Checkmate comment on Key

This quote was translated and adapted to fit the New Zealand situation into English from an article appearing in the Czech Republic as published in the Prager Zeitung of 28 April 2010 .

“The danger to New Zealand is not John Key but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Prime Ministership. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Key Government than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their Prime Minister."

"The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Key, who is a mere symptom of what ails New Zealand . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
New Zealand can survive a John Key, who is, after all, merely a fool.

It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

The worm Turns - albeit slowly

New Zealand Today - Pictures, cartoons and images of NZ under NACT

Herr. Rodney Hide as the Sunday Star Times portrayed him
Ironic really as the SST is leading the charge to unseat Hide's vociferous mayoral critic!!

New Zealand under NACT

These images reflect the humourlessness of New Zealand under the NACT government of "Smile & Wave" John Key.

Herr. Key flexes his muscles while wearing a Nazi helmet

Napier Street Scene soon after Herr. Key finished his routine

Herr. Rodney Hide -
The Minister in charge of the NACT anti-humour
and the removal of democratic rights Ministries

The controversy inspired by ACT councilors on the North Shore against the local Mayor when he dares ridicule and satirise their present leader, Rodney Hide - the Jack Boot of Epsom - is a good example of the stasii like state this present government is taking the country to.

There is some hope, though, Tom Scott is still in action as this cartoon satirising the American scene shows. Let's hope the cartoonist's bite is also directed against the NACT policies and actions in New Zealand.

While walking down the street one day John Key is tragically hit by a truck and dies.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

'Welcome to heaven,' says St. Peter.. 'Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you.'

'No problem, just let me in,' says Key.

'Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.'

'Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,' says N.Z. P.M.

'I'm sorry, but we have our rules.'

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends, Hide, Douglas, Double Dipton and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises....

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.

'Now it's time to visit heaven.'

So, 24 hours pass with Key and a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

'Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.'

Key reflects for a minute, then he answers: 'Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.'

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.

He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. 'I don't understand,' stammers Key. 'Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time reminiscing about ripping off the N.Z. voter, destroying Auckland's local body democracy.... Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.

What happened?'

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, 'Yesterday, John Boy, we were campaigning... ...


Today you voted.'

ETS & NACT taxpayer rorting

This cartoon says it all.

NACT Humour

The Economy is So Bad under a NACT Government that....

• I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

• I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid behind the
counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

• CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

• If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds,"
you call them and ask if they meant you or them.

• Parents in Remuera fired their nannies and learned
their children's names.

• That NACT MPs have to take their girlfriends on holidays to preserve their emotional stability as the evidence that their policies don't work stack up.

And finally...

• NACT says they are looking into this Perk Abuse scandal.

Oh Great! The guys who have their hands deep in the taxpayers pockets are
being investigated by the people who claim they don't own the house their family trust own and can therefore rort the taxpayer for rent and who take their girlfriend on an all expenses paid overseas trip to attend a wedding and visit an amusement park while claiming to be a "perk-buster" and have their noses even deeper into the trough!!!
Really makes you feel confident doesn't it?

Hypocrisy and Idiocy in NACT

The recent headlines coming from the NACT government are hardly ones to write home about.

First we have the erstwhile PM pontificating at the CTU conference telling the teachers that they should take a salary cut so the NACT govt can then pay the school support staff properly, then we have "Double Dipton" declaring that the change in "ownership"of his family home in wellington had nothing to do with him being able to rort more of the taxpayers' money in "accommodation allowances" so that he could be a permanent resident in Dipton - a township that hasn't seen him as any more than a temporary resident since he left there to go to school. adding to that rort we then are witness to him being paraded in an election campaign style advertising blitz by none other than the state broadcasting corporation as the front man for a programme named after him and all being declared as being honest and transparent!

Add to that the revelation that the NACT govt is now going to privatise ACC, flog off local body assets, especially water, in the race to "super-size" Auckland and the path to corruption gets even smoother.
Then, today, we get a report that the Herald's favourite "perk buster" and supporter of local democracy, Rodney Hide, has been caught rorting the taxpayer as well. As this story demonstrates:

ACT leader Rodney Hide says he disagrees with the perk that gives MPs a taxpayer-funded 90 percent fare discount for themselves and their partners - but he still used it to take his girlfriend overseas.

The air fares for Louise Crome's trip to London, Canada and the United States are reported to have cost $25,163.

