Sex and Agriculture

The old man and I were walking along Mayoral Drive in the Auckland CBD one afternoon back in the '90s. Another even older man had just walked out of the Pan Pacific Hotel and headed towards us. My father, aged sixty-mumble, did something I'd never see him do before.

He lost the expression of a man wearied by sixty-odd years on the clock, and reverted to a mumbling child as he praised former child actor Mickey Rooney in person. This crinkly polite Yank - accosted on the streets in a strange land by some quixotic stranger in the three piece armour of an attorney - had brightened my Dad's day considerably.

Needless to say, Mickey Rooney's golden days of Hollywood were a bit before my time. Growing up two generations prior to my existence, the old man grew up on tales of conquest by proxies of the British Empire in books, as well as the pulp fiction churned out by Hollywood, leeched as it was of reality by the censors and purveyors of moral rectitude.

The Ten Commandments of Hollywood back then, summed up in one picture, were:



An artifact of this celluloid puritanism popped up last week, nicely raising the profile of Eva Green and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For in the process. In America at least, nipples are still considered Satan's cherries.

In contrast to the old man, all my heroes were outlaws. I grew up with '70s cinema and early '80s auteurs, the golden era of the film director. Years before the blockbuster killed the independent studios' diversity with superheroes and cloned plots, it was all Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bugsy Malone, the Blondini gang from Goodbye Pork Pie, Bruno Lawrence, Sam Lowry in Brazil, Buckaroo Banzai, David Lynch, etc.

Moral ambiguity, anti-heroes, irony and pathos were main ingredients. Ultra-violence was used as allegory or hyperbole (A Clockwork Orange, The Evil Dead), as opposed to today's serious yet CGI carnage purely for the sake of it.

But I digress. The Mickey Rooney intersection came into mind on Thursday, as John Banks walked out of court a guilty man. My old man shared airtime with Banks on Radio Pacific. Of all the things Banks could have said as Michelle Boag quietly photobombed away in the background, Banks had to come out with an esoteric 1930's song about standing in puddles. A man so pole-axed, the child came out.

Three days later, John Banks announces he is exiting the political stage once more. Up until this afternoon, it looked like he was blithely looking at hanging around in Parliament, upstaging the election theatre cast from Jamie Whyte to John Key, before crashing through the footlights head first into the orchestra pit.

Farewell then, John Banks. You will be forgotten. Cannabis will be legalised. Look who's stupid then. Auckland will one day reverse your rates poll tax (aka the Uniform Annual General Charge), as well as your puritanical Brothel and Commercial Sex Premises bylaw. Charter schools will be folded back into the integrated schools system, where state accountability sits in judgement over religious schools.

Everything John Banks did will be dirt.

Three Whyte Stripes and the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

It didn't take long for Richard Prebble's massive gravity to be noticed on the Act party's subatomic body politic. Only last Sunday, new leader Jamie Whyte was announcing a new dawn for Act. Nek minnit, it's three strikes for burglars.

David Seymour has been left alone by the media pack, leaving him the plodding work of door-knocking around Epsom and introducing his unknown mug to the electorate. Seeing as he's hoping to be the third local Act MP in as many elections, he has his work cut out for him. This could well be Epsom's third strike.

Act's apparent leader has had no such luck. Fresh from clawing his way out of the bleedingly obvious snare of the Incest Pit earlier in the week, Jamie Whyte has recanted last week's pledge that he "backs tough deterrents but law and order is now not one of the party's policy priorities".

Audrey Young reports from Act's annual conference today that the reason for Whyte announcing this backslide into the hard right was because his Mum was burgled and the culprit shat on the floor.

Let's count off a few of the inherent idiocies.

1. Burglary, like buggery, loosens the bowels. Any police who attend burglaries will tell you it's not uncommon to find a ripe crime scene. Home invaders have also been known to piss on an innocent person's rug.

2. Burglary is one of the most under-reported crimes. Official police records show the resolution rate for burglaries hovers around the same rate as GST, 15 percent. 7/8 of reported burglaries go unresolved. The only people who report burglaries are the hopelessly naive or those with insurance, who need the police paperwork for their claim. There is no target market here, only poor signalling.

