Helen Clark felt right

The NZ Herald reports on how Peter Davis on TVNZ said Helen Clark felt "rejected" by the New Zealand public in the last election.

"I think she felt rejected, because she felt she had done a good job - which I also believe - and had put her best foot forward and had been an almost incomparable Prime Minister and yet somehow the public had not seen that the same way" he said

Yes Peter, she was rejected. Almost incomparable? Well perhaps, by wasting away the fruits of a recovery on growing the bureaucracy and the state, flushing hundreds of millions of dollars away of (now this is what they don't understand) OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY in buying back a railway and an airline.

Fortunately New Zealand is a liberal democracy, and enough got tired of "the state is sovereign" Helen. She won 1999 following a growing send of tiredness of National's cobbled together and increasingly repulsive flotsam and jetsam minority government. 2002 she won because Bill English hadn't met a principle he could embrace and stand for anything at all, and the recovery was keeping enough people happy. 2005 she barely won helped ever so slightly by breaking the law by using parliamentary funds to do electoral campaigning.

Of course, the truth is she only got into power thanks to Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and Winston Peters bringing their parties into coalition and confidence/supply agreements. All of their parties have paid a high price for such arrangements.

Let's constrain democratic local government!

The Standard warns ominously that the government might take steps to hinder the growth of local government's role saying:
- A bill is to be introduced "to ‘cap rates at the rate of inflation’ will cripple councils ability to fund essential new projects" ;
-The Auckland report INITIATED BY THE PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT will provoke "another round of amalgamation to create ’super-cities’". Which will, of course, "sell assets such as airports whenever they can" (yep those privately owned airports never work);
- As part of RMA reform the government will "axe Regional Councils"; and
- Water metering will be introduced.

Now apart from the second point (as I completely oppose supercities for reasons explained here), bring it on!

The Standard shows once again enthusiasm for pilfering from people's salaries, but also notably continue economic ignorance.

What are these "essential new projects" that councils can't convince people to pay for voluntarily? It doesn't matter, as long as people vote for a council, the Standard thinks it can rate the public as much as it likes, until the next election. A cap on rates being at inflation only is a bare minimum to stop councils growing in their thieving from ratepayers.

It shows continued bigotry against privatisation, because the predominantly privately owned Auckland and Wellington airports are so badly run, compared to council owned Christchurch. Seriously, get a grip.

The axing of regional councils is feasible despite the bogus claim that "most Regional Councils manage important public functions and are fat targets for selling off major parks, water and transport assets worth many tens of billions of dollars". Most regional councils are actually glorified water catchment boards, with boundaries that reflect that. Only Auckland and Wellington ones have substantially additional functions. Most have no parks or transport assets of any consequence. Creating water catchment companies with property rights would address the relevant issues, and public transport assets in Auckland and Wellington could be held by territorial authority owned companies.

Then the real ignorance is in opposing water metering. You'd think the Standard ought to support those who use the most water paying for it, paying a bigger share of the infrastructure and water purification costs (and sewage disposal), but no. You'd think ensuring that demand reflects shares of costs would help ensure that expansion of water supplies was done when it is efficient, not when politicians get their act together (or build think big options). No. Of course, it all ignores the decades of mismanagement of water infrastructure by councils that did not replace or repair the network (something Thames Water is addressing in London). The Standard presumably thinks everyone should pay the same for water - yep, good old Marxist "economics".

Of course I don't for a moment believe the government will do ANYTHING The Standard suggests - sadly, as it would mean Rodney Hide will have done some good.

Oh and democratic local government? Give me a break. Turnout for council elections is abysmal, and democracy is never accountability when councils just vote to increase charges on the public year in year out. It is the majority (non ratepayers) voting for the minority to be pillaged for their pet projects. It's time local government was shackled.

So what about supporting the child?

I am unsurprised that Maia is supporting the woman who gave birth on a plane, who clearly was so distressed she isn't fit to be a mother (you can't look after a child if you can't look after yourself), but more curious that she is supporting her in prison (as is her right)- but doing nothing about the completely helpless baby she gave birth to.

I don't doubt Karolaine Maika is a seriously disturbed woman - but mothers, unless they adopt, have responsibilities for their children. If they fail to take even basic steps to ensure that someone else can look after them, then they are beyond the pale.

For regardless of how disturbed she is, the baby is completely and utterly helpless.

Although Maia has previously said that when people are so poor, you can understand them torturing a three year old. "it's part of a bigger project to blame people in poverty for making bad choices on an individual level, rather than seeing the structural issues which leave people so broken that they torture a three year-old".

Need I say more?

NZ's best political satire is on Twitter

It sadly lacks, I'm unsure whether a small country lacks comic genius, or whether there is some cringe among those in broadcasting to give it a fair go (and to be fair I don't watch NZ TV for a fairly obvious reason), but the best political satire I am finding now is on Twitter.

If you're not following

Trevor Mallard
Parekura Horomia
David Cunliffe (no this one doesn't deserve the silent "T") and
Clayton Cosgrove

you are missing out. It's the main reason I log onto Twitter, and now I found

Shane Jones
Maryan Street

and there are more.

UPDATE: Oops Darren Hughes is real, it's not that funny. Any more MP satirical Twitters?

Wanaka's National Front school?

Seriously, is Mt. Aspiring College the least worldly most naive high school in the country? Or a secret hot bed of neo-Nazi knuckle draggers?

Wanaka is such a beautiful location, does it just mean people there don't read, watch TV or read history?

Does it mean the school curriculum is so utterly devoid of history that so many of the staff and students are just plain ignorant?

Someone better find out - I bet the semi-evolved grunts in the National Front will be getting their tiny penises (they are 90% "men") all excited about how they need to have their conference in Wanaka as a result of this story.

Life in Wanaka is clearly far too mundane because the Southland Times reports

"many students have already got their costumes organised after depleting all the stocks of white coveralls from Wanaka's Mitre 10 hardware store. Manager Mark Watson said he had no idea the $7.98 clothing item had been so popular when contacted last night, but after a quick check of his database confirmed he had only large sizes of the boilersuit-type clothing left."

Only the slim to average sized stupid and racist students are going. Although one report does suggest a bit of mischief making:

"Last year they went on sale two weeks earlier and this year it was only a few days before. They were hiding them until the last minute. "Those kids are not as dumb as the principal is making out."" says "angry mother".

Bloody hell! Parents of Wanaka. Airfares to Australia are NOT expensive, probably cheaper than to Auckland if you scoot to Queenstown. Take your kids at least to Aussie (well Sydney and/or Melbourne anyway) at least twice before they are 13.

Buy them books.

Show them where the news channels on Sky are.

and most of all, show them images of white supremacists in their natural environment (above).

(Credit to Stuff for the image)