The difference between being principled and ethical and being PinoKeyo.

A contrast in principles and ethics was shown to New Zealand on Television last night. First, John PinoKeyo demonstrating his ability to perform a back flip to embrace Winston Peters as a potential partner to protect his sale of NZ to casinos, movie studios and asset strippers. Second, the first of a two part bio-documentary on the strongly principled and honorable ex Prime Minister, Helen Clark.

The report on The Standard analysing Key's inability to demonstrate being principled and ethical is relevant reading as we contemplate further erosion of our economy, civil liberties and loss of our state assets.

The constant brain fades of Key with the report and associated analysis stands in stark contrast to the Helen Clark bio-documentary on last night's TV3 in which we were shown a strongly principled, honorable and focused Member of Parliament and Prime Minister.

Can John handle the Jandal?

Now that the election is over and the decision to move N.Z. to the right of the political spectrum has been made the NZ Herald will pull back from its hysterical panicking about Left wing conspiracies and fall into its usual position of campaigning against Trade Unions, State servants and environmentalists of any colour while claiming that it has no bias in any of its editorial directions. Garth George will descend into his monk's cell to contemplate a bluer heaven and worship the apotheosis of John Key and to congratulate himself in self justification for his righteous belief that women are on earth to tempt men from the path to salvation and that with Helen Clark stepping out of the political sphere another temptress has been taken from his dream of paradise here in the Pacific.
However, while the transition proceeds one can offer some comment about the possible stability of the new government.
With a record of policy and position shifting throughout the period since becoming leader of the National Party and in the build up to the election John Key may find that he will be in administrative difficulty once his colleagues get their feet under the Cabinet Table. The difficulties will be compounded with the presence of ACT's Rheinfield - Rodney Hide within the coalition. One recognises that there is no way ACT will want to be sidelined away from its traditional hardline free marketeering, retributive policies beloved of its Nosferatu founder, Roger Douglas and that there will be determined efforts from this quarter to drive National into more radical conservative policy directions.
As well, Hide is very similar in nature to his nemisis- Winston Peters. Both men are driven by ego, both are driven by a single minded belief in their own rightness, both have the natural instinct to hone in on a person or policy with one inclination - to destroy it or come crashing down in their own self destructive nature. One cannot but believe that within 18 months Hide, Rheinfield like, will, with his master, Douglas hive off into the extremities of Friedmanite economics and force a division in the hydra that is the National-ACT-United Futures coalition.
For Key this will mean that he will resort to his usual escape mechanism of making the unacceptable palatable in order to bring Roger and Rodney back into the crypt by flip-flopping on policy, pleading as he does so "political expediency and economic necessity because of the crisis created by the money traders and other free-marketeers."
One predicts that the fallout and consequent retribution on the electors will occur over the following policy areas: Employment Law - as workers rights are scaled back in a return to the elements of the ECA ACT will claim that the process isn't fast and hard enough and agitate for more punative legislation to bring the workers to heel.
Finance - the attacks and raids on both Kiwisaver and the Cullen Superannuation fund will continue with the extreme right of National siding with ACT to reduce both funds to mere shadow of their intended purpose. This will be done with the catch cry of "teaching the worker self sufficiency" and "to reduce reliance on nanny state."
The international credit collapse will be an excuse for the more extreme of the National-ACT coalition to allow Rheinfield Hide open Nosferatu's coffin and allow Roger Douglas to emerge and demand asset stripping, further reductions of workers' rights and conditions, slash and burning of Social Welfare programmes, privatisation of Health, Education, Prisons, Roading and Water reticulation ... so that the "books can be balanced" and "sanity restored to the free market."
The privatisation of ACC - the confusion and fallout as this occurs will see the entire scheme collapse into a miasma of conflicting and reductive insurance policies that extract a lot but provide little while taking the profits overseas.
Education - here the introduction of a failed Bush scheme of National Testing and Reporting (the No Child Left Behind policies) will create tensions in the teaching profession, confusion and resentment among parents and a media frenzy of "let's bash the teachers" which will again lead Key to drop the leader's jandal.
Crime and Civil Liberties - in this area the public will soon come to realise that National - Act cannot deliver on its promise to reduce crime in the community. They will also come to appreciate that the State will intrude even more into their lives as civil liberties are reduced and surveillance becomes a norm.
For Key these tensions will prove difficult to manage as so many of his bench and MPs like, Ryall, McCully, Williamson, Wong, Smith N & L, Brownlee and English, have deep seated and firmly held political beliefs that can be evidenced by their past involvement in retributive legislation that will not be able to be controlled under his natural instinct to gamble for a gain by short term expediency thus opening the possibility of a push by Key's controller, English, to make a push for more overt control of power and a consequent hardening of policy initiatives and true nanny state legislation.
So while the polls may have spoken they spoke for an image not for what lay behind it so that as the next three years unfold and Key's instinctive flip floppery management style fail to control his coalition it should not come as surprise to the more astute observers to see what appeared to be a comfortable majority faction into self destructive quarrelling while Hide and Douglas, like the ghost of Adam, gibber at the table.

