Wheelers and dealers

If you have been keeping up with developments you will be aware that we now have a new Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. I’ve always thought that is an interesting title and wonder if a woman was appointed whether she would be the Governess...but I digress.

It would seem that Allan’s Bollards has done his dash for now and it is time to move on. I have to say I am sorry to see my old school chum Grant Spencer who was the deputy didn’t get the nod, but I am pleased with the satirical possibilities the new incumbent brings to the table.

His name is Graeme Wheeler and he is a former employee of the World Bank which means he has had all the right training to ensure little New Zealand does as its masters tell it. With a wheeler controlling our economy all we need is a dealer to sell everything we treasure for a handful of magic beans.

Enter little Jianqi and his band of merry finance dealers – Craig Foss, Nikki Kaye, Peseta Sam Lotu-liga, Ian McKelvie, Katrina Shanks, Chris Tremain and Michael Woodhouse have all at one time worked for either banks, finance companies or accountancy practices. Eight out of fifty nine MPs seems quite a few and there could be more but a sizeable proportion of this Government seem a bit shy about their pasts; I wonder why? The parliamentary website shows the previous careers of only some MPs so it is hard to know exactly how many of those practicing the dark arts are actually there. However I could find no others in any of the other parties, although several of them were a bit shy about their pasts as well.

In any event it is not hard to see why we are headed to social hell in a Chinese made handbasket when 12.5% of the Governing party just love to buy and sell things and are driven by the great Gods of money and personal enrichment.

It is really not surprising then that the finance companies got so much help when they started to sink into the huge pile of slime that had oozed from their principals.

But with all those money shufflers in the Government you’d think they might have some idea about managing the economy better. But then that pre-supposes they have the nation’s best interests at heart and not just the amount of interest they can earn on their own investments in, say, a power company or an airline or maybe if they get away with this lot; the rail network (again), Kiwibank (which they never wanted in the first place) a health system and an education system. Yes there could be lots of great opportunities for the Kiwi ‘Mum and Dad’ investors – well those who call the beehive home for three and a half days a week, anyway. And you’d have to wonder whose tune they are dancing to, because it certainly ain’t a home grown one.

These things might seem a little far-fetched but if you look at the behaviour of this Government it is hard to imagine they are not trying deliberately to bankrupt us.

The way they bent over nicely to allow the FBI to have its wicked way with them in relation to Kim Dotcom is just one example of recklessness that would be easy to perceive as a deliberate attempt to sap even more wealth from us. Kim Dotcom, bless his great big overworked pump is the wrong sort of guy for them to fuck with. This is not a slightly wealthy man; this is a bloke who has more money than many of today’s struggling little economies (possibly including ours). He is not a millionaire; he is a billionaire, which means he can afford to throw millions of dollars into a lawsuit against the New Zealand Government over their fawning obsequiousness to the USA. Such a suit could cost you and me (not Jianqi and his toadies) a sum in excess of the cost of running our health system. Mind you with the sort of attitude Toenail the Vyle brings to his portfolio that is probably not a good example. What is the health budget these days, anyway, apart from woefully inadequate? Anyway the point is that Kim could do us some serious damage and I for one wouldn’t blame him if he did.

I’m not even going to get into the Tuhoe thing apart from to say the costs of that are yet to be fully felt as well.

But it is not only the money dealers we have to be wary of because the House is also teeming with double dealers – the sorts of lowlifes who make bold statements when in opposition and then fail to deliver on them when given the opportunity.

Many of these invertebrates are also covered by the earlier category and chief among them is that simpering little twerp that is steering the SS New Zealand onto a reef that is as obvious as the one the Rena founded on. Furthermore you might wonder if they too have been having a bit of a piss up while at the helm as it has long been suspected in the Rena case also. In any event they are definitely trying to cut corners as the Rena crew did. Jianqi was quick to pipe up when Winston Peters was involved in an ‘anonymous donations’ furore and made some pretty tough statements about how he would sack someone in that position if he was Prime Minister. However it would appear that when you become PM you can avoid such unpleasantness by simply taking the bloke’s word for his innocence and flatly refusing to read anything that might throw doubt upon that.

Unfortunately the best we can do about these bastards is go and vote them out next time. This means they will get away with a load of destructive, irresponsible and downright despicable environmental crimes with even less censure than the wet bus ticket applied to the wrists of the Rena crew. Sadly by the time the next election rolls around a large number of our ovine voters will have forgotten altogether and be taken in by a smiling face and a few well timed baby-kissing stunts.

Woe is New Zealand. Unless the oppos can get together and put a bloody big torpedo through the SS National Party really soon the already alarming exodus to Australia will make the landing at Dunkirk look like a couple of dinghies out for a spot of fishing. If the Aussies think they have trouble with boat people now, just wait until the overloaded pleasure craft start arriving from NZ.