Who's your daddy?

First up, congratulation to Jacinda and Clark as babies are cool, you cant beat having kids.

That said, its interesting that the conception of said baby came in the wake of the 2017 election but supposedly before the coalition negotiations had completed in what I can only assume was a conscious decision to have a child*.

And if you cant see the potential symbolism of that decision then take a moment to consider the following:

• The PM of NZ will have a child while in Office
• The PM will carry out her duties while obviously pregnant
• After the birth Jacinda will return to her duties
• Clark will be a stay home dad
• The child will likely be born out of wedlock 
• Winston will get to be be temporary PM 

Our PM, will be a working mum while Clark will be a stay home dad and for all intents and purposes our First Family** will be a rather modern take on what family is in NZ when you compare it to our previous PM (Bill English).

Bill English and his wife, long married Catholics with children, reflected the kind of traditional family values that were less common in NZ than might have been 50, 30 or even a decade ago and their appearances in women's magazines always seemed to drive that home.

But now we have a different take on what a family might be and I cant believe that this decision was not made with some consideration of the above points and the message they might send.

So am I taking issue with the potential politicization of Jacinda and Clark having a child in this manner and situation?

No I am not!

Just as Bill English and his family life was a reflection of a particular set of values and ideas, and don't say it wasn't because all those pictorials in those magazines were all set with a clear tone and style, so too is the soon to be expanded Clark/Gayford family will be a reflection of a set of values to which I fully agree.

I have been a stay home dad, my kids were born out of wedlock and I am down with both of those things but I am also not a high profile politician and no one is looking at my lifestyle/work-life choices while many will be with Jacinda and Clark and taking notes.

So where am I going with this post?

To be honest I am not so sure as while not disparaging of deciding to get knocked up post election (as there is no right time to start a family) I cant ignore the fact that its the PM getting knocked up and I wonder if at any point in the "lets have a child" discussion that inevitably took place there was any thought given to the potential political aspects of the situation.

Still kids are always a good thing and in the end you cant beat them so I wish the couple all the best and look forward to seeing our PM carry out her duties while heavily pregnant.

 
*-the alternate being some sort of post election celebration where things got carried away
**-not the best term but I cant think of a better one at this time but i will take suggestions

To deport, or not to deport: Is that the Question?

Question: when is a citizen of a country not a citizen of said country?

Answer: When you’re a criminal deportee.

It seems that New Zealand’s immigration and citizenship policies are coming back to bite it in the behind, or are they?

The recent attempt by the media to manufacture some outrage over “those bloody Australians” and their “evil” immigration policy regarding their plans to deport NZ passport holders Alex Viane or Jacob Symonds to New Zealand misses the real issues around how Kiwis are treated in Ozzie and how we hand out kiwi citizenship on rather loose grounds.

Firstly, yes Australia is treating some Kiwis living in Oz like crap by cancelling/changing their visa conditions and attempting to raise university fees in what should been seen as a blatant attempt to abuse the reciprocal relationship that we currently have.

And yes, Australia’s treatment of refugees in places like Manus Island and their policy or turning back the boats of people trying to cross over to Australia from Indonesia is draconian and cruel.

And yes, the deportation of some Kiwis from OZ for very minor matters is pretty rank stuff.

However, both Symonds and Viane are not your average deportees and are, in fact being deported due to their criminal records, to the country that they have citizenship in: namely New Zealand, and criminal deportation is not the same as normal deportation. If you are a criminal deportee (in either NZ or OZ) the means by which you can be removed are much shorter and sharper.

The fact that New Zealand has had to resort to diplomatic measures to try and stop this indicates how weak our position is because at the end of the day, regardless of why they are actually being deported, they hold citizenship in NZ and that makes them citizens of NZ and thus are fit to be deported back here.

And we can’t refuse to take them because in doing so we would be behaving like places such as Zimbabwe or one of those other fun countries which don’t accept people being deported back there and that would make just as bad as them or worse, as we would be seen as hypocrites.

We might not like Australia deporting Kiwis with criminal convictions but NZ has similar legislation in place to do just the same thing and can and has done such things in the past and that what things like sovereignty and citizenship are all about.

Also statements by PM Jacinda Ardern that Australia should only be deporting those who have “roots” in New Zealand is just her flapping her rather considerable gums, and she knows this, because once you give someone citizenship it does not lapse simply because you haven't lived in New Zealand since or don’t have any “roots” here, it remains until the day you die.

The real issue here is that getting a New Zealand passport has become a matter of convenience for many people and we give them away like candy so the potential for abuse or unintended consequences exists.

We gave one to creepy billionaire Peter Theil with no questions asked when he had barely spent any time here and was essentially in the same boat as Viane: an individual who gained an NZ passport (and therefore citizenship) with no real “roots” here nor any clear motive other than wanting to have one.

In Viane’s case it may have been because his parents wanted to live in Australia and therefore made use of the reciprocal relationship agreements in place between us and them (as NZ passports are historically easier to get), he got his papers and went off to live in Oz and there is nothing particularly wrong with that unless we want to radically reshape how we grant citizenship. 

And for Symonds his parents may have just left NZ when he was very young (such as my daughter who was born in NZ but lived in Singapore from the age of six months to eight years old) and lived in OZ ever since, nothing there takes away his right to be a Kiwi.

But in Theil’s case he got to become a Kiwi by being immensely rich and then ripping off the NZ government for even more money and probably laughed all the way back to his platinum plated private jet before zooming back to the US; and at the end of the day that is far worse than Viane or Symonds as we can only assume that Viane had to meet some actual criteria while Theil was well below the requirements and got in anyway because he* had “friends” in the right place.

