Michael Cullen

Fran O’Sullivan outlines her thoughts on the Green/Labour power sabotage:

It’s blatantly obvious that Labour and the Greens have been attempting to short the returns the National-led Government expects to receive through next week’s Mighty River Power float.

Yup, and the gloating of the likes of Gareth Hughes in his now infamous Hey Clint moment was brutally apparent.

[T]ilting at the style of the political intervention and asking the two parties to withdraw their interventionist plan is a waste of space. Not because of their own rationale in doing so (this was soundly based). But because Labour leader David Shearer and Greens leader Russel Norman don’t give a damn about such requests at the midway point of the electoral cycle.

The 10 leading business lobbyists – including major leaders such as BusinessNZ’s Phil O’Reilly and the Chamber of Commerce’s Michael Barnett – who sent a public letter to Labour and the Greens this week – know this in their bones.

They know that the two parties are “not for turning” (at least in the short term). It makes political sense for the politicians to damn the power companies as rapacious commercial beasts, led by overpaid directors and chief executives who will suck all the spare cash out at consumers’ expense.

This tactic works well for Labour and the Greens with their own political power base. Their supporters hate fat cats. Demonising the power company bosses could rile them enough to ensure more of Labour’s and the Greens’ voting base actually turn up to cast a vote in 2014. Or so the hope goes.  Read more »

Grant Robertson is the deputy leader of the Labour Party, and that means he is supposed to be the attack dog. He is supposed to sink his teeth into opponents and hang on grimly. In this role he has been toothless, and I am sure a redneck commenter will explain why.

National have handed up a whole lot of meat for Grant to sink his teeth in but he hasn’t even gummed them. He could start by asking about a senior political figure who has a suppression order over a domestic incident. He could then orchestrate a series of questions about National Party President and Sanford Director Peter Goodfellow’s business dealings starting with their $2.3m fine for deliberate pollution in the United States.

Peter Goodfellow keeps giving Labour free hits, and Grant keeps refusing. Sanford has issues with “slave labour” that are in the public domain, and these come up in the media repeatedly, yet Grant hasn’t asked the tough questions. Labour are supposed to look after the oppressed, yet one of the oppressors has escaped public scrutiny because Grant hasn’t manned up.

Grant could have also asked a series of questions about the investment in a Nelson property that left investors out of pocket for about $5m, with National Party Board Member Roger Bridge, and former Board member Craig Myles being the directors of the company involved.

This may seem a bit minor but Michael Cullen would have made National ministers look corrupt by tough questioning about Goodfellow and Bridge. Cullen would have convinced the New Zealand public that where there was smoke there was fire, and National were dodgy.

If Grant is serious about being Prime Minister he will start savaging National, holding Key to account for the people around him. That’s if he can overcome a habit of a lifetime and bare his teeth.

via the tipline

News in overnight that not only has the Education Secretary quit, but that Hekia has had yet another resignation from her office.

Her latest Senior Private Secretary has departed. This lady has previously worked for Michael Cullen and Rodney Hide so is a capable civil servant.

There is at least one other too that has gone from Hekia’s office that this blog knows about.

With all these personnel changing one thing remains the same.

This story from John Armstrong brought back memories…

An angry David Shearer intends to confront the threat to his leadership by telling David Cunliffe this week to put up or shut up regarding a challenge to his job.

First memory:
Just yesterday David Shearer was telling us Cunliffe was on totally board.

He refused to say whether Cunliffe would be disciplined for refusing to rule out a challenge and insisted he had no reason to doubt Cunliffe’s loyalty.

“He gave me his loyalty last week . . . I can only take him on his word.”

Second memory:
Bill English tried something similar with Don Brash.  Note to Shearer – make sure your numbers man can count. (Don’t use Farrar)

Third memory:
Banishing Maurice Williamson to the back bench for white-anting the leader worked for Bill English – Not.

Fourth memory:

Michael Cullen doesn’t have much expertise in anything other than spending other people’s money and exporting billions to Australian private enterprise.

A reader has sent in this image of a letter that arrived from Singapore in the mail this morning and writes:

This arrived this morning. NZD is about 1-1 against Singaporean dollar so their international mail rates are about a third of our domestic rates. Anyone posting mail should consider moving their operations to Singapore and saving themselves 45c per envelope!

I like their catch phase too. Heh

Just before the 2008 election Michael Cullen exported near on a billion dollars to the coffers of Toll Holdings, who I understand still hold massive parties on July 1 every year to celebrate.

How is that great investment in our future going then?

Not so well:

The commercial value of KiwiRail has plunged.

KiwiRail’s just released statement of intent puts the commercial value of the company to the Crown at negative $715 million.

