John Minto

Niko Kloeten reckons that Maurice Williamson could bury Len Brown in the mayoral race in October.

There are a number of reasons.

Less baggage:

A number of political figures on the right believe Mr Williamson would have a better chance of success than fellow MP and ACT Party leader John Banks did when he ran for Auckland mayor three years ago and was thumped by 65,000 votes (234,459 to 169,862).

Councillor Dick Quax, who represents the Howick ward which largely overlaps with the Pakuranga electorate, says Mr Williamson has a very good reputation in the area, with one of the largest majorities of any MP (almost 14,000 votes).

He says Mr Williamson doesn’t carry as much “baggage” as Mr Banks in the eyes of voters, particularly those in area outside the old Auckland City Council.

“The reason why John Banks didn’t do very well was for many people the amalgamation of Auckland was seen as a takeover by Auckland City,” he says.

“They saw John Banks as part of that takeover by Auckland City of the rest of the region and when a credible candidate from outside of the area put his hand up a lot of the votes automatically went to Len Brown.

“A lot of voters in Pakuranga and Howick voted for him because he wasn’t John Banks.  That won’t be the case this time.”

Mr Quax says Mr Williamson will also benefit from not being associated with the unitary plan, which many Aucklanders are not happy with.  Read more »

Excuse me if I don’t just laugh till my tits fall off. John Minto wants to be Mayor.

I’ll bet he has Martyn Bradbury working assiduously in his campaign team.

Veteran activist John Minto is asking his political party to approve a run for mayor of Auckland. The trade unionist and teacher said Mayor Len Brown had disappointed him.

“What has Len Brown done which is different to what John Banks would have done if he were in? You struggle to find many significant things.”  Read more »

I truly can’t stand the Irony Overload of Martyn Bradbury Real Estate promoting a blog post on behalf of John Minto, lamenting the fact they are embarrassed (sometimes) to be a New Zealander.

Welcome to my permanent state of mind whenever you two are involved in anything.

I’ve stayed way from 3rd Degree’s and TV 3′s campaign to free twice convicted rapist and murderer Teina Pora.

Basically, every single person in prison is innocent of all charges – or so they would have you believe.

But now, for some bizarre reason, the Daily Blog has tried to drag me into it as a way of having yet another go at the cops. I won’t link to it. It’s piss-poor as always. Dotcon’s biggest fan, David Fisher, has retweeted it, in line with the usual cop-bashing drivel.

But here’s the thing, if I was going to discuss it I’d talk about the facts.

They are:

The cops don’t actually convict people. Courts do that.

Teina Pora has been convicted twice by courts.

His lawyer has been asked to provide new evidence to back up his claims of wrongful conviction.

To date, he hasn’t done so.

A half-arsed media campaign counts for fuck all in the judicial system.

So there we go. A new TV programme backs a “cause” to get more viewers, get people talking about it, and get some cross-promotion from a sister news programme.

Pretty clever.

But then a few dumbos who should know better are reducing themselves to John Minto levels with schoolboy attacks on the cops.

Grow up and get real.

Veteran protestor and the permanently grumpy John Minto has lost his appeal against his conviction:

Veteran activist John Minto has lost his appeal against an obstruction conviction after confessing to intentionally blocking police during his High Court hearing.

Minto was found guilty of obstruction at the Auckland District Court in August for blocking a truck removing a state house in Glen Innes.

He appealed his conviction on February 5 on the basis his arrest was “gratuitous, arbitrary and unnecessary”.  Read more »

Parties to the left claim to stand for the poor. National and Act announced a Charter School policy to help that group but the Left have played the “hands off those are our constituents” stupid game.

In parliament these two questions were asked in a moment or two of genius.

METIRIA TUREI to the Minister of Education: Given the Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report shows a widening education gap between students from wealthier and poorer communities, would she have done anything differently, in hindsight, to better support children in lower decile schools?

HONE HARAWIRA to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Does he agree that a Māori and Pacific unemployment rate that has been nearly three times higher than the Pākehā rate for each of the four years of his Government’s time in office signals the failure of the National Governments employment, education, skills and training policies for Māori and Pacific peoples; if not, why not?