3. Never bring your Mum to a gun fight. Don't use your Mum as a body shield either. Use John Banks' corpse instead.

4. It sounds remarkably like policy by anecdote, a remarkably bad way to make law.

5. There's nothing new with Act at all. We've had flat tax, three strikes and cousin hopping in the last week. With a bit of luck, they'll try talking up charter schools and education vouchers next week.

It will be interesting to see if anti-Prebble, the McCarten Particle, will have a similar effect on Labour. Will we be seeing the return of some old Alliance policies (or existing Mana policies, take your pick), such as Jim Anderton's Financial Transactions Tax?

Patsy Who

The Act party ideology has always had difficulty trying to find a face to front it.

Roger Douglas could never be leader. Rogernomics had forever corrupted the name of Roger Douglas in the public mind. Today, he is the far Left's grand bogeyman, even as they benefit from his legacy and pinch his policies from his book Unfinished Business (for example, Gareth Morgan's Big Kahuna, Labour's forlorn tax free threshold, and the Greens' minimum family income is not a million miles away from what Douglas called the GMFI).

Richard Prebble ended up becoming the first Parliamentary leader of Act, seeing as he had the least worst image issues combined with the experience and wit. When it all went Pete Tong on Prebs and the Act party needed a new face to regenerate interest in its existence, the mad-sack-of-cats caucus abdicated responsibility to the members and Rodney Hide became the new leader, beating rival Stephen Franks in a primary face off.

After electoral decimation and Rodney Hide's mid-life transmogrification, the sack of cats caucus was replaced by a freak show line-up. Joining Gomez Rodney were Morticia Hilary Calvert, Uncle Fester David Garrett, Wednesday Heather Roy and the shadow of Roger Douglas Lurching away in the background.

Don Brash fouled up Act's next regeneration, resulting in the Zombie John Banks that they can't seem to get rid of. John Banks today announced he won't be seeking re-election in Epsom. However, he will remain leader until the next election.

The next Act board meeting that takes place in the phone booth had better realise that they can't afford the luxury of getting hotboxed by a zombie farting away in the corner before debarking at his leisure. Give the next patsy some clean air.

Selective Education

Colin James looks fondly at the legacy of retiring National MP Paul Hutchison:

Investing in children pays a dividend in good and productive citizens. That principle has been slow to work into policy. It needs a different economics from the small-state orthodoxy of the past three decades.

A unanimous report yesterday by Parliament's health select committee chaired by Paul Hutchison encapsulates all three principles. It lays down a big challenge, and bigger potential, to this and future governments.

Paul Hutchison is to the Key government what Tim Barnett was to Clark's one; great talent whom for whatever reason was never made minister, in spite of their obvious talent far beyond some who sat in the cabinet.


Contrast this with John Banks' legacy, a string of Jesus freaks and boot camps called charter schools. While every other school is looking at the sex education curriculum in a new light, these soldier plod academies can teach what they like.

I'd rather have a progressive Nat that a regressive prat.

All's Fair in Love and Mayor

Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but Schadenfreude seduces the palate quite nicely too. Succulent indeed is the pleasure as the private prosecution against John Banks continues to trial.

Not only is Banks the second government coalition leader to lose his ministerial warrant this year, he is also the second 1990's National government cabinet minister to end up on trial, the former Police Minister following former Justice Minister Doug Graham in front of the judges. All in all, it's not a good look.

Unfortunately for the Christian Right, adultery isn't illegal. Fraud and perjury is.

Primary Colours

Rodney Hide cannot resist putting the boot into Labour's leadership primary in his column today in the Herald on Sunday. Which is a bit rich coming from a former party leader who gained his thorny crown from Act's leadership primary in 2004.

Here's me describing Act's season of Dancing with Leaders back when the Greens were looking for Rod Donald's replacement:

Fortunately for the Greens, there is precedent for them to go off. The leadership scrap in Act showed how not to do things. Like the Greens, Act believe (or at least used to believe) in direct democracy. The primary race, while good on paper and ideologically sound, is a dangerous thing for a niche party to do in practise. I re-joined Act when it became clear that Prebs was standing down. Like most Act members, I had made up my mind who to vote for way before the big day. I joined so I could vote for Rodney and keep Stephen Franks and the Rabids from taking over.

