Katrina Shanks

I was looking up Katrina Shanks wiki page for a post about Peter Dunne and why he still has 3 terms left in him despite the best efforts of Labour to undermine him. Champagne Charlie Chauvel has now bolted so that really just leaves Shanks as a possible challenger.

There are long sections of info, and then I got to her “Political Views“….

All it says is “this section is empty”…uhmm yep.  Read more »

Word is filtering through the tip line of some dodgy maneuverings in Ohariu in the lead up to the anticipated selection battle. There are three potential challengers that are known to be thinking about taking on the sitting MP, though Katrina may be able to hang on. None of these people have done anything dodgy yet, and it would be misleading to suggest they have.

Where Katrina’s real threat comes from is not from the three candidates but from a very senior staffer thinking he is going to be anointed the next MP for Ohariu. I have a strong,long-held view that political staffers do not make good MPs, as half the Labour caucus has shown, and believes the members in Ohariu will not be strong armed into supporting a staffer because the party tells them to.

National’s constitution is very sound on selection. As long as there are enough members the board or regional chair cannot anoint a candidate. The candidates all have to go through a thorough selection process where the sixty or more people in the room vote for the best candidate. The more members the more delegates and the less chance of delegate stacking. Aspiring candidates should be out there signing up members but bearing in mind that scurrilous tactics like signing members from graveyards like in Rotorua a number of years ago will certainly be outed.

My only qualm about Ohariu is the lack of ethics displayed in the Palmerston North selection by the regional chair. Regional chairs are ethically bound to remain neutral, not attempt to stack selections with their relatives so their favored candidate wins.

As always I will take a neutral stance on selection and weigh up the pros and cons of all candidates, and wish them all the best. That is unless there is skulduggery going on and skulduggery will be outed. Still selection is a long way off, but it is clear that I need to keep a close eye on Ohariu.

In other words you are campaigning for the party vote for free.
How about those in the seats National is lending to Act and United? Do they get any benefits?

No, you are not campaigning for the party vote for free. You are paying dearly for the privilege of selling National’s policies both in terms of lost income and the inevitable “victory fund” tax you will be forced to pay because the National Party is tits at fundraising.

As far as seats lent to ACT and United you get some benefit by getting into parliament but as a scum list MP you serve at the party’s pleasure meaning they can give you the arse whenever they like, or do what they have done to Katrina Shanks and left her wallowing on the back benches.

That said Katrina Shanks, though earnest, isn’t much chop and is likely to get the arse card through a low list ranking next time round.

Yesterday dealt with the electorate MPs. Four of National’s women will struggle to hold their seats.

National’s List would also be reduced. 4% nominally means 5 MPs, but it could be more or less depending on the success or failure of other parties. The following MPs would not return to parliament on these numbers.

Katrina Shanks
Paul Goldsmith
Tau Henare
Jackie Blue
Cam Calder

The list is a bit more difficult to predict as if National goes into opposition there will be a number of List MPs who resign rather than go into opposition.

For HR to work there needs to be direct repercussions for inept or unacceptable performance.

This means List MPs who everyone knows are useless need to be moved on. MPs in safe seats who are equally useless and offer little to the party need to be replaced by high quality candidates.

Many useless MPs are useless due to being ill suited to the job, not because they are malicious or deliberately useless. It is a bit like a player who is selected for the All Blacks when there are a rash of injuries, someone who just doesn’t have the talent to make it permanent, but gets a step up due to circumstances or a mistake in selection. Unfortunately for political parties MPs can’t be dropped as quickly as All Blacks, and many hang on even though everyone knows they are useless.

Dropping MPs is an important part of building a winning team, just as dropping players is important for the All Blacks.

National is as guilty as any party of retaining useless MPs who offer little and block the path to caucus for someone more talented. Katrina Shanks immediately springs to mind, a woman who doesn’t have good credentials, has never really made it, nor will ever make it, and is not a team player. If National had a proper candidates college or a President that was not embarrassingly useless then Katrina would have been discretely asked what role she wanted outside of parliament, and whether she could help National find another a decent candidate who will follow instructions and who could make a far more effective MP than her pathetic efforts.

