The Internet Loves Tim Shadbolt, but can’t figure him out
Ah yes. Tim’s in a category all of his own. And they still love him down in Invercargill
Tim Shadbolt
More than just good bacon
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt has often been the butt of mockery and ridicule, but usually by people who live in a town/city with an even worse mayor (yes you, Len). But Tim has done some good things, not involving silly trainsets or making a fool of yourself at the 2011RWC: Read more »
65 and a dad again…not my cup of tea
Tim Shadbolt is a father again at age 65. Now I know why The Minger wasn’t door-stepping me…she was door stepping Tim Shadbolt:
He’s one of the country’s longest-serving mayors and now Tim Shadbolt could well be one of the nation’s oldest dads.
The Invercargill mayor, 65, became a father for the fourth time with the arrival 10 days ago of a boy to his partner of 19 years, Asha Dutt.
Dutt, understood to be in her mid-30s, and Shadbolt are not keen to talk about the baby’s arrival but the Herald on Sunday understands he is yet to be named.
Not keen to talk but the HoS goes right ahead.
Len Brown endorses Andrew Williams for Mayor
At the North Harbour Mayoral Debate this afternoon Len Brown endorsed Andrew Williams at least as his deputy.
Mike Hosking was chairing the meeting. Len Brown was sitting in the middle and flanked by Andrew Williams on his left and John Banks appropriately on his right.
They were answering questions, pretty much they were the standard and then Mike Hosking threw a curve ball.
He asked “If you were to die, who of the other two candidates would you want to be mayor instead?”
Andrew Williams answered first and was unequivical, given his prior arrangement with Len Brown. He wholeheartedly endorsed Len Brown.
Len Brown was second, and he dithered and prevaricated, complained that the question was tough and then finally when pressed endorsed Andrew Williams.
Make no mistake, Mike Hosking has finally flushed out the cosy deal between Andrew Williams and Len Brown. Len Brown now suggests that Andrew Williams would be a fine choice for when in the likely event he drops dead of a heart attack.
John Banks meanwhile answered a ridiculous question with an equally ridiculous answer, he said vote for Tim Shadbolt.
First Jesus and now Boris
Carolyne Meng-Yee, aka The Minger, has a truly cringe worthy article about the Mad Mayor of North Shore and his, apparently, even madder wife.
The wife of “leaky” North Shore mayor Andrew Williams intends to play a central role in his late charge for the Supercity mayoralty.
In a wide-ranging interview, Jane Williams, 52, spoke of her influence on her husband’s political career, and says she is fed up with criticism of her husband’s eccentric behaviour.
The couple, who were high school sweethearts, say they have put up with increasingly personal attacks since Williams was seen urinating against a tree after being caught short on a night out in Takapuna.
Jane said the criticism “wasn’t fair, it wasn’t justified”.
Finally we get to know who is the idiot behind the Clown of Campbell’s Bay. It’s his missus. Enabling behaviour anyone?
Williams, who once played the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver, compared his eccentric leadership style to that of Tim Shadbolt and London mayor Boris Johnson.
“I hope in Auckland we want a colourful mayor who is out there leading the field, not a fence sitter.”
Looks like the piss-fairy has been visiting the Williams household again. If it wasn’t bad enough that Andrew Williams compared himself to Jesus he now has the audacity to continue the line that he is Auckland’s answer to Boris Johnson.
Worse though is the Mad Mayor’s Missus, who it appears has her trotters hands all ready to start scooping in the trough.
And she said a makeover could be “quite helpful” if Williams got elected to what would be the second most powerful job in the country.
She said: “At this time in life you need to make the most of your years. I am pretty casual about that sort of thing to be quite honest.”
Lord protect us from her and her mad, pissed husband.
Tagged: Andrew Williams • Boris Johnson • Carolyne Meng-yee • Jane Williams • Mad Mayor • Tim Shadbolt
Clark's Labour continues to flout election laws
Helen Clark’s Labour continues to flout election laws. This clip contains video from last nights 3 News and shows Helen Clark accepting cash from a supporter and also speaking in from of rather large signs that encourage people to Vote Labour.
Quite apart from her daggy dancing it is illegal for those signs to be up without authorisation from wither the party’s of the local candidate’s financial agent. The evidence is there for all to see that Labour continues to contravene the laws that they passed.
I hope that the donation/bribe given to Clark has been noted in the interests of transparency. I know for sure that many National MP’s do not handle donations and just recently in the house Labour made a big song and dance over accepting cash and signing up members. It is for exactly the reason shown by Pete Hodgson that they do not accept such donations. Now we have the Prime Minister of New Zealand handling cash from supporters.
