May 2009

Below is an email exchange from a reader who raised some questions with Russel Norman after Bryce Edwards blogged about MP’s campaigning on the taxpayers ticket especially Russel Norman who lives in Wellington.

Russel’s reply is interesting, I wonder, perhaps, if he has been following the scandal over MP’s expenses in the UK. Over there all the outed MP’s claimed that they followed the rules. Rules they may be but whether or not they are morally right in doing so is another issue altogether.

Is he really trying to say that he only visits Auckland when he is invited to an event as Greens co-leader?   Even then should Parliamentary Services pay for it?

Subject: RE: Worrying Article
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 17:52:51 +1200
From: Russel Norman <Russel.Norman@parliament.govt.nz>
To: Bob
References:

Hi Bob

I am carefully following the rules laid down by Parliamentary Services.
When campaigning in Mt Albert I pay for my cabs (I have a car from a
friend up there so don’t use cabs much) and accommodation (again staying
with Green supporters).

I travel around NZ constantly as co-leader and Parliamentary services
pays for my flights. For example, I am off to Auckland shortly so that I
can attend the Child Poverty Action Group budget breakfast tomorrow.

Bryce has a long history of personal attacks on me and the Greens, it is
tedious. I no longer read his stuff.

Best wishes

Russel

—–Original Message—–
From: Bob
Sent: Thursday, 28 May 2009 4:47 p.m.
To: Russel Norman
Subject: Worrying Article

Hi Russel – I’ve just read the article by Bryce Edwards “MP expenses and
corruption in Mt Albert?” dated 27 may.

Can you please confirm who is paying your travel expenses to the Mt
Albert electorate?

Regards

Bob

–

 

There is a lot of talk around the internet about Google Wave. Perhaps the best summary is at Mashable and it looks seriously cool.

Essentially Google Wave is;

• Real-time: In most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
• Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website.
• Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook application or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves. They can be anything from bots to complex real-time games.
• Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Google Wave can be edited by anyone else, because all conversations within the platform are shared. Thus, you can correct information, append information, or add your own commentary within a developing conversation.
• Open source: The Google Wave code will be open source, to foster innovation and adoption amongst developers.
• Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said.
• Natural language: Google Wave can autocorrect your spelling, even going as far as knowing the difference between similar words, like “been” and “bean.” It can also auto-translate on-the-fly.

I have signed up for notification of when it goes live. Can’t wait.

John Key continues to be Labour’s worst nightmare. He continues the misery by supervising Bill English in the delivery of his budget.

I am not going to comment mainly because I care not a jot, but also because better analysts than me have already commented on the budget.

The last word ultimately on any budget though is what the public think of it, on that I think John Key and Bill English have probably got it right.

At least that is what the NZ Herald online survey says.

Still it was a budget that showed that National still needs some gonads. They still talk of “entitlements”. This socialist fantasy that somehow people are entitled to other peoples money must be stamped out.

Right now our welfare state is simply unsustainable and hard decisions will have to be made sooner rather than later.

It looks like the next election will be fought on superannuation and whatever dirt Labour can fling about. My only wish is that we can have a sensible debate about the unsustainability of Universal Superannuation. Hopefully with NZ First dead and buried that may be possible.

Labour’s strategists have called for all hands to help in the battle for Mt Albert. Today they received more bad news. David Shearer is barely in front of Melissa Lee despite Trevor Mallard’s smear campaign for which he is yet to apologise.

My deep throat Labour sources tell me that the latest polling from multi-national polling company UMR shows that David Shearer is polling at 36 per cent and Melissa Lee is just behind on 34% despite all the mudslinging by Labour.

Labour’s strategists are said to be panicking and called for a full turnout. Expect all of Labour’s out of town MP’s to be campaigning on the taxpayers tit.

We could be looking at another Onehunga here. No wonder Labour/EPMU functionaries are lying to constituents telling them it is illegal not to vote.

David “Blackwater” Shearer will be in real trouble if there is any dirt out on him that lands in the final week.

John Armstrong: English must master tricky balancing act – It has to be assumed today’s Budget has done the job it was designed to do even before Bill English reveals its contents this afternoon. Otherwise, Budget Day will be a public-relations disaster for National. John Key and Bill… [NZ Herald Politics]

John Armstrong looks at the balancing act that Bill English must accomplish with today’s budget.

More importantly what Bill English needs to accomplish recognising that he is the DEPUTY. I rally am quite over his machinations and needling that he tries to get away with by giving us his down country yokel “Aw Shucks” look.

While we are talking about the Dipstick from Dipton have a look at how Hong Kong is “stimulating” the economy. They have raised their tax cut today from 1500 to 1900NZD a year for stimulus.

