Laws Watch

... and the loser on the day is Whanganui

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:48:00 +0000

Sorry, Wanganui! You’ve contributed about $100 million in rates over the last three years (not to mention your contributions to John Maslin’s salary) funding Michael Laws’s re-election campaign.

Many of you have, however, fought the good fight and you’ve helped emasculate the party platform that has allowed the Mad Mayor to trample democracy and decency into the Vision mud.

His loyal lieutenant Murray (‘dishwasher’) Hughes has been consigned to the scrapheap and we now wait to see how long it takes for Rangi (‘I forgot to put my hand up’) Wills and the very strange Rana (mad-dog) Waitai to bed down with Vision. With luck Mr Waitai’s tenuous provisional margin will disappear and the independence of this council will be strengthened by substitution of that courageous campaigner Allan Anderson.

With even more luck, the pathetic Randhir Dahya will put the shenanigans of the past three months behind him and realise he’s got as much chance of getting the mayoralty when Mickey runs off to give birth to Vision First next year as Marty Lindsay has of being minister of broadcasting (actually, Mickey, why not take the whole lot of them with you to national ignomy – ed). To the Warburtons, Rewitis, Harknesses, Roses et al, may you drown in the toxic swamp you have personally created at Guyton St.

Congratulations to all those brave non-Vision souls (especially very high pollers Stevens and McGregor) who put their heads above the parapet and were rewarded with a very respectable number of votes from those who believe Wanganui has a future. Kia Kaha to all those who find themselves now in a position to pull back a smidgeon of respect for the democratic spirit.

10454 LAWS, Michael Brian

7044 MARTIN, John Bruce
1082 DAHYA, Randhir
270 FLEMING, Russell William

249 OSBORNE, Chandra Michelle

Blank 238

Informal 43

McKINNON, Dorothy Margaret (Dot) 10400

STEVENS, Raymond Mark (Ray) 10375

McGREGOR, James Roland (Don) 10269

DAHYA, Randhir 9359

BULLOCK, Barbara Lynn 9290

BAKER-HOGAN, Philippa 8911

LINDSAY, Martin Graeme (Marty) 8262

HIGGIE, Nicole Andree (Nicki) 8205

WESTWOOD, Susan Moya 8106

JONAS, Danny Ronald 7484

WILLS, Rangi Marehua 7445

WAITAI, Rana 6984

ANDERSON, Allan Royce 6978

HUGHES, Murray John 5976

EDMONDS, Matthew Lyle (Matt) 5960

MITCHELL-ANYON, Ross 5760

MOORE, Robert Joseph (Rob) 5475

SIMPSON, Kirsty Nicole 5423

BROWN, Ian Grant 4923

FLEMING, Russell William 4319

KEELTY, Gordon James 4064

SMITH, Rory James 3925

FORLONG, Shaun Graham 3922

MILNES, John Ingham 3898

OSBORNE, Chandra Michelle 3405

McNABB, Andrew 3102

SEARS, Victor Frederick 2686

HUDSON, Phillip Edward 1950

STEVENS, Gary John 1875

JANGO 1676

LITTLE, Ian Paul 829

Blank 215

Informal 78

AND IT’S THE MICKEY n CLIVE SHOW AT THE DHB:

SOLOMON, Clive 6717 1

LAWS, Michael Brian 3941

BAKER-HOGAN, Philippa June 2870.75

FAUMUI, Penaia Albert (PJ) 2848.24

ANDERSON, Allan Royce 2689.08

STEWART, Ailsa Crawford 2627.91

WAITAI, Rana 2494.04

DOUGLAS, William John 2340.34

The Walking Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:25:00 +0000

Those of you who have followed LawsWatch through 367 posts over two years will know that we Watchers are seldom lost for words. We sometimes think we’ve seen it all, like the world weary forensic pathologists on our favourite television gore-fests. We’ve often felt in danger of becoming inured to the unspeakable horrors revealed by our weekly dissections of the rotting remains of the walking dead around His Worship the Mayor of Wanganui Michael Laws.

We’ve gasped and we’ve raged at the ghastly crimes against truth, justice, democracy (and most recently the sanctity of the Prince Edward Auditorium at Wanganui Collegiate) committed daily by the Beast of Taupo Quay, aka John Philip Maslin! We’ve cracked our cynical medical jokes at the ineptness of the Foolish Felons operating under the Sign of Vision! We’ve even developed a grudging respect for the ability of the Devilish Doctor Warbottom and his Guyton St Gang to evade the Bungling Cops in Wellington!

But we have to confess, Dear Readers, that events of the past three months have left us wondering just what deadly pathogen has infected the Wanganui body politic and its parasitic media. Since this vile disease called Election Fever was unleashed three months ago we’ve seen sights that have turned the stomach of even the most seasoned Watchers.

But nothing to match the appalling sight on page ten of the October 4 issue of the tacky and thoroughly corrupt little rag called River City Press. There, Dear Watchers, you will be shocked to see the grinning skulls of Dr Warburstein and his very own creation Julian Harkless proclaiming they ‘have their fingers on our council’s financial pulse’ and that everything – believe them – is hunky dory!

Debt is good! Debt is great! says Dave. We’re doing a terrific job! says Julian. Watch their lips … VOTE VISION!! Their jobs depend on it, and the financial genii at the River City Press aren’t in the mood to argue. Like the rats down the drainpipe at Wanganui’s decaying morgue, they’re happy to feast on whatever comes their way.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN BLOGSVILLE …

We’ve been amused in the last few weeks by the emergence of a couple of Wanganui wannabe blogs which have fizzled and faded like soggy sparklers on a wet November 5. The first was the curious case of http://wanganuigossip.blogspot.com which set itself up as an alternative to LawsWatch, professed to be seeking the dirt on (night)mayor Mickey and attracted about five desultory comments before disappearing mysteriously into the blog fog with an announcement that:

This blog is open to invited readers only.

AND THEN

… there was the curious case of the newbie blogger at http://whanganui.org who lasted only a couple of posts after erupting with a hiss and a roar on September 17 with these promising gems …

Many feel that Michael has done God’s work but that it’s time for a rest from the politics of aggression and intimidation and for a bit of co-operation.

The Vision team bear an uncanny resemblance to Czarina Helen’s ministers: what the head prefect says goes. There’s one person making the decisions and we all know who it is. Supporters of Rob Muldoon and Maggie Thatcher will be suffering severe déjà vu.

I’m open to persuasion, but my feeling is that Wanganui folk are ready for some decorum and unity.

OF COURSE

The RIGHTeous Blogmeister turned pollster David Farrar boasts nothing if not longevity with his KiwiBlog. Mr Farrar, famous in his own lunchtime for the fact that ‘Michael got me arrested 13 years ago’ very kindly includes a link to LawsWatch on his very well-read site which recently discussed his polling pranks on behalf of the Wanganui Chron(ic).

Friday's poll results - see comments

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:35:00 +0000

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE LARGER PRINTABLE VERSION

See the Chron's inept coverage here

An orchestrated litany of lies

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:23:00 +0000

---------------------------------------------------------

STOP PRESS: READ HERE WHAT THE CHRON WON’T TELL YOU!

Police are investigating an alleged assault at a Wanganui mayoral election forum earlier this week after a candidate's mother claimed that a man had hit her several times.
----------------------------

Watchers reporting from the streets, supermarkets and cafes of the River City are seeing an overwhelming swing in voter opinion against Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws and his Vision Wanganui henchmen. Despite the outbreak of ratepayer-funded pork barrel politicking by Mickey (free ice-creams for kids, for heaven’s sake!), the electorate has had enough of three years of grandstanding, abuse and anti-democratic diVision party politics. Even previous non-voters can’t wait to cast Laws into talkback oblivion on October 13.

And Watchers are quick to remind their whanau and friends how lucky they are to have the right to vote for 12 non-Vision councillors after around 100 brave souls stood up for democracy, faced down the mini-dictator and succeeded when the Local Government Commission exposed MickeyMayor’s lies and propaganda and upheld the status quo. (Three years ago division ‘policy’ was to cut the number of elected councillors to eight with a claimed saving of $100,000 per annum). However, not even Cr Rangi Wills' duplicity and the Vision puppets' complicity could save this attempted further lurch to dictatorship after the people spoke – crucially they spoke to a statutory “outside” body where the customary Vision bullying carried absolutely no weight.

Meanwhile, as Capt Michael Laws steers Air Vision Wanganui on the flight path for its Electoral Erebus on October 13, our fair city finds itself engulfed in the white-out conditions of, in Justice Mahon’s immortal words, an orchestrated litany of lies. Only paid up mayoral groupies John Maslin (see Mas’s ecstatic editorial of May 2004) and Catherine Kennedy seem to have kept the faith.

And as the first hint of Wanganui’s equinocal nor-wester littered the Cave with a plethora of pamphlets from election hopefuls, Watchers weren’t surprised to find among the pictures of Mayor Michael Laws’ kids, parents, defacto etc (bet he’s wishing he had a dog or cat or two to complete the line-up – Ed) more dodgy claims of personal policy triumphs over the past three years than you could shake a mayoral stick at. In fact, we suspect that MickeyMayor has none other than his old PR queen Antoinette Beck running the Vision Wanganui propaganda machine!

When the Cave TV set is on the blink Watchers can sometimes be found playing a game of their own invention, called Where are they now? This involves crudely scrawling in charcoal on the Cave walls lists of Vision promises from 2004 that have never seen the light of day, or worse have turned out to be A-Grade, Money-wasting Flops. (You’ll note that we don’t include consequences like Politically Damaging, Ballot-Box suicide, Credibility Busting. These are the obvious kinds of collateral damage that Vision-style failures generally bring down on the heads of their promoters in more enlightened areas of democracy that are blessed with a free press, and journalists and opposition politicians worthy of the name. All entirely absent in Wanganui!

Scroll down for evidence of some 2007 campaign lies from Wanganui mayor Michael Laws and a small selection of broken promises and other lies from the 2004 Vision policy manifesto:

WALKING THE TALK

Regarding the new river walkway, Mickey said the following: "The total cost to the ratepayer will be just $800,000. The total budget may be $2.2 million, but $1.4 million of that sum has come from sources other than the Wanganui ratepayer."
The funding for the project includes $1.3 million from Development Contributions and approximately $800,000 loan funded. If you remove the spin, the Mayor has spent $2.1m ($1.3m + $800k) of Council money on the walkway. Council money. Our money.

AND

The financing of the walkway is perhaps the most cynical act perpetrated by M Laws and his Vision muppets since taking office. Development Contributions is a fund that is built up through a levy of $1800 per section paid by anybody who creates a new subdivision. It is set up by all councils to provide funding for future subdivision infrastructure. At 30th April 2007 Council minutes show that the fund had a balance of $1,120,627. I believe that Laws sought a legal opinion on whether he could divert the funds away from the purpose it was supposed to be used for- future subdivisions- and into his pet project. In the agenda preamble council officer Natalie Cowper said" Special Funds are Council's monies that can only be spent on expenditure for which the fund was originally set up. They are termed "restricted equity" according to the Local Government Act 2002. The redirection of these funds is a scandal, and would not happen in any other Council.