To have a strong HR function requires a strong party structure. National don’t have this, and since Judy Kirk left the candidates college has become almost as big a joke as the President.

So many to choose from. However the commenters were unequivocal. The nominees for the Whaleoil Awards – Worst List MP are:

Katrina Shanks – Dopey, and stood up and made one of the most embarrassing speeches ever seen in parliament on the so-called Skynet Bill, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that her time is up. But for the vagaries of MMP, Katrina would be pursuing employment opportunities elsewhere.

Catherine Delahunty  - seriously doolally, deluded and hopeless. Plus she is a Green MP. One commenter, perhaps unfairly commented that she had been campaigning for Movember all year.

Darien Fenton – where to start, she epitomises nasty, single handedly derailed any traction Labour was making with the Rugby League crowd when she stupidly attacked the Mad Butcher for daring to voice an opinion. This clothe cap wearing hard left unionist is only in parliament because of the hold unions have over the Labour aprty and her high list ranking despite any redeeming features. Darien Fenton has already won the Worst Politician and the Worst SMOG, could she make the trifecta and take out this award too?

Sue Moroney – Another of Labour’s nasties. This woman is so unlikeable that every electorate she stands in results in her opponent winning and usually increasing their majority. This has become known as the Moroney Effect. National MPs keep their fingers crossed and a few pray that Labour will select Sue to stand against them.

Gareth Hughes – Green, an idiot, big mouth, and scare-monger. He was the one who claimed wrongly that the MV Rena had broken up and sunk and that Tauranga’s beaches would be closed for 20 years because of the oil spill. He stood in Ohariu and is Wellington based but racks up massive travel bills. He has taken to the trough better than most.

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We all know that generally List MPs are scum. Some are more so than others.

Here is your chance to vent about the invisibile, the useless, the hopeless, the inept and the scum list MPs.

Ashraf Choudhary would have to rate as one of the worst List MPs, not only was he useless he was also invisible. Rajen Prasad would also qualify for this and labour rated him at number 20 above capable MPs like Stuart Nash and Kelvin Davis. While Prasad warms a seat in parliament the other two are looking for jobs.

Then of course you have the nasties: Darien Fenton, Steve Chadwick, Carol Beaumont and of course Sue Moroney. All distinctly unelectable and unlikeable.

Katrina Shanks would be up there for her completely inept speech on the “Skynet Bill”, speaking about that which she knows now’t.

The entire Green party would qualify except perhaps for Kevin Hague and Russel Norman.

Do National voters really want Charles Chauvel to win Ohariu?

Peter Dunne is facing the fight of his political life with a new poll showing he is holding on to the Ohariu electorate by the skin of his teeth.

The Fairfax Media-Research International mini poll shows the UnitedFuture leader, who has held the north Wellington seat for the past 27 years, could be ousted by Labour’s Charles Chauvel.

It put Mr Dunne on 37.4 per cent, less than two points ahead of Labour’s Charles Chauvel on 35.6.

National’s Katrina Shanks is a distant third on 19 per cent and the Greens candidate Gareth Hughes registered just 1.4 per cent.

A massive 34.6 per cent of voters were undecided.

It is only a poll of 163 voters but I would suggest the holdouts backing Shanks just give up and vote Peter Dunne.

Charles will be writing letters and emails now to supporters suggesting the words to use in Letters to the Editor.

National is destined to have five new MPs in safe blue seats after November the 26th, and only one of them is a woman. As mentioned yesterday the tipline has been saying Captain Panic Pants (that’s him looking over John Key’s shoulder) has got his knickers in a proverbial twist over too many blokes, meaning some careful juggling of the National List will need to happen to untwist CPPs knickers.

The candidates for the list who don’t have safe seats are:

Claudette Hauiti: Respected Maori TV producer and highly rated by Hekia Parata, which means she is likely to garner the patronage of media darlings like Simon Power. She is  though considered by many in the party to be destined to only ever be a List MP because she is not electable. Claudette was unsuccessful in her attempt to win a seat on the Eden Albert Local Board in 2010, and cynics suggest that sending someone out to fail at local board level is a good way to send a message to them that they are not fit to be a politician. Would be a welcome addition to National’s Rainbow Caucus. Taking one for the team in Mangere. The tipline though rang hot since yesterday asking questions about her former membership of the Labour party, despite her alleged rehabilitation through C&R. She is also known to be close to former Alliance MP and Whaleoil mate Willie Jackson.