I went along to a Meet the Candidates meeting anyway, just to be certain of my decision. Speaking order was very fairly decided by random ballot. One by one, the four contenders stood at the podium and gave absolutely no clue why they would be the best leader for Act. Oh yeah, everyone got the blurbs, the CVs, the former glories. Staying true to Act's core values was mentioned more often than the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are mentioned in statutes. The meetings didn't change a thing. They only provided media fodder to highlight rifts in Act.

Which is it, Rodney? Amnesia, willful ignorance or just plain old tribal shit-stirring?

In Act's primary, half its then-caucus stood for leader; Rodney Hide, Stephen Franks, Muriel Newman and Ken Shirley. You could say each faction had their hat in the ring. The populist Libz, the conservative Rabids, the nutty Rabids and the moderate Libz (for Libz and Rabids definitions, please see here).

The Labour primary also has all three tribes of the Labour caucus represented; Careerist Labour, Union Labour and Pragmatic Labour. Needless to say, Pragmatic Labour is the underdog by a long shot. For a party three times the size Act ever was, it still has fewer divisions than Act did.

If there's any criticism to be aimed at this Labour primary, it is the Byzantine voting procedure that's as clear as mud. The Greens and Act have a clean vote for their leaders, one vote per person. Whereas Labour has this mess of weighted votes that may well render a victory so opaque, it might have well been decided in a back room deal in the first place.

I suppose that's what happens when Labour tries to retrofit a true democratic system onto a representative one. As the saying goes, a horse designed by committee is called a cow. A horse designed by a Labour committee is called a cow's ass.

Halleluwah

Associate Minister for Education and instigator of charter partnership schools John Banks admits on Christian radio that he believes that the Bible is gospel. In other news, a creationist-leaning school is one of many duller mullahs intending to apply for charter partnership school status, hiring untrained teachers to unleash their unlicensed curriculum:

The Manukau Charitable Christian Trust is one of a number of faith-based groups planning to be, as the Government now calls them, a partnership school. It plans to team up with Manukau Christian School and teach the In God's World philosophy, marked against the Cambridge curriculum.

The philosophy, used at other Christian schools, encourages every subject to be taught so students discover how God made the world, and upholds and governs it. Science and culture modules are taught to equip students to recognise what the In God's World document calls the wonder of God's creation, and that God is the God of history. 

Sweet zombie Jesus, I hope former employer Catherine Isaac can keep the mad-as-a-soup-fork John Banks away from the rubber stamp for approving non-standard schooling (What's with these double standards anyway? Wasn't Act the party of one law for all?) And best of luck to old colleague Cactus Kate, who seems to applying more lipstick than this John Banks pig can handle. Is there any form Banks can transmogrify into that isn't a fuckwit?

Raking Leaves Up Against a Tree

Wherein the blogger composes new lyrics to Foreigner's Waiting for a Girl Like You whilst performing seasonal chores.

So long, he's been working too hard, in the Deep South too long.
Sometimes he won't know what he'll say, he only knows it's a matter of mind.
When you hate someone, when you hate everyone.
It sounds so right, so strong and blue, he needs to blurt so you know too.

Maybe he's wrong, someone tell him he's a racist moron.
That brain of his he keeps in his pants, should think twice before it rants.

I've been raking up against a tree, thinking of current news.
I've been raking up against a tree, without a leaf blower.
I've been raking with time to think in peace and form some views.
Yeah, raking leaves up against a tree, thinking of current news.

That's all done, all those leaves could be put to use.
Bonfires burning effigies of Lou Crimp.
Ditch Guy Fawkes Day, the wrong season by far.
Matariki fires, yeah, burn the hate away.

Yeah, that makes more sense, less of a fire risk in this damp season.
Much more fun than getting him to listen to reason.