MUSEUM MOMENTS

Here's one, from a Chron article by Maslin on 12/6/07: “Mayor Michael Laws told Monday’s meeting that the museum board had cost ratepayers $60,000 because of its ‘intransigence’.”

RATES RORTS

This is a pretty good one about the rates. From the Chronicle 12/6/07 (Maslin, of course): Laws was adamant the rate increase and impact of the levies could not be considered in percentage terms. Cr. McGregor said it was "misleading" to keep the items separate. But Mr Laws said ....”You can’t, because it could then be argued we’ve delivered something like a minus 3% rate”. Mr. Laws said...for the third year in a row Wanganui was on target to effect the lowest annual rates increase in the country

AND …

I'm still trying to find somebody whose rates only went up by 1.7%. Most of the properties in my area had about a 10% increase even before the bullshit levies are added.

CAMPAIGN SLIME
Here’s a nice promise from Wednesday’s Chron. Virginia Lake will be algal bloom-free this summer. “in the short-term, and for a cost of around $20,000, we can ensure Virginia Lake is healthy and algae-free this summer”. That is the sort of promise you can make if you are willing to bypass democratic process completely. So much more efficient to just have a word with Leo and Dave. And why not. The timing’s perfect. Campaign in full swing. All those pesky meetings are over and YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH IT!

A SMALL SELECTION OF BROKEN PROMISES AND OTHER LIES FROM THE 2004 VISION POLICY MANIFESTO:

There will be no rates increase under a Vision Wanganui-led council in the 2005/06 financial year. #failed (oops – they forgot it was a revaluation year)

Create a ‘Residents’ Rights Charter’ that explicitly defines the service standards a ratepayer and/or resident may expect from Council #failed (mayor decided residents should have no rights)

Start discussions with our nearest territorial neighbours to see if some efficiencies cannot be gained from aggregating particular services. #failed (Mayor decided to insult and abuse them instead)

Institute quarterly suburban meetings to ensure that the Mayor and councillors go to their constituents rather than vice-versa #failed (no one turned up after liar-fatigue set in)

Hold a yearly Expo in the War Memorial Hall to canvas the options before Council before each yearly rates round and better inform citizens of the civic services available to them. #failed (Mayor replaced citizen consultation with citizen abuse)

Establish a Writer`s Residency that is regarded as one of the top literary prizes in New Zealand. #failed

Establish a mayoral office on Mainstreet. #failed (councillors & staff said ‘thanks but no thanks’ – too dangerous to actually meet residents.

Double the Debt = Half the Vote

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:33:00 +0000

Sadly, dear readers, the inconvenient scheduling of last night’s Mayoral Forum meant Watchers were gathered round Shortland Street on the gas-fired TV set at the LawsWatch Cave, where Sophie, Nate, Tess, Durville, Justine et al were going about their non-business, oblivious to the drama being played out at the Prince Edward Auditorium. Other Watchers, though avid Wanganui Chronicle readers one and all, missed the drama … the conflict … the applause … simply because the Chron managed to forget to tell anyone it was on!

So we are forced rely on reports from no less than the collective geniuses from the Chron, and to piece together comments to this blog (scroll down for the prize snippets) from Watchers who passed up Shortie Street for the night. To summarise:

Mas and Kirsty put together a macabre collection of questions for John and Michael and Russell and Randhir but not Chandra because she was staying home and sulking about something that happened ages ago and sent someone who looked like her Mum to make a nuisance of herself. It got so bad that Mas told her off and then Michael behaved badly and Kirsty made a fool of herself by letting him have his own way. Suddenly Kirsty was being booed and jeered for showing her organ’s Visionary bias in public and then Michael got even more angry and Kirsty was glad when it was all over and she could go home and watch the video of that night’s episode of Shortie Street which she’d had the foresight to tape …

The morning after hang-over must have been a shocker in the Maslin household when he saw what he’d written the night before and waited for the phone to ring with an early dose of mayoral abuse from his buddy Michael:

Martin tops mayoral forum poll

WE CALLED it "forum feedback" and if that decided the outcome of Wanganui's mayoral election race, then we’d have a new mayor! John Martin.

Of those who took part in our ballot, 64 said they'd vote for Mr Martin, 41 for incumbent mayor Mr Laws, one for Mr Fleming and none for Ms Osborne or Mr Dahya. And did the forum help in the voters' decision-making? Sixty-six said it did and 38 said it didn't.

So diVision apparently managed a turnout of roughly the same number of candidates and Bob Walker's fellow realtor Catherine Kennedys as they did at their damp squib launch a week earlier, while Randhir Dayha’s apparently undentable ego got the bash.

But the Cave’s discerning followers of the TV soaps were delighted to find the Chron(ic’s) new soap queen Lin Ferguson, editor Kirsty MacKnucklehead’s fellow Southland Times graduate, writing in the style to which they have become accustomed in a gushing review of Episode 981 of Vision Street in which Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws stars in yet another a crude election special down by the riverfront, specially funded by the Ratepayers of Wanganui …

"Michael Mayor's here! yaaay," a small group of children whispered as the opening of the Riverfront Walkway got under way on Saturday. The balmy, spring day attracted a crowd of more than 300 people to cheer on Wanganui’s latest community project.

Meanwhile, back to the Vision Street reviews provided courtesy LawsWatch’s anonymii:

ML goes Surreal on debt
Anyone who missed the forum this evening passed up the chance to listen to Mickey explain how the $31.5 million we owed in 2004 was actually less than the $67.5 we now owe and the $48 million peak we were predicting in 2004 for 2010 has now actually been reduced to $74.6 million. It was surreal

Jokers, pretenders & losers
Tonight’s mayoral forum illustrated clearly that we have a two man race. Russell Fleming is a joke and Randhir showed us all how badly he is out of his depth. Ms Osborn chose not to attend, but sent a heckler to represent her. Wonder how Randhir Dahya feels this morning? The world's biggest loser maybe?

Business as usual for Chronic
What the Chron didn't say this morning was that it didn't take long for the editor to abandon her presence of neutral chairpersonship and give ML a second crack at a question. Sure, he went through the motions of appearing to throw a wobbly at her but it was plain he was going to get his own way. Why should Monday night be any different to any other day of the week?

Vision lacks numbers
The numbers in the chron say it all - from where I was sitting down the front there appeared to be a formidable chunk of paid-up vision party candidates and their hangers on at the back plus the seriously weird Catherine Kennedy and her long-haired companion. They must have accounted for most of the 41 pro-mickey "votes" between them!

Cornered rat
Laws was really in cornered rat mode last night. The neering/shouting/snarling act probably made some of the Visionaries think wistfully about a change of mayor. I wonder if they are allowed secret votes or if they have to hand over their voting papers for mayoral inspection before putting them in the box.

Poor old Randhir While Russell Fleming turned out to be a worse buffoon than expected, one couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for Randhir. He was so clearly out of his depth and fumbling ... then with his quote about how "when he is mayor" he'll appoint the highest polling as his deputy he went and spilled the beans on his three bitter years and the deal that Mickey dangled before him to get him to make such a dick of himself by standing for mayor. If he wasn't so old, you'd want to tell him to grow up!

Promises and lies

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:05:00 +0000

Three long years ago, Wanganui mayor Michael Laws convinced himself that people’s memories were so short he could rise again from the ashes of his ignominious failure in national and local politics. He worked his Svengali magic on the likes of Nicki Higgie, Marty Lindsay and John Maslin then booked the 830-seat Opera House for the Vision Wanganui lunchtime launch. And from the clutter of zimmer-frames and wheelchairs on the St Hill St pavement, it seems the lure of an hour’s free operatic entertainment was sufficient to draw a good number of the aging Bob Walker’s friends from their rest-homes, though not to keep them from their midday naps (see picture above).

And what an appropriate venue our grande dame of opera was, as the castrato boy-who-would-be-mayor warbled his way through the lamentably overwrought libretto for the debut performance of diVisionii’s Promesse e bugie (that’s Promises and Lies to you, Bob! - Ed) which needless to say brought the house down among the Vision Wanganui fan club at the Chronicle editor’s office that night.

But oh how the Diva of the Ditch has fallen! After three long years of screaming abuse at Wanganui citizens and council staff, his once powerful castrato voice has lost its range and he’s reduced to performing diVisionii’s 2007 operetta Più Promette e si Trova (that’s More Promises and Lies to you, Bob! - Ed) in the 200-odd seat Davis Lecture Theatre. Or, Watchers are suggesting, is it really a case of mayoral cold feet?

The Diva has done enough polling by now to know that the citizens of Wanganui are weary of his promenading and performing, and they’ve certainly had more than enough of his Vision Wanganui promises and lies. So like a fading Dame Nellie Melba, the Diva of the Ditch has wisely chosen not to risk playing to an empty and cavernous Opera House for the last stop on his Vision Wanganui political farewell tour.

STOP PRESS: LAWSWATCH PROVED RIGHT ON THE MONEY AGAIN ... NOT EVEN MAS COULD HIDE THE FACT THAT WANGANUI MAYOR MICHAEL LAWS WAS REDUCED TO RANTING TO A PRACTICALLY-EMPTY VENUE AT THE VISION WANGANUI 2007 LAUNCH. FORCED TO ADMIT THAT 'A LITTLE LESS THAN 40" (It's time the boy reporter was sent back to school for a basic lesson in countable nouns and their appropriate adjectives - Ed) FRIENDS, RELATIVES AND BOB WALKER'S MOTHER IN LAW COULD BE LURED OUT OF THEIR RETIREMENT HOMES. IN FACT AS MAS FOUND OUT, MICKEY'S PROMISES AND LIES ACTUALLY OUTNUMBERED HIS AUDIENCE.

And from the August council minutes, two snippets follow on the Who pays the piper theme from last week’s post (see the sordid tale below of how Randhir Dahya learnt to blow for Vision):

Before members of the public were excluded from the meeting, Mayor Laws thanks John Maslin, Wanganui Chronicle Newspaper journalist, on behalf of the Council for his accuracy in reporting the Council’s meetings during this term of the Council. Mayor Laws said it had been a boon to the Council to have a veteran professional reporter. He hoped that Mr Maslin’s appointment as Council reporter would continue following the upcoming triennial election.

… and lest anybody lucky enough to win Mr Quigley’s Events Lotto should think there are no Vision strings attached, we came across this little gem in which Ray Stevens leads the way in suggesting a nifty little cost-cutting ruse for the election ‘celebrations’, much to MickeyMayor’s delight:

Cr Stevens suggested that as the Council had previously funded jazz festivals, the jazz band entertaining at the Riverfront Boardwalk and Upokongaro Jetty openings should provide its services free of charge. Mayor Laws agreed and asked Mr Quigley to follow this up.