Leonie Hapeta: Successful businesswoman in Palmerston North and a contributor to the Manawatu community. Regarded as a very solid operator who could give Iain Lees-Galloway a huge fright in Palmerston North, especially if he continues with his nasty, criminal campaign against her. Good background in tertiary education management which is an area National is weak in. This blog shares John Cleese’s opinion of Palmerston North, a position that may be held by senior people in the National Party and could count against Leonie.

Jonathan Fletcher: Word is he is the most likeable of all the new candidates, which will count for something, though his Y chromosome is going to count against him. Unlike many others in the National caucus he only has a solid rather than stellar career in the private sector behind him.

Paul Foster-Bell: A well credentialed diplomat, and another who is likely to suffer from Captain Panic Pants’ phobia of a bloke fest. Rather too smooth to appeal to the common man but perfectly suited to the liberal elite in Wellington Central. Does provide and enjoy fine Cuban cigars and quality booze though. Top bloke even if he breaks Rule 12.

Sam Collins: A genuine team player who is taking a huge one for the team in a seriously red seat in the socialist republic. Relatively inexperienced, and spent more time in think tanks than in the real world. Would benefit from several years in sales before attempting to run again, though rumoured to be lining up Ilam when the inevitable health issues nail the big guy. No XX chromosome so expected to take a very low list position and will not complain about it either.

Jo Hayes: Wanganui based member of the bro-racracy who is another who has taken one for the team by moving to Dunedin to run for National. Finished third in the Palmerston North selection race behind Leonie Hapeta and Karen Rolleston. Little else is known about her as she has no candidate profile on the National web site.

The pious within National will state National is meritocratic and will rank based on potential as an MP rather than chromosomes but we all know this is not true. Georgina Te Heu Heu is a case in point, ably supported by Katrina Shanks and reinforced by the high list positions of Sam Lotu-Iiga, Hekia Parata, Melissa Lee and Kanwal Bakshi in 2008. Obviously Hekia and Sam are talented on paper but grouping four ethnic candidates together in high list positions demonstrates National is not a strict meritocracy.

Claudette, Leonie and Jo become the front runners, with the unfortunate sacrificial lambs being Jonathan, Paul and Sam. Untwisting CPPs knickers may yet be possible, especially if National give high list positions to women who are not standing in a seat. Tomorrows list ranking post will detail all the rumour, gossip and innuendo surrounding the women who have been asked to stand as List only candidates.

Labour says it will fight tooth and nail “against the agenda of Don Brash and John Key”.

So what have they been doing up to now? Has the “opposition” now decided to oppose?

What has it been doing up to now? Frankly Phil Goff’s response is pathetic. He should be more worried about members of his caucus who watch with incredulity as Don Brash took out the leadership in well executed and bold coup instead of their piss-weak gutless attempt that ended in smiles and guffaws.

Peter Dunne isn’t much better.

Don Brash’s successful hostile takeover of ACT today may well delight one in twenty voters, but alarm bells will be ringing for the other nineteen, UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne said today.

What Dunne should be afraid of is Don Brash sitting down with his coup strategy team and deciding to turn their attentions to his blight on the face of politics. Katrina Shanks is hopeless, she can’t beat Dunne. A good ACT candidate could take National’s vote in Ohariu and send Dunne to oblivion. He was first elected in 1984, and an acolyte of Roger Douglas. It is high time that those first elected in the 80s were retired.

The same team that out thought Rodney Hide and have shown that they are quite prepared to duke it out with realpolitik could certainly work to undermine Dunne over the next 7 months.

With Don Brash’s bold coup the face of New Zealand politics is changed forever. It can now never be said that you can’t take over a party and lead it from outside parliament, it can never be said that you can’t take over a party leadership when you aren’t even a member.

What can be said is that you can if you say you can, and then do it. There are many politicians in every party that are sitting there tonight reading this and shaking their heads in stunned wonderment at the audacity and the success of Don Brash who simply was brave, honest and daring. They will be looking and wondering…can they be so bold?