None of these men have clear roots in NZ and none of them have contributed anything positive to NZ yet we gave all of them the go ahead because?

In many ways this is the chickens coming home to roost for our immigration and citizenship policy’s while average Kiwis in Oz still get short shirt from the Australian govt and a little support from their own.

In reality the only defense is to be a lot more careful when granting citizenship and (my personal preference) not giving out dual citizenship (ie if you want to be a Kiwi you have to renounce any other citizenship you hold). It would not solve all the issues but it would put the kibosh on people backdooring Australia and then getting deported back to NZ when they become criminals there and make us less attractive to those who want to use NZ as some sort of bolthole for the ultra-rich.

And then there is the issue of these people being criminals: is that why the media is making such a stink about this? What has their being a criminal got to do with NZ wanting to use diplomatic means to prevent their return or Jacinda saying that they don't have "roots" here? Obviously it does or it would not be mentioned so prominently and especially when the media is usually on the side of people who are fighting deportation from NZ.

I would love to see Jacinda Ardern going on TV and denouncing Peter Theil as having no “roots’ in NZ and saying that NZ will be using "all diplomatic means" to get his creepy ass out of NZ but I am not holding my breath.

There is a lot more in the NZ/OZ immigration and citizenship debate than just a few crims being sent back to where their passport says they are from but you would not know that form the way the media has spun this out.

Kiwis love to talk about how great being a Kiwi is but we often undervalue it when we make citizenship such any easy deal and the cases of Theil, Viane and (possibly) Symonds demonstrate that. 

*-Or in reality, his money because if some other gay libertarian German with a taste for human blood (but a whole lot less money) rocked up and asked for citizenship his welcome would have been far less accommodating methinks.

Oprah for president? I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Ok, so I did not watch the golden globes but then again I didn't have to see the internet* light up with the idea of Oprah for President.

I thought it was a joke of some sorts but no its out there and I can only assume that a lot of drugs were being taken that night to allow such a bat-brained idea escape the hollowed out, cocaine crevice that is obviously passing for some peoples minds.

Perhaps its the Democrat reaction to the idea that if the Republican party can get Reality TV star and Billionaire, Donald Trump, as president then the only way to compete is to get their own and Oprah fits that bill. The ultimate expression of the (often moronic) idea that if you cant beat them, join them.

Of course if you stop to think about it for even a nano second you realize how insane and dangerously retarded that idea is for all the exact same reasons that have been made about the Don being in office. Trump is monstrously unqualified** for the role (just as a starter for 10) BUT so is Oprah and apart from a less offensive twitter feed I fail to see the difference between electing him and electing her.

Saner minds*** may prevail and even those famous for bashing Trump are wondering how smart this idea is.

However in some ways I actually like the idea of Oprah for president because given how skeezy the institution of President of the US is, and that didn't start with Trump but has pretty much been the status quo for that office, such a situation would once and for all confirm that America is going to turn out like the movie Idiocracy and that would be worth the price of admission to watch.

In essence, if she was to become president, and don't say it cant happen because that's what all those people who said that Trump would never happen were confidently saying once upon a time, it would nullify any credibility that the US political system (and by extension the US) has left and all those reasons why Donald Trump should not be in office.

It would be the ultimate expression that anyone with the money can buy their way into the office of what what once the most powerful position in the world by dint of their wealth and nothing more and watching those two battle it out on the campaign trail and presidential debates would be a joy/nightmare to behold.

So if you were not already blown away by the sureality of Donald Trump then take a moment to watch this for a taste of what President Oprah would be like because I fail to see any difference between that and what the Oprah Show is like.

And we worry about North Korea, sheesh!


*-Or at least the liberal section
**-His election, along with recent NZ versions of the same behavior, show that just because you are a successful businessman does not mean Jack in regards to running a country, nation or a city.
***- I have a soft spot for the Washington Post I admit

Our predictions for politics in 2018 (using occult methods)

I was not impressed to read the article titled Our experts wild predictions for politics in 2018 in the NZ Herald this weekend for several reasons.

The first was because the Herald had outsourced the whole bloody thing to the Spinoff, which either means that the Heralds own political reporters (Audrey Young, Clare Trevett and sorta/kinda Bryce Edwards (who at least for most of his work that I have read in the Herald seems to be phoning it in with trad articles espousing the same dull things everyone else is saying or just doing lists of internet links because why the hell not)) were not contributing or could not be bothered.

Another reason was that the "wild" in the title, which I had taken to mean "crazy, far out and gone baby gone!" instead turned out to mean wild as in "we have no bloody idea so we will just go with something "shrewd but dull", to quote Zaphod Beeblebrox.

For Christs sake people, no predictions that the reptilod conspiracy in the Beehive will be exposed, or that Jin Yang was not in fact a spy for China but instead for North Korea or that Jacinda Ardern is a bought and paid for hologram used by the Labour party until they can find a way to clone David Lange. Not a single thing which had me excited to see if it would actually come true: thanks for nothing guys!

But the main issue was the sheer pedestrian nature of most of the predictions. Brexit will bring down Teresa May's government: nice one Andrea, Peace in the Middle East: I can only assume that Wayne has his tongue firmly in Lorde's cheek, Helen Clark turns down a position on the board of a NGO: really Emma, really?

