Sam Lotu Iiga

Local government is the breeding ground for political parties, where newbies cut their teeth and prove themselves. It is also an incredibly important part of our system of governance, with dodgy councils being able to waste lots of money then stick out their hands for more from government.

Strategically it makes a lot of sense for political parties to run strong local government campaigns. The strategic stupidity of the National Party means that they are not doing anything at these local body elections. The Board has not got involved at all, and caucus also put it in the too hard basket just last Tuesday despite the impassioned plea from Auckland based MPs.

This means National’s proxies, C&R in Auckland, and Independent Citizens in Christchurch are going to get no support from National, and will get a sound hiding from Labour in the coming elections.  Read more »

This years winners of the Whaleoil Awards are as follows:

Best Political Blog – apart from me…is Cactus Kate…by a nose from David Farrar.

I think this reflects that David Farrar has turned his blog into a an arts, travel and fitness blog and is focussing less on politics. While Cactus Kate blogs less often it is worth the wait.

Imperator Fish came a creditable third. But then I would say that because of my on-going man-crush thing with Scott.

Best Minister – Judith Collins

A resounding 52% of the vote.

Judith Collins has much to deal with this year, from the manufactured crisis of Bronwyn Pullar at ACC to David Bain’s ongoing PR blitz.

Read more »

Damien O’Connor is back this year…locals there think he works incredibly hard, probably why he was re-elected at last year’s election. cows4me adds his support:

I like Damien O’Connor, said some sensible things when Fonterra was ramming TAF down our throats.

Honcho joins in:

And his ‘gaggle of gays and self serving unionists’ comment will go down in history, speaks from the heart of his electorate instead of towing same sorry party lines.

Sam Lotu Iiga is also back. GregM says:

My cuz out at one tree hill reckons Sam Lotu iiga is a good bastard, very approachable and gets shit done.

and Gazzaw tells it like it is:

Totally agree Greg despite Carol Beaumont & Richard Northey’s best efforts to white ant him. Both still put up the pretence of being MPs & Northey still swans around the electorate in a labour Party car.

Sam’s a top bloke and a good bastard to boot. He’s involved in everything in the electorate from kindergarten coffee mornings to footy club working bees (not Phil Goff style with the shiny shovel either). He works hard with local government and pushes Maungakiekie’s interests in Wellington. He is sometimes criticised for not putting in the yards in the House, well I don’t give a rat’s arse, the effort goes into the electorate which is as it should be. Give that man a DB!

Todd McLay is making waves too. JC from Rotorua explains why he is a nominee:

Todd McClay. We actually get a regular newsletter. He’s patron of one of the charities here and at the AGM this year he castigated members for not using him enough to raise profile and money etc.

He’s always a happy chap cooking sausages outside the supermarkets or tearing around the Bunnings car park in a wheelchair to raise money.
He’s a natural out among the public.. he almost challenges people to be happy.

I don’t know much about his performance in the Parliament but I would expect him to be good at gaining support from members for any project he pushed.. I also think he would get his ducks lined up better than most.

It is an even split between North and South with Nicky Wagner being nominated too. David comments:

I’d nominate Nicky Wagner. She did well to win Christchurch Central and has performed excellently in the role. I like the fact that she is always positive.

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Ignore the scum list MPs, this award is for the best electorate MP.

Damien O’Connor won last year by a nose in front of Sam Lotu Iiga.

How about Todd McClay who has got a members bill rolling through the house aimed at gangs and gang patches.

Sam Lotu Iiga continues to cement his reputation as a fine local MP despite the best efforts to smear him by Labour.

There are many, many choices, put your nominations in the comments and the reasons why you think your local MP should get the Whaleoil Award for Best Electorate MP.

Yesterday David Farrar blogged about Tim Groser and added a presumption on the end of the post that David Carter would be the next Speaker.

