December 2010

Veteran political correspondent Colin James continues with his hagiography of Simon Power, giving him the coveted politician of the year title and going on about leadership and other nonsense. When I read Colin’s article I was sick, just a little bit, in my mouth.

James is a veteran. Veterans should know that simply being the wettest most liberal member of the National caucus doesn’t make an MP leadership material.

So to someone who, as a candidate in 1999, saw Mr English as a model; someone with gravitas far beyond his 40 years and a huge work capacity; in charge of the single economic market with Australia; unafraid to take on the establishment where it is most established, in the law; scoffed at as naive or callow by his critics but valued by small investors for his determination to fix laws which allowed the Feltex shenanigans and finance companies’ misdeeds; a family man and genuinely nice guy; declared a young global leader by the World Economic Forum and off to Harvard briefly in March.

Lets think through some of these points. Bill English as a model? This means destined to win 21% if the party is silly enough to elect him leader. Hard work? That is just given, if you don’t work hard you should be sent back to being a third rate provincial conveyancy lawyer. Genuinely nice guy? News to most of the caucus and just about all of the party who he has never, ever done a single thing for out of altruism.

Then readers would be advised to carefully think about some of FIGJAM‘s other achievements. Having the nickname FIGJAM stick is going to be exceptionally bad news for anyone aspiring to be leader of a party. It is a well deserved nickname, earned only through a degree of ego-mania only found in the politically naïve.

FIGJAM has also managed to alienate every blogger or internet commentator in the country with his stupid attempt to regulate the internet. Good luck FIGJAM, somehow an anti-FIGJAM campaign seems to be the topic of every bloggers drinks in the country, ensuring that the new media will make next year uncomfortable for you. Maybe FIGJAM, you could take a step back and think through who is going to be the media that counts in a few years when the papers go tits up.

Then FIGJAM did a deal with his political opponents over election reform, managing to draw rebuke from the National Party president who is not known to rebuke anyone due to fear of having to take a position first. FIGJAM involved opponents in a shoddy deal to restrict freedom of speech, yet did not talk to his own party on their views.

Colin James is undoubtably going to get pensioned off at some stage soon, and editors reading his latest piece should speed up the process as he is obviously out of touch. There is no way FIGJAM is going to be leader of the National Party because he has failed to make friends in caucus with enough people to get close to winning a ballot. In a year of hard work FIGJAM has had a major brain melt, doing nothing at all to appeal to anyone who is not in the rarified are of the beltway. Put FIGJAM in front of an audience of swing voters and you have a certain vote for Labour.

The other thing about Simon Power is his fear of the media unless they are in a tightly controlled locked-down studio situation where he can sit behind a desk. Look through his media appearances and he likes to be sitting behind a desk. He is afraid especially of the television medium, he should also be afraid of right wing bloggers.

A Rangitikei man who downloaded child pornography, including pack rape, sadism and defecation, is fighting to keep his identity secret to protect his family.

An interim suppression order was lifted by Judge Alistair Garland in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday, after sentencing the man to six months’ home detention on 21 counts of possessing objectionable publication.

However, defence lawyer Steve Winter indicated his client would appeal the decision to lift name suppression, which meant another interim order had to be granted.

If an appeal is not lodged by 12pm Monday the man’s name can be published.

If an appeal is lodged, suppression will continue until a High Court hearing.

The Department of Internal Affairs, which brought the charges, was “strongly” against permanent name suppression, Crown prosecutor Matthew Davie said.

Judge Garland said the offending was serious and there was a “high” public interest in knowing the offender’s character.

“Publication of the offenders name, particularly in a case like this, in my view is a critical ingredient in both personal and general deterrence.”

This guy is gaming the system, aided and abetted by his ex-partner and daughter who both work in the local court system. That is the family he is trying to protect. Yes I know who he is, what I can’t work out is why, if he was prepared to help abuse children by possessing objectionable material, he is now afraid of his own name. He is nothing but a coward, victimising children and then hiding behind name suppression.

I’ve been going through Bryce Edwards posting of Wikileaks NZ documents. There is an amazing amount of information and some real gems. I particularly like this one though from 23 April 2009. There is a good summary about why Labour is rooted, but the kicker is in the tail. I have posted the hear to make searching the pdf easier…and just section 9 of the cable. Emphasis added is mine.

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2024

TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, NZ

SUBJECT: LABOUR DOOMED TO WANDER NEW ZEALAND’S POLITICAL

WILDERNESS?

