Winston, Helen Clark and the long slow demise

Helen Clark had two options after the election, she has two parties to negotiate confidence and supply with, but neither party in itself could deliver the numbers. She had 51 seats including Anderton's, and had to choose between 6 seats and the Greens, or 7 seats and NZ First. Let's consider those choices. The Maori Party and United Future individually or together, do not deliver enough. She needed either NZ First or the Greens, with one of the others (or both). She chose Winston soooo what does this really mean?

1) The Greens will be fuming, Labour knows the Greens would never bring down a Labour Government if it meant National had a chance. The Greens have got some crumbs, but any deal with the Greens would have to have included the Maori Party, as it would have been nearly impossible for Winston to work with them. The Greens have been pushed to the sidelines - which means there is little hope for those on the left that a radical social agenda would be implemented - in fact it has been ruled out. The Greens would have wanted a coalition supported by the Maori party - that would have certainly fired up the left of Labour, but would almost certainly have led Labour to certain defeat in 2008. In addition, the bad blood between Labour and the Maori Party is still too fresh. Clark has moved to the centre.

2) The Maori Party is pleased enough that it did well out of the election, and can now perform as a parliamentary entity voting on a case by case basis. This will please its supporters who would have been incensed had it backed National, but also did not want to be Labour's walkovers. It has done ok - and can wait till 2008 to build a greater presence. Certainly Pita Sharples is an enormous asset compared to Tariana.

3) United Future must be relieved that it matters, a little bit, to Labour. However, it can hardly claim that it is a party of the centre now that it is keeping Labour in power for two terms in a row. Peter Dunne can only claim credit for stopping Labour doing a range of things he doesn't like, and then there is Transmission Gully - which is his own pet Wellington Think Big project which has a negative value to the nation, and worth very few votes.

4) NZ First has to be rather happy about its position. Winston has had Helen Clark surrender a big portfolio to him, albeit outside Cabinet, and some policy success. He will lose support from those who vote for him and hate Helen Clark, much like he would've had he backed Brash. His Treaty of Waitangi policy is nearly in tatters from supporting Labour, and he may well have ensured his political retirement in 2008 - not enough in Tauranga will support him for stopping tolls on the second Tauranga Harbour Bridge.

5) Labour must be relieved to be in government, but concerned about what it has got itself in for. Two parties that voted en masse against civil unions and prostitution law reform now keep Labour in power -foreign affairs is not an important enough portfolio to be in Cabinet, and Labour now looks to have been a bit too desperate to govern. Shades of 1996-1998 - except it was National then. Many Labour supporters, hopeful for a Green/Maori coalition will be disappointed and disgusted - very few people are ambivalent about Winston, and Labour will pay just like National did. The one card Labour has that is most useful is that it has four parties that it can seek support on legislation - which means it is NOT dependent entirely on NZ First and United Future, just rather hamstrung by them. However, it will be interesting to see how long that can be sustained.

6) National must be smiling, this government looks a bit of a joke and could prove to be the death knell for NZ First and strip more votes away from United Future, both of which will probably benefit National. Now National with a revitalised caucus can sit back and look like a government in waiting, and watch three or less years of Clark using Winston, Dunne and when she wants to - the Greens and Maori Party. National has been burnt by Winston's games before, and will now use every chance to show that he and Dunne are parties that support the status quo.

7) ACT? Well while still thrilled to still be around, ACT can laugh at the Winston games, while it goes through its own internal rumblings about where it is heading. It is still a party of conservatives and liberals, who differ on many issues - but once again, for the fourth MMP parliamentary term, it is not in government.

Helen Clark is a political prostitute willing to sell out to Winston Peters to remain in power, but I am sure the Nats would do the same, again - but now it is time to watch the games, and see how much NZ First brings down this government.

Violence against children isn't that serious

is it? Compared to sex crimes, the offences get less attention, far lower sentences and nobody wants a list of where people who beat up and torture children live. Avoid the next section if you are sensitive, none of this is pleasant.

The status quo, exemplified by the case I am about to explain, implies it is far more acceptable to beat a two year old child with an iron rod, kick him, burn him with a cigarette, put his hand on the stove element, hold down in the bath or anything of the sort - than to suck his penis or have him suck yours. However, you might get five years for any of the former, but 14 for the latter. In fact, just kick him you might get two years - maximum sentence - you might rupture his spleen, but hey, at least you're not sexually perverted!