Farrar assumes, like John Key, that David Carter’s ascension to the Speaker’s role in order to accomodate the rehabilitation of their mate Nick Smith is going to go smoothly and is a fait accompli. They presume too much, and they assume too much. If Farrar is the one doing the numbers then perhaps he should reflect on 2005 and the last time he counted the numbers for someone.

With the pushing of Carter for speaker and the rehabilitation of Nick Smith John Key is now risking a back bench revolt as more talented people see themselves being passed over in favour of old white South Island men. The demographics of New Zealand have moved on but it appears that the leadership of the National party is still stuck in the rural rump of the 1950s.

Long gone is the perception that National is a meritocracy, and is now nothing more than old white boys club. Bringing Nick Smith back prevents rejuvenation of the ministry. Promoting Carter to speaker just risks scandal, and promotes the view that National is the party for old white men and ignores Auckland. Moving presumptive leader Amy Adams into Agriculture will go down like a cup of cold sick amongst North Islander farmers. And all that does is leave capable but ignored back benchers like Todd McClay, Sam Lotu Iiga and Nikki Kaye hoping for an election loss so the old fools can be cleaned out. All the while John Key is protecting another English loyalist in Hekia Parata instead of axing her. That would allow Nick Smith back in without promoting Carter, who frankly has all the gravitas of Lance Corporal Jack Jones, and many of the same demeanours.

When your back benchers start thinking that losing an election is a better option for their careers then you have trouble. When those same back benchers start thinking that the ministers in the way of their career are inept fools and can’t rationalise why John Key keeps on proven drop kicks like Hekia Parata then you have the makings of serious trouble. Add in the arrogant and ham-fisted manner with which the diminutive chief whip deals with people and I’ll put money on a bust up coming down the pipes.

John Key’s one seat majority is starting to look a bit shaky as his mismanagement of personnel comes back to bite him on the arse.

There are a number of MPs potentially in line to become a minister, and depending on how long it takes for John Key to work out that useless ministers need the arse there might be a few promotions next year.

David Carter’s coronation as speaker means that Nick Smith can be rehabilitated back into caucus after getting caught out lying about some sordid little personal details. That’s if someone doesn’t upset things and demonstrate to John Key his one seat majority is an one seat majority so he is pretty rooted if he tries to bully MPs who are willing to sit on the cross benches.

Nick is probably the most capable outside the ministry and having done time he could easily be rehabilitated into a difficult portfolio like Education.

The word in Wellington is that after Nick gets promoted Nikki Kaye is next in line. She has laid off the booze for long enough to be considered, though this would be a bold move as the rest of the back bench regard her as a vacuous airhead with no real world experience or particular talent except greasing those who make decisions. The one seat majority means passed over and pissed off MPs could cause Key trouble if he promotes Nikki.

Michael Woodhouse has been an effective whip although widely disrespected in Dunedin for spending too much time with his family and not enough working when he goes home. This blog is clear that it supports MPs making this kind of decision as they are parents first, and MPs second and this should not be held against Michael. National has a history of promoting whips so he is a reasonable bet.

Junior Whip Louise Upston may be promoted but it would be surprising to see her leapfrog the senior whip. Louise would be a safe pair of hands in any portfolio but would be an equally good senior whip if Michael is promoted.

Todd McClay and Sam Lotu-Iiga are also contenders and both have done well in their select committee roles. The chatter is not so much about them as it is about the top brass deciding to promote Nikki so they are probably outsiders.

The Standard Lynn Prentice’s Hate Blog is running some stories about a cunning play that I am allegedly part of, Drafting Sam Lotu-Iiga to run for mayor of Auckland. They reckon this just part of a play for the National Party leadership, not a play to get a good candidate to oppose a highly unpopular mayor.

I don’t know what Sam is thinking, as I have talked to him about it and I would have thought if I was running a Draft Sam campaign Sam is the kind of courteous bloke who would have given me a call.