A few did have some merit to them like Leonie Hayden's prediction that Lance O'Sullivan will found the handsome Doctors Party (HDP), Joshua Hitchcok's prediction that Winston will spit the dummy and swap sides, and Guy Williams that Simon Bridges will become leader of the National party before melting down live on TV were at least attempts at something worth reading. The rest were terrible and seemed to indicate that the predictive powers at work was sorely lacking or they simply could not be bothered.

So much for "wild" or "experts" as its this kind of shoddy journalism that has turned both the NZ Herald and Stuff into the turd-like morasses of click-bait, infotainment and bald faced PR masquerading as news that they have mostly become with actual news as secondary product.

And while I support the Commerce Commission's (and the High Court's) decision to prevent these two jaundiced and feculent mouth-pieces from merging (because in doing so NZ would about the same level of media concentration as China - which has to be a good thing right...right?) that has not stopped them from devolving into something more akin to Buzzfeed or The Weekly World News than actual reliable or real news sources.

So with two weeks of my three week vacation down, the garden looking decent (at least the front half), the beard fleshing out quite nicely thank you and my summer holiday reading list smashed (had to go to the library to supplement) the time seems right to take my own crack at predicting what will happen to politics in 2018.

Problems with political prediction

Of course the political prediction business has devolved into two rather squalid camps these days, neither of which has much validity in the hard core and well paid "political analysis" game that sterling minds like yours truly play. I don't get the big bucks nor the endless acclaim and plaudits that are showered on me for making lame-ass predictions like those listed in the Herald, no sir.

The first camp for wanna be predictors is the statistical camp. "But E.A" I hear you cry, "you are a self confessed stat freak how could you not like being part of the statistical camp?" Well Sparkie, the answer is simple, stats are great for tracking what happened and identifying trends etc but just because something happened before does not make it so that it will happen again (Science at work folks) so stats can help form a picture but with things like elections and the stock market they should not be the basis for any Cassandra like utterance.

And if you can pardon my French for a moment; this is why I was always infuriated when so many people got down on Nate Silver's d**k for the 2016 US presidential election when Silver called it for Clinton by stating that Trump did not have a snowballs chance in hell of winning the Republican nomination, let alone the election, and then had to resort to word-salad for the rest of the campaign when his statistical model melted down and proved him, and it, hopelessly wrong.

So no on the stat based predictions but how about the other main camp, that of the political pundits, how well can they do?

Again, like the stat geeks, no, just no (most of the time) when it comes to pundits. Often because, at least in the US, but increasingly in NZ as well, they are just too partisan to take off the blinkers to the wholesale situation rather than whatever manufactured reality tunnel they are inhabiting.

The other reasons are that most "pundits" are journalists so they either have to get their work sent through the political/advertising-dollar thresher that is their editor/editorial policy, and so cant really say they want to or, I suspect like Bryce Edwards, just don't really have a clue of whats coming and so stick to something safe, clean and neat rather than go with what their gut is saying for fear of looking like a tool because hanging around and reporting on politicians does not make you an expert in politics, it makes you a reporter.

And for the record, let me note that for 12 months prior to his election to the presidency, I was calling it for Trump because to my eyes it was clear that Hilary (cooked or not) was having trouble, even with her 1.4 Billion dollar campaign budget, of convincing the voters to vote for her; I also called the 2017 NZ election a month in advance and repeatedly called out Andrew Little for the gormless fool he was when most others were still singing his praises and stating the oft repeated mantra of not getting rid of leaders before elections (even when it was clear that Little was as electable as a $2 sack of horse manure) rather than take a chance on the obviously more popular candidate of Jacinda Ardern.

However to be fair to all parties there are really only three things in politics which can be predicted, given how boring politics is once you strip out the personal politics and party feuding, and they are elections, bills and policy and personal changes but still there is room for making hay if someone actually puts their brain to it.

There has to be a better way

So which of these two camps will I be in? What methods will I be using to divine the future?

The answer is neither as I will be using far more reliable methods of scrying the entrails than those two which is, of course, turning to occult means and methods to predict the future.

And while I didn't happen to have a goat nearby, nor could I find a willing virgin, and the last time I danced naked around a bonfire in my backyard shrieking eldritch phrases* into the night during a full moon my neighbors called the cops, I did have on hand my trusty deck of tarot cards and the book of the I Ching.

At this point, some readers will be surely wondering if I am taking the piss or if I am actually serious?

The answer is that I am being both serious and piss-take, as while I am using occult (although I prefer the term arcane to occult) as a means to mock the weak ass attempts at political prediction in the NZ Herald I am genuinely going to marry what the cards and coins give with my own knowledge of the political situation in NZ and abroad to flesh out and make firm these predictions.

However before we get to good stuff let me assure you lovely folks that have used both the Tarot** and the I-Ching for over 20 years*** and they have both served me well with nary a time where their advice was not helpful or heeded. And for those who don't know how these two methods work I have included links here and here to help the uninitiated get up to speed before we start.

Also worth noting is that I used the I-Ching for the predictions about the four main political parties and the Tarot for the more general predictions about NZ politics, Trump and the fate of the world.

Labour Party for 2018: Rot within

Main Hexagram: Humbling
Transforming:  Corruption
Hidden:Loosening

Well, well, well, what do we have here. Labour being humbled by corruption in 2018. Who would ever have guessed. The nature of the scandal itself remains unclear (but if there is enough interest I can follow that up with the Tarot cards) but its hardly important as scandals come and go and all first time governments get their hand smacked when the honeymoon period is over.