Who pays the piper …

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:58:00 +0000

Fittingly, former Wanganui mayor Chas Poynter was piped on his final journey last weekend by his loyal lieutenant, friend and former deputy Randhir Dahya. Few Watchers in the Collegiate Chapel to celebrate the life – and mourn the death – of a true son of Wanganui can have been unaware of the irony surrounding Cr Dahya’s bizarre decision to ‘do a Chas’ and make a vote-splitting run for the mayoralty this year.

Wanganui mayor Michael Laws probably managed a sly smile at the thought that he may yet have the gullible Randhir to thank for finishing the job Chas started three years ago when unnamed dark forces were alleged to have persuaded him to make the mayoralty a three way race that went to bolter Laws. He may even have toyed with the idea of giving Randhir star billing on his own billboards in the sharing, caring Vision election spirit. (Yeah right! - Ed)

The punters who did their dough on Chas and found themselves living in a city struck with an epidemic of Vision flu have had plenty of time for regrets – none more so than Randhir Dahya and the other councillors who ran in independent colours in the 2004 WDC Cup. They’ve found themselves pulling up hobbled and lame through three miserable years of fixed race meetings, while the nags from the Vision stable were mercilessly whipped into shape by their cruel owner-trainer.

So what got into Randhir’s oats, you ask, to make him run against the odds for both mayor and councillor, and risk not even making it to the weigh in for either race?

The answer, from the horse’s mouth, is apparently a Faustian Bargain struck by Randhir with Wanganui’s very own Beezlebub.

As the Vision ring-ins have discovered over the past three long years, the old idiom is true: Who pays the piper calls the tune. And we are grateful to the anon who spilt the beans about Randhir’s bargain here on August 24:

Randhir had a long chat with Laws and they agreed that Randhir didn’t have a chance of winning but would be a serious vote-splitter. So Laws told Randhir that if he would run and fulfil this function, Laws would step down and hand the mayoralty over to Randhir after the election.

This came from the horse’s mouth and illustrates just how thick Randhir is in two ways. (a) He apparently believed Laws after seeing him in action for three years and (b) He told another person about the proposed ‘arrangement’. The indiscretion of (b) must have dawned on him because he has since denied the whole thing, but that is hardly surprising.

It has been said he wanted Maslin to write a story of his denial, which would have made the Chron even more mysterious reading than usual.

Thanks for that insight, anon. And wherever knowledgeable Wanganui punters gather to study form, the smart money all goes one way:

After a string of wins in previous races for council, Randhir has been saddled up by MickeyMayor for a one-way ride to the knacker’s yard as the punters punish him for trying to rig their city’s most important race.

Games people (& politicians) play

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:09:00 +0000

Local Body Elections: Nominees

Mayor
DAHYA, Randhir; FLEMING, Russell William; LAWS, Michael Brian; MARTIN, John Bruce; OSBORNE, Chandra Michelle.

WDC election at Large
ANDERSON, Allan Royce; BAKER-HOGAN, Philippa; BROWN, Ian Grant; BULLOCK, Barbara Lynn; DAHYA, Randhir; EDMONDS, Matthew Lyle (Matt); FLEMING, Russell William; FORLONG, Shaun Graham; HIGGIE, Nicole Andree (Nicki); HUDSON, Phillip Edward; HUGHES, Murray John; JANGO; JONAS, Danny Ronald; KEELTY, Gordon James; LINDSAY, Martin Graeme (Marty); LITTLE, Ian Paul; McGREGOR, James Roland (Don); McKINNON, Dorothy Margaret (Dot); McNABB, Andrew; MILNES, John Ingham; MITCHELL-ANYON, Ross; MOORE, Robert Joseph (Rob); OSBORNE, Chandra Michelle; SEARS, Victor Frederick; SIMPSON, Kirsty Nicole; SMITH, Rory James; STEVENS, Gary John; STEVENS, Raymond Mark (Ray); WAITAI, Rana; WESTWOOD, Susan Moya; WILLS, Rangi Marehua.

Whanganui District Health Board
ADAMS, Graham Patrick; ANDERSON, Allan Royce; BAKER, Kevin Owen; BAKER-HOGAN, Philippa June; BROOKHAMMER, Leonie; CURRY, David Andrew; DOUGLAS, William John; FAUMUI, Penaia Albert (PJ); LAWS, Michael Brian; MORRIS, Nygllhuw James (Nigel) ; RAAYMAKERS, Karen Ann; READING, Elinor Ann; SMITH, Heather Marion; SOLOMON, Clive; STEWART, Ailsa Crawford; STRONG, Trevor Alan; STUBBS, Timothy; TURNER, Michael Fisher; TUTHILL, Patricia Elizabeth (Trish) ; VALENTINE, Diana Mary (Di) ; VAUGHAN, Brian Patrick; WAITAI, Rana; WILLS, Rangi Marehua.

More tomfoolery in Visionland

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:12:00 +0000

`Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'

We beseech you, dear Watchers, to join us for another chapter in the tale of Antoinette in Visionland, where our heroine finds herself in the midst of a strange menagerie of Vision candidates wearing funny hats as she defends herself on charges of forging a document.

Even stranger, the King of the Vision court is wearing eye makeup and the Queen is wearing a funny Horizons hat, even though she hardly ever goes to Horizons meetings. (For the evidence of that, dear Watchers, please click here or see the post below). OFF WITH HER HEAD! we hear you shout.

Can this be the sort of ‘tomfoolery’ that caused an outbreak of tutting and tongue clicking in an editorial cutely titled Wrong Choices in today’s Chron(ic)? Of course, we at LawsWatch are reluctant to add to the distress of the House of Laws already caused by the public airing of the oh-so-delicate topic of Leonie Brookhammer’s ratepayer rip-off … distress so acute, in fact, that Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws was forced to breach his own policy of only talking about personal family matters in colour spreads in the Wimin’s Daze or the Sunday Crimes. There he is, on page 3 today, confiding in his buddy Mas that his children’s health may have had something to do with the fact that “Leonie had been unable to attend all those meetings”.

We would love to be able to report that Mas then had an acute attack of journalistic instinct and pointed out to readers that Brookhammer’s maternal obligations didn’t prevent her applying for and getting a Wellington-based job … but of course Mas was inoculated against all variants of Journalism Syndrome the day Mickey rode into town and infected him with a bad dose of Mayoral Love Disease. And that also presumably explains why he politely didn’t ask the Object of his Affection just why he and the mother of his oh-so-sick children still feel comfortable banking close to $90,000 worth of Horizons ratepayers’ dosh, under the circumstances.

We’re inclined to label the whole sorry tale the most immoral and corrupt facist act that we’ve witnessed in the last three years with Michael Laws as mayor .. but that line has already been taken by none other than our bold and fearless defender of democracy himself on today’s front page.

Neither did Mas probe just what sort of shock and horror prompted this comment in the ghost-written press release in the Brookhammer name that carried his byline the day before:

"I also believe that I have the experience and ability to make a greater contribution to Wanganui, closer to home," Cr Brookhammer said.

We are of course awash with empathy for her situation. It must be just awful to have to travel to Palmerston North to put in an appearance at every fourth meeting, in order to avoid being kicked off Horizons and losing the $1200 per meeting she’s been pulling in. So whatever new close to home ratepayer rort Mayor Michael has in mind, we’re sure she’ll not only stand by her man but ensure the House of Laws continues to receive it’s share of ratepayer or taxpayer funding.

Meanwhile, Watchers, we were somewhat amused by the antics of that venerable old rag Women’s Weekly which kicked up its heels, lifted its skirt, poured a nice sherry and engaged in a bit of risqué humour to celebrate its 75th birthday. Running photos of the eye-linered one and “courageous cancer battler” Jools Topp of Topp Twins fame, WW pointed out the uncanny resemblance.

Which prompted the Stuff gossip columnist to opine:

I'd say we blame Michael Laws for this fashion crossover and suggest he stop wearing so much eyeliner.

Here at LawsWatch we think it’s hardly fair on either Topp Twin to be compared with what TV One’s Monday satire show FaceLift more accurately referred to as “Wanganui’s poofter mayor”.

Nice work if you can get it

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:04:00 +0000

RECORD OF ATTENDANCE OF CR LEONIE BROOKHAMMER PROVIDED BY HORIZONS REGIONAL COUNCIL UNDER THE OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT

NB: CR BROOKHAMMER IS APPOINTED TO THE ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE AND THE PASSENGER TRANSPORT SUB COMMITTEE. ALL COUNCILLORS ARE INVOLVED IN COUNCIL MEETINGS ,STRATEGY & POLICY CTTEE MEETINGS , AND WORKSHOPS.

2004
Meetings held 6 Attended 5 Apology 1

2005
Meetings held 38 Attended 22 Apology 8 , Leave of absence 2 , No apology 6

2006 to August
Meetings held 27 Attended 16 Apology 8 Leave of absence 2 No Apology 1

Since Sept 06 to end June 07
Council/ Special Council ( 10 meetings )
26/09/06 Present 4hours Meeting duration 5 hours 23min.

24/1006 Present 50 mins Meeting duration 5 hours 49 mins

28/11/06 Present 1hour 35mins Meeting Duration 5 hours 12mins

19/12/06 Apology

27/02/07 Apology

13/03/07 Did not attend/ No apology

27/03/07 Did not attend/ No apology

24/04/07 Present 1hour 45 min Meeting duration 5 hours 55min

22/05/07 Apology

26/06/07 Present 1 hour 55min Meeting duration 6 hours 2 mins

Strategy & Policy ( 9 meetings )
12/09/06 Leave of absence

10/10/06 Present 4 hours 45min Meeting duration 5hours 56mins

14/11/06 Present 2hours 36min Meeting duration 3hours 55min

13/02/07, 13/03/07, 21/05/07, Did not attend/ No apology

23/05/07 Apology

6/06/07 Present 1hour 40mins Meeting duration 4hours 5min

Environment Committee ( 5 meetings )
13/09/06 Leave of absence

15/11/06 Present 2hours 2mins Meeting duration 3hours 52min

30/01/07 Did not attend/ No apology

14/03/07 Apology

9/05/07 Did not attend /No apology

Passenger Transport Subcommittee ( 3 meetings )
21/11/06 Present

20/02/07 Present

15/05/07 Present

21/06/07 Did not attend/ No apology

WORKSHOPS Records for attendance began Sept 05
2005 from Sept 2005 Held 11 Attended 4 Apologies 4 No apology 3

2006 to 16^th August06 Held 12 Attended 1 Apologies 3 No apology 8

from Sept o6 to 30^th June 07 Held 15 Attended NIL Leave of absence 1

Apology 2 No Apology 12

Summary

Meetings held during term 139 Attended 54 39%

Meetings held prior to parental leave 81 Attended 46 56% No Apology 7

Meetings held since parental leave 27 Attended 9 33% No Apology 9

Workshops Held prior to parental leave 23 Attended 5 21% No Apology 11

Workshops held since parental leave 15 Attended Nil Nil No Apology 12

Remuneration
TERM Oct 04 to June 07 $ 86,153.55
LAST TWELVE MONTHS 1^st July 06 to 30^th June 07 $ 32,429
Since returning from parental leave $24640
Hourly rate for actual attendance at meetings since returning from parental leave
( 20.5 hours) $1200
Per meeting ( 9 ) $2738

The stupidest tea-party

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:44:00 +0000

`At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. `It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'

It must be hell being a Vision CEO right now. On the one hand you’ve got the Auditor-General waving his pre-election guidelines and ruling out the use of council resources for electioneering purposes … on the other hand you’ve got your mad mayor demanding you flout those guidelines with one last mad tea-party … and on yet another hand you’ve got the same mad mayor publicly grandstanding over the cost of you providing him with the very same guideline-busting electioneering photo-ops that he’s demanding from you.