Mr Hide's fares and accommodation cost $26,872.

He said today the perk was "a silly anachronism" but it existed and he couldn't change it.

"I don't agree with that rule but I'm not a martyr," he said on Radio New Zealand.

"I checked twice with the prime minister that it was acceptable. It got all the ticks."

To make it worse Rodney "I'm a little piggy too" Hide declares that because it's alright with Key and the others are doing it too he'll dig his hands into the public purse to entertain his girlfriend with overseas trips again.

Lapsed perkbuster Rodney Hide says he will use his MP's travel expenses again to take his partner overseas.

The Act leader was making no apologies yesterday for the public purse paying $25,163 for his partner, Louise Crome, to accompany him as Local Government Minister on a Super City fact-finding visit to Britain, Canada and the United States, and some domestic travel.

Mr Hide is the second Act MP to run up a big globetrotting bill on the taxpayer by using a travel perk for longstanding MPs.

In July, it was revealed that Act's Sir Roger Douglas, Parliament's most vocal campaigner against wasteful spending of taxpayers' money, had spent $44,411 on travel - most of it on a trip he and his wife took to London to see their son and grandchildren. The figures emerged under a new quarterly reporting regime of transparency for parliamentary spending.

If this isn't hypocrisy in action and being given the "BIG TIC" by the John Key I'm at a loss to discover what might be.

Isn't it about time there was a real public outcry at the high handed manner this NACT government is behaving?

Undervalued profession

This story gives the lie to Tolley's idea that graduates with MA's will rush to be fast tracked into teaching in New Zealand schools. It also demonstrates that the attacks on teachers, with the insistence that they are over paid and underworked by this NACT government is nothing more than shallow political rhetoric from those without a sustainable education policy.

Teachers earn below OECD levels

Thursday Sep 10, 2009

Primary and secondary teachers in New Zealand earn well below the OECD average, and thousands of dollars less than their Australian counterparts, a report says.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Education at a Glance 2009 report compared the salaries of teachers in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education, at a starting salary and after 15 years of experience.

The salary figures, in US dollars, were based on buying power parity, which eliminates price differences among countries.

New Zealand teachers at each level of education started on about US$19,236 ($28,044) - significantly less than the OECD average starting salary of US$28,687 at primary level, US$31,000 at lower secondary level and US$32,183 at upper secondary level.

After 15 years, New Zealand teachers reached about US$37,213 at all three levels of teaching, compared with OECD averages of US$39,007 at primary, US$41,993 at lower secondary and US$44,782 at upper secondary levels.

Australian teachers, on the other hand, consistently earned hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more than the OECD average.

They began on about US$32,259 at primary level and US$32,406 at both secondary levels, and reached up to US$44,245 at primary level and US$44,942 at secondary level after 15 years.

In New Zealand, female teachers comprise 98.8 per cent of pre-primary education teachers, 83.3 per cent of primary teachers and 65.7 per cent of lower secondary education teachers.

The number of female teachers dropped to 57.8 per cent at upper secondary education level and to 49.9 per cent at tertiary level.

Teacher-student ratios were slightly smaller than OECD averages, while the net time spent teaching was above the OECD average.

Teachers' unions said the figures confirmed teachers were underpaid and undervalued, the Dominion Post reported.

PPTA president Kate Gainsford and Educational Institute president Frances Nelson both said change was needed to make the industry more attractive and to retain teachers.

Come off it Key - suspend your errant MP until he is proven innocent!

The Double Standard rides again. If Key was as principled as he portrays himself Bakshi should be taking gardening leave until all allegations of wrong doing are cleared... after all isn't this what he insisted Clark should do with Peters?

What is sauce for the goose must also be for the gander?

National MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi has assured Prime Minister John Key he has not done anything wrong and Mr Key wants him to be treated like everyone else during an inquiry into immigration allegations.

The inquiry, involving list MP Mr Bakshi, is back on after police were provided with fresh information.

Mr Bakshi has denied allegations he accepted money for false job offers to bolster Indian immigrant applications.

There have also been allegations about attempts to silence witnesses.

Mr Key, in Australia for meetings with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said Mr Bakshi should be "treated like any other New Zealand citizen", Radio New Zealand reported.

"I've directly and personally asked him whether there's any truth to the allegations, he's given me a personal assurance there is not.

