Adolfs very long confession

Adolf at No Minister has put together a list of “no go” policies that he in his opinion are untouchable for the National Party today. The rationale behind this is that the Nats will lose support if they were to head in this direction.

The usual promises are rolled out, that they may be addressed in Nationals 2nd term. I remember quite vividly the same blogger stating that Nationals 1st term will be a reversal of everything bad we had experienced under the Labour Party.

Funnily enough this wasn’t the case. We still had the smacking ban enforced, despite a vast majority of Kiwis voting to get rid of it. Key/English kept Working for Families and then rewarded Cullen for his ill deeds. Privatisation was a swear word for this National Government as well – the new catch phrase was BORROW.

And borrow they did. $300 million a week to be exact. The sort of numbers that should be giving nightmares to young children as they and their grandchildren will be paying for this.

Instead of being concerned at our present economic direction and a lack to grasp any policies that would lessen the debt – Adolf decides to mock those who support these policies. Lets have a look at them again:


• Abolition of the DPB
This benefit isn’t helping its recipients long term. Anybody who has time to read the excellent blog by Lindsay Mitchell will know that reforming this benefit is long overdue.

• 20% reduction on the number of core public servants
Why not? Labour employed so many new bureaucrats they needed to rent more buildings at a great cost to the Government. Bureaucrats don’t create wealth, they stifle it.

• Abolition of unemployment benefits for more than six months in any rolling two year period.
Some may say this is extreme, but isn’t our welfare state designed as a safety net? If one is unemployed for six months – efforts should be made to tackle the problem head on. Chucking money at somebody isn’t going to get anybody a job – you need to work on their employability and repair self confidence. An unemployment benefit won’t do this.

• Abolition of Working For Families
Just like No Minister railed against for years before National said they wouldn’t touch them in the lead up to the 2008 elections. Pfft.

• Abolition of interest free student loans
Another policy bought in to buy the student vote. National said it was an election bribe, and then used it to get into power.

• Immediate sale of TVNZ and Radio NZ
Why wasn’t this done already? Free up Government expenditure on core activities, not to run the media.

• Sale of mining licenses for parts of the DOC estate
Hysteria from Adolf. Labour already did this and National kept it going but pulled back when the Greens bullied them.

• Repeal of the ETS
Again another policy the Nats rallied very heavily against – only to take it and run with it gleefully.

• Generous taxation breaks and other incentives for the establishment of one or more nuclear power stations.

Yes please! Nuclear power is clean. New Zealand has the technology to be a world leader in safe nuclear power. Nuclear power is already advocated by the cofounder of Greenpeace.

• Disbanding of at least thirty Gummint 'Commissions' including the Race Relations, Children's and Families commissions.
I am sure Adolf is speaking in jest about this. Again, Key should have had public enquiries into these commissions and quangos to show the public that their money is being wasted.

• Sale of the gummint's shares in Air New Zealand
Yes, and keep your eyes off investing taxpayers money into other businesses.

• Progressive sale of Landcorp's commercial farming properties.
Seems fair.

• Partial float of all other gummint commercial operations at the earliest opportunity.
Why are our politicians trusted to also be businessmen? The Governments core role is to protect citizens, not to compete against private enterprise.

• Disbanding of the Waitangi Tribunal over five years.
Should have already happened!

• A 40% reduction for tertiary education fundingWhy should people on minimum wage who don’t want to go to university be forced to subsidise another kids university education?
I know this policy would be too extreme for any Government to tackle, but the questions do need to be asked. Too much funding is being wasted in education as it is.


The post was justification that National are still in power because they have not touched these policies. So – why did people vote for National in the first place then if all they are doing is warming the seats for Labour to win again.

It isn’t cut and dry that National will win this election. Winston could storm in, and Hone could also go it alone and bring in a few MPs to bolster the left vote. The Greens could steal a few votes as well and Peter Dunne could win and change sides again. While this is more a far fetched outcome, if the Nats were to lose in 2011 – what would be John Keys legacy to New Zealand apart from more debts and an unfinished cycle track?

