How many more landmines have Labour got left?

When Helen Clark saw Labours polling numbers over the last year of her 9 year reign she knew she was onto a hiding to nothing. Her colleagues privately knew that their days in Government were coming to an end and they were about to be swept aside by the ex state house tenant and a hungry National Party keen to return to power.

Helen steadfastly ignored the obvious signals that Labour were becoming despised by the public and instead continued on with business as usual as they began the slow death march to the 2008 elections – knowing if she lost, she would make life difficult for Key and National as she say back in her plush UNDP office in New York. After all she had long term ambitions for a job at the UN. She committed a disproportionate donation to the UNDP before the 2005 election, only to squeak in and after paying back the illegal money spent she committed a larger percentage to the UNDP than other states (per capita) before the 2008 election which sealed her first class ticket for two to go to New York. From there she was able to unleash more havoc knowing very well that the party without her wouldn’t be able to put a dent in Nationals popularity. Helen was not stupid - far from it. Funnily enough you have Labour supporters saying that John Key is stupid - a man that is world famous for being the best at what he does and admired for such. Left wingers excel in being ignorant.

National inherited a scorched earth policy from Labour that left a clusterfuck of landmines designed to damage the economy and bring ridicule to John Key, even if it was going to hurt Kiwi taxpayers.

These include:

1) NZ Rail

Renationalising the Rail was a deliberate ploy to commit Government expenditure away from National policy pledges and into a white elephant that would suck the treasury dry. This billion dollar purchase was designed to leave the cupboards bare after all the election bribes were given out. When it emerged that the value of the network was only $369m it showed that there was only one winner from this deal – Toll shareholders who snapped off Helens hand when offered almost double the value of their shares back.

2) ACC
Labour hid a $1.5B shortfall in ACC in the Pre-election Fiscal Update (PREFU). This was a huge landmine to discover once the smoke had cleared post election. An independent inquiry showed that Cullen and Street were culpable in this coverup, which of course Helen would have had full knowledge of. In some countries, this would amount to treason – but Helen was already picking her hand luggage with Heather so didn’t care.

3) Labour tried to be tricky just recently by attacking National over the renewal of Parliamentary BMW’s. This was deliberate because Labour struck a nerve with their voter base by not disclosing that they were the ones who set up the original contract for these cars. 3 years later, perfectly good BMWs were replaced with better ones – and National looking like elitists that were too good for their old BMWs. 34 cars worth $200k each (commercially) may have seemed like a good deal to the troughing Labour MPs in 2008, before the election, but they knew that be allowing for these expensive cars to be renewed when they were out of power would look bad for National.
And finally the latest landmine:

4) Americas Cup.
Labour committed $34m to go to the latest Americas Cup challenge back in 2007 which has been reported in some quarters as National doing so. As like the BMWs, Labour had no problem throwing my and your money towards all sorts of non essential silly buggers, if it could be seen as a National issue, much the better!
Even though Mallard has defended the spending, many of their supporters and those who believe the news would have already made their mind up about this.

Just how many landmines will we find? It is incredible that we are still unearthing them at the end of the 1st term of the National Govt. I hate the practise of one Government accusing its predecessors but in many cases National do have a solid point.

Things are not so rosy for Helen over at the UNPD. The organisation has been mired with controversy over fraud and corruption in monies going to Mali, Mauritania and Djibouti – with the UNDP deliberately dragging their feet when being asked to account for the location of these missing millions. Helen has also failed to disclose gifts while she has been in office. It seems that simply by being the poster girl for arrogance and denial while being surrounded by sickening sycophancy in ones own country isn’t the sorts of qualities that will endear her to higher office.
She is already one of the least qualified UNDP administrators and may find her time in New York to be over sooner than she had hoped.

Maybe in time to save Labour in 2014?