I've been raking up against a tree, thinking of current news.
I've been raking up against a tree, without a leaf blower.
I've been raking with time to think in peace and form some views.
Yeah, raking leaves up against a tree, thinking of current news.

Super City, Mega Donations

The Don Brash death rattle known as John Banks staggers on, each step cracking open yet another cans of worms.

Take, for example, the helicopter sized hole in the local body election laws which National and Act failed to patch properly when the SuperCity project was rushed into reality. It was under these laws, endorsed by Nact, that Banks tried and failed to gain the mayor's job.

While the monetary thresholds were adjusted in the legislation, no tidying of local body electoral law really occurred, making the rules governing the SuperCity elections largely the same as the ones governing the election of the mayor of Masterton.

The self-inflicted loophole sprang readily to mind while listening to NatRad's Focus on Politics, which had Key saying that the John Dot Banks mess is neither his nor his government's responsibility. Oh yes it is! They wrote it off, they own it.

I Don't Remember

Anyone else getting flashbacks to another one of Muldoon's groupies?

Anyone?

Yes indeedy. Reaction so far ranges from disgusted to gleeful. What's John Boscawen up to these days?

John Bags for Epsom

Voters in Epsom will be offered John Bags at the polling booths this election. The large brown paper bags, emblazoned with an Obama-esque image of John Banks on the side, are being offered to Epsom voters to minimise any harm during election day.

"John Bags have many functions," said Auckland City Mission organiser Les Bitten, who has supplied the thousands of bags. "They can be worn by voters as they enter the polling booths, so they won't be recognised by friends and family. Hyperventilating voters can use them to help ease the symptoms of voting for John Banks. They can also be used to vomit in, avoiding any embarrassment to affected voters."

Johnsonville parishes in the Ohariu electorate are considering a similar public service.

Responsible Tea Dates

How do you fuck up an afternoon tea? How? To avoid future faux pas, I have adapted NORML's Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use to Political Tea Dates:

1. Adults Only. Political Tea Dates should be R18 to ensure the appearance of a mature, constructive discussion.

2. No Ad Libbing. This is a photo op to sway voters to your implicit suggestions, not a place for free and wide-ranging conversation. Stick to the script.

3. Set and Setting. The responsible Tea Dater will carefully consider his/her mind-set and physical setting, and regulate language accordingly. Do not intend to have a private conversation when you've invited the national media pack to stand on the other side of a piece of glass, unless you want the Tea Date to look like feeding time at the zoo.

4. Resist Abusing Opponents. Use of Tea Dates to slag off one's opponents, to the extent that it impairs democracy, personal integrity or achievement, is still abuse, and should be resisted by the responsible Tea Dater.

5. Respect the Rights of Others. Do not complain to the police at the drop of a hat. It'll make you look like a wimp.

Sandbagging the Stop Banks

My existential opposition to John Banks goes back a long time. Way back before this blog started, further back than even the original gFBT website, where I fought against John Banks' monomaniacal philosophy in Auckland's council chambers on behalf of the strip clubs and brothels.

It goes further back than his time as Minister of Police under the previous National government, where Banks' lobotomised pitbull was unleashed. But we're getting warmer. The 90's were the hey-day of those two devoted Muldoon groupies, John Banks and Winston Peters.

My first experience of John Banks' wafer-thin narrow-mindedness first became apparent in the early 90's. The old man knew Banks, and appeared on Radio Pacific talkback with him. They got along like a house on fire.

The bunker vision was astounding, possibly a result of too much time alone in the maimai. At least I could understand my father's misanthropy. He was a lawyer, after all. But he was well read, whereas John Banks was... not.

John Banks has no time for the Other. Other people's lives, other people's ideas, other people's stories. Hell, even to this day, Banks has only watched three movies; Spice Girls, Laramie, and Sound of Music. Which begs the question of which is narrower, his mind or his DVD collection?

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I'd rather cough blood than vote for John Banks. Alas, it is up to the voters of Epsom to determine whether the richest suburb in the land wants to be represented by the thickest twig in the thicket.