At the moment there is nothing to show for the last 3 years, and I can say now for the record that if by miracle National do lose, they will leave us in a position as bad as what the last lot did. The worse thing is that nothing substantial has been done which will give Labour no time to roll it back.

Anna Faris and her boobs Vs Kiwis (and their bad attitude)

I was staggered to read this article in the Herald this morning:

Anna Faris, who previously starred in the Scary Movie series, Lost in Translation and as herself in Entourage, spent time in Auckland last year filming Yogi Bear.

Appearing on American television to promote the movie, the 34-year-old said Kiwi men had shouted obscenities at her in public and demanded she show them her breasts.

But Tourism NZ spokesman Ian Long said no one would take Faris seriously.

"In the same segment, she accepts an award for being a pothead stoner of the year and she's quite clearly had a few. I don't think she has any credibility," he said.

Long's attack on Faris was echoed by New Zealanders approached in the street, some of whom appeared to blame Faris for the abuse.

One man said that if she was famous she must expect "attention"; a woman said she "gets her tits out" in movies so shouldn't be surprised at the public reaction.

Faris made her comments on television host George Lopez' talkshow, broadcast to 3.2 million viewers.

How on earth can this be justified just because she is famous? What rubbish that because she may have got her boobs out in a film, that she should be subjected to harrassment on the street.

A little fact checking on Anna Faris is well due:

a) She has a no nudity clause in her contracts. She "broke" it in the House Bunny where she showed her backside. So she has never had her "tits out". In that film she called the entire backside experience "humiliating".

b) Anna did not recieve an award for "pothead stoner of the year". In 2007 she played a stoner in the movie Smiley Face. She accepted the award in 2010. Ian Long from Tourism NZ is an idiot who cannot tell fact from fiction.

The comments in this story story beggars belief.


* Natasha Crosby, Female, 31
"She does the types of movies where she does get her tits out so I don't know why she's surprised. That's happened to me but not for a while. "

* Sam Aki, Male, 25

"She looks like the type of woman who would get that sort of attention. She's giving Kiwi blokes a bad reputation. If she's famous she must expect that everywhere she goes."

Now don't get me wrong. Anna Faris is a very good looking woman. I enjoy many of her films and apart from her excellent comedy timing, she oozes sexyness on screen which I enjoy a lot :)
However this does NOT give me the right to be yell at her on the street or subject her to abuse. What makes it worse is that women too are saying she deserves it - based on fiction that she has got her tits out on camera.

The comments from Tourism NZ are frankly diabolical. Is Ian Long really that stupid? Surely Tourism NZ should have a policy to not allow people to make stupid remarks when representing New Zealand internationally.

If a famous Kiwi woman like Rachel Hunter went to LA, would it be justified for them to yell comments at Rachel because she is famous and poses for magazines? What would you say if you saw on TV, men and women saying she deserved it? Sick isn't it?

Surely we are not that backwards? I enjoy boobs as much as the next guy, but the surest way you won't get any is by yelling at a girl to get her tits out. Subjecting attractive Hollywood stars to abuse because she has a nice pair of boobs isn't going to win Kiwi men acclaim or awards. Grow up.

See:

Are Kiwi men vulgar = NZ Herald

The embarrassing side of the right wing

Just paid a visit to Kiwiblog, as usual littered between the excellent posts we have to put up with the people who visit it.

The latest bunch of comments that lowered the level of debate were the ones surrounding the McDonalds free Wifi situation, where some "gay" sites were filtered while other offensive sites were not. I am sure that McDonalds themselves were suprised with the publicity and didn't deliberately block gay sites.

What was not surprising that some people, people that call themselves right wing freedom lovers, the same people who visit Kiwiblog every day supporting equal rights, a free market and anti Nanny State were dishing out some very smallminded, anti freedom comments that were very embarrassing for other right wingers.