Watchers’ hearts go out to poor Dr Warburton after his very public smacking last week by Wanganui mayor Michael Laws. There he was, busy cleaning the red carpet and dusting off the best wedgewood china for the series of Mad Mayor’s Tea Parties he was told to arrange for voters in the run up to the October 13 elections, when ‘them upstairs’ told him to mind his budget.

All very amusing, no doubt, for the Auditor-General’s lot who seem to labour under the delusion that CEOs are generally a decent, independent bunch of chappies who will happily blow the whistle on blatant electioneering with ratepayers’ money – not merely quibble over the amount to be spent buying votes for the incumbent political party.

Meanwhile, not even the Auditor-General would be naïve enough to expect the Vision dwarves to resile from the chance to push their vote-collecting barrow at the ratepayers’ expense in the Council’s weekly newspaper spin sheet. Since the onset of the three-month pre-election period on July 13 the ‘Councillor comment’ Roll of Shame has featured Vision look-alike Rangi Wills, the incredibly thick Marty Lindsay, bob-each-way Don McGregor, and mayoral wannabe Philippa Baker-Hogan.

However, credit where it’s due and LawsWatch is pleased to toss a bouquet in the direction of perpetual bridesmaid Dot McKinnon who, despite being jilted at the altar by Michael Laws, is gamely sticking around for a slice of the wedding cake. Her last appearance in the tacky little River City Press was on July 11th and she has since spared RCP’s masochistic readers her froth and drivel. Well done, Dotty!

Watchers wondered whether Rana Reckoned he’d also been torpedoed by the RCP after last week’s McKinnon & Waitai-free issue, but it turns out he was just off having an epiphany. No doubt inspired by his fellow ex-cop Chester Borrows’ recent stomach stapling, our Rana has had a bile duct reassignment and he won't be coming to Mad Mickey's tea party after all! After a suitable period of bed rest he was back in print warning the voters against having any truck with his ex-pal Mickey, while beating the drum for challenger John Martin.

Those commenters who have concluded, on the basis of Rana Waitai’s weekly ‘columns’, that he was a prime contender for microchipping or worse, especially those when he’s been barking in support of Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws, may like to take a peep at page 7 of the current River City Press. There he is, pointing the bone fairly and squarely at Mickey for playing the vote-splitting game and treating Whanganui with contempt.

My, how things have changed since the Xmas fairy tarted up her eye-liner and prepared to drop down the Buy-election chimney on December 23, 2005, when our Rana was only too happy to leap in and split the vote for Mickey’s crew. Back then, our favourite anonymickey (the one with 20:20 Vision into the mayoral brain, not to mention his running shorts – but let’s not go there!) made a heartwarming declaration of academic and filial love for “independent” Candidate Waitai:

You've got Rana Waitai wrong - he and the Diva are good mates and saw them together last month. They were in the same Vic law classes and it was actually Laws who encouraged Waitai to stand. They have a mutual relative too I've heard – anonymickey, 5:36 PM, December 23, 2005

Now, Watchers, doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the kind of vote-splitting bile that same anonymickey is now spreading all over the blog, and every other available outlet, as he strokes the Ego from Double SS, aka Candidate Stevens?

Whistling up the dogs

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:47:00 +0000

Well done, Wanganui! Your mayor (the one who dragged you into the national sewer when the King of Tonga and Kahui twins died) is at it again.

Just when it seemed he had no better topics than his battle with the Employment Relations Authority or the Museum or the Arts Trust or the iwi … for his Sordid Sunday Sermon, an abused Rotorua toddler was unfortunate enough to end up in Star Ship Hospital. She promptly became collateral damage in Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws’ desperate dog-whistle politicking for the recognition (and votes) of the same rednecks whose racist insecurities lead them the slimy downside of the radio dial. (See Nicky Hagar’s The Hollow Men for an introduction to this sordid form of politicking as cynically employed by Barmy Brash during his brief reign, and across the Tasman by his ideological twin Horrible Howard – or for that matter, any study of Hitler’s enlistment of the anti-Semite cause. Closer to home, refer to Laws’ ignominious days of Asian and Somali refugee bashing as Winston Peters’ chief string-puller with New Zealand First).

So here he is last Sunday:
Maori culture is simply a motif to pick up when the cops come calling … What is it about Maori and child abuse? .. and then back to the familiar refrain: The time has arrived: remove these children at birth from this sub-culture.

And little more than a year ago when the Kahui twins tragedy was unfolding, he was there too – our very own racist Forrest Gump, putting the boot in and tickling the talkback tongues:

But why Maori? What dark skein twists itself within that culture to produce rogue whanau like the Kahui? … And are the Kahui rogue? Or are they symptomatic of an underclass within Maori who are resistant to both mainstream and Maori assistance?

As a LawsWatch anonymii with a penchant for numbers reminded us on July 30:

Last Sunday when yet another battered toddler made the front page of the paper he leapt in and hurled abuse at the perpetrators. How profound. In a column that used the words Maori or Maoridom eighteen times, sixteen of the references were extremely negative. He excused himself of racism on the grounds that he was throwing off the bonds of political correctness. This will give racists a righteous rallying point.

I wonder if the grand plan is for the child beaters to go to war with the racists, or if there is no grand plan and he just can’t pass up a chance to set one part of society against another.

Thanks, Watcher. And predictably, within days Mickey had his Mouthpiece John Maslin whipping up a bit of front-page and editorial page racism in our nasty little excuse for a local rag.

Meanwhile, on the home-front, he’s also stepping up the war with local iwi over that perennial whipping boy – the H! Seems those uppity iwi thought they had been commissioned to come up with a carved entranceway to the council chambers that, as Mickey proclaimed in November 2005, would:

"… recognise the invitation our local iwi gave to settlers to share this region" … “At last,” he said, in the full flush of a little bicultural tic, “we have a Council Chambers that belongs to all of Wanganui, that celebrates our heritage and of which we can all be proud."

But then he saw ‘H’ and then he saw ‘Red’ and a predictable mayoral ‘H’issy Fit ensued .. and you read it here first, Watchers.

So what, we hear you ask yet again, maketh the man(iac) who rides the troughs of gutter politics? Is it that Michael Laws is simply a father and family man beyond moral reproach (you’ll have to ask his extended whanau what they think about that proposition as paraded in the wimins’ mags) or is it something deeper, darker … altogether dafter in fact.

Turn a couple of pages in last week’s Sunday Star-Times from his breakfast bilge and we find Victoria University psychologist Dr Marc Wilson neatly assessing Michael Laws’ political personality as being “remarkably similar to the psychopath”. Says Wilson:

It’s pretty common for people standing for political office to talk about devotion to the public, their commitment to the nation’s interest, their strong sense of responsibility. It’s unusual for politicians to say ‘I’m interested in getting paid and I’m a megalomaniac.”

(And before the sad, single anonymickey of Porritt St rushes to proclaim our First Citizen’s selfless devotion to the public good that leads him to give away his salary, we would point out that the unique ‘salary cycle’ he rides simply positions the mayoralty of our unfortunate city as a means to an (inflated salary) end via the media mouthpieces and dancing spectacles that are sufficiently desperate to be wagged by his 2% redneck tail).

Take a spoonful of sleaze & call the doctor in the morning

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:14:00 +0000

Shocking as they are, the revelations reported in the Chron(ic) and DomPost about the sordid goings-on and contempt for employment law shown by CEO Dr David Warburton following the firing last year of Wanganui District Council’s community development manager, it will have come as no surprise to Watchers who remember LawsWatch’s revelations about the then newly-appointed CEO. (NB:For the benefit of those who foolishly rely on the Chron(ic) for their information, we hear that after pouring good ratepayers’ money after bad at the Wellington lawyers running the case, the good doctor made an acceptable offer at the end of a torrid two-day hearing to settle the case.)

On Friday, September 9, 2005, this blog reported that the good doctor’s Kaitaia timber company Tanner Group had recently lost an Employment Relations Act case in which it was alleged to have "threaten[ed the] applicant with disciplinary action over [a] term of employment that had not been directly and expressly negotiated and [the] contents of which remained uncertain between parties".

“Hopefully”, we told Watchers with amazing percipacity at the time, “Council staff have dotted the i's and crossed the t's in their employment contracts”.

We also noted that Dr Warburton’s list of achievements included the fact he was also a director of Fibrecraft Industries, placed in liquidation in Wanganui High Court on 2 June 2004 on petition of Nuplex Industries. Interestingly, Warburton’s fellow director in the failed fibreglass venture, Bruce Nicholson, was installed as a director of Wanganui Inc, about the same time as Mayor Michael Laws, deputy Dot McKinnon and the rest of the capitalist raiders were finding their new CEO (and we all know what happened with WINC, don’t we).

Meanwhile, back in Kaitaia in 2005, according to MP Sue Bradford, “in (Warburton’s timber company) TGL ... we have a company that has obviously kept its workers in the dark for some time and has then attempted to make itself look good by offering a fig leaf of consultation."

Welcome to the world of Dr David Warburton, whose contempt for employment law obviously was not left at the door to 101 Guyton St. As for his pretence of recognising the fundamental provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 -- “I will need to learn to work within the constraints of the Local Government Act,” he said at the time of his appointment – the DomPost coverage of last week's Employment Relations Authority hearing revealed he may have missed the bit about the CEO – not the mayor – being responsible for hiring and firing staff.

As commenters have pointed out, Sally Patrick hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory since taking her seat at the right-hand of Warburton and Laws, and it was no surprise to experienced Watchers to see her name on the roll of shame of the “anonymous” Greek chorus of letter writers eventually outed by Warburton and listed on the Chron(ic)'s front page. There she is, with the Spin Fairy's former squeeze Julian Rewiti, the impeccably pedigreed Stephanie Rose and non-entity Jill Jones.

Another area of CEO responsibility for political neutrality that seems to have escaped Dr Warburton’s notice has become glaringly apparent in the first week of what the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) calls “the pre-election period”, ie the three months leading up to the October 13th election. According to the LawsWatch calendar, that started July 13th -- but you wouldn’t know it from the likes of Philippa Baker-Hogan who commandeered the ratepayer-funded Councillor Comment advert in the July 18th MidWeek, and on the WDC website, for a fevered bout of electioneering.