That’s an almost quarter of a billion dollar fall from June 2011

Kiwirail is announcing job losses and restructuring:

KiwiRail has confirmed it will cut 158 infrastructure and engineering jobs by the end of October and outlined which regions will be affected.

The company’s infrastructure and engineering general manager Rick van Barneveld said staff will be told this week which roles were going to be disestablished.

The company divides its operations in to three regions: southern (all of the South Island), central (Wellington to Tongariro National Park) and northern (Tongariro National Park to north of Whangarei).

Of the 158 redundancies, 42 will be the nothern region, 58 in the central area, 40 in the southern region and 18 will be from the track machine team and railweld which operates around the country.

In all, KiwiRail is reducing its 714-strong infrastructure and engineering work force to 556.

The whole thing is rooted. It was rooted when we bought it for way too much. It has just got more rooted now we own it, and one man needs too take repsonsibility. That man is Michael Cullen and he should be given the job of running it.

And just for good measure we could sell some shares to the unionised work force.

The Herald reports:

The Labour Party has asked tough questions about the state of KiwiRail after it won a temporary injunction preventing the publication of sensitive material from a leaked business plan.

The state-owned company yesterday won a temporary High Court order after it was leaked to Radio New Zealand.

But parts of it were read in Parliament yesterday by Labour MP Phil Twyford under the absolute privilege MPs have, without the source document being identified.

Labour have obtained the report from their union mates and are desperately trying to sabotage Kiwirail. David Farrar tries to say this but has gone a bit soft in the execution.

I do wonder though why the unions are sabotaging their own jobs by continually bagging KiwiRail.  This approach will turn off customers and cause an ever decreasing spiral for the members who pay the union’s bills.

Union members should ask themselves “how many more jobs will this cost us” everytime their militant union leaders leak damaging material to score political points.

This disloyalty ends up costing jobs – and the taxpayers of NZ who’ll eventually have to pick up the pieces. Those jobs are also the oft-mentioned Waitakere Man in all likelihood, and Labour and their union pals seem hell bent on ensuring they all lose their jobs. Just like with the leaks at MFaT, every time the union leaks – more of their members lose their jobs.  That’s the effect of their destabilisation campaign. Perhaps Trevor Mallard is running their campaign.

Meanwhile I think the government should appoint Sir Michael Cullen to chair Kiwirail. He bought the clapped out thing for way above market value, he should be the one to go fix it.

Fran O’Sullivan is off on holiday until September 8th, but leaves us with a piece on “Problem Child”  David Cunliffe

In a previous life Cunliffe was one of capitalism’s handmaidens. He spent time with Boston Consulting; his wife is a top environment lawyer; they live at a very nice address in Auckland’s Herne Bay.

But he was marked out for destruction by his colleagues when Clark (too openly) took him under her wing when he entered politics.

This does not explain why the ABC (Anyone But Cunliffe) Club  is led by Trevor Mallard.  I doubt at the time he felt displaced by Cunliffe in Helen Clark’s affections as Trevor wasn’t under Clark’s wing but her thumb.  Truth is Labour has more than the Shearer/Cunliffe faction, they have the Robertson faction and the Maori faction.  Then there is the Union faction and the GLBT faction.

So, it’s not surprising that the “ABC Club” (Anyone but Cunliffe) quickly sank his chances, levering the political neophyte Shearer into the Labour leadership against the party’s clear preference for the politician who can cut the mustard in Parliament with every bit as much venom and vigour as Sir Michael Cullen used to display.

Cullen tried to roll Clark in a coup remember.

There is a typo in here for sure, Clark was never an internationalist, surely Fran means Cunliffe?

Like Clark, Shearer is an internationalist. In his bones he does not stand for the kind of reversion to cloth cap ideology that Cunliffe has been nakedly embracing.

Outflanked? Jesus Shearer is being outperformed by Parekura Horomia presently and Trevor Mallard gets more media attention because his lights are still on, even if no one is actually home in Wainuiomata.

Shearer is clever. But rather flat in his political demeanour. He does not like being outflanked by a colleague with more obvious political wattage.

Fran has suggested Labour need to find a way to shut Cunliffe up, Chinese style.

As with Bo in China, Cunliffe has launched a serious challenge to the prevailing ideology of his party’s political wing. Does he seriously believe the nostrums in his three speeches or has he cynically “gone red” to build votes within the party at large. And will his colleagues succeed in burying him? The ABC club can’t place Cunliffe under house arrest. They might just have to engage instead.

Or not.  After this past week the caucus may be thinking of engaging Grant Robertson instead.

Before he bends over and takes it too firmly up the chook from an Invisible Man and colleagues who have run to Duncan Garner to tell tales, David Cunliffe should take some heart from an observation.

The last Labour MP who plotted an unsuccessful coup against the  (much stronger) Leader not only ended up Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister but was given a Knighthood by a National government.