1)Remember the queer meme – society must accept them and their perverted lifestyles and practices, and heaven help anyone who challenges the ‘accepted wisdom’, whereas they can use all the smears and false accusations they like against those they consider antagonistic to their ‘values’ and choices.

If this is a deliberate policy by MacDonald’s to keep access to what they consider perverted websites off their Wi-Fi service, then good on them. They need to be encouraged and congratulated!

2)Well, the homo friendly news media kept one of their precious interest groups front & center with this banal “news” item.

3)After all the commotion I went to look at the Gaynz website homepage. I think McDonald’s got it right. I wouldn’t want my kids seeing this when they go for a treat for takeaways. I don’t want to see it. I find it offensive. And I find it offensive that I have to agree that a whole bunch of homosexual behaviour is normal, and that I’m some sort of social leper for disagreeing.

4)Who cares what the sick homosexual community thinks about anything.

5) I have a message to the gay community. Don’t go to Mcdonalds. Problem solved

6) I’m only intolerant of the intolerable – and both the queer agenda and the queer lifestyle I find intolerable.

All political parties have their bad sides and these christian bigots are the dark murky side of the right. They cannot stand up and denounce the policies of Helen Clark and her infamous Nanny State and then tell people what they can or cannot do in their own private bedrooms.

They cannot go on about the restrictive laws that Muslims force on their own people and yet want to control peoples personal relationships and a womens right to choose to have a baby or not.

By saying that, the undoubtably left wing gays who complained about this should STFU and realise that playing the victim is only going to encourage the hatred and stupidity from people like Dad4justice and Kris K who are only too happy to spread their vile and oppressive hatred on Kiwiblog.

The right are so much better than this. Supporting freedom is unconditional. The sheer ignorance of basing your beliefs on a book that discounts science in favour of creationism and choice in favour of 'God knows best' is the enemy of freedom and should be kept well away from politics.

View the page here

Creating a controversy – feminazi student union style

Bitter and twisted unelected student unionists in Wellington are hitting below the belt in their latest attack on individual freedoms on campuses. This time the curiously named Tertiary Women’s Focus Group (TWFG) have said that the ACT on Campus organisation "Perpetuates Rape Culture" by linking to a Canadian article written by Karen Selick that states the following:

(if) free association is to mean anything sensible at all, surely first and foremost it must guarantee the rights of individuals not to be compulsorily assimilated into larger groups merely by being outvoted. After all, if two men corner a woman in a dark alley and force her to have sex with them because they, the majority, have voted in favour of it, that would still be rape, not the exercise of their group right to freedom of association.

While not an exactly subtle way of putting it, and I can guarantee the womynists over at Das Hand Mirror will be screaming bloody murder about it, the point itself is very clear – and has been made so for everybody to understand. Just because a majority supports something, doesn’t it make it right, nor should a large group of people force individuals to join any group just because they think it is for the greater good.

Let me tell you something about the TWFG. They are the unelected feminist branch of New Zealand Union of University Students (NZUSA). Like NZUSA, their remit is rather vague and is wholly funded by students up and down New Zealand. Their budget too is difficult to obtain unless you are part of the NZUSA executive. (Many attempts to obtain an up to date budget have been denied by several students)

TWFG are a broadly left wing pressure group, opposed to capitalism and the free market and its history shows resentment against men’s involvement in any part of their organisation. They have a man sized chip on their shoulders about inequality and sexism to a point that they still believe that the system (dominated by aggressive scary men) is holding back women in education. This is despite the fact that the education system is dominated by women, from primary to secondary schooling, that the majority of students on campus are female and that New Zealand has experienced a dramatic social shift that is far more women friendly than it ever has. Not to mention we have had 2 women prime ministers and women are prominently dotted throughout the political and business sector in NZ.