Like many “watchdog” provisions, the OAG’s Communications Guidelines are the sort of toothless tigers that Mayor Mickey, his Visionaries and their pet CEO routinely treat with utter contempt. But it’s safe to assume the OAG is keen to hear about blatant flouting like we’re already seeing, and no doubt will be seeing much more of ,in the next 12 weeks. You can read the full Guidelines here

You can find contact details for the OAG here if, like us, you find it hard to see why Warburton thinks he can continue to turn a blind eye to Vision’s contempt for clauses like these in the OAG’s guidelines:

Principle 12: Communication of a Member’s personal views or opinions using Council resources is unacceptable during a pre-election period.

Principle 13: A Council’s policy should also recognise the risk that communications by or about Members, whether in their capacities as spokespersons for Council or otherwise, during a pre-election period could result in the Member achieving electoral advantage at ratepayers’ expense. The Chief Executive Officer (or his delegate) should actively manage the risk in accordance with the relevant electoral law.

Principle 14: The use of Council resources (including stationery and internet, e-mail and telephone Communication facilities) for re-election purposes is unacceptable.

The princess & the plonker: a Grim tale

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:43:00 +0000

Gather round, Watchers, for a story by the Brothers Grimly.

Once upon a time there was a far-away place by the river with lots of lovely old buildings. On the top of the hill in the middle of the town lived a beautiful princess who had so many books she kept running out of room for them.

Next door to her were some people who lived in a very beautiful old building. They loved paintings and because they were such nice people they were given lots of lovely paintings and they tried very had to look after them but they didn’t have enough room, either.

Down at the bottom of the hill were two more big buildings. One had lots and lots of very old stuff in it and the people who lived there also tried to take good care of their old stuff, but they too had run out of room. Nearby was yet another building where the townspeople liked to gather to make merry fun. Like the other three buildings, this one looked very sad and dirty where once it had gleamed a brilliant white.

“Oh dear,” said the beautiful princess. “What is to be done? I simply must get some more space for all my lovely books but I have no money and those people next door with all those paintings are going to get lots of money so they can make their building bigger and more beautiful while I get none.”

She sighed as she slowly stirred her coffee. A tear trickled down her cheek and dropped into the cup. “If only a handsome prince would come and build me a new palace for my books, I’d be so happy,” she thought.

A sudden gust of cold air rushed into the room and people at the other tables screamed and rushed for the door. A strange little man appeared before her. “One day soon I will be the mayor,” he said, “and because you are such a beautiful princess I will make you the Queen of the Park.”

The princess couldn’t believe her eyes. The scrawny little man was ugly and unshaven, with bright black paint around his eyes. “But how can you be the mayor?” she asked. “You look just like the troll that lives in the bushes on the hill.”

“Just shut up and listen to me, lady, or you’ll be sorry,” snapped the strange little man. “I’ll make your dreams come true. You’ll be Queen of the Park and everyone will have to bow when you pass. But most importantly, I will give you all the gold and silver you need to build a glittering palace for all your books.”

“Oh thank you, mayor,” said the grateful princess. “Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it.” She grabbed a pen and a paper napkin and drew a picture of a glittering palace. She showed it to the mayor, who said, “Sure honey, you can have one just like that but first you’ll have to do lots of things for me that will make the peasants hate you.”

The princess grasped the mayor’s knarled and twisted hand. “Oh sire, I’ll do whatever you say.” But then her dream turned into a nightmare. She toiled from morning to night doing whatever the mayor told her and every day she felt the wrath of the people. But she was steadfast and never wavered in her devotion, even when the people laughed and jeered at her and made fun of her plans for the glittering palace.

But worse was to come. The mayor grew tired of her and their glittering palace plans. “Forget it, Princess,” he said with a cruel twist of his ugly mouth. “You and your books are so yesterday. Lady Philippa’s hot, baby, and you’re not. The peasants don’t care about books or art or old stuff. I’ve wasted $250,000 on you and you’re not getting another penny. I’m going to bury your silly palace plans and weave my magic spin for Lady P’s velodrome.” With that he hitched up his green lycra shorts and rushed towards the door.

Suddenly, the princess woke. She had fallen asleep amid her books and she realised the whole thing had been a nightmare.

New Projects Referendum – 2008:

The most far-reaching decision is that the 'Heart of Wanganui' project – and its constituent parts – will go to district-wide referendum in February/March next year. But the projects will compete against other intended capital works to determine their public and funding priority. Those other projects include the Events Centre/Velodrome and the redevelopment of Kowhai Park.

We salute you, Mickey!

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:27:00 +0000

As the NZ Listener pointed out last week, its latest Readers’ poll shockingly showed Sir Edmund Hillary to be the most admired New Zealander. This, observed Listener hack Denis Welch, was …

“Another setback in Michael Laws’s campaign to get his face on the $5 bill.”

Here at the Cave, Watchers’ hearts went out to Murray Hughes’s very own hero. What a cruel blow, especially in a week when that very campaign reached a pinnacle (or nadir) of sorts with Mickey’s desperate attempt to convert the awarding of a VC to a New Zealand soldier from Somewhere-other-than-Wanganui into a Michael Laws feature story.

So sad. So desperate. So very very Mickey. So in the spirit of recognising true heroism and humility for what it is, LawsWatch has given Mickey his place in history and put this real Kiwi hero on our Five Dollar Bill. In doing so we right the wrong perpetrated by whichever government flunkeys made the foolish mistake of selecting Ed Hillary when, as Cr Murray Hughes would enthusiastically proclaim, Wanganui has its very own hero.

COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

Michael Laws’ shameless attempt to muscle in on the VC limelight prompted a spate of send-up stories from LawsWatch resident wits who posited that naturally, Taranaki’s tornado headlines must have been hard to resist by the talkback mayor who sees opportunities for self-promotion in the most unlikely places. A sample of winning comments by our anonymii:

"Wanganui needs to have a tornado or two of its own, Mayor Michael Laws said tonight.

AND

Mayor Laws said Council would take action to ban tornados from the CBD. "They are urban terrorists. The previous Council's attitude to tornados was to pretend they didn't exist. They misled Wanganui and this new report from Larry Mitchell will show that they in fact covered up hundreds of tornados. Not this mayor."

STOPPRESS:

Word from Guyton St is that they've lost their nerve about putting the Heart of Wanganui out to referendum in conjunction with the October election and they're retreating to Feb-March 2008. After almost three years of shambolic spending and mayoral meddling the stark political reality is that not even SpinMeister Laws and his tame Guyton St spin machine could turn that turkey into a vote winner.

Muzza shows he’s got what it takes

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:42:00 +0000

LawsWatch is pleased to report that Muzza (kennel name Mental Muzza of Guyton) has been named Vision Obedience Club’s Mayoral Lackey of the Year following an outstanding performance on the Wanganui District Council’s website in the past week.

“When I picked him up from the pound three years ago I wasn’t sure he had what it takes,” said his proud owner/trainer Michael Laws. “But persistent training, and persistent use of a very clever electric shock delivering apparatus – well, I’m sure you can guess where – paid off when he obediently put his paw print on the press release I wrote for him last week.”

Muzza, as Mayor Michael fondly calls his faithful companion, narrowly beat out Mr and Mrs G Pleasants’ Killer of St John for the Mayoral Lackey title. Mayor Michael said that though he lacked the killer instinct displayed by the Pleasants’ four-legged friend, Muzza more than made up for it in other areas.

“He’s so well behaved at council meetings, I sometimes forget he’s even in the room. But then his big brown eyes gaze at me across the table and his face screws up in such bewildered fashion, and I realise he’s just waiting for the signal from me to leap into action,” said Mayor Michael.

“I have to confess that I sometimes like to tease him. I give him our secret signal – a half wink – but as soon as he starts barking and growling I push the secret shock button in my pocket and he sits back looking even more hurt and puzzled. I know … I know … it’s cruel and I shouldn’t do it, but holy shit, it IS fun.”

Mayor refutes McGregor & Arts Trust claims - 28/06/07

Mayor Michael Laws today refuted comments by both Cr Don McGregor and the Arts, Culture & Heritage Trust after the council's unanimous decision, during its 2007/8 Annual Plan process, to not renew its $30,000 funding to the Trust.

Allegations by Cr McGregor disputed - 28/06/07

Cr Murray Hughes has disputed many of the issues raised by Cr Don McGregor in his statement (Wanganui Chronicle, 28 June 2007) regarding the funding cut for the Whanganui Arts, Culture and Heritage Development Trust.

* For more on the strange case of WDC, Muzza and dangerous dogs see Carol Jones' Whatsup blog.

Black eyes & baloney in the Blue corner

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:04:00 +0000

Watchers with acutely tuned hearing swore they picked up the sounds of former National Party leader Jim Bolger spinning in his political grave last week as Michael Laws celebrated the gullibility of Nat deputy leader Bill English and Nat wannabe top cop Chester Borrows with hilarious photo ops in the local rags.

As an astute commenter reminded us, any politician who comes within a bull’s roar of the Mad Mayor and former Parliamentary Destroyer is condemning themselves to a big dose of political embarrassment and ignominy, along with a certain black eye or two. Above all, anyone with a drop of Blue blood in their veins should know this better than most. As an anonymii reminded us on June 22:

"It's a sad commentary on the lack of institutional knowledge remaining in the National Party that people like Chester and English aren't being reminded what happened to anyone who got within shafting distance of Mickey last time he cultivated the party, ie they duly got shafted.

If John Key has learned anything from his predecessor's flirtation with the Brethren he would do well to apply the lesson to anyone who thinks it's okay to be used for photo opps with Mental Mickey. Compared to the stench that he carries, the Brethren come up smelling like roses.

But as Steve Braunias reminded us in last week’s Sunday Star-Times, Chester may be the biggest rooster in the parliamentary Nats henhouse, but he isn’t exactly the brightest. And Bill English may have fought his way out of the backbench graveyard because John Key needed the numbers, but he’s no stranger to making an ass of himself in ill-conceived political stunts either, as Wikipedia notes:

“By late 2003, however, National's performance in opinion polls remained poor. The party had briefly increased its popularity in the year following the election, but by October its support had fallen to levels only slightly better than what it achieved in the last ballot. English also appeared in a boxing match for a charity against entertainer Ted Clarke. This "stunt" did not boost his polling or that of the National party either, with suggestions that it devalued his image as a serious politician. Don Brash, former governor of the Reserve Bank and a relative newcomer to politics, began to build up support to replace English. While Brash lacked overwhelming popularity, the electorate perceived English as highly ineffectual and prone to embarrassing mistakes. On 28 October, Brash gained sufficient backing in Caucus to replace English as leader."

So when Chester begged his boy pal Bill to come play Gangs-and-Cops with his little friend Michael, one wonders why Bill didn’t opt instead to stay home and update his scrap book with clippings from the last time he stepped in the ring with an “entertainer”.

