August 2010

Whaleoil Policy on Maori Seats on the Supercity Council

Albany council candidate and blogger Cameron Slater is in favour of a binding referendum on Maori seats for the super city council.

Mr Slater says “The provisions of the Local Electoral Act 2001 allow for a territorial authority to hold a referendum on the issue of Maori seats. In line with my policy on transparency I want to put the question to the citizens of Auckland, rather than have it instituted in a closed room by diktat from a small number of politicians.”

The Local Electoral Act 2001 provides a mechanism for specifically creating reserved Maori seats. At any time, if five per cent of the eligible voting population in a local authority area sign a petition calling for Maori seats – or if the council itself votes to introduce Maori seats – a poll on the issue must be held within a specified timeframe under a well-defined process.

That provision under the Act is suitably weaselly that a small group of just 13 people could force something upon the citizens of Auckland.

There are arguments for both having Maori Seats and not having Maori Seats, which a referendum will thoroughly canvass, allowing the population to make up their mind on the merits of the argument. For such a major constitutional change thorough and prolonged discussion is fair and sensible.

A temporary measure of Maori seats introduced to parliament in 1867 is still present. The precedent is for even temporary constitutional changes to become permanent, so this kind of decision requires thorough discussion among all New Zealanders, not just a chosen few sitting around a council table.

The binding referendum should be held in conjunction with the general election in 2011, giving a firm decision in time for the 2013 local body elections.

All serious candidates should declare now, up front before the voting ratepayers whether or not they support Maori seats in the new Auckland council, that way we can vote appropriately. We need politicians to be unequivocal.

My position has always been clear. I would say no to Maori seats on the council. But it shouldn’t be about just my position. Len Brown won’t say just points at his record, which is….oh that’s right nothing, he never brought in Maori seats in Manukau. John Banks has been clear all along. Time for the others to declare so that we know what councilors may do if the issue was put before the new council. The voter need transparency and they need trust, not weasel words.

Len Brown, in the Campbell Live debate last night, said that this election was about trust.

I’m not surprised. First he was channeling Obama with “Auckland, It’s our time” and now with ex-Clarkista David Lewis desperately trying to spin things for Brown, its no surprise that he would re-fry up a slogan from the losing Helen Clark campaign of two years ago.

It’s laughable for Len Brown to invoke trust when he’s the guy who promised truth “with limits.”

“I will always front up. I will give you the straight answers, always with a limit.”

He also said that transparency is not a perfect thing.

“Transparency is not a perfect thing,” he added.

“Transparency doesn’t just happen in a perfect world.

Brown simply can’t offer trust when he won’t even tell us who he wasted $810 of ratepayer money on at the Volare restaurant, probably entertaining his political cronies or thanking his donors with a knees up.

It’s hard to trust the rapper cum face-slapper who charged up hams, groceries and several hundred morning coffees to his ratepayer funded purchasing card. He couldn’t trust himself in the end, cutting up the credit card on TV!

Truth with limits…… The only thing you can trust Len to do is slap himself silly.

Like Len Brown, slapped his face.

Oh really, how'd he do that then

Andrew Williams had previously had the title Clown all to himself, but with Len Brown getting all slappy he was seriously challenging Williams for the title of Auckland’s biggest clown.

Len Brown’s campaign is in trouble. He knows it an so he is desperate for any attention, including singing waiata at new roads. However the way you know his campaign is in deep trouble is the open mocking of the pinko literatti, by posting this image of Len Brown in front of a sign for Clowns.

Len Brown in front of his campaign HQ?

Wendyl Nissen gives Len Brown a slap

If Wendyl Nissen is mocking Len Brown then he has lost the inner city liberal elite and that means he has lost. The funny thing is Len Brown is trying desperatly to cover up this itty bitty little image.

Len Brown has more pressing issues though, which I will release tomorrow.

In Australia of course, there is no such thing as name suppression, even when it is a celebrity and they are charged with child pornography offenses. If this was in new Zealand he would for sure be hiding behind the burqa of name suppression.

A computer held by the Australian Federal Police is to be analysed for the defence of  former ABC host Andy Muirhead, who has faced a fresh charge in his child pornography case.

Muirhead appeared in Hobart Magistrates Court charged under state law with possessing child exploitation material, after earlier being charged under federal law with using a carriage service, the internet, for child pornography material.

Prosecutor Ian Arendt  told the court that, in effect, the second count arose out of material provided by the AFP.

Meanwhile here in new Zealand we have endless amounts of court time being wasted by a dirty pilot trying to keep his identity quiet.

A former Air Nelson pilot who was fired for having sex with a younger flight attendant and drinking excessively before a flight has lost a Supreme Court bid for name suppression.

The pilot, who has interim name suppression until September 7, has made three applications- to the Employment Court, the Court of Appeal and to the highest court in the land – to stop the publication of his name, all of which have been dismissed.

He appeared before the Employment Court in Auckland last week to try to overturn his sacking following a drinking and sex session during an unscheduled stopover in Napier in 2008.

He was said to have invited a 19-year-old flight attendant to his bedroom where they had sex.

The woman claimed the sex was not consensual but he argued she had actually initiated it.

The Supreme Court said in its judgment released today the pilot needed to show “extremely compelling circumstances” for him to be granted leave to appeal, but there were none.

So it appears that extremely compelling is now the test to get name suppression? Good to see that some judges at least get it.