The interesting part is that being humble is the key to success for this hexagram so this seems to indicate that it will be possible Labour arrogance which will lead to issues for Labour rather than an actual scandal itself and the transforming figure (corruption could not be clearer) talks about decay within the roots which for me indicates that there may be some lingering resentment inside Labour towards  Jacinda (ie those being the roots of the party) from the established party itself rather than some sort of bad behavior by the party.

Finally the hidden hexigram which is loosening whch relates to solving problems by untying knots and indicates that for Labour to fix its issues it will need to untie itself from its problem.

Overall I think the I-Ching is referring to Labour backpedaling on its promises from the election to make a better NZ and to atone for the Great Betrayal by the older hard core party faction which does not care for fixing anything (the same faction that was willing to back Andrew Little and all those that preceded him right into a lost election) and only want power for its own sake.

National Party for 2018: Slowly rebuilding

Main Hexagram:Clustering
Transforming: Gradual advancing
Hidden: Not yet fording

These hexagrams could not be more clearer as it is painting a picture of National having to come together to bring great rewards but its also clear that this process will take time and that even with all this done National will remain on the cusp of change rather than change itself.

The I-Ching talks about the fox crossing the river and making sure not to get her tail wet and I think this refers to National needing to deal with its dead-wood problem and its internal divisions (think the Todd Barclay scandal splitting the party base) before it can get to the other side of the river.

Dead-wood MPs like Bill English, Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith, to start, need to be removed for the party to rebuild, to come together as its their insistence on remaining in prominent positions within the party that keep it fractious. It also warns about any crazy plans for the party to clone itself (see last a few posts back) as that is certainly not coming together.

Then there is the obvious split between the country and business sections of the party, which have come to a head, again, with the Todd Barclay saga and will continue to fester until someone can figure out how to bring both sides together (perhaps not sending a tobacco industry lobbyist into rural Clutha could be a start).

NZ First in 2018:Quiet contemplation

Main Hexagram:Grouping
Transforming: Viewing
Hidden:Stripping

For NZ First 2018 will be all about its alliances, mutual support from spiritual kin but it will also be about getting rid of old ideas and eliminating what is unusable, outmoded or worn out.

The transforming figure (viewing) is all about looking at things from a distance and contemplating their meaning rather than acting.

For me this indicates that NZ First will spend much of this year maintaining its allaince with Labour based on the bigger picture and removing away all the bad stuff that screw up the party in the past.

Maybe some old MPs will get put out to pasture or in NZ First case, removing Shane Jones, but I think this year will be less about people and more about Winston focusing on his legacy and building towards that end via his alliance with Labour and the Greens.

Of course this means that Winston will remain in charge and able to keep people like Shane Jones in check and the issue who who is boss will not be an issue. Winston knows this is his last chance at a legacy and will keep on trying to build and maintain that by working with like minded people and parties so I don't think the Heralds prediction that NZ First will split from the coalition will be occurring this year.

Greens:Small steps

Main Hexagram:Small Accumulation
Transforming: Great Exceeding
Hidden:Diverging

For the Greens, 2018 will be the year that they rebuild and they will have to hold onto their ideals to do so in the face of crisis.

Its not hard to see that what will bring the Greens into a conflict of the faith will be either the environment or its opposition to things like the TPPA,although I think that it will be the environment this year.

The Greens only just survived 2017 and will have to be brave in the face of 2018 and what challenges it brings and will have to be true to do so. The hidden figure here is Diverging which is all about gathering small things to achieve a goal so it will be bay steps all the way through 2018 with the party watching each and every move it makes carefully to make sure that they don't screw up and/or diverge from the true path but with each small things/step they do/take the end result will be greater than the sum of its parts and worth the while.

NZ Politics as a whole in 2018:Keep the fire burning

Past: Oppression
Present:Safe goals/consolidation
Future: making goals real
Answer: Strife
Surrounding Energy: Cruelty
Hopes/Fears: Priestess
Outcome: Valor

This reading was full of wands which relate to fire, energy and enthusiasm. Its clear that the coalition has a lot of work on its plate and that coming form the past (the oppression of the neo-liberal era under National) there will need to be some concrete steps (the safe goals) before the greater society can be imagined.

By aiming for safe and achievable outcomes Labour can make those goals real and while their will be strife and cruelty it will be Valor (risking tings single handedly) which will see it through.

The surrounding energy of Cruelty and Strife means that National will not just let the neo-liberal project be dismantled and will create issues for the alliance but the card of the Priestess is so clearly a nod to Jacinda Ardern that its clear that a lot of people will be looking to her to see things through and she will have to use her own personal courage when others within her party will want to hold things back.

But all that fire for change, burning in the Greens, NZ First and Labour, will be more than enough to keep the progression towards those goals in 2018 but it wont be easy and courage will be needed.

Donald Trump in 2018?

Past: Victory
Present:The Hierophant
Future: Virtue
Answer: Prince of Disks
Surrounding Energy: Sorrow
Hopes/Fears: Science
Outcome: Love

I will admit that this reading baffled me quite a bit and perhaps its all that chaos that surrounds and is generated by Trump himself that so scrambled this reading to start.

The two key cards are the Hierophant (which symbolizes strength of faith, organized religion and surrendering power to the group) and the Prince of Disks (which is an earth card and symbolizes commerce, money, reality (ie being "grounded") and persistence, endurance, concentration and initiative).

Both of these cards are male, one is old while the other is youthful; one is the structured gateway to mysteries while the other is practical earthly energy that is near unstoppable.

Surrounding this is sorrow (bad news and loss) and the hope that science/rationality will prevail and a future where virtue (plans into action and success after struggle) exist.

But success for who? Who is the Prince of Disks and why will we end up loving him?

