the Government of making a mistake by stalling on making it law.

The bill would have seen internet service providers policing illegal downloads and having the power to block users internet access if suspected.

The idea has sparked protest across the world. The Government has given ISPs and copyright holders a month to sort out their differences, and may scrap the bill if no deal is reached.

Ex-Labour minister Judith Tizard says artists and musicians are being robbed of their livelihoods by illegal downloads.

The Tiz clearly is off the Labour party mailing list and missed the memo that labour has now flip-slopped over the act and now wants section 92a repealed.

Given the amount of times that John Key mentioned s92a in his speech tonight I think he has very loudly and very clearly got the message that this section needs dropping.

The Tiz needs to STFU and start planning her mayoral campaign. Mayor Banks even told all of us gathered tonight in his speech that he is looking forward to the formidable challenge that The Tiz will present for the new Mayoralty of the unified city.

hat tip Keeping Stock

I saw that Stuff had an online poll today about the Greens. Apart from teh overwhelming number of votes being in favour of I don’t care about the Greens the choice is essentially between Sue Bradford and Metiria Turei. There is a slight problem though in that Stuff has unhelpfully not provided a photo of Sue Bradford.

Faced with a vote for an unknown person or Metiria Turei is it any wonder that voters are choosing Turei.

Now if they had only used a real photo of Sue Bradford then possibly she may have garnered more votes.

Then again I don’t think there would be very many blind people voting in the Stuff online polls.

It does beg the question though as to why the Mainstream Media perpetrates the myths that politicians propagate.

Let’s get some honesty back into our reporting. Please can we shown the people exactly what these suckers of public cash really look like instead of some air-brushed fabrication that bears no resemblence to the real article.

It has been announced by the hard up promoters of the Tua vs. Cameron fight that they have successfully scalped the Hamilton City Council…..oh wait…sorry….have successfully negiotiated a sponsorship arrangement to host the fight at Waikato Stadium.

Thankfully it won’t be Auckland ratepayers coughing up the $400,000 these charming thugs and their standover tactics tried to extort from Auckland City Council. It will be Hamilton ratepayers.

I have a growing file on Duco Limited piling into the tipoff line so if anyone else out there has a story about Duco I would love to hear from you.

I have just been informed that Chong Newsztel Media Watch read this blog every day and pass on scripts to their clients if I mention their clients. Chong’s is the biggest media monitoring company in the country and traditionally their clients have included ministerial offices, government departments, corporates and PR companies wanting to prove their worth.

Now I had a dastardly thought that maybe if I ask Chong for a client list, then if there’s anyone I don’t like on it, I could make daily mentions of them and drive them broke because as I understand it clients get charged for every clip.

I wonder if Chong monitor themselves. If I mention “Mr Chong” will this be clipped and sent to the boss.

I bet if I mention “Mayor of Newmarket” and “Cameron Brewer” he’ll get alerted. That veteran media whore is surely egotistical enough to collect clippings of himself and then send them off to his mother. So just to make sure: here goes again “Mayor of Newmarket” + “Cameron Brewer” + “Newmarket – Fashion Capital of New Zealand” + “Newmarket Business Association”.

Brewer, if your power’s on in Newmarket and Chong alert you to this broadcast, let me know.

This could be fun. How about “Dr Patrick Strange” + “Transpower”. Surely the suckers that work for that strange git will be monitoring all the crap written about him.

I just bet Bill English wastes taxpayer funds on just this sort of thing as well.