All the same Len Brown is a terrible mayor and needs to be taken out before he saddles Auckland with massive debt, urban density and rates that are so high make people think about leaving the area. Sam is one of the few on the right that has the work ethic and the team of people to take on Len.

Those who don’t know Sam probably arent aware of how hard he worked to get onto the council in 2007, and how hard he worked to win Maungakiekie off Labour in 2008. In 2011 he was one of only three National MPs to improve his majority when he had a Labour List MP in their electorate. His ground game is the best in National, with a massive team of loyal activists who keep turning out even at this stage of the cycle. Apparently Sam has backed off a bit with his door knocking, cutting back to only every second Saturday for 2012. How many other MPs are still door knocking at this stage of the cycle?

Sam’s a former Auckland City Councillor, and well connected into the donor base that are wanting a campaign to fight Len and especially his unitary plan. He has a huge network of supporters through the National Party, the pasifika community and he is a guy that people want to get out and campaign for. He’s a bloody good guy too, so I would love to see him beat Len and give ratepayers some relief from the wasteful left.

So I hope these rumours of a Draft Sam campaign are true, because finally we may have found a candidate to unseat Len Brown.

And if it is true that a Draft Sam campaign is about to kick off then I thank The Standard for publicising it.

Steven Joyce’s strategic stupidity with MMP means National has no coalition options and needs to cling to power now at all costs. Backbenchers know this, and know that they have him by the balls because he can’t rely on the maoris without getting it in the arse from the voters.

There are two ways National MPs can cause problems. All of them have the option of crossing the floor, and a few in marginal seats have the option of threatening to resign and bring down the government. The first is a pretty drastic step and would take a seriously pissed off backbencher. The second is a much bigger problem because if there is a by election and National loses the balance of power shifts.

The MPs with marginal seats are:

Paula Bennett – 9
Nicky Wagner  - 47
Kate Wilkinson – 642
Nikki Kaye – 717
Sam Lotu-Iiga – 3021
Chris Tremain – 3701
Jonathan Young  - 4270
Tim Macindoe – 4,418
Anne Tolley – 4774

The ministers, Bennett, Wilkinson, Tremain and Tolley look pretty safe in their ministerial portfolios. If Key gives them the arse they can tell him to stick it and force a by-election. It looks like Comrade Kate might have got a get out of jail free card.

Of the backbenchers if I were Steven Joyce or John Key I would expect my buttocks to clench every time I got a call from any of Wagner, Kaye, Lotu-Iiga, Young and MacIndoe. And I would be prepared with a bribe to keep them from forcing a by-election, because without them there is every chance Labour would win the seat. The power of incumbency is massive, and these MPs will know it.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

There hasn’t been a woman selected for National who is pregnant.

Yahoo chief executive officer Marissa Mayer is breaking new ground for Fortune 500 companies by starting her job more than six months pregnant, a trend already embraced by young women running Silicon Valley start-ups.

Mayer, an engineer and former Google executive who helped develop the company’s home page and maps products, was hired by Yahoo after a nine-week search for a CEO.

Yahoo have a much more enlightened view.

“Yahoo’s board found Mayer’s pregnancy a nonissue and that’s a big sign of progress,” said Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, deputy director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, who is pregnant with twins. “But at many companies, it’s still an issue.”

During National selections board members go around telling delegates that we shouldn’t have a woman young children in parliament. They don’t directly say a woman’s place is in the home, but if they didn’t they would be more welcoming of women without children as well as women with children in parliament.

After all they accept MPs like Phil Heatley, Jonathon Coleman, Sam Lotu-Iiga, Jami-Lee Ross and Simon Bridges becoming fathers while serving.

UPDATE: I now know of two woman candidates who were asked specifically during pre-selection this question: “You aren’t going to do a Katherine Rich are you?”

I wrote this early this morning with my belief that Nick Smith’s position was untenable.

In geographical sequence, not in order of merit or endorsement by me in any way. This takes into account the PM can replace Nick with anyone and rejig portfolios at will.