Classified By: Acting DCM Margaret McKean; Reason 1.4 (b) and (d)….

9. (C) Even in defeat, Helen Clark continued to cast a long shadow over the future of the Labour Party, despite her generally low profile after tranferring the leadership to Phil Goff. With her departure for New York, effective rebuilding can begin, but is likely to be done slowly and without fanfare for fear of endangering the Clark legacy, which many in Labour will find difficult to let go. Most analysts agree that Labour needs an influx of new blood; however, simply promoting younger Labour Party personalities may not be enough to change voting patterns without a fundamental rethink of how some of Labour’s policies were rejected by the electorate and that a more centrist approach to governance (as National has done) may be needed. The Labour Party also tends to attract its membership from the ranks of academics, unions and government workers. National’s younger candidates, in contrast, typified the cross section of younger New Zealand professionals and middle class families — and were candidates who attracted important swing voters in urban centers where Labour traditionally had strong support. Whether Labour can field a similar broad range of younger candidates among its traditional left-of-center pockets of support is in question. The party will also need to revamp its current parliamentary list, which is replete with tried, tested, and largely defeated Labour Party stalwarts. End Comment.

Thank goodness parliament passed the anti-smacking law so that “our kiddies are now safe”. If parliament hadn’t passed Sue Bradford’s ;law then the slaughter of our young would have continued unabated…..oh wait!

CYF appalled by abuse to girl hiding in cupboard

Assault charges laid after 5yo found dead

UPDATE: The person charged with the death of the 5y.o. has name suppression, it surely can’t be to protect the victim, she’s dead.

That’s another two kids that Sue Bradford’s law was supposed to protect and failed. One is dead, the other scarred for life.

I’ll bet you dollars to a knob of goat-shit that both of these “families” are maori.

Emmerson puts it very simply…but not simple enough for the congenitally stupid.

Of course now we will get all the liberal panty-waists claiming that this is all of New Zealand’s problem, when it demonstrably isn’t, the demographics clearly tell us whose problem this is. One thing is absolutely certain and that is welfare isn’t working for anyone, and definitely it isn’t working for the children. The answer isn’t more money either, it never is, the liberal panty-waists though will claim that money will solve the problems. If that was the case then we shouldn’t have any problems with the billions poured into lower soci-economic classes.

The system and some parts of society are broken, oh that we had politicians who were prepared to grasp the nettle instead of showboating and acting the goat. National has had two years to make a difference instead they have fiddled and tinkered at the edges. Labour doesn’t have any solutions either, they had nine years to address issues such as these and failed. Both major parties are failing the poor and the children of New Zealand.

Chris Carter could give the Labour party a very nice Christmas present this year…a by-election.

The Labour Party will be ready to fight a byelection in the West Auckland seat of Te Atatu next year if incumbent MP Chris Carter quits before the end of the parliamentary term.

But at least the party no longer has to worry about standing against Mr Carter in the general election after his preferred successor, Labour MP Phil Twyford, won the party’s nomination over seven others at the weekend.

Party president Andrew Little said he was not planning for a byelection, but it was a possibility.

“If that happens, we’ll be ready for it.”

He described the party coffers as “very healthy”.

Good oh…then the perfect revenge for Chris Carter would be to force a by-election, have Labour expend some of that cash and even better send Judith Tizard to parliament for 8 months. It is certainly a Christmas present I’d love to see happen.

Outrageous Fortune cost taxpayers $48 million plus for six seasons. Sure it doesn’t cost as much as the bastion of liberal elite wankers, the New Zealand Symphany Orchestra, but why the hell are we paying for a TV program in the first place?

It is just corporate welfare for arty types. And welfare that got TV3 in trouble too.

The only outrageous fortune associated with this programme is how much taxpayers have had to subsidise production, and this is for a star show that is supposed to be a success. Why is it in New Zealand we have to shell out for a success? Surely if it was measured by a real commercial standard like profitability then the show would surely be classed a failure. Not here in New Zealand, we laud it up as a success when in fact it is nothing short of a corporate bludger.

Also the ungrateful bastards campaign against the government. Cut off their subsidies and see if you still get hippy chicks going on about how evil the government is. They won’t because they will be busy trying to earn an honest dollar rather than sticking their hand out for more like some genetically modified female oliver twist.

Cathy Casey obviously didn’t get the memo or the gist of my post this morning and she just couldn’t help herself.