The Swedish data is fantastic and the The New York Times recently declared that Kipp and the Uncommon Schools have actually managed to eliminate the learning gap between poor and higher-income students.

When Kipp founder Mike Feinberg was out here Hone’s best friend John Minto went to the meetings and vocally rubbished him. That is be kind of like is SBW criticised Ali.

Any chance the Greens and others could put dumb politics aside and support a proposal designed to help the poor and Maori. Any chance they might put children ahead of their own desire for power?

Not bloody likely.

I don’t know what they’ve got in the water in Dunedin, but this is just sick

The Otago Daily Times reports:

Want to do lunch? Well, who would you most like to have it with?

…

Politicians featured as the most undesirable lunch companions. Mr Key, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, Justice Minister Judith Collins and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett all got the cold shoulder in Dunedin.

That’s not completely surprising I guess.  However:   Read more »

Bob Jones has come bouncing back from a couple of flat articles with a belter about Rod Oram, Bernard Hickey and John Minto:

New Zealand’s best-known economic doomsdayists are the articulate Rod Oram and Bernard Hickey, both serious Mintoitus sufferers. Life for them must be a living hell, always only seeing the dark side and blind to the overwhelming positives everywhere. Once Bernard and Rod would have received prefrontal lobotomies to brighten them up but those procedures became discredited.

Now it’s Prozac although a bottle or two of red each day would also do the trick and they would henceforth see the world in its happier, more positive side.

Certainly they can be cured, unlike the screaming skull John Minto, for whom the only salvation is a beheading. Minto owes it to himself to end the awful misery of his misanthropic existence. If he wakes to a sunny day then it’s grab the megaphone and bellow about global warming. Should $50 bank notes rain down on him, out would come the megaphone to complain that they weren’t $100. If he answered the door to a naked beauty queen crying, “take me John”, (for plausibility assume she’s drunk) he’d and bawl her out for not bringing lunch. Thank God he’s not an economist or we’d all be suicidal.

Looking into the future the single biggest issue for politicians is going to be how to they manage to cut government spending to levels we can afford. John Key may not think superannuation is a problem, and it may not be for him, but it is for future generations, and future generations of politicians. They will be forced to deal with increased superannuation which will put huge pressure on other spending areas. Sometimes sacred cows have to be slaughtered and this is one such sacred cow…perhaps we might find that scared cows make the best hamburgers…but we never will while we dither on the issue.

A political environment where the voters are tired of deficits and profligate governments poses interesting problems for all across the political spectrum. National may actually have to do something rather than incrementally move at glacial pace for fear of offending someone. Even if that someone is Sue Bradford, John Minto or the union movement National quivers with fear at the thought of offending them.

Labour dominated by unionists will discover the unpalatable truth, without a productive economy the state cannot spend as much. Much in the same way the last really good government, the Lange/Douglas government, reformed New Zealand for the better a modern Labour government might do what National won’t and man up to the difficult issues. Being Labour they may also screw things up royally, but give them credit, they will have a crack.

The Greens will be badly bruised by their first term in government and will either have to become realistic or they will wither. Greens have nice ideas but they aren’t very practical in the real world, which means they are best suited to opposition. Other minor parties may not be in parliament.

Over the next few weeks I will blog about this issue, and will welcome guest posts or comments on this subject.

I’m liking the cut of the new Police Commissioner’s jib:

The police commissioner has spoken out over an investigation into whether three police officers wore matching identification during Monday’s raid on Occupy Auckland protesters.

“I hope it isn’t true, but if such stupidity did occur – give me strength,” Peter Marshall wrote in his blog on the police national website.

“Talk about scoring an own goal. This is to be the subject of an employment hearing and the truth will be established.”

In the blog, Marshall also praised the officer’s involved in the raids “softly-softly” approach and said police had been complimented by people including veteran protester John Minto “who is hardly a cheerleader for police”.

Police today arrested 19 people when, supported by security guards, they returned to Aotea Square to clear the remaining tents belonging to  protesters.

One day the mainstream media will link to a source blog. For the record here is Peter Marshall’s blog post.

We can thank Judith Collins for such a fine Commissioner.