I am now a NacMacFeegle.

I was going for ya, Brash Donnie, you were out front and leading strong.

There were doubts, like “gone by lunchtime” and “school vouchers” and “no more maori seats”. I was prepared to overlook those and take your word at trust. You spoke of referendums and I believed you. Bill English promoted the advantages of bulk funding of schools and I was prepared to over look the failure of the voluntary version. I was prepared to overlook the schools with BOT’s who could not manage a raffle.

I had doubts alright, Brash Bonnie, almighty doubts.

But I was prepared to vote National on the party vote.

Then I started getting these weird flashbacks.

There are the vague images of dancing cossacks. The Muldoon fear tactics that defeated compulsory superannuation that Labour government.

There are echoes of the prattling policies of the “cut the rates” councillor. “look at the waste...look at the waste...”. There are the lists of “wasteful expenditure”. There are the simplistic pleas to the purse-strings of the economically insecure. Good ideas, Brash Donnie, but there is “waste” in every government. It is of the nature of the beast. It is how government ensures the continuing fealty and support of its sponsors. Ah, those echoes... “trickle down”, “mother of all budgets”, “Business Round Table”... How well remembered they are.

We have the blatant appeals to the foibles and idiosyncrasies of the idiot majorities. You know the ones, Brash Donnie. The speeders, the traffic light runners, the dangerous overtakers, the people who believe that a traffic offence is a “revenue raising exercise”; not a case of their having broken the law.

If I leave the tax cuts out of the equation, Brash Donnie, just what am I voting for?

I can only assume that it is for a party with no new ideas. It is a vote for a party that has no new policy. It is a party that is relying upon prejudices and fears to gain votes. It is for a party that is prepared to promote the breach of traffic laws.


I think it was the tv advertisement that did it.

I am now a dyed in the face NacMacFeegal.

“Nae King!!! Nae Quin!!! Nae laird!!! Nae master!!! We’ll nae be fooled again!!!

Ahh, I just love the sweet scent...

of poetic justice.

Three men trying to steal fuel from a Waipukurau farm yesterday ended up setting fire to their own car.

Police said the trio siphoned diesel into a petrol-driven vehicle. When their car would not start, they examined the fuel pipe using a cigarette lighter. Boom, and the car burst into flames.

Senior Sergeant Ross Gilbert said: "Fortunately for them, there is no criminal charge for stupidity."

The men, aged 18 to 19, escaped injury but were charged with theft.

Needs no other comment...

I think I like it...

Bob Jones is an interesting cove – property magnate, politician, political activist, commentator, boxer and passionate trout fisherman.

To see where his politics might lie, take a look at his comments on the Alliance – probably the most left-wing of the "parties" in this country.

Here's what's historically unique about this election. For the first time ever, there's no interest in individual candidates and likely close electorate contests. It's taken four MMP elections to shed the habits of the past. In the pre-MMP era, winning government could sometimes turn on half a dozen closely contested seats - but no longer, which is a pity as it's removed much of the interest from elections.

The only exceptions are in seats where, inexplicably, often high-profile candidates have opted not to go on the list. John Tamihere is a case in point. His Maori Party rival Pita Sharples will almost certainly enter Parliament on the party vote even should he lose to Tamihere.

If Tamihere loses, then not being on the list, he's out. It's quite possibly his best vote-seeking argument.

MMP has removed the former ground-level slog from politics, all of which has led to a plethora of parties.

Produce 500 names, call yourself a party and you're on the ballot-paper and entitled to free television time.

All elections flush up nondescript show-off types. They exchange the humiliation of receiving only a handful of votes for a fleeting place in the public eye, before returning to well deserved obscurity.

The Australians have a term, "the donkey vote" - because even a donkey would receive some votes through voter error or ignorance.

But now, with no media focus on individual electorate contests, that lunatic fringe candidate phenomenon has been replaced by lunatic fringe parties.