Instead, he found himself on the ropes and punch drunk. Instead of taking a swing at the Mad Mayor, babbling Bill delivered a wild left hook at Wanganui and showed just how unsuited he is to life in the political ring when he said he'd heard Wanganui is one of the quietest cities in NZ after dark: "Is that because people are too scared to go out?"

Newboy John Key was safely out of the country when Michael Laws was rubbing the Nats’ noses in his political excrement so perhaps he’s blissfully unaware of the sewerage pond that his deputy and big member for Whanganui are wallowing in. Jim Bolger, on the other hand, has never forgiven nor forgotten the time that Michael Laws went through the Tories like a dose of epsoms salts. As he told the 1996 National Party Wellington Division conference in Palmerston North:

“Special greetings to the delegates from Napier and Hawke's Bay where the political spotlight has focused these past few days. Where the New Zealand First politician Michael Laws cheated, covered up, was found out and resigned. There was nothing noble in the resignation, it was forced on New Zealand First in a desperate attempt to stop a sordid story of deceit engulfing the whole of New Zealand First.”

And as an aside, we’d be grateful to any Watchers who might care to enlighten us what dark deeds Bolger hinted at next:

“With the many allegations still around it is a case of watch this space for further developments. Including who, or what, the original cover-up was designed to hide. Who were the "certain people", using Michael Laws' own words, that he was trying to protect from what?”

Meanwhile, Michael and his imaginary friends continue to play his solo game of Stand-or-Not to a chorus of yawns from Castlecliff Beach to Aramoho and beyond. We’ll leave the last word on that to a comment made on David Farrar’s KiwiBlog back in November when Mickey got himself and his kids into Women’s Daze with the breathtaking announcement that he had discovered there was life after politics and his kids were just the best thing since sliced balony. From KiwiBlog:

"I don't think Michael Law's latest break from politics will last very long. Spending more time with the family? Yeah right! He'll be bored stiff. He can get his own talk show on one of TVNZ's new digital channels. Perhaps a NZ version of "Jerry Springer". Or why not combine travel show with reality TV and let Laws holiday in Tonga where he'll be running for his life from a lot of very angry strapping Tongans who may well take offence at his "brown slug" tribute to their former king. Or he could team up with infomercial queen Suzanne Paul and use his considerable persuasive skills to hook us onto a new range of "non-run" mascara."

AND LAWSWATCH MICKEY AWARD FOR COMMENT OF THE WEEK GOES TO:

The first meeting of the Mayoral/Iwi Taskforce on Gangs was held this afternoon. It resolved the following:
* that the taskforce reflect these emphases by changing its name to the Council/Iwi Taskforce on Youth Well-being;

********
Hey Mickey, sounds like you got told where to get off yesterday! What's the matter with those Iwi people -- don't they understand you called it the MAYORAL taskforce because the focus was on YOU? 1:42 PM, June 22, 2007

Watch those stubborn stains

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:48:00 +0000

Watchers in the habit of scanning the Chronic’s headlines and quickly passing over anything carrying John Maslin’s byline may have mistaken today’s front-page screamer ‘Banned and bankrupt: What council didn't know about branding man’

At the very least, they might have expected it to explain why the Mack Report was slipped onto the WDC website thirteen days earlier bearing the title: Council inquiry into allegations of improper influence.

They might have expected Senior Reporter Maslin to have included in his story the report’s excerpted email comments purportedly sent from Mr Mack to Chronic managers and editor, such as:

“We would like to see somewhat of a shift in editorial pertaining to Wanganui … We have a fundamental problem with the ‘Wanganui bashing’ that is so prevalent in your publication … for Energy Direct to be seen to support an entity that does not support their views on how Wanganui should be portrayed is not a viable option.”

AND

“As you could imagine, since the WDC is the primary stakeholder for this particular client, their opinions are rather weighted and carry some considerable clout. You must also agree that they do not hold your paper in a very good light, rightly or wrongly, that fact still remains the same and has a great deal of influence on media planning.”

But perhaps the dynamite implications of his own GM’s “allegations of improper influence” just weren’t sufficiently clear to Mas. And he clearly wasn’t able to grasp the extreme irony of omitting entirely the evidence of threats against his organ’s editorial independence. Instead, readers were treated to a SHOCK!! HORROR!! PROBE!! SPECIAL INVESTIGATION into the bankruptcy of Mr Mack – something that could be verified within seconds by anybody with an internet connection.

Meanwhile, back at this blog, a commenter fondly known as anonymickey gently reminded Watchers that ….

’ahem: Wasn't it the mayor who actually made everything public?’

We couldn’t ourselves do better than another Watcher’s swift retort to little piece of mayoral dissembling so, Dear Readers, we’ll run the anonymous Watcher’s comments in full for your edification:

Read the front page again, fool! As always the Guyton St Gobbels you call the mayor did just enough to give himself an "alibi" by slipping the report onto the council website, without comment, knowing very well that the Chron had well and truly got the message about how Mickey and Mack expect them to treat any not-good-news stories about the regime.

That's in stark contrast to the way he makes other stuff "public" like broken toes, his views on gangs etc etc.

Surely if he really wanted to make it public and didn't want the Chron to feel compromised he could have ordered that it be published in full on Community Link, written to the paper summarising the report and providing a link to the website version.

Better still, he could have turned the whole thing into a lovely glossy brochure and delivered a copy to every household, perhaps with a simple "community survey" attached, ie:

1. Do you think this incident indicates the council is
a. incompetent or
b. corrupt or
c. both of the above

2. In view of your answer to the above who do you think should be sacked:
a. The CEO
b. Claire Cilliers
c. The entire council management
d. The entire remnants of WINC
e. The gas company chair
f. The entire gas company management
g. The mayor & deputy mayor
h. all of the above

And courtesy another of our anonymii:

David Mack's cak-handed and corrupt attempt to suborn the fourth estate and subvert democracy is a perfect metaphor for Vision Wanganui.

IN PASSING

1. We also wondered why the fearlessly independent and unintimidated Chronic ran acres of excitement about the Community Views survey without asking the question that has been on everyone else’s lips: ie How did new-boy survey company Perceptive get hired ahead of National Research Bureau, the firm that has done years worth of surveys for Wanganui and other New Zealand councils; and what are the implications of its survey questions mirroring those of NRB so closely that Perceptive (and Mickey) claims to be able to make valid comparisons between the 1003 and 2007 results.

2. We note the ‘comeback kid’ is back on the Council website with the start of his election campaign, ably supported by has-been Dotty’s very own effort at using ratepayer-funded resources for blatant electioneering. Poor Dr Dave - who’d be in his shoes when he has to explain to Mickey that his arse will be on the line with the Auditor General if such breaches of election rules continue.

The screaming of the lambs

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:36:00 +0000

You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs – Hannibal Lecter

But there’s one thing about the media in this country. They don’t report the news any more – they interpret it. They predetermine winner and losers, goodies and baddies, and then bend the facts to fit their prior prejudice. – Michael Laws, Sunday Star Times, June 3

Without a hint of irony, Wanganui’s mayor smacked ‘the media’ in his Sunday newspaper column this week for 'not reporting the news anymore’. What’s more, they ‘predetermine winners and losers … then bend the facts to fit their prior prejudice’.

While Michael Laws was trying to refocus his reading public on his heroic dancing display with “leggy Lauren”, Watchers’ attention was elsewhere. Forget Mickey’s stumbling attempts to keep up with his Dancing with the Stars partner: on the Wanganui political dance floor last week, away from the lights and the beady-eyed judges, he seems again to have been rewarded for a perfectly synchronised media two-step that has kept from the public eye a scandal that would have aroused any self respecting newspaper to paroxysms of SHOCK! HORROR! PROBE! headlines and billboards.

By now well buried in the oxidation ponds of mayoral press releases that clutter the ratepayer funded WDC website, eagle-eyed Watchers followed the tell-tale smell to a little gem of a report titled Council inquiry into allegations of improper influence.

This, it would seem, was a scandal tailor made for Wanganui’s fearless daily. In fact, not only had the Chronic (through its GM) outed the perpetrator of the dodgy dealings to the council, but the Chronic was crying foul and casting itself in the role of victim.

With bated breath Watchers snatched their papers from their letter boxes, poured strong coffees and with trembling fingers opened their morning paper to see how big the type was that was used to break the story of the year about undue pressure being brought to bear on the editorial content of that very same organ by none other than the man whose praises the Michael Laws was singing six months ago for the cheap and nasty rebranding job perpetrated on an unsuspecting Wanganui.

But alas, as Watchers scrunched up the Chronic and used it to light their first fires of winter, they had to conclude that down at Taupo Quay our town’s fearless journos and management had, in their customary manner, decided that the citizens of Wanganui had every right to know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this scoop that they alone had set up!

Read the report, weep and Go figure, Watchers! It’s election year, after all, and clearly Ms Editor has made the bold decision to ensure nothing gets in the way of Mickey’s spin machine.

PART TWO: Michael Laws and ‘absolute sincerity’

In their weekend social intercourse around Wanganui and elsewhere, Watchers found some of the hoi polloi were a little surprised at reports in the Saturday Chronic and DomPost that Michael Laws “is reconsidering his earlier decision that he would be a one-term mayor only”.

Then Mas attempts to explain the turnaround by assuring us that, not to worry: “Mr Laws said he was being "absolutely sincere" when he said the first time and again the second time that he was not standing "but I've promised people I will take their views seriously and give a decision later this or early next". (Next what? – Ed)

Watchers who know that Michael Laws is no more capable of ‘absolute sincerity’ than Antoinette Beck is of winning Dancing with the Stars noted at the time of the Women’s Daze ‘I’m going to be Mr Mum’ scoop that a little lie (“My family comes first”), easily reversed by another little lie (“I’ve been begged by so many people to stand again”) was a small price to pay for the acres of media exposure that followed.

Just to pad out the Chronic's 'scoop', Mickey tells Mas “the approaches had come from commercial leaders, local iwi and individuals’. (When does Bob Walker count as a commercial leader? When does Rana Waitai count as local iwi? When do Bob Walker’s alter-egos count as individuals? – Ed)

A notably ungracious mayoral wannabe Dot McKinnon tried to put a brave face on the fact she’d been shafted and withdrew her candidacy, saying: "it would be a bit pointless going against Michael" in the October elections. (She obviously doesn’t think she’s got Mickey’s ability to manage the Chronic and keep the lid on the dirt! –Ed)

AND:

Randhir Dahya confided to Mas that "Everyone's encouraging me to stand, and I will do so” thus confirming his determination to ‘do a Chas’ and help deliver Wanganui into Mickey’s hands. (A fitting end to a career distinguished only by extraordinary talent for fence-sitting – Ed)

PART THREE - Perplexing poll problems

We are grateful to a LawsWatch anonymii for tipping us off about the back story to a wee morsel on the agenda for Tuesday’s 10am council meeting.

