Helen Clark

Labour has finally caved to the mounting pressure on Shane Jones after serious inconsistencies developed in his stories.

On Monday David Shearer ruled out standing down Jones over his involvement in the Bill Liu cash for citizenship case with Larry Williams on Monday night.

He explicitly said says it’s meaningless anyway.

What new information has he received that made him change his mind?

Perhaps it was the information that the herald brought to light on top of the sterling work done by Wishart on the Bill Liu case back in 08/09.

This Herald article from 2009 also makes an interesting observation:

Liu was considered a high-risk gambler by the DIA’s casino monitoring division because of his volatility, high-stakes gambling and history of self-barring, the Herald was told.

A DIA spokesman confirmed that Liu was of interest. “Mr Liu is one of a number of gamblers of significance whom the department has discussed in its interaction with SkyCity”.

Liu’s gambling also attracted the attention of the police. That interest was at times intense and included surveillance, a source told the Herald. “The focus was to see whether evidence of money laundering could be detected.” No charges have been laid.

… so Liu was being watched by the DIA and police for potentially laundering money – as well as his immigration issues – but Jones still approved citizenship.

Has Labour only just googled this stuff?

It is also interesting that apart from claiming that he would be executed he also claimed membership of Falun Gong. There is a little problem with given his propensity for gambling. Falun Gong prohibits gambling so his claim to be a member (which Jones appears to have accepted) seems a bit convenient:

As part of its emphasis on ethical behavior, Falun Gong’s teachings prescribe a strict personal morality for practitioners, which includes abstention from smoking, drugs, gambling, premarital or extramarital sex, and homosexuality.

David Shearer has kicked this to the Auditor-General but their request is for the Auditor-General to look at the process….not the decision. This is farcical.

“I’ve asked for the Auditor-General to look into all the departmental as well as ministerial processes involved in this case.

“Shane has encouraged me to take this action because he has been left in the impossible position of not being able to clear his name. An inquiry will enable him to do so.

“While the inquiry is underway, Shane Jones will stand down from his portfolio responsibilities and from Labour’s Front Bench.

Based on what Labour has asked of the Auditor-General they are simply trying on what Helen Clark did with Philip Field. There really should be a full indepedent inquiry now.

ᔥ Bowalley Road

Labour’s civil war has spilled over into public now. Chris Trotter has joined Brian Edwards in castigating David Shearer for his gagging of David Cunliffe:

DAVID SHEARER’S DECISION to muzzle his rival, David Cunliffe, is deeply worrying. Right now, there’s nothing Labour needs more than an open debate about its future. That its leader, and the coterie of courtiers with which he has surrounded himself, was willing to go to the extraordinary lengths of preventing Labour’s spokesperson on Economic Development from appearing on The Nation reveals how ruthlessly Shearer’s faction intends to stifle all dissent.

Mr Shearer’s petty, politically self-destructive decision can only be interpreted as Mr Cunliffe’s punishment for delivering a speech to his New Lynn electorate’s Women’s Branch highly critical of Labour’s fraught, 25-year association with neoliberal economics. Clearly, the disparity between the Labour Leader’s three uninspiring “positioning” speeches, and the compellingly radical content of Mr Cunliffe’s April 29 address, had rankled.

It sure has. Moana Mackey can now add another couple to the count from what I hear.

This sort of overt factional squabbling has not been seen in the Labour Party for more than fifteen years. Throughout Helen Clark’s record-breaking reign as leader open dissent was almost always cast as treason. Such limited ideological debate as did occur was hidden deep down in the party’s organisational bowels, far from the public gaze. It was a political style more suited to breeding courtiers than comrades, and Ms Clark’s sudden departure, coupled with the effective coronation of her successor, gave the Labour Party no serious opportunity to decompress. Now it appears to have the bends.

There was no squabbling under Clark because the caucus feared Heather Simpson. No one feared Stuart Nash and no one yet fears Alistair Cameron.

Courtiers make poor campaigners. As Game of Thrones addicts know only too well, power is not always to be found among the wielders of swords. As often as not it lies in the hands of eunuchs and whoremasters: the manipulators, tricksters and casters-of-shadows who keep their daggers hidden and seldom venture beyond the palace gates.