Of course, there doesn’t appear to be any attempt here to protect the alleged victim or Air Nelson. The victim would be easily identifiable locally, as there are only a limited amount of hostesses are on that route, ie 1. Of course the stupid pilot is in a small sub-set of people himself, pilots who fly that route meaning his identity is probably already known around the community.

The simple point is this, you can’t keep secrets in New Zealand. End the suppression already.

Well of course not. Just look at the rigging of the selection in Mt Albert so Phil Goff’s chosen candidate could parachute in from Amman and the current gerry-mandering and reverse selection going on in Te Atatu.

Now it appears Phil Goff is hijacking another selection to ensure Kris Faafoi from his own office gains selection.

The Manatee blogs:

Fran Mold has today quit as Deputy Political Editor for TVNZ, according to well placed sources.

The reason is an agreement in principle that she will replace Kris Faafoi as Chief Press Secretary to Phil Goff.

The hirsute Fran Mold, best remembered for shrieking her way through Labour Party supplied lines at Don Brash seems set to replace Faafoi in Goff’s office, at least confirming where her political inclinations lie.

Serious questions remain though over the democratic principles, if any, that underpin Labour Party selections.

I thought I’d check out the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme for myself, since it is being talked about, and after about 30 seconds investigation discovered on the Treasury website an all encompassing, “NBR” do what ever whatever he f*ck we want clause clear as a bell in black and white.

Weasel Clause

All those greedy South Island capital gains hunting farming trough pigs who borrowed to “invest” in South Canterbury Finance on the premise that “but, but, but, it was guaranteed” better hold onto their pants because they are about to get ripped away.

Clause 3.10 Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme

If I was a prudent Finance Minister I would be looking for the fine print about now, because it appears, prima facie, that there sure as hell is “inappropriate conduct” and “a material reduction” in net tangible assets.

This folks is what is commonly called a weasel clause. Unlike most weasel clauses though this could all have been avoided if SCF had been honest about its position all along, but that probably would have meant they wouldn’t have qualified and therefore would have fallen over much earlier.

Prudential managers insurance companies look for just this kind of thing when looking to dishonour claims, I should know, Fidelity Life did it to me. South Canterbury Finance would have zero chance of getting a cent out of Fidelity Life, I suggest the Finance Minister guards New Zealand taxpayers funds with a more zealous attitude, much like Fidelity Life guards its shareholder funds.

I’ll leave more detail analysis to all the financial gurus out there in profession repeating land to realise what this little blogger.

Compare these two stories:

http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/three-bidders-south-canterbury-finance-3747926

and

http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/govt-must-buy-into-scf-greens-3748139

So the barking mad Greens want the Government to use taxpayers money to bail out a dodgy finance company when there are others who may be prepared to do the same with private money.

Even a commo loony like Norman surely doesn’t think this is a good use of taxpayer money. Actually it looks like he does.

As more and more information is revealed about the lackadaisical business practivces of SCF the more inclined I am to let the thing fail. There are stories emerging of people borrowing against their farms to re-invest the borrowed money in SCF and get a higher return on their money than they borrowed it for, all under the pretense that if SCF failed they could get their money back and it’d all be right. Anyone who did that deserves their farm to be sold from under them.

It seems the SCF and its borrowers, and investors would practicing some sort of voodoo economics money go round all based on the premise that the government will pick up all the pieces. If there wasn’t a fraud perpetrated when SCF entered the Deposit Guarantee Scheme I’d be very, very surprised. If there was a fraud then surely that makes any pretense of a guarantee almost null and void.

Howard Broad parties it up

It is no secret that Chief Wiggum Howard Broad has no friends at the Police Association and therefore no surprise that Chief Wiggum left the little landmine of his opinion about licencing of police bars.

What Chief Wiggum didn’t tell the media though in his little spin-fest was that he once got so hammered at a police bar he once tried to fly….down a bannister. He broke several limbs. Now he wants to “comply” police bars. That’s a little hypocritical of Chief Wiggum I think.

I think the Police, Fire Service and Armed Forces should keep their bars but let’s have a little more circumspect behaviour on the premises.

The  main problem from what I hear, is that they (the Police) cover up all the damage, be it to the person, the cost or the premises.

It’s not really ok for half of them might be pissed at 9am in the morning – and oh I don’t know slide down bannisters or even shoot a hole in the wall playing Quick Draw McGraw …. the list goes on, I could be here all day, but it isn’t the point.

One thing though that Crusher cold do to help the Police is to install a container bed or 10 at the station so they can crash (or maybe some of these), fireman are fine they have beds, so do the army, navy and the bryl-creem boys, the problem seems to be the police. That way they won’t go home crashing into innocent citizens.

The point is there probably needs to be some transparency surrounding those who enforce the law and how they act in their own bars. We don’t mind cops and such having their bars but they have to behave within the law that they are upholding.

One wag said to me that they’d sure as hell like to see someone, anyone, try and shut down the SAS bar on base.

I think Judith Collins had it right when she said;

“Cabinet has decided that the exemption for our defence, fire service and police should remain,” said Police Minister Judith Collins.

All this fuss seems to be just a parting gift to the Police Association from Chief Wiggum, it’s a pity he wasn’t smart enough to avoid standing on the landmine he set. He really should just STFU and retire without another word. His time is over, and we can all thank the Lord for that.