Stuff has reported on the following case - it is still at court, so the guilt of those named has yet to be established - but this case is an example of something that happens all too often.

When you next notice the tax you pay, think about how you are paying for the likes of Harley Mac Wharewera, 19, and Kane Jeremy Tawa, 23, both unemployed, who have been charged with willfully ill treating a child and assaulting a child.

They are alleged to have tortured a boy aged 2 in a bedroom dubbed “the cell”:

- “Along with regular punching and kicking, they would pick the toddler up, throw him over their shoulders, and "body slam" him on to a mattress”
- “On one occasion, Wharewera allegedly jumped off a window sill and landed with the full force of his weight on the boy while Tawa held him down.
- Is alleged that Wharewera forced the boy to eat dog faeces after locking him in a small cupboard and threatening him with assault.

There is more, and the mother is alleged to have permitted it to happen.

The boy was admitted to the intensive care unit at Whakatane Hospital on September 21 suffering serious head injuries but has since been discharged.

Anyone who treats a child like that is beyond description, Dr Josef Mengele treated children with similar respect – and I doubt if most parents or people would think that any entities performing such acts upon a child deserve to live.

I don’t care if perpetrators were beaten up as children – that’s very sad – it excuses nothing. Most rape victims don’t pursue it themselves.

What is equally vile is when the mother sits back and lets it happen – but under the NZ criminal justice system that is barely punished. James Whakaruru’s mother, who handed her boyfriend the vacuum cleaner pipe which ultimately killed the boy, got a suspended sentence and I last read she had been studying in Auckland. If a parent who can be arsed fucking to create the child, and claim cash from everyone else to pay for it fails to defend their child from assault – they are little better than the assaulter.

However, I hear the whimpering simpering leftie liberal types saying – they are victims of unemployment or women not feeling empowered. Fuck off! Let them do that in front of you to a child – tell me then who the victim is.

The criminal justice system has two significant perversities. A parent can completely abrogate their responsibilities to protect their children, and get off lightly- when it should be their top priority. Secondly, violent assaults on children are treated lightly compared to sexual assault. If the men were being charged for sexual acts upon the child, they would face sentences of up to 14 years – assault of a child is 2 years and willfully mistreating is 5 years.

This is not to minimize sexual abuse which can be highly destructive and harmful and not to be condoned – but why is violent abuse worthy of such short sentences, when it can be as damaging or more damaging. Would paralyzing a child or permanently brain damaging him be not as serious as sexual assault? I suspect almost all kinds of sexual abuse are less serious than causing such permanent physical harm. While there are calls to have a register of sexual criminals so parents know when someone dodgy moves close to their house – there are creatures who perform equally and sometimes worse crimes on children, which are not sexual, who nobody bothers thinking about.

Violence against children doesn’t upset politicians as much as sexual abuse. Who knows why? Sex makes people more upset because the offender is getting perverse gratification, but the sadist also does – although I guess culturally violence is a more acceptable pleasure than sexual arousal.

This is a part of the other world out there that I am sure almost all readers are not a part of – it is a world where lazy useless lumps of scum, not content with utterly pointless existences where they live off of the earnings of others, torture children. This is utterly nothing more despicable than any adult deliberately engaging in and savouring the infliction of pain, humiliation and harm on a child – who at once is unable to respond and is dependent on the trust, thought and compassion of an adult to nurture him.

All those who have tortured or stood by and let torture of a child be undertaken are worthy of nothing less than getting knocked down by a truck and having their entrails washed away by the rain. If the people charged are found guilty may that happen to them – may they never be allowed to be near children again, or to breed – and maybe, just maybe, this government or the next bans those found guilty of such crimes from living on welfare.

I don’t see why any of us should be forced to fund entities who have as much value as flies.

Note also that if you failed to pay your taxes, you would be guilty till proven innocent - and be treated with far less respect than those alleged to have tortured children -see where the state's priorities are?