I watched in amazement, the one-hour free television time party broadcasts as the last 20 minutes were given over to the nutter parties, all allocated a minute each.

God help me if Social Credit, now calling themselves The Democrats, didn't re-emerge, regurgitating old film of their glory days a quarter of a century ago. Will they ever die off decently?

Still, they provided some comic relief in the 1970s, especially their annual conferences which drew the toupee-topped Waynes and moon-faced Sharlenes from small town New Zealand, turning up in their Crimplene safari suits and Skodas to listen to the demented ravings of wild-eyed monetary reform fanatics.

Then up popped the Alliance malcontents with gloomy film footage of what they represent - namely street protests and striking workers. These Alliance misanthropes don't need votes; they need pre-frontal lobotomies, or at the very least, a damn good flogging for having such a bleak outlook on life.



Next up, a couple of scruffs took turns chanting how they would wipe out the bureaucracy, taxes et al - these being the Libertarians. No lads, you won't do that, or indeed anything with your lives, unless you toss away your Ayn Rand bibles and get on with actually living.

After that, an elderly woman seated beside a piano quaveringly urged support for her 99-seat parliament proposal. Many would agree with her but not with their vote as it would be wasted. This is no way to achieve constitutional change.

Best of all was a Fat Buggers Party, or I assume that was its intended purpose as it consisted of group shots of obese supporters and there was no coherent rationale proffered.

Still, they were happy fatties, which you certainly can't say for the miserable Alliance losers.

They're wasting their time, though, as Parekura Horomia has the fat vote wrapped up for Labour, notwithstanding National's ploy in promoting Gerry Brownlee to deputy leader.

All of this raises a common misjudgment made by single-issue enthusiasts. Whatever their cause - be it hunting, fatness or left-handedness - they pin a naive faith on fellow hunters, fatties and left-handed people to vote for them.

But they don't. If they did, Peter Dunne would long since have started a two-legged people's party and would be Prime Minister by now.

Oh for the return of the MacGillicuddie Serious Party.

BTW I have emphasised Bob Jones' thoughts on the local version of Libertarians, just to p'off Robert. Sorry - the devil made me do it.

More taxing matters...

With all of the debate about taxation, about “coercion”, about “collectivism I thought that this little commentary in the Sunday Star Times was more than interesting and certainly pertinent…


Now Gareth Morgan I have mentioned already, Rob Oram is a business commentator (read journo) and Brian Easton is an academic, politics unknown…

Read all of it, there is some interesting insight.

My friend Robert might like this little exchange…

Q: Some say tax is government theft. Why should we pay any at all?
Oram: It's not theft. You can't have a civilised country without paying tax to fund services we cannot fund as individuals. It is entirely up to each society to decide what services it is willing to pay for. So the Scandinavians like lots, the Russians very little.
Morgan: It's only theft if you don't value any public goods and services. This is not a credible view to hold in a society that devotes 30% of its GDP to core government spending.
Easton: The statement belongs to the same rhetoric as "property is theft", so why should we recognise private property? We pay taxes in order to attain community goals which cannot be delivered by the untaxed market.

Robert, how much of the US GDP comes from core government spending (i.e. welfare, defence, law and order, education and health)? You might like to consider both Federal and State expenditure to get a fair comparison…

Ahh, the joys of democracy...

Is this enough to turn an election?

For those overseas readers –

ACT is the right-wing of right-wing parties. In American terms they would stand somewhere out to the right of first base if the neo-cons were standing at second base. National would be at shortstop and Labour at third with the Democrats.

There have been rumours in the past of National and Act “cosying up”. They have resurfaced at each of the last two elections. It makes sense that they would be “natural coalition partners”. That has been promoted as well as the opposite.

Personally, there are no surprises. The relationships involved – ACT, BRT, NP, and the personalities involved should be hardwired into the brains of anyone who has taken a living interest in the machinations of NZ politics over the past twenty or so years.

The interesting thing is who sprung the leak?

More to come on that I suspect…