I think the cards are saying that the structure imposed by the Hierophant will give way to the energy of youth and harmony will prevail but that still does not answer the question: who will be our Prince come to rescue us or will that Prince be a more metaphorical prince of the inevitable energy of youth over the established order of the old.

Or is does this reading show that trump is unstoppable, no matter how much liberals piss and moan about him, and we will all have to just surrender to his "love" in 2017?

Whatever you take from this this will be the prediction to watch in 2018.

World War Three in 2018?

For this I did a one card reading and I swear I am not making this up, I drew the Death Card.

Of course the Death card does not always means death it can also mean change and the acceptance of, but I am going to put my cryptic reading aside for the moment and go out and dig a fallout shelter in my back yard because as much as you like to sugar coat things its a card with a skeleton holding a scythe on it and its called Death*4.

Sometimes its best not to take the Tarot too literally but perhaps in this case some warning may be worth taking.
   
So that's it for my political predictions for 2018. Lets see if they come true



*-"Ia Ia Cthulhu fatang fatang". Try it some time, you will be surprised
**-for those interested I am using the Crowley: Thoth deck due in large part to its amazing art by Lady Fredia Harris which appeals to my artistic sensitivity more than the more common Waite deck
***-One of the few things I have always had with me when I traveled through Asia for that long decade was my Tarot deck and my I-Ching book.
*-I possibly would have panicked more if I had got the Tower but only in a full reading.

New Zealand Politics 2017: A change is as good as a revolution

Happy New Year munchkins, I hope your holidays have been as good as mine so far.

I spent the first week of my Christmas holidays in my old hometown; the septuagenarian seaside ghetto of Timaru, more commonly known to the locals as Uramit*: catching up with family and friends or reading Dark History of the American Presidents by Michael Kerrigan**.

Timaru is one of Nationals true-blue heart lands, with Nationals first time candidate, Andrew Faloon, inheriting Jo Goodhew's comfortable electoral majority; even if that majority was cut back from 14,000 in 2014 to six thousand in 2017 in an electorate where the actual number of voters increased by several thousand, due to a clear surge towards Labour via candidate  Jo Luxton.

And like any time I am out and about, I took the time to sample the mood of the public in regards to politics in our fair nation but this time with a clear slant towards life under our new Labour overlords.

I was expecting a rather negative response regarding the regions voting habits but was somewhat surprised when most people I talked to seemed to be rather meh about the whole "communist takeover" thing and happy with what had transpired, except for one small area: house prices.

You can get a three bedroom house in Timaru for under $500,000, and even down to $300,000 if lucky, with a range of options and locations so unlike the major centers there is still a rather buoyant mood for the market.

And I know this for a fact after I spoke to several people in the real-estate business*** who were positively upbeat about the housing market there and who were rather concerned that Jacinda (and given how they phrased things it sounded like Mrs Ardern was coming for them personally) was intending to take away their livelihood and ruin the good thing they have got going in one fell swoop.

And this tone sums up much of this year (and every recent year) in NZ politics but it definitely sums up the outcome of the recent 2017 election as it does not take a rocket scientist to see that anyone who did well out of the housing hernia in the last nine years under National was going to keep on backing that party (and its policies) rather than take a gamble on Jacinda and Labour but that everyone and anyone else was braying for a real change to how things were in our fair isles.

But this time 12 months ago the country was still getting over the shock of John Key's recent departure from the PM role and trying to adjust to the idea of Bill English as a less than adequate stand in for the man who had been the ever-smiling face of the selling of NZ; the housing market was still boiling along in Auckland and Andrew Little was still grimly clinging to the tiler of the then doom struck Labour party and we were prepping for dull election followed by more of the same under National.

So between now and then what happened?

How did we go from the near inevitable certainty that it would be National for another three years to a center-Left coalition trying to give capitalism a friendly face and right some of the wrong in this country?

The answer to that question lies in the past with Labours great betrayal of 1984 and the effects of that betrayal over the 33 years that followed.

In 1984, with the election of the Fourth Labour government, the party embarked on an insane program of radical change to both the economy and the welfare state. There is no room to go into the details here butsuffice it to say that unlike the right wing free-market zealots in the US and UK who were enacting similar changes in those countries the ideological propaganda of trickle down and "letting the market take care of things" were first propagated by a supposedly left wing Labour government which literally sold the soul and spirit of New Zealand to anyone and everyone with the money to buy.

The result is the New Zealand we know today, desperately addicted to dairy farming, paying obscene prices for houses and peddling our asses for the tourist dollar. A New Zealand where the rich have gotten richer and everyone else has stagnated or gone backwards, an Aotearoa where market speak and management science infected government operations to all levels and where politicians are either actively industry lobbyists (like ex-tobacco shill Todd Barclay) or simply so connected to the parasite banking sector (like the John Key) or related concerns so prolifically that the public either does not trust them or care because the market is the new religion and we all have to kneel down and supplicate before the all mighty dollar.

In short the state of NZ today is the direct result of the Great Betrayal and its spreading stain has marked Labour ever since with an air of untrustworthiness and two-faced double talk from Labour MPs and the party mouthpieces in such a way that the real free market, "NZ for the rich only", radicals in National could simply walk into government and continue to enact Labour's "reforms" and no one could tell the difference.

Sooner or later something had to give. Sooner or later NZ had to change its course or become like Thailand or some other semi-failed state where corruption, nepotism and "connections" prevailed over democracy, equal rights and giving people and fair go. There had been attempts in the past but they had failed, mostly because the time was not right, but also because many of those trying to convince us to jump ship had blood on their hands, blood from 1984.

