John Armstrong writes his second good piece in a week this morning - are things looking up in regard to making Granny worth reading; I doubt it. He wonders as to the purpose of select committees and likens their current function to that of panelbeaters of lousily worded legislation. This should not be so. Legislation should be worded by peple who are good at it and not by a ragtag and bobtail selection of MPs who, as we all know, are good at or for nothing. Key scored a rare debating point off SWMBO yesterday. This is an event so rare it should make the headlines of the Six O'clock News. Remember that the bloody woman is by the length of the straight the best politician in the country - a bit like Rasputin, an evil genius. Clark: 'That the wording of the Bill (Electoral Finance Bill) will need rewording is obvious' Key: 'Which parts need rewording?' Clark: 'That has yet to be determined' Key: 'If it is obvious why is it yet to be determined?' Clark: 'Duh'. For the only time I can recall I wish I had been in the Nut House yesterday to witness this - can someone please put it up on YouTube.
Armstrong is at odds with himself quite where this odious legislation will go. It obviously (well to me) cannot be allowed through as it is. Armstrong (and I) on the one hand thinks that Burton might have tried to slip it through and hope no one would notice the implicatins. On the other hand he thinks no one could be that stupid. Oh, come on John, Burton is a Labour politician.
That they as a tribe are stupid and possess the individual thinking abilities of sheep (or more aptly lemmings) is amply illustrated by the picture that is just below Armstrong's commentary. This is take in the House and shows the Government sitting in the comfy chairs behind the advertising hoardings that the Headmistress has told them they must all take to work. It is pathetic and another example of this damned government treating us, their paymasters, like kids. Every Labour MP now has to front up to the House and put a uniform red box with the Labour logo the right way up on their desk infront of them so they can be read on the TV cameras. They'll be being told to wear bloody uniforms next - Mao jackets perhaps.
A couple of council things this morning. Easy one first. Sir Barry Curtis is giving the Manukau mayoralty away after twenty four years at the helm. So? I don't care if every one of his ideas over that time had been an absolute ripper but that is wrong. There should be no body of governance or government that remains unchanged anywhere for a quarter of a century. That amounts to tenure and tenure in any job breeds inefficiency, staleness and complacency. All those things are bad anywhere but are potentially disastrous when applied to government.
If I were an Auckland reatepayer I would be demanding blood at the moment. Who is accountable for how councils spend their money? The answer is probably no one. Well, who is going to fess up for this stupid $250,000 glass stream in Queen Street and then lose his job over it? The answer is definitely no one. Big Ears has already says it is wonderful and he finds it inspiring. 'I need some inspiration, dear, and I'm just popping down to Queen Street to scrape a dog turd off a glass brick so I can tackle urban redevelopment with renewed vigour' Who would want the potential of twenty four years of people who can say things like that? How can you spend a quarter of million on five lengths of glass bricks stuck in the pavement? Well you spend $25,000 on a prototype for starters. I want to see the itemised invoice for this. You then spend $5000 on a Maori poet (what a surprise) to pen a Japanese poem. Eh? Has the recent fall in the value of the Kiwi dollar priced real Japanese poets out of the market? And what has a Japanese poem got to do with a lump of glass in the pavement in Auckland? I can't remember how much the lighting came to but it was an awful lot more than I have ever spent in Dick Smith. The price of LEDs has plummeted over recent years but I'm sure councils get a 'special price' - fifteen times what anyone else pays. And then we come to the killer blow. Construction of five glass blocks to be set in the pavement comes to $178,000. How? Tell me? Barrie, tell me? Somebody, anybody, tell me how much glass you can buy for $178,000.
I bet you can get enough to make a hermetically sealed box in which you could place the entire Auckland City Council.
'But they wouldn't be able to breathe, Fawlty'
'They could try, Major, they could try'
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