"If there is grounds for investigation then the authorities should conduct those investigations and they'll get full support from the Government if it's required,"

Mr Bakshi would be "called to account" if there was a case to answer, Mr Key said.

Acting Prime Minister Bill English said yesterday Mr Bakshi was "quite clear he hasn't done anything wrong". Immigration New Zealand started an inquiry last year but closed it in March because of a lack of evidence.

It has now provided police with further information on the allegations after interviewing a new informant.

The service also provided police with a sworn statement, obtained by Labour MP Pete Hodgson from another new informant, which said complainants were encouraged by people in India to drop the matter; "because he was going to be the first Sikh MP in New Zealand".

Police said they were looking at the role of former immigration consultant Darshan Singh Bains, who took job offers from Mr Bakshi and gave them to Indians to use as part of their applications to migrate to New Zealand.

Mr Bakshi said he knew nothing about the police investigation, and had not had any contact with Immigration since its file was closed.

Mr Bakshi has been away from work after a heart bypass operation but is expected back soon.

Double Dipton's State House

An exclusive picture of Bill English's new home. This will soon be copied by Phil Heatley and others in the NACT cabinet.

A Stasi Government - Tories reveal their hatred

Paula Bennett with John Key and their apologist Hooton revealed the depths of stasi like behaviour that those with long memories associated with the bullying dictatorship of East Germany where the private records of the citizens were routinely used to prevent any criticism of the activities of the government.
In earlier posts I remarked on this bullying tendency as being a hallmark of the NACT politicians signaled during the election campaign. Paula Bennett's use of confidential data held by a government department on a citizen and John Key's endorsement of that action is nothing more than the arrogant abuse of power one would expect of a petty tyrant whose inability to engage in rational and reasoned debate is only resolved by destroying the individuals who dare challenge their policies.
Garroting Garrett's threatening public servants who attend Select Committees to question government policies along with Hide's roughshod attack on local communities with his super city legislation we have too many examples of dis-quietening anti-democratic behaviour by the NACT government.
The complacency of the media with its willingness to mouth the PR line fed to it by the government is also not reassuring... in another country the headlines would have been a concerted call for the minister's head along with cartoons with John Key as Salome.

Trough Feeding Time for NACT

The evidence of the arrogance and pomp attitudes that are the hall marks of the Key NACT government are manifesting themselves in the profligate expenditure of the present cabinet.There are no excuses for this especially when the same men are constantly criticising the voters for not saving, for over spending and reckless use of credit.

Let's stop the hypocrisy and stop feeding at the taxpayer's expense and get on with demonstrating that somewhere and somewhen there are effective policies hiding under the crosby-textor spin that got you elected.

From the press-gallery:

"Mr Goff said National ministers had spent $739,000 on travel in the first three months of the year -- more than double the $336,000 Labour ministers spent in the same period last year.

"It's straight hypocrisy for the Government to call for others to exercise restraint while applying a different standard for themselves," he said."

But Mr Key said it was Mr Goff who was being hypocritical.

"It is unbelievable hypocrisy for Mr Goff to criticise ministerial spending when as trade, foreign affairs and defence minister during the last nine years of a Labour government, he would have racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of spending on travel," he said.

Yes, but Mr. Goff was actually doing his job and not masquerading as a cabinet minister as people like Richard Worth, Pansy Wong, Rodney Hide, Tony Ryall, Pita Sharples, Tiria Turia and Maurice Williamson did or do.

"Our spending is totally understandable for a new Government that is seeking to build relationships with governments of other countries for the benefit of New Zealand and its economy."

Come on.... the impact on the world stage of the present NACT cabinet is summed up as a "Resounding Silence". Compared to Helen Clark and Phil Goff the present NACT representatives are but gnats.

Mr Goff also said Mr Key had doubled the number of ministerial staffers earning more than $100,000 a year and approved the hiring of consultants on rates of up to $2000 a day.

"In a mean-minded act, the Government has also taken away $2.5 million funding for severely disabled children at school which may make it impossible for some children to continue to attend school."

Mr Goff said he was dealing with distraught mothers and concerned teachers about the damage the cuts were causing.

"This shows just how out of touch the Government is with the people it is hurting and the perverse priorities it is following in cutting help to the most vulnerable while spending more on itself."