Thus for NZ (and 33 years counts as later rather than sooner) the 2017 election and the year that preceded it were the beginning of the end for Labours foul creation from 1984 (that later become Nationals monstrous step-child) and the dynamic of that year hinged on Labour not only removing that stain (ie talking about the people for once and not peddling its ass to big-business) but also presenting a credible alternate (via something other than letting the market take charge) to the electorate to whatever tired old (but infinitely better than Labors) story that National was peddling.

In neither of these two areas did Labour fully succeed but neither did they fail and it was not without the help of two other opposition parties (NZ First and the Greens) but also with the removal of the face of past (Andrew Little), which Labour had worn ever since the days of David Lange*4, that was promptly replaced by the face of future (via Jacinda Ardern).

And if we imagine NZ politics as a microcosm of NZ society (a sad and demented microcosm but still a sample of what NZ is) it was only a matter of time before the stunted and bitter children of 1984 would come forth in sufficient number to sweep much of the old and sleazy order away and makes their voices herd.

Of course there were a few grizzled veterans, like Winston Peters, helping things along by acting as spiritual mentors to the younger MPs but in the end the youth and energy prevailed BUT only after the stunted dwarf roadblock of Andrew Little had his greedy hands pried from the wheel of the party AND the dire realization that Labour could be in opposition forever if something radical was not done, truly sank in, as parties like the Greens started to take up the social justice and left-wing slack that Labour and lost when it sold its soul in 1984.

In summary NZ got back a true opposition party to the right wing antics of National (which then balances out the previously skewed dynamic of NZ politics) and previously failed hopes like Winston redeemed themselves by using their populist power for change rather than propping up the status quo and furthering their own greedy ends. The stain caused by the great betrayal has been washed out and a new course has been charted for Godzone.

The fact that the mood around the world echoes this is not coincidental but a change is a good as a revolution in my book and if things had not changed that was what was next via FukYoo politics enacted en-mass with increasing dissent and more physical opposition.

And that all there is to it really, scandals aside, as Labour by its words, and so far its actions also, has provided a counterweight to the right wing razzle-dazzle of National and stared to try and undone some of what it started 33 years ago. It might not get it all right but any loosening of the screws is better than none.

However, this change could not have happened without NZ First and the Greens and that's what is the one major difference between this election and all previous MMP elections, given tat MP was supposed to deliver us from the tyranny of one party-politics and the attended rabid, one sided, ideologies.

This time round was the first real MMP election in NZ history, one where the plurality of the political situation was accurately reflected in the final outcome and where enough of the FPP dinosaurs had been put out to pasture to allow MMP politics to deliver the best result.

But lets get back to those house prices for a moment before I end this because the Housing Hernia is still a thing, along with FukYoo politics.

Neither of those two dynamics have been turned off and both remain dominant forces for 2018 and its how our Left of Center government deals with both that will be the true test of how well the stain of the Great Betrayal is washed away; as inequality and dirty politics remain in NZ and if our hero's cant deliver on their promises then they will surely become villains.

My next post will be a look forward into politics in 2018  but until then I intend to get back into the garden, grow this beard some more and finish off Mr Kerrigans book.



*-Think about it?
**-does my family know me or what
***-I wont say exactly how but lets just say we are related etc
*4-Yes I know Helen Clark and the Firth Labour government existed but it was business as usual under her and Finance Minister Michael Cullen so much so that National was able to survive the near death of the party under Bill English and Don Brash and come romping back to office in 2008 under John Key

A spy in the Beehive part II: further dodgyness from Jin Yang

Christmas came slightly early this week when further revelations about National MP Jin Yang surfaced in the media.

And wouldn't you know it but Yang deliberately tried to subvert a SIS security vetting in an attempt to get an individual with a Chinese background into the NZDF.

Matt Nippert's article in the NZ Herald has the better depth on things and from that its clear that Yang sought to overturn the vetting outcome so that the individual could get a job in the NZDF in a position requiring a Secret level security clearance.

Yang, of course has claimed that he was merely "seeking answers" for his constituent but Nippert's article goes on to note that the letter of response to the constituent by the then minister for defense Jonathan Coleman noted that Yang "approached the office" on his constituents behalf.

And while we can get hung up on the definitions of what "forwarding correspondence" vs "approaching the office" means the real issue is that Yang sought to question a failed security vetting and get it overturned because that's what people go to their MP for.

People don't go to their MP to just find out whats going on, both the SIS and the NZDF are very clear about the minimum requirements for a security vetting and general queries about such matters can be made via the Inspector general of Security and Intelligence, so Yang going into bat on this individuals behalf means that the individual was seeking to use Yang's influence as a MP to overturn the findings of the vet.

Add to the issue is that Yang has further sought to obscure his background with the Chinese Military and Spying establishments (as the article notes) and you have an individual with a highly questionable background and blurry backstory seeking to subvert a security vet so another individual, who would not normally get into the NZDF, in a high security role, could bypass those checks and get in.

So at what point do we say that Yang is a spy and be done with it because as I said in my last post on the issue I would not be surprised if he was found to be a spy and none of those actions make Yang, or his behaviors, look credible, believable or trustworthy and in fact make Yang look dodgy, dubious and traitors in regards to that charge.

If Yang was just another MP without all the other issues then we could probably put those actions in context of a MP acting on the behalf of a constituent (even if challenging a security vet is a rather unusual action for a MP) but with all the extra information about Yang and little or no info to mitigate things its harder and harder to believe that this is just another unrelated action.