Moore on Australia and political correctness

Mike Moore seems to have made some valid points in his DomPost article . I’ve tended to think of Moore as being, on the one hand a bit of a lightweight, but also someone who found his feet outside politics – a valuable Chairman who had a single minded focus, and a man who – when he was convinced of arguments- was prepared to back them up. His career hit its apex being head of the WTO, not leading Labour to two election defeats and getting stabbed in the back by the leftwing fascist Labour feminocracy shortly thereafter.

Moore talked about the divergence in relationship between Australia and NZ. Australia has little interest in the relationship with New Zealand. While it is useful to have access to another market- effectively no bigger than Melbourne – it is hardly critical and the Aussies have it already. The US and Asia are far more important, and the New Zealand relationship with the US, while being friends is no more than that. The tradeoff for some is to say Aussie is at risk of a terror attack far more than NZ – which may be true – and that pleases the Green anti-nuclear mob, for whom the US can never do any good.

The old story of the tradeoff between the nuclear ban and trade is true – it is a truth the Greens don’t care about, because they are against trade growth (see transporting things hurts the environment!) although they are never against using the money from it to pay for state of the art healthcare or trains or whatever their fetish is this week. Labour wont dare admit to the trade off because the nuclear ban is something the student peaceniks in them are not prepared to give up. They have some fatuous belief that banning nuclear weapons, particularly those held by countries that share our values, will result in more peace. National wont confront the largely brainless mass of New Zealanders raised on Greenpeace propaganda, fed through our schools that anything nuclear is bad and hurts whales – the same mass who happily use nuclear power on holidays to Europe and the US.

Moore more importantly lamblasts the political correctness of today - something he said Latham has "as a good bullshit detector" - while noting in New Zealand there are publicly funded books calling modern health methods of stopping smoking, eating healthier and exercise as “white man’s racist answers to Maori problems”. He quotes vaccinations being considered a form of "colonialism", and cervical screenings "contradict cultural norms". We still have the despicable anti-science bullshit that originally came out with Anna Penn and the late Irihapeti Ramsden and nursing cultural safety – something Ken Mair defended at the time. Something the National Party was silent about at the time, but what do you expect from Jim Bolger?

Why didn’t National find this before the election? This sort of vile nonsense is beyond words and I would love to have seen Helen Clark and Annette King defending state funding of this mumbo-jumbo. Nazi Germany produced the same level of science in its propaganda, and does the Maori Party defend it? Given Ken Mair is one of the Maori Party’s chief negotiators with Labour – I wouldn’t be surprised.

It is also interesting that Mark Latham understands something the Greens don't - why protectionism hurt the people Labour is supposed to care about is telling – the Greens are xenophobically opposed to foreign made goods unless they are really special! The Greens would rather protect local manufacturers than ensure the poor get cheaper shoes for their kids – but they see it as protecting jobs, keeping jobs from those poor Chinese people who without the (relatively) low wage job would otherwise (without a welfare state) have to live cultivating a subsistence existence on a farm, rather than earn money and be able to better themselves. It is such economic nonsense that it is barely worth arguing against - it is the economics of adolescents.

UK Conservative Party leadership

David Farrar has been actually AT the conference and watched it all – and it is an exciting race to see who becomes the new leader – out of David Davis, David Cameron, Ken Clarke, Liam Fox and Malcolm Rifkind – all striving to rescue the party from its three in a row defeat, which in British terms (with 4-5 year electoral terms) is enormous. Michael Howard has stepped down with dignity, and can, at least, claim to have started moving the party from the old fashioned grey haired “born to rule” reputation it has had, and won some seats at the last election. However the party needs more, and this is why…

Labour has not only stolen the middle ground, it has moved over to the right on much economic and some social policy. Allowing private hospitals to provide NHS services, introducing tertiary education fees, bravely entering the war against Iraq, maintaining an agenda of more open markets and some reform of the EU – those are centre-right policies. The policies that half of the Tories would endorse, and their voters certainly have. All the Conservative Party has been playing with is scaremongering over immigration (pandering somewhat to latent racism), Euroskepticism, being tougher on crime and more choice in public services – in other words a bit more to the right than Labour. In an environment where the British economy is ticking over ok, particularly compared to sick western Europe, most Brits are reasonably content. There is no great mood for change – and Blair has won as a result.