On the Banks of the River Vile

This video of John Banks is doing the rounds on Facebook:



This twatcock is in the wrong party. I keep telling my old Act mates (the ones that still talk to me, anyway) that it should have been Boscawen running in Epsom, not this hateful sack of shit.

Bring Me Coffee or Tea

As John Key's coffee shop date with John Banks in Epsom draws nearer, only one question is on newspaper editors' minds; what is the ideal hot beverage for the two Johns to sit down with? I caught up with Emeritus Professor of Tea Service Dr Ted Cosy at Victoria University to find out the most appropriate herbal blend for the historic meeting.

"First off, coffee is not an option," said Professor Ted. "John Banks is on record as hating short blacks, and both men are wary of flat whites during photo ops, as the risk of milk moustaches is quite high. Thirdly, the caffeine levels could throw them off message in front of the cameras. Their PR won't allow that."

"John Banks is known to be very selective about his tea," Cosy said. "Black tea is not an option for obvious reasons. Banks also finds Ceylon tea distasteful. He is a well-known long-time opponent of Flowery Orange Pekoe, although he said that in recent times, his disgust has lessened to merely throwing up in his mouth on rare occasions, like George HW Bush."

"It is anticipated that beverages will be served with a large plate of dead rats to share between Banks and Key, so they should be looking for a tea that will disguise the food's flavours, not accent them. Earl Grey is a contender. Its dishwater base note would neatly overwhelm the dead rats," advised Ted. "Almost but not quite."

"No, the obvious perfect tea for John Banks and John Key is St John's Wort."

Fucking judges, how do they work?

Not as well as the parole board, according to National party policy.

I thought I had misheard NatRad's announcement of National's Law and Order policy. Even when Darth Vader in Pearls herself appeared on Checkpoint explaining the policy I couldn't quite wrap my brain around it. But it seems that National wants the Parole Board to have the ability to appeal to the High Court near the end of someone's prison sentence and incarcerate them indefinitely. No Right Turn goes into the details.

Preventative Detention is available to judges during sentencing, a novelty borne out of the last decade of Labour and National outbidding each other to show how tough on crime they are. But this plainly is not harsh enough, and National now wants the ability for the Parole Board to add time onto full sentences served.

The whole point of the rule of law is to prevent arbitrary sentencing, yet this is plainly want National are seeking. Indeed, National's MO for law and order policy seems to be one knee jerk reaction after another.

Clayton Weatherston unsuccessfully used provocation as a defence, and National changed the law. The Waihopai Three used the "claim of right" defence successfully. Not only did National change the law, they are suing the penniless priests for damages. Tame Iti's Flightless Circus managed to get some video evidence ruled inadmissible and National changed the law (with the help of Labour). And now, with the imminent release of an unrepentant "Beast of Blenheim," National wants to change the law again.

National clearly has no respect for Lady Justice.

In unrelated news, Rodney Hide is threatening to disband the democratically elected Hamilton City Council for the losses incurred by the failed V8 money-spinner. Perhaps this is an obtuse dig at his Epsom replacement John Banks, who threw $2.5 million of Auckland City ratepayers' money down the toilet over a wasted run of My Fair Lady.

Act party completes conversion to nihilism

John Boscawen in walking out of the Act party. Seeing as he got into Act on the back of his Electoral Finance Bill protests, this does not bode well for next week's many votes in parliament.

Men Acting Badly

Don Brash, Don Nicholson and John Banks. The three nihilists who finally killed the Act party.

To coin The Dude, "Well, they finally did it. They killed my fucking vehicle." Nihilists killed my political vehicle. The first and only party under MMP that didn't form out the demagoguery of waka jumpers is now reduced to an old rich man's ideological whore. The party of new ideas is now a refuge for gurning Muldoon relics. Bring back the Libz and Rabids! All is forgiven!

The Nats aren't even trying to hide their cronyism any more. Jenny Shipley, Richard Worth, Mark Blumsky are ones that spring readily to mind. If I cared to Google the Who's Who of the Blue team, no doubt I'd find many many more Jobs for the Boys. But the one that counts for the purposes of this post is National party patsy and Banks biographer Paul Goldsmith.