And with questions about Chinese influence abounding at the moment Yang is probably hoping that all of this will just go away but I don't think kit will as if previous Chinese National MP scandal of Pansy Wong was enough to get her removed I fail to see why Yang gets to stay in his job when issues of trust are one of the foremost things about being a MP or member of government.

So far Yang has tried to play the race card (which failed) and has now sought to issue a single statement on the matter and say nothing more, in the hope that this will all go away but my guess is Nippert has the scent of a story in his nostrils and wont be giving up on things that easy when who knows what further OIA's might bring to light.

Post election fallout contaminates TOP, the Maori Party and National

File this under “what were they thinking!?”

The last few weeks has seen a number of activities which could be accurately described as “post-election fallout” as the particular “coalition oriented reality” that the 2017 September general election has imposed on the denizens of New Zealand’s political ecosystem (that of Labour, NZ First and the Greens as government) makes itself felt.

And in this case the fallout is coming from what could be politely termed as the three “losers” of the election, that being TOP, The Maori Party and National*. Further two of these cases can be seen as the direct result of bad decision making regarding a parties particular electoral strategy prior to the election while the third (in this case National) can be seen as laying the foundation for a similar type of catastrophe if ever implemented.

And as I am back from my blogging sabbatical lets indulge in a jolly game of seeing which of these three dumpster fire, train wrecks stacks up as the worse and how it came about.

TOP tops itself

First up is the Gareth Morgan vanity project more commonly known as The Opportunity Party (TOP).

 In the two months prior to the election I researched and wrote a whole 2000 word post on TOP which went in the dead end file because no matter how I spun it, the phrase “rich man playing at politics” kept repeating itself and there was really little else to say about Morgan treading down the same path as Kim Dotcom and “Creepy” Colin Craig, all of who did little more than spray round blobs of their wealth to purchase political media which had little more content on it than their respectively gormless faces.

Therefore it was not surprising to read last week that Morgan pulled the plug on TOP by resigning from the party, along with other senior members, as the odds of Morgan hauling his political carcass over the 5% threshold became starkly clear round about June when TOP had been in operation for six months and had little to show for it except Morgan looking down on people from billboards (and that metaphor can’t be labored enough) like a baby-boomer version of Big Brother from 1984.

And I will happily go on record in saying that my prediction that TOP would bring some “excitement” to the election campaign was way off the mark as in making said prediction I had anticipated that Morgan would not fall into the same trap as Craig and Dotcom had and actually run a political campaign seeking to worm his way into the voters’ minds with some clever and relevant means to tap into the fumes of discord that were rising from the political morass that FukYoo politics had created in NZ.

But I was wrong and to save space in this post I will sum up Moragn, and the approximately two million dollars he spent on the party and campaigning, as coming up with little more than his face on billboards, one failed legal challenge and the lingering stench in the publics mind that if elected his first act in parliament would be to enact some sort of rabid PC jihad on all felines in Aotearoa**.

Morgan talked big when he launched TOP in November 2016 and had some nice policy ideas buried away in the background but for all his comparison to Donald Trump, Morgan failed to live up to his hype, as at least Trump got elected, and all Morgan could do was flail around and squabble with party members, politicians and the public via twitter.

The key failing of this absurdly quixotic*** quest were simply Morgan deciding that he was to be the face of the party (which was the most obvious flag that this was little more than a vanity project for Morgan’s brittle ego) and not spending enough money to get ones political brand out in an already saturated marketplace (because two million dollars does not buy as much brand awareness as one might expect when you’re spending it all on creepy billboards and torpedoing your own polling by acting like a douche).

If I had the money to enter politics I might consider a run at parliament but the simple fact is I do not have the doubloons to buy myself a political party or indulge in the clearly obvious fantasy that Morgan was labouring under; that he was some sort of kiwi philosopher king writ large and come to save NZ with his unique brand of straight talking, common sense that only he could dispense.

The 2.4% TOP got in the polls is impressive per se for a first time out political party but when compared to what the Internet and Conservative parties polled in previous elections*4 it’s no big deal and clearly not any more resonant with the average voter than what Kim Dotcom or Colin Craig was peddling.

Going down with the waka

And from one wally called Morgan and a failed political party to another (albeit one that previously made it into parliament); this time Tuku Morgan, who recently quit his role as president of the Maori Party and was the architect of the parties disastrous campaign strategy in the recent election.

What was so disastrous about this strategy you ask?

Well for starters, it appeared to be completely divorced from the political reality of the Maori Party in 2017, polling well below the 5% threshold (often so close to zero as to be irrelevant) and being totally reliant on a single seat (all the others being won back by Labour in previous elections since 2005 when the party held all seven).

The kernel of Tuku's strategy was simple: get the Maori King (of who Morgan was an advisor to) to bad mouth the Labour Party in the run up to the election as a means to drum up support and arrest the hideous fall in seats and vote share*5 from their peak in 2005 when they swept all Maori seats in the wake of the foreshore & seabed issue.

So the Kings message was “screw Labour…” and nothing more which really was not the best way to endorse your own party and certainly not from an individual who, while royalty, seemed to have no real relevance to Maori in general and at best seemed to be an easily manipulated figurehead. And as I noted at the time royalty taking sides in politics is a dicey issue because if your side does not get in your out in the cold and that’s exactly what happened.

Labour now has all the Maori seats, Maori candidates and MPs and in the simple move of raising the minimum wage shortly after taking power did more for Maori, who are more affected by having to work in low paid occupations than others, in that single act than anything the Maori Party did in its nine years in the government.