Rank hypocrisy from the Greens
frogblog » A sensible amendment to the Electoral Finance Act
Unashamed cheerleaders of the introduction and passing of the Electoral Finance Act have been one of the first groups caught by the Act. What astounds me is their rank hypocrisy. They endlessly banged on in parliament of knowing who was truly behind advertising, they supported the requirement to publish the names and addresses of authorised financial agents without amendment using the spectre of the Exclusive Brethren who actually broke no laws.
Now they think the Act is a bit silly.
While I support the Electoral Finance Act as an improvement on the old law, there were always going to be problems with it and one of the problems is that the financial agents of parties and third parties are required to put their residential addresses on material rather than a business address.
This is a bit silly because the purpose, to prevent people hiding behind false addresses, can be achieved using business addresses without exposing financial agents to threats from nutters.Initially there was confusion about this and the Electoral Commission told parties that they could use a business address, which the Greens did with the Proud to be Green billboards. Subsequently the Electoral Commission then issued a ruling that it should be a residential address. Uggh.
Well the only ones who are a bit silly are them. They supported the law, they debated the law and its wonderful provisions and the law is quite clear as to what needs to be put for the address of the authorising financial agent.
65 Requirements for election advertisements that promote parties or candidates
(1) A promoter must not publish, or cause or permit to be published, an election advertisement that encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for a party unless the publication of the advertisement—
(a) is authorised in writing by the financial agent of the party; and
(b) contains a statement that sets out the name and address of the promoter of the advertisement.(2) A promoter must not publish, or cause or permit to be published, an election advertisement that encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for a candidate unless the publication of the advertisement—
(a) is authorised in writing by the financial agent of that candidate; and
(b) contains a statement that sets out the name and address of the promoter of the advertisement.(3) A promoter must not publish, or cause or permit to be published, an election advertisement that encourages or persuades, or appears to encourage or persuade, voters to vote for 2 or more candidates unless the publication of the advertisement—
(a) is authorised in writing by the financial agent of each of those candidates; and
(b) contains a statement that sets out the name and address of the promoter of the advertisement.(4) Every promoter is guilty of an illegal practice who wilfully contravenes any provision of this section.
and just in case they are unclear as to what that means Clause 4 makes it abundantly clear.
Interpretation
(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
address means,—
(a) in relation to an individual, the full address of the place where that person usually lives:
So as we can see the law is precise, it is what the Greens wanted and now their Financial Agent has committed an illegal practice. There is no way around this. The law is the law, and they passed the law in collusion with Labour. Sorry, but the law says the Greens financial agent must be prosecuted, there is no leniency, no excuses.
Suck it up Froggy, suck it up.
Technorati Tags: illegal practice, frog, greens, electoral finance act
Annette King blames the Parliament for EFA woes
New Zealand Parliament – 5. Election Advertising—Financial Agent Authorisation
Check out this claptrap from Annette “Full Moon” King. She, in answer to every question from Bill English about their fucked up Electoral Finance Act blames it on the parliament. I kid you not.
Hon Bill English: Does the Minister believe that Government policy intended that authorisation statements on election publicity should be visible, clear, and legible; if not, why not?
Hon ANNETTE KING: The Parliament decided what would be in the Electoral Finance Act, and every party in this House needs to abide by it.
and;
Hon Bill English: Does the Minister have some sympathy with the Green Party when it is required, like every other party, to conform with the ridiculous requirement that a financial agent has to put his or her residential address on a billboard, and does she agree that to make this billboard legal, the staff person from the Green Party has to put his or her residential address on it; why should that person have to do that, and when will she admit that her policy is stupid and impractical for—and probably dangerous to—the individuals concerned?
Hon ANNETTE KING: This Parliament decided what would make up the Electoral Finance Act. Every time this question is asked, the National Party forgets that in this House there is still a democracy, and the majority vote wins.
and;
Hon Bill English: Why is it Government policy that every billboard, newspaper ad, TV ad, T-shirt, and balloon that is put out by any political party or third-party campaigner in election year has to include the home address of an individual New Zealander—the place where his or her partner and children live—and why did the Government believe that that is the best way to frame our election law, to put individual New Zealanders at risk by identifying their place of residence for everybody?
Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, I am very, very sorry but I will sound like a cracked record. This Parliament decided that that is what the Act would be.
and;
Hon Bill English: Will the Minister support an amendment to the legislation that would allow the financial agents of political parties and third parties to put an organisational or corporate address on election publicity, or will the Labour Party insist on its ridiculous and vindictive policy that anyone who wants to campaign against it has to have his or her residential address made public, while the Labour Party deliberately broke this law with the publicity it put out this year?