When the two main National contenders against John Banks are his biographer and his campaign manager, you know where the National party stands in Epsom. With its arse in the air saying, "Spank me Banksy! Do it for the team!"

Smiling and waving won't win the Nats a natural majority, ever. They are wary of losing coalition partners.

The Mana and Maori parties look set to eat each other's vote, when the more rational path would be for Mana to go for the party vote in the Maori seats and the Maori Party goes for the electorates. But you know the saying; Three Harawiras in a room. Nine opinions.

But for feral caucuses, you can't go past the final incarnation of the Act party; a mad sack of cats has more direction than that alleged party. And John Key needs them desperately to stay in power.

Months after taking over the Act party in the most inept yet successful leadership bid since Alamein Kopu got her whanau enrolled in the Alliance party and became an MP, Don Brash has yet to lift the party out of the gutter.

He has picked his new team and dumped everyone else whose name isn't Don or John. The DON JOHN Party would make a good new name for this monster mash. It might stand for Deranged Orthodox Nats, Jolly Old Hilarious Nihilists. Because this sure as hell isn't the Act party any more.

Act used to stand for the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers. I doubt that the Dons and Johns pay very much tax at all. Like John Key, most of their private consumption is done offshore, with no direct benefit to the NZ economy. Act used to be inclusive. Now Act is an association like the Wellington Club is an association.

The first time I met Don Brash was when the Reserve Bank launched their new dollar bills at a posh Tory St restaurant in the early '90s. I was one of the waiters serving his elaborate party, and I don't recall many brown fellas there, except for the purple Ngata on the $50 note.

Twenty years later, he's reduced to waving Ngata's head on the telly and waging purple prose wars with Hone. Arguments aren't won and minds are not moved by such stalemates.

His old mates and new Act party colleagues John and Don aren't much better. If Winston Peters was white, he would be John Banks. Both were Muldoon's apprentices, and share his conservative thuggery for self-aggrandisement.

I've met Don Nicholson only briefly at a BackBenchers gig some time ago, where he seemed pleasant enough. However, his shrill anti-climate change Kyoto Protocol denialism fits with the shrill Muriel Newman hyperbole but without the relatively disinterested vantage point. Don is ankle-deep in the self-preservation mud of wilful ignorance. Photos of local dirty dairying and environmental degradation (externalities, in econo-speak) soon.

Who will be next on the list? Another John or Don? Garth McVicar? Whimsical wining and dining, tax minimising ex-pat Cathy Odgers? The reanimated DNA of Patricia Bartlett? Lindsay Perigo or another Libertarianz teabagger?

Who effing cares. There's no new ideas coming out of this stunted burnt out wreck of a political vehicle, whichever way you look at it. The Act party is only fit for homeless derelicts now.

Succession Failure

David Farrar is asking the wrong question in his latest Kiwiblog poll:

The far righter question would be:

Scary scary scary.

Pet Ideology Cemetary

It takes more than a dead drunk teenager on his doorstep to keep this monster under control and away from the levers of power:

Behold FrankenBanks, Bride of Zombrash!

Nicked from Lyndon Hood

Also in this year's election line-up, Phil Goff, the Invisible Man:

Now would be a great time to roll him, but no-one's got the nuts to do it. Infra-red infighting, eh.

There will be a few no-shows at the Monster Mash on election night. The old Werewolf of Courtenay Place, Winston Peters, won't be back (no matter how much the Press Gallery pine for his lunacy). Nor will Peter "The Mummy" Dunne, who will lose in Ohariu to Charles Chauvel. Katrina Shanks will probably die in a freak MYOB accident but be reanimated through the List seats.

Then there's the Mana Party or, as I call it looking at its supporters, the Organic Maori Mana Party Aotearoa (OMMPA). They might be bright and full of grassrooty goodness, but the OMMPAs will be worm fodder for their undead competitors.

The Nats will of course sell their schtick with John Von Keysing keeping the ghouls at bay. Sure, an independent foreign policy is foreign to him, and he has some strange habits such as corgi fondling and Yank supplication. He might throw cash at the rich and take funds off Women's Refuge, but boy can that guy smile and wave!