It is all around town that the Community Issues survey gives the thumbs down to the council and particularly the mayor. He tried to hide it but the CEO would not let him so if we want to be entertained we should get to the council at 10am on Tuesday and enjoy the humiliation. Dr Dave is asserting his authority and making this lame duck mayor suffer. - LawsWatch anonymous

Tucked away at the bottom of a mind-boggling (even for Mickey) piece of spin attributing what he says is a low number of submissions on the annual plan to widespread satisfaction with his regime, we’re told that the results of said community views survey will be presented at Tuesday’s meeting, at 10am, as a warm-up to Vison's yearly orgy of annual plan submitter abuse.

The survey company ,Perceptive, presumably a newcomer to the field, doesn’t list Antoinette Beck in its staff numbers but Mickey must have been hoping that by stepping outside the nationally respected National Research Bureau exercise he could escape its (no doubt invidious) comparisons with other councils around New Zealand.

PART FOUR: Meanwhile, back in Guatemala

Last week we mused on similarities between Michael Laws’ fascist mini-state and that of Dr Ropata’s Guatemala. In view of the Chronic’s failure to run the David Mack revelations, Watchers were interested to learn that media freedom is very much an endangered species in both places, but the difference is that Guatemala has at least one newspaper that isn’t prepared to keep silent:

"We can't keep silent," reads a full-page ad in El Periódico, the most progressive of the three main national newspapers of Guatemala. Fear is still very much around, censorship is alive and well, and the media in Guatemala are still subject to threats and manipulation.

You’re not in Guatemala now, Michael

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:13:00 +0000

Watchers who are wondering what Guatemala and Wanganui have in common may not be surprised to learn that the rulers of the corruption-infested Central American nation immortalised in our very own soap Shortland Street (and retained for posterity at youtube) also enjoy a referendum or three.

The only difference would seem to be that when Guatemala’s citizens line up to vote “according to the customs and traditions of the communities - by a raising of the hand, a paper vote, or the signing of a list provided by the community mayor”, there are no fewer than “384 national and international observers, as well as delegates from the Human Rights Procurator's Office” keeping a beady eye on proceedings.

Incidentally, the hapless citizens of Guatemala are also in the early stages of a campaign leading up to September elections and in the same week that Michael Laws was honing his political assassination hit list at a meeting debating the gang bylaw, ABC was reporting that they’re also wasting no time getting down to the messy business in Guatemala, where “20 political figures had been killed before official campaigning even began”.

We’re not in Guatemala now, Watchers, but many of you are asking about the mysterious disappearance from the mayoral agenda of the Mad Mayor’s Heart of Wanganui project. And at the Cave we are beginning to suspect it might have been rubbed out in an unusual and stealthy act of political assassination.

As we prepare to turn the calendar page on yet another month in Referendum City, we stumbled across the October 4th 2006 news release promising the biggest ever propaganda campaign in the leadup to a mid-May referendum.

The campaign will kick off on Thursday, October 26. After the initial meetings, further information will be provided by:

Advertising the options in 'Community Link' (the council's weekly page in the Wanganui Chronicle).
Special pamphlets delivered to every householder (two deliveries).
Suburban public meetings and presentations.
A dedicated website.
A shopfront display on Victoria Avenue.
Further public meetings in the lead-up to the referendum in mid-May 2007.

Oops! Items 5 and 6 seem to be missing in action, as the Chron(ic) beats the drums for Philippa Baker-Hogan’s alternative monument at Cooks Gardens, and breathlessly reports that “at this point a rough estimate of a possible price of a full events centre would be somewhere around $10 million”. Cheap as chips, really, compared to the mega-millions (and up to $284 per ratepayer impost) needed to give birth to Mickey’s Heart.

No mention yet of a referendum and we look forward to hearing just how financial wizard Julian Harkness will find $80,000 for a feasibility study for this new slice of pie in the Wanganui sky, on top of the more than a quarter of a million already tossed at the Heart project.

But back to the Heart of the Matter, Watchers. Idle speculation over Sunday lattes at the Cave has us wondering whether the Heart has flatlined because it’s just too damned hard to squeeze the myriad and confusing options onto a referendum that by it’s very nature must be nothing more than a propaganda campaign to ensure voters tick the box that Michael Laws wants them to tick. In view of whispers here at LawsWatch that Deputy Dotty has done the deal of her life to be put up as Vision’s Great Mayoral Hope, on a nightmare ticket with Mickey running as Deputy, can it be that’s she’s losing her taste for caviar and champagne projects like the Heart?

Meanwhile, the ratepayers are stuck with the bills for last year’s Heart design extravaganza. Tony Van Raat may have been a buddy of Arts Czar Sally Patrick, but there’s no suggestion that his services, or the proven world-class talents of his fellow rich-and-famous Auckland architects Pete Bossley and David Mitchell came cheap. Unlike the forlorn, fading and just plain freaky “branding” exercise that polluted Wanganui’s streets and approaches with tackiness hailed by Mickey on December 12th last year as being an "extraordinarily cheap" example of mates rates by an Auckland hobbyist who, Commenters have been explaining under the last post, just happens to be a mate of a staffer of Mickey’s discredited Wanganui Inc.

And as we approach the start of the pre-election period with its ban on using council channels to promote the changes of incumbents, it’s no surprise to see Mickey also demanding dollars for Vision campaign events to “celebrate” everything from the sewerage plant and splash centre extensions to the airport runway improvements.

It’s all there in the minutes of the May 10th committee meeting, though there’s no record of the sniggers that undoubtedly emanated from the three remaining “independent” councillors at this little mayoral gem:

Mayor Laws said if the council agrees [to the Vision propaganda blitz] each project requires its own commemoration, a budget would be required. He said because of the timing of the triennial elections, a decision needed to be made now as a new council would not have time to make the necessary commemoration arrangements.

Now for the Miracles of Saint Dotty

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 19 May 2007 22:21:00 +0000

Watchers have been moderately amused in the past week to see what appears to be the start of the canonisation of Deputy Dotty by Pope Michael Laws I and his conclave of diVisionary cardinals. Just a week ago an anonymii whispered in the comments section of this blog that:

Word is that Dot & Mickey have made a deal to swap places. He's so certain he'll be Deputy Mayor (as a Councillor), he's now planning which 'celebration' of the capital projects Dot will front in November. (12:15 PM, May 14, 2007).

A continuation of the Laws-Vision trainwreck for Wanganui, but a cosy arrangement for a mayor who knows his time is up, and the puppet deputy he so assiduously selected, fashioned and trained to dance to his mad tune. More convincingly, it’s the only way he could hope to keep his hands on the strings of power while also keeping Dotty from spilling her bags of dirt on the papacy of Michael in a gloves-off campaign against him for the mayoralty.

But as students of the wider church know, sainthood can’t just happen on the day the election campaign starts. As Wikipedia tells us,

“… the act of canonisation … occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person proposed for canonisation lived, and died, in such a way that he or she is worthy to be recognised as a saint.”

While Dotty might well claim sainthood on the grounds that her years of officiating at the opening of an envelope while the real mayor is off doing his media thing(s), beatification usually requires a miracle or two. Hence, it was no surprise when John Maslin breathlessly and unquestioningly reported Mickey’s claims of sainthood for Dotty and the District Holdings crew who had managed to turn, not water into wine, but city debt into city surplus.

Holding co hailed as council saviour (19.05.2007 )

THE PERFORMANCE of the Wanganui District Council Holdings Ltd has been hailed as the major reason for a turnaround in council’s financial fortunes, helping turn a projected deficit into a forecast surplus. …The council is now forecasting a budget surplus of $265,000 for the quarter ending March this year, representing a major shift from the December 2006 forecast of a $384,000 deficit.

Read on and the fine print tells us the key reasons why the Council was headed for a whopping deficit for the quarter:

“….$150,000 for legal fees involving 24 separate legal actions council is involved in [and] $185,000 economic development overspend…

So we have Wellington lawyers from Sue Grabbit and Run cranking up the fees for a council that is so incompetent and litigious as to get itself involved in “24 separate legal actions” and a council that is so incompetent and so beholding to its mad mayor’s events city meisterplan that it has allowed $185,000 to be tossed at disasters like Mickey’s Boxing Day concert blow-out.

Never slow to spin a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Mickey saw this as a golden opportunity. After months of hysteria about the previous council’s alleged failure to account for the international downturn in forestry returns, Mickey now tells us that the latest “miracle” had a lot to do with the flow-on effects of an upswing in forestry (that HIS council was too incompetent to forecast) and property returns, a lower interest costs:

The improvement from the previous quarter is mainly due to additional dividends from Wanganui District Council Holdings Ltd and forestry, additional income from Council properties and a reduction in interest costs.

And once he’s drawn a discreet veil over the bad news of the management bumbling that led to the deficit in the first place, Mickey returns to his favourite fantasy:

Mayor Laws said that the new managerial and financial structure at Council "has markedly improved internal efficiency and ensured that ratepayers' monies are properly spent. The Audit Office is no longer knocking on Council's doors every five seconds!"

And let’s not overlook this wee caveat emptor:

The surplus is a forecast and could change, depending on events in the final quarter of the financial year.

Meanwhile, the week that was offered one flicker of hope for Wanganui. Barbara Bullock has consistently stood up for truth but has been less than honestly reported by Mickey’s pet Maslin. So let’s remember this moment, when Mas momentarily forgot Mickey’s orders and was suddenly endowed with enough lead in his pencil to quote Cr Bullock’s courageous summary of her stand on the gang patch farce :

“I’m voting against the gang insignia bill. I never approved of it from the start, but I’m quite happy to work with people in the community, with gangs or other offenders.

“But I’m not going to sit hear and listen to the crap you have just put forward that we are making a wrong decision. It is our right as councillors to make our own decisions and I’m not going to be publicly humiliated by you.

“I respect your opinion, but don’t have disrespect for mine,” Cr Bullock said. “I have a lot of support out there for voting against this gang insignia bill.”

There was, unsurprisingly, a simply fantabulous display of butt-covering and mayoral bum-licking by the Vision lackeys and more importantly the likes of Randhir (the Ego) Dahya and Rangi (the Puppet) Wills.

As Mas sadly reported: When it came to the crunch, not surpisingly Crs Higgie, Baker-Hogan, Randhir Dahya, Wills, Lindsay, Dot McKinnon and Mr Laws voted to take the gang insignia bill to Parliament with Crs Westwood, Bullock and Stevens voting against.

Mickey lies; the camera doesn't

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 12 May 2007 05:04:00 +0000

When Palmerston North pollsters Competitive Edge ring in the middle of Sunday dinner preparations to ask Watchers who they’d vote for, they’re naturally reluctant to reveal who’s buying their services beyond saying it’s a private company. But dollars to donuts the answer is either Vision, mayoral mystery-man Michael Laws or mayoral wannabe Dot McKinnon … or any combination of the above.