Tuku Morgan should have known that the key to success in Maori politics was getting and retaining those seven Maori seats, as they conferred the political weight in parliament to make them an attractive coalition partner, and that what gave the party those seats in the first place was the wellspring of discontent that the foreshore & seabed issue had tapped into in 2005 and not the petty backbiting of a mostly irrelevant individual towards the one party which was the traditional resting place of the Maori voter.

And he should have known that if the party was to retain those seats it had to deliver meaningful change to Maori and not just political spin and empty promises which is why by the time 2017 rolled around the party had lost all but one seat and polled so low as to not count at all.

To be fair to Morgan though, by the time he came up with this bat-brained idea the party was already in dire straits under the leadership of Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox and was fatally weakened from the get go when Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia made the fateful choice to go with National in 2008.

But the party could have gone out in a better fashion than it did or even made a fighting stand if there had been an idea better suited than the extremely low budget wrestling smack talk employed by Morgan, via the Maori King, to try and make Maori care about the Maori party.

And if vanity was the downfall of Gareth Morgan and TOP it’s not too difficult to see that Tuku Morgan may not have been the best choice for the role of party president or campaign strategist as Morgan political credentials remain solely an $89 pair of boxer shorts and rhorting the public weal so it’s hard to imagine what else other than his own vanity was prompting him to think that his plan was going to work when every shred of reality would have been saying “Kahore, kahore, kahore!”

National’s imaginary friend

And last but not least in this caravan of, what my staff-sergeant would have politely referred to as, “s**t rushing to the brain” ideas, is the recent news that the National Party is looking to form a new conservative party.

Of course they denied it but after I ran this past my well placed National party contact, T, the response I got was more than enough for me to believe this rumour has some truth to it.

I do acknowledge the sheer science fiction scale to the idea that National clone itself as a means to pad out the illusion that it’s the only party of any substance on the right side of the political line after the coalition of NZ First, Labour and the Greens has made living under a coalition seem like a harmonious possibility and thereby politically and ideologically isolating National.

However what I did get from T was more than enough to indicate that while saner minds might have prevailed at obvious lunacy of the mainline suggestion, one particular comment from him (which I shan’t repeat here) was more than enough to make me think that National is no longer keen on supporting political misanthrope ACT and, with its previous “coalition partners” (Peter Dunne and the Maori Party) out of parliament, it may be feeling a bit lonesome out there in right (wing) field.

And while ACT is nothing more than a political welfare scheme for Seymour, National has to take the blame for creating the god-forsaken, Ann-Randian, one man sewer that ACT has become by their continual gifting of Epsom to ACT as the means to foster the illusion that there is something more right-wing (and all that such a term entails) than National out there in New Zealand.

So while national cloning itself is off the cards I would not be surprised if national sought to clone ACT, which could then be gifted Epsom and thus maintain the illusion that there is something further right of National in NZ politics while simultaneously getting risk of pesky (and uncontrollable) ACT.

However given the obvious rifts that do exists within the party (think: whoever keeps leaking documents and information to Nicky Hagar or to the media (ie the Todd Barclay scandal) and the fact that there is nothing inherently monolithic about right wing politics and it would be prudent for the party to figure out how to keep those issues contained rather than have them spill out in public.

The problem is that splitting the vote base is not the way to do this as creating a satellite party has all sorts of risks. The first (as noted in the media) is that the public may see it as nothing more than a front for National and as such have no faith in its independence while the second is that there is no guarantee that once you spilt the vote base that the other party will remain controllable (think how the Tea-Party antics in the US have hurt the Republicans).

So what to do?

My guess is this issue will simmer away in National until someone feels strong enough to challenge Bill English for the leadership and what will predicate that will be any significant drop in Nationals polling, which at this time, is not an issue but those numbers can’t hold forever given the fickle nature of the average NZ voter and with national in opposition it is only a matter of time before something gives.

So until that time I give Bill & the B Team a pass on this one but the fact that somewhere in National this idea got floated is enough to put them in the same category as TOP and the Maori party in this post under the “what were they thinking!?” moniker.

So who is the most contaminated?

The easy answer to that question is the Maori party, who pissed away the opportunity given to them by the seven seats they once had in parliament and who as per my old KP post Many waka, one star to guide them shows that the biggest problem in Maori politics is the Maori politicians themselves.

TOPs abysmal outcome in the election really only hurt Gareth Morgan and with the party now all but dead expect the 2.4% that voted for TOP to head back to Labour (based on all TOP voters I have met, all seem to be disgruntled Labour) while National can be forgiven for indulging in some off-the-wall thinking, post-election, but the real test for them is that they still need a solution to their obvious problems, that of needing to rejuvenate the party (but more on that in another post soon).

For all three parties, the brave, post election face they had been putting on has finally melted away in the extreme left/center radiation being given off by the coalition government and exposed what lies beneath.

*-No, ACT does not count in this sense as; a) they held onto their seat but more importantly b) they were losers to begin with in the more realistic sense of being purely in parliament at the behest of National.

**-something he doubled down on post-election when the PMs cat died and he decided that it would be the right time to make further comment on it.

***-yes I know it’s probably redundant using absurd as an adjective to quixotic but if the shoes fits…

*4-The Internet Party polled 1.42% in the 2014 election while the Conservatives polled 2.65% and 3.97% in 2011 and 2014 respectively

*5-In 2005 2.12% and 7 seats; 2008 2.39 and 4 seats; 2011 1.43% and 3 seats; 2014 1.32% and 1 seat and 2017 1.2% and zero seats!