The TWFG advocate for compulsion and want to force all women to be part of the union for their own good. Their voluntary unionism (VSM) submission to the Education and Science Select Committee predicts that under VSM women will have no access to support to healthcare, safe sex, rape advocacy, sports event participation and media – and it will affect the overall rate of women’s participation in education as a whole! It makes you wonder how women would have ever survived without this.

Of course what they fail to mention is that women’s right officers are largely seen as irrelevant on campuses and they get very low voter participation at their elections. I remember when I helped an ACT female get elected as the OUSA women’s right officer, OUSA and TWFG got very upset and put immense pressure on the elected officer to fall into line and not do anything that would ‘upset’ others, like speak her mind, have an opinion different from theirs and pretty much gagged her until she decided to resign.

TWFG have absolutely no right to speak on behalf of any student in New Zealand until VSM is enacted. Their little press release trivialising the opt out provision in the current legislation is based on lies. If you want to leave a union you still are forced to pay the union. You are forced to beg to be allowed to leave. You are forced to wait until the union considers your case. If you are successful the union forcibly gives your money to a charity and you get nothing. Nothing at any stage prevents the union threatening and stonewalling you during this process and many students feel victimised by their so called democratic union.

And TWFG want to talk about an opinion article from Canada…. They should give up the pretence that they support all women on campus and support a womens right to choose whether or not a union is in their best interests. Otherwise they can STFU.

I wondered where my inflatable pet sheep went missing

Argh, straight from the "get over it" files comes this one from my hometown of Nelson. A mother was upset because her daughter "won" an inflatable pet sheep from a fair which was apparently a sex toy.

I say 'apparently' because with these things it's up to the user. These inflatable sheep are sheep little blow up things you find all over the place. They have only one hole and are about as sexual as a chocolate milkshake.

But for this Nelson family it was too much. The mother immediately recognised its sexual appeal and took it away from the daughter. Her grandfather also had a glint in his eye when he saw that saucy bit of inflatable temptation and made sure it was confiscated... for use later on :>

Why this family ran to the press is beyond me, surely a chat to the gentleman giving these cute and innocent sheep out to kids would have been alright rather than exclaiming to the press that "it was already inflated and on display, revealing its working parts" which of course is a gross exaggeration considering its working parts was a hole to inflate it and a hole where a sheep has a poo, something all kids would know about. I shudder at what sort of sex eduation speech this mother has planned for her daughter when the time comes around and wonder if she will confiscate other toys that look remotely sexual to her and her thin skinned family.

Perhaps the best part was the comment from the fair owner, saying he'll swap the prize, in return for returning the sheep. I wonder why? Ha ha ha. I guess he doesn't want to shear.. I mean share her with anybody else!

Story here

Bains just unlucky in love...

Poor old David Bain. After being completely stitched up for multiple murders by his father and being forced to spend many years in prison for a crime he claims he is innocent of. He is now finding it hard to find love in little old Nu Zilund.

Goodness knows why.

This is a guy that was regarded as pretty creepy before the alleged crimes and not known as much of a lady killer (oops) so several years in prison picking up the soap wouldn't have sharpened up his techniques too well.

The good news is that he won't be rolling in taxpayer funded compensation money anytime soon - limiting the prospects of a gold digging KWAG (killers wife or girlfriend) coming into the picture.

Maybe he should ditch the sexy jumpers?

What now for 2011?

Well we are now in 2011, well for me I am an hour off, so it's time for a few predictions and remarks about the year that is about to launch itself onto us.