The Conservative Party looks geriatric. It has been trying to move from that, but it is still largely seen as a party for high income, old, heterosexual white men and their wives – and I use those terms deliberately. Even the name – Conservative Party – implies that radical change are coming and they don’t want them, they want to keep things the way they have always been. It is difficult to see how the Party relates to young people other than those who are posh and driven to lead others. Equally, as much as it tries, ethnic minorities and gay people always seem like they are wanted for image – but not really wanted in the Party. Note this is public impressions – it is a party for well off powerful people who want to govern, not for all businesspeople, or people who want less government or people who are diverse.

It is like Don Brash’s ill calculated use of the term “mainstream New Zealand” – which was meant to appeal to the Christian right of which he is not a part, and meant to appeal to the bigotry of many – the problem is Brash doesn’t really believe in it, and it shows. He would hardly say that ethnic minorities (e.g. his wife!), gay and lesbian, Maori or others are not mainstream. Unfortunately the Tories have not got a good record on looking liberal on personal liberty matters – which is one reason the Liberal Party, forerunner of part of the Liberal Democrats, existed.

So can the Tories find a leader from the existing stable of contenders to modernise the party, through off this stuffy image AND establish a clear place on the political spectrum to appeal to British voters sufficiently to win the next election.

The problem is, I don’t think it can.

Liam Fox and Malcolm Rifkind are too far from the past and wont get very far

Ken Clarke can put on a performance, but is far too cozy with Europe to succeed. He is clearly the leftwing contender, and sees the main reason the Tories are losing are because they are not occupying the middle. I suspect Ken Clarke would be seen as a tired old has-been who could hold a Cabinet posting with some dignity, but that is that. Clarke did talk about individual choice and lower tax – though we are really only talking increments here.

The most publicity has been about the two Davids, with much been about comparing their ages and backgrounds. Davis is older, and has not gone to private school, and has shown himself to be slightly more socially conservative. Cameron has much more youth and vitality, and a survey of undecided voters undertaken by the BBC indicated that he had the edge, by looking vibrant, “not like a politician” and intelligent. His wealthy background did not influence most of them negatively.

I think David Cameron would be the most popular leader, with the electorate, of any of the contenders. His talk of a modern Conservative Party (compared with New Labour) which is younger looking and appears to be more socially liberal – would help win some people over - although it will look curiously like a new version of New Labour.

However, he will be hamstrung by not being able to offer British voters a compelling reason to vote Conservative. He wont offer serious tax cuts – so they wont be voting for their own money back. He wont offer substantially greater choice in health and education, he actually campaigns against allowing people to opt out of the NHS with their money to go private. He doesn’t want to attack Labour’s nanny state approach to everything from school lunches to health and safety, to its willingness to let local government do anything nutty it wants. In other words, he is going to campaign to win largely on the basis that Gordon Brown is tired old Labour with a new brand on it – and he can offer someone if not something fresh.

If it wins the election for the Conservative Party that is all they will care about – which is sad. This is a proud party which has done much for Britain, most recently the reforms of Thatcher that Blair implicitly endorses. If all it stands for it getting into government and not doing as much as Labour is doing - it will be repeating the events of every Tory government from the 1950s through to 1979- conserving! Doing very little. A party that believes in being in power and nothing much else.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats both believe in philosophies, although the Lib Dems are split on theirs! The Conservative Party should believe in individual freedom, and government getting out of the way of businesses and people’s private lives, unless it is necessary to defend their rights.

I’d join it if it did!

Nobel Peace Prize

Mohamed Elbaradei has won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the International Atomic Energy Agency which he heads – that isn’t a bad result at all, far better than the nomination of Bob Geldof and Bono. Greenpeace expressed reservations, because the IAEA is committed to the continual peaceful use of nuclear power – good!

Greenpeace more than any other international organisation has been responsible for scaremongering a generation about nuclear power – when it is safely used in many countries around the world (outside the former Soviet bloc where it was used with little regard for safety).

Elbaradei has focused efforts on Iran and previously Iraq (and before it withdrew from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, North Korea) not acquiring nuclear weapons – and has performed his job with some dignity. There is little doubt that preventing other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons contributes to peace between countries. There are reports the IAEA wants to pursue Israel – which it can’t as it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty – nor should it be! He also deserves it far more than past winners Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan – it is hard to forgive Carter for taking the eye off the ball in the Cold War, and Kofi Annan has not been extraordinary as Security General of the UN.