National actually has some good local government people, with Nathan Guy, Nicky Wagner and Sam Lotu-Iiga all being former councillors and not first termers. Nathan would have to be the pick to take over the portfolio, with the environment much more problematic. Nicky Wagner has a strong track record on the environment and her win in Christchurch Central bought her a lot of credibility.

Nikki Kaye

Well known pinko, and got into a fight with Nick Smith over protecting Auckland’s trees. Won a seat for National for the first time ever, and held it, but with a narrow margin and with a highly competent opponent.

Not naturally aligned to local government portfolio but is aligned to the environment.

Pros: Young woman from the socially and economically liberal wing of National, filling a gap for National. Appeals to the gay lobby by wanting to waste tax payers money on a gay pride event but wont stand up for gay marriage.

Been good at impressing senior guys in the party.

Cons: Would lose Auckland Central if she was a minister and couldn’t spend every spare minute working in her electorate.

Not known for any tangible achievements apart from winning and holding Auckland Central.

Not liked by her peers who rate her as a lightweight intellectually and for her unwillingness to do the hard yards with things like reading select committee papers. Known as a drinker and a risk taker. Misses meetings due to being hungover.

Best described as the middle ranked monkey on a tree. The top monkey looking down sees a smiley face, the one under her just sees…ahhh…well you can imagine for yourself.

Sam Lotu-Iiga

Old school mate of Whale, and regarded as a prodigious talent. Former Auckland City Councilor where he did a good job on the Finance and Expenditure committee. Highly likeable guy with few enemies. Cambridge educated, lawyer and banker, and a genuine intellect.

Pros: Experience in local government and very good with people, so will likely to help push through changes if used in local government. Fiscally sound, and with a very large support base due to his likability.

National doesn’t do affirmative action, but the ministry is white and doesn’t reflect New Zealand’s changing population. Promoting Sam on these grounds has political implications.

One of only three National MPs to increase his majority against a Labour list MP.

Cons: Didn’t shine in his first term as much as expected, perhaps because he stayed on the Auckland council too long. Working two jobs was bloody hard, especially when he had to win his marginal seat.

Louise Upston

Very solid performer in her first term, with a work ethic and mastery of detail far in advance of most of her peers. Massively increased her majority to 14000 in a formerly Labour seat so very popular with voters. Has a very loyal team and a great reputation in her electorate.

Pros: Safe pair of hands, capable to pick up just about anything and work her way through it.

Sound on the environment as a long time Blue Greens member.

Cons: Was regarded as something of a plodder by her fast talking and flashy peers, but through hard work will out compete them.

Nicky Wagner

Career stalled by getting offside with McCully, which is a point in her favour in the eyes of this blogger. Exceptionally well liked in Christchurch, winning the ultra red seat of Christchurch Central for the first time ever. Brilliant on the ground, huge empathy and able to take people with her from all sections of society.

Former ECan councillors and known Blue Green. Most natural direct replacement for Nick Smith.

Pros: Knowledgeable in local government and very well up to play on environmental issues. Perhaps a little to the left of the party on the environment, but then so was Nick.

Not liked by McCully and his dying clique.

Has the softer skills to push local government reform through when dealing with patch protecting mayors and councillors.

Cons: Leading light in the Blue Greens and good friend of Nick Smith. Has been too focused on minor things like Green Business rather than the RMA, local government reform and big picture environment issues.

Michael Woodhouse

Well regarded in some circles but the only scum list MP in this list. Portfolios do not match his area of expertise but this doesn’t matter if there is a reshuffle.

Pros: Comes with a good background and was highly regarded before he entered parliament. Hasn’t made any major mistakes, and is a safe pair of hands.

Cons: Scum List MP.

Didn’t do very well in Dunedin and has alienated some in National for not doing the hard yards on the ground during recesses to lift National’s support. Apparently this is due to his devotion to his family, so this blog will not fault him for this.

Too short to have a real presence, though hasn’t stopped Winston in the past.