Meanwhile Bill the Dork talks about maintaining “entitlements” for losers.

The mendacity of Andrew Williams, the Clown of Campbells Bay and Mayor of North Shore City knows no bounds.

He is quoted in the North Shore Times as saying “The Royal Commission’s recommendations were tossed into the bin without any consultation and I can fully appreciate how betrayed the mana whenua are feeling,”

Thankfully though the North Shore Times reporter is on to The Clown’s mendacity by pointing out that in 2002 Mr Williams was told his comments were “racist” by fellow councillor Tony Holman after questioning Maori involvement in North Shore City Council decision-making.

Mr Williams told a committee meeting he was fed up with too much attention being paid to the Treaty of Waitangi and on promoting Maori involvement.

“This is not going to help New Zealand get ahead and people are sick of it,” he said, labelling supporters of special consultation processes for Maori “divisive lefties”.

He lies again with this comment;

“Since becoming mayor, rather than just endlessly talking about process and treaty principles, I have strived to actively engage with local iwi to get better outcomes for Maori and for our city. The council is very supportive of this positive partnership approach.”

Oh really!, That’d be why North Shore City has all those Maori Ward seats…..what, they don’t have any?….can’t be, Andrew Williams have “strived to actively engage with local iwi”.

The man is a liar, a sot and a fool.

Oops! And oops! again – Prime Minister John Key and Finance Bill English simply have to start finding out what the other is saying. That way they can stop contradicting each other in public. How about this for the day before the National Government’s… [NZ Herald Politics]

Trev the Muss came off second best in the House today after Lockwood Smith booted his sorry ass out for arguing with him and the little Orange Guy of Labour Darren Hughes also came close to being tossed as well.

Labour’s modus operandi at the moment is a mixture of their usual misogyny towards women,  condescension, arrogance and outright bullying. Today Trevor mallard ended up with a carton of eggs in his face, beautiful smashed there by Audrey Young.

Question Time was irritating. Labour decided to pick on the Speaker Lockwood Smith today.

The feature of today’s Question Time was Trevor Mallard getting chucked out by the Speaker.

Mallard had just finished upbraiding Education Minister Anne Tolley on the wrong spelling of the word “academies” in some literature she had put out.

Funny that. Mallard’s recent post on the Labour MPs’ blog site Red Alert has the following words: denomitated; incoherant; speechs; catelogue; and Brethern!

He should have been chucked out for bad spelling at least, but perhaps hypocrisy.

Mallard of course still hasn’t apologised for his scurrilous attacks on melissa lee, in fact he has compounded the attacks on Labour’s MP blog.

The Clown of Campbells Bay, Andrew Williams, who also masquerades as the Mayor of North Shore City has been prominent in the press recently commenting on the Super City. He also trundled down Queen Street lending his support to the Hikoi that was demanding Maori representation where there is none presently.

Mayor Williams it would appear is a recent convert to Maori democractic rights, though he isn’t so committed to the idea that he has any Mari Wards in North Shore City.

In fact in February 2002 he described such an idea as “seperatist”.

This is a strange turn of events so I thought I would email the Mayor to see what the real story is. I haven’t had a reply yet.

Here are the questions I asked of him;

• Do you still stand by your statements made on 28 FeBruary 2002 that Maori electoral wards are “separatist”. These were published in the North Sore Times Advertiser at the time along with statements from Andrew Eaglen who believed they are a threat to democracy.
• If you do still stand by those comments in 2002 what made you attend the Hikoi and state the opposite and which position is true?
• If you have resiled from those 2002 statements what was it that made you change your mind?
• Are you a hypocrite?
• If not a hypocrite, then what? A liar perhaps?

I don’t expect he will reply, but perhaps Mr Orsman might like to ask the same questions of the Clown of Campbells Bay in order to clarify this murky situation.

The mad North Korean dictator emboldened by his recent Nuclear test has decided that the Armistice signed in 1953 no longer applies and that if anyone stops their ships to search for nuclear materials and weapons then they will invade the South.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s military says it considers South Korea’s participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction tantamount to a declaration of war against the North.

The communist North’s military said in a statement Wednesday that it will respond with “immediate, strong military measures” if the South actually stops and searches any North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.

The statement, carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency, said North Korea no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War, as a protest over the South’s participation.

South Korea announced its participation in the anti-proliferation program Tuesday, one day after the North conducted a nuclear test.

This guy is mad as a meat-ax and wills top at nothing. The huge irony is that it has happened on Obama’s watch. Let’s all watch him sit and dither.