Which is why Mr Shearer’s muzzling of Mr Cunliffe is so very worrying. Seldom has Labour been blessed with two such impressive champions. Both men should welcome the open and principled debate needed to set a new course for the party: one suited to the powerful currents in which New Zealand (and the rest of the world) now find themselves. It’s also needed to ensure that Labour is not secretly corrupted – as it was in the early-1980s – by a “Leadership Group” who were only too willing to promise one thing and then deliver its opposite.

Oh dear…Chris Trotter has called the advisors “eunuchs and whoremasters: the manipulators, tricksters and casters-of-shadows”. This is not going to play out very well at all.

NBR has a column from Rodney Hide (not online but it should be). I’d far rather read what Rodney has to say any day of the week than try and work out which corporate client Matthew Hooton is shilling for with his column.

In today’s columns he lists the 10 things he has concluded.

So here’s a part list of what I have concluded:

1. The earth is cooling; 2.  Greenpeace are the new fascists; 3. Treaty settlements are counterproductive to race relations and maori development; 4. Welfare keeps us poor; 5. Butter is health food; 6. Healthy whole grains are anything but; 7. The UN is a joke; 8. Government is irreparably broken; 9. Business success does more for the poor than do-gooders droning on in  the newspapers; 10.  Helen Clark is a woman to admire and respect.

I’m not sure about point 10.

ᔥ the tipline

ᔥ the tipline

ᔥ Brian Edwards

Brian Edwards writes an interesting post about the wisdom of commentary, and blows his own trumpet (justifiably). But his comment on the un-trainability of David Shearer is interesting.

Brian is a considered commentator, for him to opine so publicly shows that he (and Helen Clark) are over David Shearer:

This morning my co-commentator on The Nation and fellow media trainer Bill Ralston joked about Shearer, ‘He should have had some media training.’ But it was a joke. Media training would have made not an iota of difference to Shearer’s fortunes. He would have proved untrainable.

That sounds harsh, but it is not intended to be. Shearer is simply miscast as the leader of a political party in opposition. To change his image, he would have to change his personality and that, in human terms, could only be a change for the worse. Shearer is genetically challenged as a Leader of the Opposition. The killer instinct and the showbiz gene are both missing. He can be reasonable but he can’t project.

Media training is a waste of time for such politicians. Worse, it’s transparent, an ineffective cover-up job that listeners and viewers can recognise and see through. And that is damaging.

Bill Rowling, whom I mentioned in the earlier blog, was a strong personality who looked weak on television. Attempts to make him more forceful made him look like a weak man trying to appear forceful.

A similar fate was met by the rather wooden Geoffrey Palmer, who was Prime Minister for a year and who, I’m told, received media advice from some Australian gurus in the art. The advice was apparently to be physically more animated and smile more. The effect, however, was to make him look remarkably like the American Eagle on The Muppets.

Media trainers need first and foremost to be skilled diagnosticians. A wrong  diagnosis, followed by inappropriate treatment can be fatal to the patient’s prospects of survival. Sometimes, as in the case of David Shearer, it is kindest to admit that there is no cure and wish them a happy life – perhaps doing something else.

There is talk that Grant Robertson is loyal deputy…even David Shearer is indignant about the rumours that his Deputy is about to roll him:

He appeared most irritated at suggestions [on The Standard] that Mr Cameron had been installed in advance of a leadership takeover by Mr Robertson.

“I speak to Grant three or four times a day on the phone. We’re in and out of each other’s offices when we are in Parliament together, all day.”

I’m not so sure that he should take comfort in that.

If David Shearer took a good  look at New Zealand political history he would have cold shivers running up his spine.

Rob Muldoon was Jack Marshall’s deputy, he knifed him on 4 July 1974.

David Lange was Bill Rowling’s deputy, he knifed him on 3 February 1982.

Jim McLay was Muldoon’s deputy, he knifed him in 1984, after National lost the 1984 schnapps election.

Jim Bolger was Jim McLay’s deputy, he knifed him in 1986.

Geoffry Palmer was David Lange’s deputy, and he took over in September 1989 as Lange gave up.