True. At a time when actions should reflect the rhetoric the NACT government retreats into the arrogance of its past traditions and rides on the taxpayers' wallets.

Who is Pulling Paula Bennett's strings then?

This opinion piece from the CEO of MacDonalds in the UK sounds just like the prepared statement by welfare minister Paula Bennett in little old N.Z. Which leads one o ask- just which big business is pulling the NACT government's strings and who, in particular, is twanging on Paula Bennett's strings?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6571510.ece

The Engkeylish Government crumbles?

Commentary from the right wing and Granny Herald indicate that disillusionment with their favourite sons is beginning to set in.

First: Rodney's favourite: Mr. Garrott: (sorry...... Garrett)

A Government MP has been reprimanded for lewd conduct just weeks after the resignation of National's Richard Worth.

Act MP David Garrett was spoken to by party leader Rodney Hide after making sexual comments to a female member of the party's Parliamentary office.

Hide said last night he had cause to speak to Garrett after learning the fledgling MP had made "off-colour" remarks. He said he hoped the incident would not lead to the end of Garrett's career as a member of Parliament.

Garrett is one of the drivers behind Act's "Three Strikes" policy - and this incident makes for his own second strike. Garrett also came under fire when he compared homosexuality to paedophilia on TVNZ's Eye to Eye show, after he had been drinking.

The new allegations have earned the National-led government a warning that it risks becoming branded as a "government of sleaze". INDEED!!

Second: Key Apologist - Bill Ralston:

In dismissing the need for better political management he shows he is not really a politician. After almost three decades in the business Goff is truly a politician.

Goff understands that a government can be slowly undermined by all the "white noise".

He served as a minister in two governments in which that happened. Labour lost power last year, even though the economy was still strong and it was continuing to deliver the goods to its constituency. It lost because it was gradually overcome by the "white noise" and the public lost faith.

The Government needs to learn it might ignore the "distractions" but that doesn't mean they will go away and the consequences can be fatal.

Third: Matt McCarten: on the Melissa Lee fiasco:

The campaign was deserted by the leadership

Does Key get it that by-elections are national campaigns? Anyone can hold the job as leader when things go well. The test of a leader is when things are not going well. Key failed. He picked Lee against the wishes of the locals, he didn't get his experienced people taking ownership of the campaign and he just wasn't there. But the unforgivable act was Key's holiday on by-election weekend. The best he could do was send Lee a text. None of his senior ministers or even his president was there. Lee was left to face the massacre alone, like a stunned possum in a car's headlights.

If this is how National copes under stress in a campaign, I hope the recession doesn't get too difficult. This by-election shows us that our Prime Minister and his Cabinet can't be counted on when things get tough.

Fourth: Rodney Hide's puppet master - the Nosferatu of NZ politics- Roger Douglas:

"This only enforces the emerging trend we have seen between Mr Key and Mr English. Mr Key announces a stupid idea - be it a cycleway or forced investment in New Zealand - Mr English realises the idea is stupid, and distances himself from it.

"The Prime Minister then becomes hell-bent on scoring another symbolic victory over the Finance Minister - who backs down and Mr Key gets his way. But these battles are only resulting in pyrrhic victories - neither the cycleway nor forced investment will make New Zealand better long term.

"The trend is towards an obsession with massaging Mr Key's political image, at the expense of New Zealand's long term prospects.

Fifth: Brian Rudman: On the decision to waste the Rate Payers' money on a grandiose booze barn or John Key's "Party Central"

Brian Rudman: Government bullies pushing city a wharf too far

Sixth: Christine Rankin's decision to front the support whacking your kids campaign despite the assurance from John Key that she would not be involved in actively campaigning on the issue:

Families Commissioner Christine Rankin's decision to be a face of the "vote no" campaign for the smacking referendum is "quite incredible", Green MP Sue Bradford says.

Ms Bradford was the architect of a 2007 law change which removed the defence of reasonable force in child abuse cases. Ms Rankin vehemently opposed the law change and was spokeswoman of For The Sake Of Our Children Trust.

Tomorrow Ms Rankin will front at the launch of a campaign urging voters to vote no to the question "should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand"?

That is despite Prime Minister John Key last week saying he would not expect Ms Rankin to continue to campaign against the law change, and the Families Commission saying it supported the new law.

One can only echo the favourite word of the National Party Bloggers: "INDEED!!"