Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Labour Party Politicians

I cannot help but point out the delicious irony in the simultaneous conviction of David Maka for dishonesty and abuse of priviledge offences (number 50 on Labours 2002 party list) with Taito Phillip Fields grilling in the house for dishonesty and abuse of priviledge.

I can only wonder as these types of ironies continue to occur how people can doubt the systemic corruption within the Labour Party. How do people continue to look at seemingly trivial seperate events such as the F16s, Timberlands, the boardinghouse fax, Paintergate, Dover Samuels, Tamihere, TPF, etc as disconnected incidents?
Whether you believe in genuine corruption, or just straight incompetence, this Government seems determined to implicate itself fully one way or the other.

For once I actually wish Winnie was here and in the house - then after the recent behaviour of Margaret Wilson things might get interesting. As it stands by the time he has back her recent ejecting of members from the house is likely to have faded from our political short term memory.

Someone else worth watching with interest though is Jim Anderton. Labours lapdog to be sure, but mainlybecause their interests are so well aligned. Jim was normally one of the only politicians you could guarantee to stand by his principles - even though I completely disagree with what his political beliefs are. If it came to the crunch in terms of his actually having to explicitly support Field or Wilsons behaviour I would be interested in which way he would lean.

7 comments:

backin15 said...

Jim has principles, where he get them and when? I guess I have been out of the country for a while but this really is news.

Unknown said...

To be fair I could be wrong - but I have always seen Jim as having principles and sticking to them.

That I may not always agree with what those principles are and that I always tend to disagree with his politics are beside the point on this one.

Gardener said...

Jim has no principals what so ever IIQ. This is a man who lets his wife use his ministerial car while she is campaigning for local council, uses a Parliament franking machine to send out personal mail (a 1,000 letters for his wife's campaign is what I think he was caught for - but I could be wrong) He had to pay the money back but unlike a service station attendant lifting $5 from the till for bus fare he wasn't sacked for it, even after he payed it back.

This is a man who uses tax payer dollars to fund a KIWI bank for low income earners with "NO FEES" which never actually works out that way. It gets capital top up year on year and he claims the whole this is a roaring success. He arranges a grant for EDS to set up a call centre (which it had planned to do anyway). He gives money to Dick Hubbard because he is a socially responsible employer ignoring the fact that Dick was already making a healthy profit before the grant. Then when the job's machine looks like a lemen he just puts some distance between it and himself and pretends it never happened.


To say Jim has principals is like saying that a shark would make a good lifeguard at a swimming pool.

Gardener said...

And lets not forget Jim is a millionaire and preaches socialism. That in it's self is so far fucked up it's just not worth talking about.

backin15 said...

Yeah, shouldn't known my comment was flamebait.

That said, Jim's principles are mainly used for electoral advantage IMO.

Gardener said...

backin15 - how can you call them principals when they are used for electoral advantage. Principals are something you stand by no matter what the outcome. You have outdone yourself with that statement, it's like saying integrity is something you use to not get caught cheating !

Unknown said...

burt - sorry I hadn't actually heard about the ministerial car or franking machine, that def lowers my opinion somewhat.

However with regards to the Kiwibank / grants schemes / etc the thing is I actually think that Jim thinks he is doing the right thing for the country. We are both in agreement that we think they are completely screwed ideas based on completely false economics. But it doesn't change the point that Jim is fighting tooth and nail for what he erroneously thinks is best.

I actually don't have a problem with a millionaire working on the Socialist side (ala Dick Hubbard as well). It is generally an anomoly other than where guilt complexes are at play, or where the Libertarian movement in a country is too weak...