Helen Clark was Mike Moore’s deputy, she knifed him on 1 December 1993.

Bill English was Jenny Shipley’s deputy, he knifed her in October 2001.

Based on recent political history David Shearer has much to fear from Grant Robertson, who was raised politically under the tutelage of Helen Clark, one of the plotting deputies who rolled their leader.

Based on New Zealand political history it really the role of the deputy to roll the leader.

The fact that his deputy (and their people) are talking to you means nothing.  The interesting thing will be when the House goes back.  The numbers of MPs popping in and out of each others office late at night.  The corridor action that is going on.

If I was Shearer I’d ensure my programme keeps me in Wellington next week.

One weird thing about David Shearer is his distinct lack of loyalists.  See, when the in-Parliament chattering behind closed doors occurs he needs to have his loyalists countering.

Well, who counters for Shearer? It isn’t Robertson….and Trevor Mallard is running his jihad against John Banks, not watching Shearer’s back.

↬ Andrew Sullivan

The student loan book is out of control. Everyone thinks it is a problem…and it has got worse since Helen Clark bribed students with interest free student loans. I learned in my sales career though that moaning about something just pisses people off and that when you criticise something have an alternate proposition to solve the issue.

To date I haven’t found one that is elegant… until now:

Students in California have a proposal. Rather than charging tuition, they’d like public universities in California to take 5% of their salary for the first twenty years following graduation (for incomes between $30,000 and $200,000). Essentially, rather than taking on debt students would like to sell equity in their future earnings.

This means students who make more money after graduation will subsidise lower-earning peers. It is not clear if this will provide adequate revenue for the university. It also means the university bears more risk, because the tuition it will ultimately receive is uncertain. But the proposal will benefit some students and the principle is not so ridiculous.

ᔥ The Listener

Jane Clifton explains more fully those who should be avoided in official communications:

In the normal course of events, there are people and situations that politicians very quickly learn to avoid. These include anything to do with Scientology, fluoridation, abortion, the gun lobby and, broadly speaking, anybody who fixes them with a glittering eye à laThe Ancient Mariner. The latter is the trickiest category to steer clear of, because MPs’ electorate clinics are full of them. They are the walking wounded, typically having come out the wrong end of dealings with the Family Court, an insurance company, an ex-partner, Immigration New Zealand or – as is currently the hot button – the ACC.

We all know someone like this, because they “holdeth one of three” to tell their tale of woe. And we sympathise. We really do. But at some point in such people’s terrible journey, their world has become so small that their albatross has become everything to them. At this point, the only sensible, humane advice anyone can give them is to rule a line under the atrocity, pick up what’s left of their psyches and, as Helen Clark would say, Move On.

Which is only one of the reasons Nick Smith made a dopey, career-blighting mistake in respect of his friend Bronwyn Pullar – a woman who by her own admission in emails had become quite consumed by her albatross. When she badgered him for support in her battle to get accident compensation, he should have kept saying no. And not just for the reasons most of us would have had to say no: that her fight was narrowing her life-focus, that state agencies have disproportionate power over the individual and will always win, that possibly she wasn’t entitled to compo. He had this reason: he was the Minister in Charge of ACC at the time.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Fran O’Sullivan explains why David Shearer will never deliver on his aspiration to be a one term PM:

Shearer will find it a tall task to persuade his comfortable colleagues that “doing the right thing for New Zealand” is worth sacrificing the amount of time their butts will be attached to the backseats of swish ministerial BMWs.

Let’s face it, the bevy of powerful Labour politicians that orchestrated Shearer’s leadership grab – the “anyone but Cunliffe” clique – have long held an attachment to power.

MPs such as Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff, and Annette King were also within the core group at the centre of the second-term Helen Clark Government that shamelessly dished out voter bribes to get back into power at the 2005 election.

Those bribes – expanding Working for Families and making student loans interest free – were always going to be fiscally unsustainable. Then-Finance Minister Michael Cullen knew this. But they got Clark her third term.

A leader who was prepared to go over the top in New Zealand’s best interests would also take an axe to this huge expansion of state munificence. But neither Shearer – nor John Key – will do this. Each man believes that stripping these bribes out would cost them the next election.