Hon ANNETTE KING: Of course, Mr English is well known for his selective memory. In this Chamber no less than 2 weeks ago my colleague held up the photograph of Mr Key’s DVD, which he issued this year at a fair in Auckland—[Interruption] One of his members did. There was no authorisation, no name, and no address on the DVD. So it is very good to come in here and point the finger at the Labour Party, but if the member wants to take this issue seriously instead of throwing insults around, I say to him he should put up an amendment and see what this Parliament thinks, because at the end of the day it is this Parliament that will decide.
So there we have it, the Electoral Finance Act is all Parliament’s fault. How bad is that, the governments hand picked minister to ram this law through cannot even own her own shit. At least now there is a precedent for when anything goes wrong with any law, or a law becomes un-popular, it isn’t the fault of the party in government, it is now the fault of the Parliament that voted for it!!!
Technorati Tags: annette king, Electoral Finance Act, Bugger’s Muddle, Parliament
Tagged: Civil Aviation Authority • Code of Conduct • communications • Depression • Doug Woolerton • Jenna Jameson • Sinister • Tim Shadbolt
Lunatic Laws
NZ Herald Blogs My authorised version of lunatic laws at work
Audrey Young goes for it against the shenangins regarding Labour’s master plan to abrogate the need to actually raise their own funds for an election by introducing State Funding of political parties by default and by stealth.
The chances are that in a letterbox near you soon will come a pamphlet from an MP with a parliamentary crest on it (meaning it is not an election ad) and also with an authorisation of a political party secretary (meaning it is or could be an election ad).
A senior politician was last night puzzled about my interest in it, though disgust might be a better word.
Firstly because of the sheer lunacy of it.
The fact that the same pamphlet is not electioneering for parliamentary purposes but is electioneering for Election Finance Act purposes is not a quirk of history. It is the crazy outcome of two laws passed within a month of each other late last year that contained different tests for an election ad. One law was for MPs only, and one was for everyone including MPs. MPs gave themselves greater freedom than they had had and gave others less freedom.
The upshot is that while no ads funded by Parliament can be classed as election advertising, they may well be in the rest-of-the-world test of the Electoral Finance Act and, which requires ads to be authorised.
The bureaucrats and their legal advisers have come up with a new term for such ads: it is the “‘cross-over” between the two laws.
In reality it means that some parties and candidates’ election advertising will be funded by the taxpayer through Parliament. That is state funding, and state funding by stealth, which is pretty outrageous.
Now about those “cross-over” ads, are they electioneering or communications to constituents in their capacity as an MP. Well both.
Instead of accepting Brady’s findings and changing their behaviour, the MPs decided the rules needed to be changed to make it impossible to be caught like that again. Now just about anything goes so long as it doesn’t say “give me money, give me your vote or join my party.”
But don’t worry they said. It still won’t be election advertising.
Except, that is, when it says “this was authorised by [for example] Labour general secretary Mike Smith.”
Then it can be.
This is another significant development. It has unelected and unaccountable party officials outside Parliament are taking responsibility for the content of publicly funded material from Vote Parliamentary Service. Because MPs intend to produce election ads under the parliamentary crest, it means outside party officials will have to take a very close interest in the content and cost of any material produced at Parliament – none of which is available to anyone under the Official Information Act.
MPs voted an exemption for themselves when the OIA was first introduced and when Speaker Margaret Wilson raised the possibility last year of including them under its provisions, it fell on deaf ears.
I met the new general manager of Parliamentary Service this week, Geoff Thorn, who has come from the Commerce Commission. I asked if there was any way that I could regularly see some of the political advertising material approved by Parliamentary Service for parties.
There was no surprise in his answer: No.
No Indeed, we paid for them, we want the evidence. Labour has essentially, with the help of its poodle parties, passed laws that enable them to spend our money for them but we can’t spend our own with out registering. There is a name for that and the name is Fascism.
I don’t vote for Labour, the Greens, NZ First, and United Futrure so why the hell should I have to pay for their political advertising.
"Bugger's Muddle"
Taxpayer-funded advertising by MPs that is supposedly not electioneering will be able to carry authorisation as election advertising from party officials outside Parliament.
The move is designed to cover the butts of parties against prosecution under the controversial Electoral Finance Act, which could cover a lot of parliamentary material.
Well excuse me, I say fuck ‘em. Why should our taxpayer money be used for electioneering? It surely must be electioneering if the authorised person’s details are on the documents.
Labour, especially, plus the smaller parties have caught themselves out with their own stupid law. Labour spent up large on our account prior to January 1 because they are dead flat broke. To not be able to use those tax payer funded brochures now would nobble their election plans.
If I was John Key, I would take the the high moral ground and reef another 5 per cent of Labour by refusing to use public funds for electioneering and tell the public that in repealing the Electoral Finance Act he will also pass a law forbidding the use of public funds for electioneering and requiring political parties to use only their own money.