It is not really fair to claim that Cathy Casey should have listened, she is bat shit mad.

She might like to go ask Len Brown for the $10k he wasted on his Christmas card as a donation for community groups.

Well of course they will. Their proxy mouthpiece in the NZ Herald, Bernard Orsman took 5 days to write about exactly that in his attempt to smear Jami-lee Ross.

The Botany by election could well end up with a subsequent by election for Auckland Council if Cr Jami-Lee Ross is selected for National and wins the by election.

As a friendly warning to the Labour Party, if some of your more small minded or stupid supporters start attacking Cr Ross, this blog will be forced to remember all the recent incidences of Labour MPs or councillors forcing by elections. Just to give you a small sample:
2010 – Mana – Winnie Laban got out of politics a year early forcing a by-election
2009 – Mt Albert  - Helen Clark lost an election and refused to continue serving the ungrateful wretches who so cruelly rejected her at the ballot box.
2008 – Su’a William Sio – Manukau City Council  (Efu Koka won), Resigned his council position mid-term after being elected to parliament forcing a by-election
2006 – James Papali’i (Sylvia Taylor won) – Manukau City Council  - he was no longer able to serve due to issues with the law
2003 – John Kerr  (Alf Filipaina won) – Manukau City Council  - no reason given but readers are willing to use the tip line if they know

Unlike Jim Anderton, Su’a William Sio, Alf Filipaina and numerous other labour candidates and elected officials at least Jami-lee Ross has signalled that he won’t be a double dipper.

Meanwhile it looks like Len Brown’s sensible spin weasel, Conor Roberts, has convinced Len Brown to make a nice statement rathe than risk  a rehash of Len’s credit card issues.

Mayor Len Brown, who has a history of clashes with Mr Ross going back to their days at Manukau, said he would prefer not to lose a councillor so soon after the inauguration of the Auckland Council on November 1.

“However, after having worked with Jami-Lee for a number of years, I know he will continue to be a strong advocate for his community, whether it is here or in Wellington,” Mr Brown said.

I hope Conor gets a good secret Santa at the ratepayer funded Christmas lunch Len Brown is throwing all his staff today.

Helen Clark sold out our troops for butter. That is what the latest Wikileaks documents say.

“Senior MOD officials (strictly protect) tell us it was not until Finance Minister Michael Cullen pointed out in a subsequent Cabinet meeting that New Zealand’s absence from Iraq might cost NZ dairy conglomerate Fonterra the lucrative dairy supply contract it enjoyed under the United Nations Oil for Food program, that the prime minister found a face-saving compromise and sent combat engineers in a non-combat role to Basra, where they were embedded with British forces.

“By then, however, the prime minister had so stirred up anti-war sentiment that she had to expend a lot of political capital to get Caucus and Cabinet support for this time-limited deployment.”

She was so opposed to sending troops to Iraq she dug herself a hole. While she secretly embedded our SAS with British forces so that we could say there were no troops in Iraq she also sent the Combat Engineers because Fonterra might lose a butter contract.

It wasn’t good enough to send them to help get rid of Saddam Hussein, it wasn’t good enough to send them to help re-build Iraq, but it was good enough to send them to keep a butter contract.

I fully expect all the pinko blogs who accused National of wanted to treat our troops like mercenaries to now turn on Helen Clark, because that is what she did. It wasn’t Iraqi freedom, or release from tyranny that prompted her to send troops to Iraq it was filthy lucre.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I was and still am in favour of sending our troops to hot spots. I have no problem with that. But what I do have a problem with is the sheer hypocrisy of the leftwing and labour in particular and that fact that their anti-war cant can just be swept under the carpet for a few shekels.

The last One News poll for the year came out tonight.

Christmas has come early for National, which ends the year polling more than 20 points ahead of Labour.

But there’s no sign of cheer for Phil Goff with the latest ONE News Colmar Brunton poll showing him nearly 50 points behind John Key in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.

Labour will now be seriously looking for alteratives, but with their talent pool as shallow as a bird bath there are slim pickings. More telling though is the slow demise of the Greens.

The Wikileaks dribble isn’t doing Labour or Goff any favours either, though am I the only person wondering where all the juicy stuff is?

John Key will go off on holiday well pleased and can look forward to election year well placed, even if his own supporters are disappointed with the lack of progress. Labour though will be more disappointed and they know that even though National has done SFA on the economy, all of their solutions would have tanked the economy a whole lot faster.