Plenty going on in 2011, we have an election and a rugby world cup in NZ. Around the world we are still fighting an economic downturn that is annoyingly now affecting me. Not in an obvious way mind you - I am spending more than I ever did, and saving more as well. Moreso that the Kiwi dollar hit an all time high against the British Pound yesterday - a pound was at $1.99 and a bit which is awful considering how good it was 18 months ago. How long can the Kiwi economy last the way it is at the moment?
This is where I hate to make predictions, afterall I am not an economist!
The borrowing is going to (finally) hit us hard, there is a little bit of difference in being a currency trader for a bank and having Bill English as your number 2 running a country's economy. While we have the same denialist but well intentioned devotees to our ever populist Smile and Wave telling us that policies of fiscal prudence are too radical we must start to pay attention to experts like Douglas, Richardson and Brash who have valid concerns about what essentially is mortgaging our future to dangerous levels. No wonder many expats have no immediate plans to head back, the uncertainty in NZ worries the hell out of me as it does with many others I deal with London and Europe.

By saying that, populists don't lose 2nd term elections. Key has it sewn up. Goff will not ever be PM. For the sake of his 'legacy' he should resign now and send a lame duck leader into the bonfire of a humiliating defeat reassuring himself privately that he could have done better without having to go through it himself.

Winston Peters is going to gnaw away at voters but I still predict he will not come back to Parliamant. I suspect a well known personality may join NZF (not Laws) and bring them once again to the cusp of re-entry... but maybe in 2011 we will finally see Peters throw the towel in. If for some reason he does get in, the situation in New Zealand will get messy politically and this may bode well for us expats if the exchange rate plummets!

The Greens are safe. They have a top bloke running for Wellington Central, James Shaw isn't a lightweight and I reckon he will pull in a lot of new votes to the Greens which will eventually give them over double figures in MPs, helped by Goff losing Labour votes. However this can hinge on how often the nutty chewy centre of the Greens get on TV during the campaign, if too many of them speak up Goff may mop up the undecideds.

ACT will be safe. Rodney has a great campaigning team behind him and will pull out all the stops in 2011. I believe if they push the foreshore bill, our lack of fiscal restraint and the taxpayers bill or rights then they may even take a percentage off the Nats. I expect the membership will "reward" those who have given the party grief if 2010 with unreachable list positions and John Boscowan will be the #2 and back in Parliament. ACT will get 5 seats and Heather won't be one of them. Sir Roger should have been given a bigger role in this Government but Key ignored our biggest economic visionaries and I suspect Sir Roger will bow out in 2011, to great (and deserved) fanfare.

The Maori Party will be ok as well. A party created by outdated apartheid policy has a stranglehold on the seats designed for one race in the country. Nevermind the image of the great NZ melting pot or the fact that our "indigenous" race may not actually have been here as long as they let on, this party is in Parliament for the wrong reasons. Unless we have set quotas for every race in NZ or we have none at all then it's not even worth discussing their role post 2010 election. I do however predict they will not be as united as they are now.

Sport... We are not going to win the rugby world cup if we continue to pile on the pressure onto McCaw, Carter and the boys. It's easily Australias cup for the taking. They have no unrealistic expectations thrust upon them, know the grounds very well and are building up to being a very good team. TAB odds were fantastic for them to win it last year and I would have put $100 on them to win if I was around. Never discount the South Africans either and the French may pop out a surprise or two. England are not ready yet but they will also hit their every 3 year peak and make the Quarter Finals at least. All Blacks will at least get to the semis but after that I won't even go into it. I am still hurting after the last disgrace and have probably only watched 2 or 3 games since the last cup. This years end of season grand slam is now seen for what it is, a tacky revenue gathering exercise discounting other grand slam achievements of the past.

I hope that New Zealand manages to have a better year after the earthquakes and mining tragedy that has gripped the nation and the world over the last year. It certainly was a year that many don't want to repeat - I have been very fortunate to have a good safe job in London, a city that I have a love and hate relationship with. I can travel often and where I don't have any financial pressures as I have not settled down (whew). My freelance events company over the last year has helped raise money for charities and got a lot of people in London partying and enjoying this wonderful part of the world, so I have no major plans to end it just yet.

Anyway have a great New Years and let's have a positive year here. All the best to all my readers and their families and loved ones. Cheers!