Which has us wondering why the pollsters list of Wanganui mayoral possibilities includes none other than Michael Laws, who’s been riding a wave of spin since announcing last November that he wouldn’t be standing again because his work in Wanganui was done and because, as he whispered to the women’s mags, his latest offspring were entitled to the kind of parenting he notably failed to provide for his first batch.

More recently Dot McKinnon has leapt into the fray and announced she’ll be “seeking the Vision nomination”. The chattering classes were quick to pick trouble at (Vision) mill amid the resounding silence from Mickey and his hired gun Bob Walker. So much for Mickey’s promise to Dotty that she was his chosen one, his anointed successor. Looks like the bridesmaid has been left standing at the altar while her fickle fiancé plans another fling with the voters of Wanganui.

But it’s been quite a roller coaster few weeks for Mickey, who doesn’t really need Competitive Edge, or even his favourite pollster Antoinette Beck, to tell him his honeymoon with long-suffering Wanganui is over. By the end of his dancing nightmare it was clear that he was a white dwarf on the way to becoming a black hole. Not even his frantic publicity campaign or the Cancer Society’s need for funds could persuade people to txt for the desperate non-celeb who proved in his short, doomed run that the camera never lies.

While he managed to provide Woman’s Day readers and Wanganui District Council website surfers with carefully staged happy family images, the judges and viewers of the dancing disaster saw, as one judge pointed out, an over-excited smutty schoolboy alternating with a frustrated and angry loser hurling insults at a visiting judge. Worse, the stills provided by the show’s promoters ensured readers of the country’s main dailies and visitors to the TVNZ website saw the truth about the man.

Then he woke to the news that his Radio Live stablemate Marcus Lush had taken the big prize at the radio awards, and scored the breakfast slot that Mickey has coveted as a possible path out of the 2% ratings doldrums.

We can only presume that by last Saturday night he was dreaming of salvation from his ongoing ratings slide and publicity nightmare. By Monday morning he was telling National Radio that: “Not in my wildest dr …. nightmares” could he have expected a toddler to be slain in an outbreak of gang violence on his patch. After that oh-so-Freudian slip he spent the week making sure his dream of a speedy return to the Six O’Clock News came true. By midweek he was unable to help himself seizing upon the Chron(ic) editor’s rally plans and even snatching her own “scoop” from her.

Now was HIS time to play the statesman. The masterplan: Grab a kid – any kid, even one with the kind of name that’s reduced him in the past to advocating eugenics – and take the high moral ground. Be seen smoking the peace pipe with the kaumatua who’d carpeted him for his racist holiday season headline grabber about third world conditions on River Road. Throw in a good dose of the warm fuzzies. Show up those Watchers who predicted he’d turn Majestic Square into Wanganui’s own Nuremberg stadium. Talk warm … caring … compassionate. Unlike those awful unguarded moments of madness captured by the TV cameras over the past few years, he’d be in control. But as the DominionPost showed its readers the next day, the camera (unless of course its wielded by the photographer to the court of Michael Laws’ ) never lies.

Walking the plank and jumping ship

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 05 May 2007 21:12:00 +0000

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Ron Janes, Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws’ erstwhile captain of enterprise – unless of course you’re a victim or member of the clean-up squad after his last foray into public service at the Wanganui Hospital Board. Or you may be one of those who believe that anyone, like Ron and the Visioneers, who thinks dancing with Mickey is the path to glory and riches deserves everything they get when the ship goes down.

You see, poor old Ron’s valiant efforts for the Vision cause was a nice little earner for him as chair of Wanganui Inc, presiding over Mickey’s events city meisterplan and fiddling while the ratepayers’ cash burnt at hopeless mayoral headline grabbers like the Boxing Day concert and mayoral mile.

How frightful, then, for Ron to hear from not one but two Chron reporters (and the sub-editor who gleefully reminded readers that the Chronic had been the first to tell Ron about the mayoral press release on the Council website) that like the souls he’d sacrificed in his slash and burn health system days, he too had been declared surplus to requirements:

THE news that Wanganui District Council has asked for the immediate resignations of Wanganui Inc directors as it takes control of the economic development agency took newly deposed chairman Ron Janes by surprise.

Mr Janes said he was used to business being conducted face-to-face and not in the way he was informed when the Chronicle rang yesterday to get comment.

Mickey knew the Winc game was up before the leftover Christmas turkey was cold, as LawsWatch was told by an anonymii conveniently privy to the innermost workings of the mayoral mind. But we’re now hearing the decision to pull finally pull the plug on Mickey’s merry band of Winc men came from none other special sub committee chair and mayor-in-waiting Dot McKinnon. that’s appropriate because it was Dotty and her sub committee that built the Winc golem in the first place and let it loose in the council coffers.

Moneybags Mickey, meanwhile, rides in on his white horse and tells us that $800,000 will continue to be tossed at ‘economic development’ (read events) by an increasingly well paid branch of the new boys’ network called Wanganui Holdings. But, says Mickey, ‘the estimated savings from the revised structure were between $65,000 and $95,000 a year’. Not even enough to cover the losses on the Boxing Day concert.

As we wait with bated breath for Deputy Dot to start covering herself in glory and pointing her electioneering finger at her ‘triumphs’ at the business end of Vision’s woeful term, it’s also worth noting a wee paragraph buried deep in the Chron(ic) story reporting (ex) Chairman Janes’s surprise at not being told he’d been given the boot:

Former director Nygllhuw Morris had already resigned two weeks previously: “I think Winc will be able to move forward, and I totally support them.”

So we can assume that Mickey had a word with his buddy Nygllyhuw, even if he didn’t have the bottle to pick up the phone and ring Ron. And Nygllhuw, doubtless with an eye to candidate nomination day, decided to jump the Winc ship in timely fashion without waiting for Dotty to march him down the gangplank. Or perhaps he was just too busy working on dottyandnygllhuw.co.nz, the sequel to michaelandlauren.co.nz which undoubtedly ranks as his greatest tribute so far to the fast-fading glory of Mickey Mayor.

Now for the hypocrisy two-step

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:37:00 +0000

Just as the pundits in the LawsWatch Cave were falling about laughing at the breathtaking failure of the Mayor of Wanganui to win enough txt votes to survive beyond the second round of Dancing With the Stars, an alert watcher stumbled across michaelandlauren.co.nz.

Yes, Watchers, not content with desperately hijacking the Wanganui District Council website, using week after week of his sordid Sunday columns, and prostituting his kids in the women’s rags to buy votes, Michael got his web-pal Nigel Morris to knock together a web site devoted to the ultimately futile txt vote chase.

But even seasoned Watchers who no longer pause over their Sunday lattes to draw breath over Mickey’s endless litany of lies and hypocrisy choked on their Eggs Benedict this morning when they came across this whopper in today’s Herald on Sunday:

… Laws was voted off last week after recording the lowest score in the show's history. Laws said he had decided not to make use of his high profile as a mayor and radio host to campaign for votes. "I'm not going to ask for people to vote for me if I can't dance. I didn't lobby at all, didn't make any trips or say vote for me," said Laws.

And as a commenter pointed out on LawsWatch yesterday, Mickey got off to a galloping start in the weekend porkies and hypocrisy race when he went ballistic for the Chron(ic)’s benefit over an Amnesty International request for support for a petition protesting China’s human rights record.

The Chronic breathlessly reports him opining that “Human rights in China is foreign policy and not the domain of local government".

On and on he goes:

"I think it stupid local government get involved in international relations and it’s an attempt to embarrass government. I will not allow the Wanganui District Council to be used as lobby fodder by an interest group which has a grievance against the government’s foreign policy."

Now isn’t that rich coming from the man who has spent most of the past few years using his mayoralty “celebrity” trying to embarrass the government, culminating in his meltdown over its foreign policy on Tonga in a delightful little November 22 2006 “mayoral e-column” called WE’RE IN TONGA… WHY?

It’s been a rotten week for the man who would be mayor and then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Radio Awards judges joined the Dancing judges and voted him biggest talkback loser. Right at the moment he was being re-humiliated with the replay of his freakshow failure on DTWS, he was watching Marcus Lush get covered in glory at the radio awards as the old lefty from Bluff took the best talk or current affairs host award from shortlisted Leighton Smith and Paul Holmes.

And just to underscore his abject failure in the radio stakes, he didn’t even make any of the many shortlists, though just about everyone else who managed to sit in front of a microphone did.

Face it, Michael, they don’t like you

noreply@blogger.com (Laws Watch) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:16:00 +0000

The Wanganui Chronicle tells us Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws was uncharacteristically ‘unavailable for comment’ in the aftermath of the humiliating on-screen trainwreck that saw him stumble from the annual orgy of mediocrity and stupidity that passes for celebrity entertainment in Godzone.

However, LawsWatch can reveal it has scooped the Chronic and the Women's Daze, and has obtained an exclusive interview with the elusive loser. After wiping the mayoral spittle from his face our intrepid reporter filed this dispatch:

LW: Well Michael, you sure made a fool of yourself this time. You must be wondering what made you do it?

ML: What gives YOU the right to even speak to me, you pathetic loser. What have you ever done to promote yourself, eh? How many acres of news coverage have you managed to whip up for yourself and your cronies? How many times have you managed to get yourself and your kids in the women’s magazines? How many hours of your own radio talkback show have you managed to hijack to try to con the fools out there to vote for YOU?

LW: Surely that’s not the point. But it’s good to hear you admitting that you’ve lied from the beginning of this slow-moving trainwreck by claiming it’s all for Wanganui and Cancer.

ML: Lie? Of course I lie! Everybody knows that. What are you? Some sort of fool?

LW: It’s been interesting to hear the council insiders’ story of how you threw a fit when you were told you couldn’t hijack the ratepayer funded Wanganui District Council website for your own promotional purposes, and how the CEO caved in and let you make a laughing stock of the city.

ML: Of course he caved in, you fool. Why do you think I handpicked him and the other crawlers I surround myself with? You wouldn’t believe what a sweet deal I managed to get for him, so of course he does what he’s told.

LW: Your blatant use of council resources to promote yourself has been commented on in the DomPost and elsewhere, including by blogger Aucklander-at-large in a piece titled Politicians and Reality TV do not mix. It was noted that Rodney Hide also tried to turn his dancing scam into public support, but at least he paid for it … and the blog wondered whether the Wanganui District Council would charge you for the website exposure, or at least count it against your election expenses.

ML: Who takes any notice of that sort of rubbish by journalistic hacks and has-beens? I haven’t heard John Maslin even mention any of that, let alone complain about it. And everybody knows that he’s the most fearless, independent media sycophant I’ve ever managed to batter into abject submission.

LW: But the fact remains that you’ve effectively subjected yourself to a national popularity contest and despite the vast amounts of free publicity you’ve managed to give yourself, the people have spoken. Face it, Michael, they don’t like you.

ML: That’s just the point, isn’t it? The whole country is awash with subhuman fools who don’t yet know that what’s good for Michael Laws is what’s good for them!!