Sunday, September 03, 2006

The ugly desperation of Helen Clark.

Unfortunately for New Zealand the last election left Labour in power by the skin of their teeth. To secure a third term the oh-so PC Labour government made a deal with two other “parties”. One is the Christianist United Future Party which has one member of parliament. The other is the closest thing to domestic fascism in New Zealand, the New Zealand First Party run by a racist, anti-immigrant, antigay authoritarian. Odd bedfellows but Labour is power hungry.

Recently one of Labour’s MPs was caught red-handed with his hand in the pockets of his constituents. MP Taito Phillip Field would perform “services” for his constituents like any MP does. But Field expected under the table payments in cash. He is also known to take payments from would be immigrants to push them through the immigration process and has had would-be immigrants provide him with free labour renovating property he owns. All of this smacks of utter corruption.

And as the heat was rising Prime Minister Helen Clark, the most power hungry of the lot, realised Field was damaging her party and what little credibility she had left. So she made it clear that Field had to go. Now the pressure was on Field but he responded behind the scenes and reminded Clark that Labour has a one vote majority in parliament. Labour can force him out of the party he noted but they can’t force him out of parliament until he is convicted of a crime. And he made it clear to Clark that he would stay in parliament and withhold his vote from Labour. Clark would have her own mother assassinated to stay in power so this was a no brainer for her. The very next day she was back in public but this time she was defending the man.

Under New Zealand law, and a bad law at that, the taxpayers are forced to fund election campaigns. And there are strict rules about those funds must be spent. In addition government funds the parliamentary offices of elected parties. It turned out that National Party candidates over spent by $10,588. National paid the money back accepting they had erred.


It turned out that Labour used, not $10,000, but $450,000 in funds inappropriately. They put out an election card to voters but intentionally paid for it from parliamentary funds. They were warned in advance that the expenditure was not a legitimate parliamentary expense. They were told the money had to come out of their election budget. They ignored the advice and later claimed they never received it. They had. They spent the money and over spent their campaign by at least $450,000 and possibly $800,000. Not only were they warned they were headed to overspend they actually accelerated their spending after the warning. Why do something so illegal? They knew the election was in a dead heat and anything was deemed acceptable to stay in power.

Of course the truth about the intentional over spend has come out in public. Opposition leader Don Brash publicly said that Clark “stole the election... she misappropriated half million of taxpayer money to fund her campaign. She should pay the money back, resign, go to the country and have a fair election.” A huge majority of voters, in polls, say Labour should pay the money back. Even 76% of Labour voters say the funds should be returned.

Labour is refusing to do any of that. Worse they are proposing legislation to retroactively legitimise their illegal activities. They won by about a 1% margin. And to stay in power they took illegal measures which they are now working to legalise after the fact. Of course there is no retroactive voting. That $450,000 in extra spending may well have been what pushed Clark and her corrupt party back into office, that and the obedience of her emasculated trained poodles: the leaders of New Zealand First and United Future. Actually now that the spending is being audited it is thought that Labour may have misappropriated up to $800,000 for the election.

Now lets go back to the corrupt practices of Mr. Field for a minute. He recently found a defender in an MP from the Maori Party. Hone Harawira said that the Field was entitled to take money from constituents saying such bribes are a cultural tradition. Got that! Since it is supposedly a cultural tradition then Field has the right to take the payments in return for doing his job. In fact the idiot from the Maori Party implied that to criticise such blatant dishonesty is racist! He called it “brown bashing” (Fields is a Pacific Islander).

The most recent opinion polls show voters preferring the opposition National Party by about 9 points. Any election now is sure to spell defeat for Clark and her two trained poodles. And she will do anything to stay in power. Anything.

The photo on the extreme left (naturally) is of Helen Clark.