Further Ironies on the campaign trail

Ironic isn't it.. Rodney takes a hiding in the rough & tumble with Winston. One presumes that if you continue to sweep your dust under your carpet when someone else lifts the carpet your dirty secrets are exposed.
Robert Jones' generosity of rent free offices to the tune of $20,000 a year was obviously a donation that needed to be declared despite Rodney's disingenuous attempt a disguising his Party's guilt and shoddy book keeping. Mind you, it does raise the question: if ACT can't keep its books in order how could they be trusted, in any coalition with the great gambler (Engkeylish) to keep the country's books in order?
Naughty, naughty Rodney - keep throwing mud and eventually the mud comes back to stick on the thrower.

Of Cabbages & Kings & other matters of import.

While one does not normally support Winston Peters the events of the past few weeks reveal one thing - Winston has a problem - a very 21st century problem - that judgements are now made on perceptions rather than hard, substantive evidence.

While, for sometime, Winston has managed to bluff and bluster to position himself as the "people's champion" for didn't he stand up to Muldoon and, on a matter of principle, resign the National Party to stand for Tauranga to demonstrate the electorate's support for that principle he is now being tried by a jury of his"peers" and the media on an issue of principle.

Would you trust the country to these men?
The National Party shadow cabinet discussing what to do with Winston.

Unfortunately for Winston the substantive issue - Did he or did he not have to declare the donation of $100,000 that went into his legal fighting fund - has become "Did he or did he not know about the donation being solicited and paid into his lawyer's trust account?"

For his peers and the media it is easier to pillory Winston on the latter issue because he chose to grandstand a series of denials of knowledge of such largesse being extended to him. In such a manner the substantive issue isobscured and lost.

One is lead to conclude that the issue of should the $100,000 be declared will not be decided by the media or by the jury of Winston's peers because, in the public perception, the outcome has already been decided - guilt by association and a decision by John Key not to deal with Winston in the event of a close call in November.

For John Key is attempting to build up aperception of being a decisive, principled and strong individual as opposed to a person who takes a more measured, calmer, more rational approach to decision making.

To do this he and hisadvisers have adopted the "chicken licken" approach to political debate... to shout that the sky has fallen despite all evidence to the contrary on the basisthat given a loud enough shout the echo will become the evidence.

Of course John Key is familiar with such a strategy as that is precisely how the money speculators in organisations like Merrill Lynch operate in order to drive the speculation on the money or commodities they're gambling on up or down in speculative value and thusgain profit for themselves or companies they work for.

These decisions are not based on sound judgement from substantive evidence. It isjudgement based on perception, on image, on the loudest shout, on a chimera which, once accepted by others in the market, can cause a collapse of the whole artifical construct the money speculator (gambler) has built up. One only has to lok at the collapse of companies like Merrill Lynch ( a past employer of John Key ) to witness the fallacy of speculation on perception.

All of which leaves the N.Z. voter with two important questions " shouldn't we expect more from the N.Z. media when reporting and recording events than we are presently getting?" and "can we, as a nation, afford to allow ourselves to be governed by one whose judgements and reputation are made on perception and image rather than hard, substantive evidence?"

Rodney, Winston & the Bull Pen

Over the past few months we have been treated to the sight of two bulls competing for dominance in the bull pen - Rodney the upstart and Winston the twice anointed king-maker.

At stake is the right to decide which of the two big parties will form the government at the end of this year. Hide sees himself in that role as witnessed by the ACT party pamphlets distributed around the country in recent months.

This means that the donation saga is not about faulty book-keeping, not about poor management and inadequate systems within the N.Z.First machine. It is not about Owen Glenn's generousity to either N.Z.First or the Labour Party. It is about Winston Peters and his political survival. It is about the manipulation of the political landscape in an MMP environment.

Hide, whose motivations on the political field can be questioned, has set out to destroy Peters in the interests, he says, of ensuring stable government in New Zealand. (Morning Report interview. august 2008). For stable government read one supported by ACT and none other.
Hence the constant barrage of innuendo, of demands for Privileges Committee interrogations, of Police investigations and SFO inquiries coupled with theatrical presentations of files to various authorities in front of cameras and supporters. Hide's campaign strategy is to throw allegation after allegation at Peters in the knowledge that eventually a crack will appear or a daub of mud will stick so that guilt by implication can be established and the "crime" elevated to credibility.

For Peters, the problem has been one of his own character fault, a propensity to bluff and bluster when confronted with a barrage of questions. It is this character fault that cracked. It was this fault that allowed the daub of mudto stick. It was this fault that Hide has manipulated to his advantage over the past few months as he campaigns to exert his right to be seen as the new stud in the Bull-pen of Parliament.

If Peters had paused, reflected and analysed his position on the issue he was challenged on he may have responded in a more considered and strategically advantageous manner. But that isn't his nature and Hide knows it.

If Peters had admitted and provided evidence that monies had been sought and paid to N.Z. First through whatever vehicle and that the monies had been fully accounted for he would have not found himself in the ignominious position he is presently in. For now his position as an "honorable member" whose word must be, by statute, taken as true is called to question.

In the face of the evidence presented by Glenn to the Privileges committee Peters will now have to prove that his position is and always has been that of a truthful and honorable member. If he cannot prove that, if he resorts to the bluff and bluster, he will be found wanting and his political demise, so long predicted, will be assured. However, he won't he destroyed by an accounting failure. He won't be destroyed by faulty management processes. He won't be destroyed by his strange relationship with his lawyer. He will be destroyed by his own character faults for that is Peter's hubris and that is what Hide has exploited throughout this whole sorry saga.