VIDEO: Japanese tribute to Helen Clark ( ゆっくり話してください)

どうぞ

It is hump day and we all need a good laugh on this often hard to get by day.

From the talented half of the former Mickey Havoc and Newsboy team comes Jeremy Wells with a Japanese ode to Helen Clark and her exploits around the globe.

Mr Havoc's funny bone seems to have disappeared since he disappeared so far up Helen's posterior he needs a proctologist to get him out.

Done in the typical "game show" style that the Japanese seem to love the 1 minute clip is very funny.

If the Japanese people in the audience knew and loved Helen like us in New Zealand do they may well not be laughing so hard though.

トイレ は どこ です か !!

c Political Animal 2008

Anti smacking law a resounding success

Hasn't the removal of section 59 or the anti smacking law been a resounding success?

Over the last week two children have died after being beaten to a pulp and one in in critical care with life-threatening injuries that include internal bleeding, head injuries and several pelvic fractures.

Sue Bradford, Helen Clark , Cindy Kiro and the law's supporters have thanked State agencies for executing the new law with such success over the last year.

7 children have been killed in the year since the law was passed and many more have been seriously injured:

• Remuera 16 month old Sachin Dhani June 2007
• a 28-year-old woman charged with murdering a newborn baby found dead in the backyard of a Te Mome Road property in Alicetown June 2007
• Tokoroa 22-month-old Tyla-Maree Darryl Flynn June 2007
• Rotorua 3 year old Nia Glassie July 2007
• Manurewa ten-month-old Jyniah Mary Te Awa September 2007
• Otahuhu two-month-old Tahani Mahomed December 2007

The law's supporters have all come out and strongly spoken out against the killings and additional severe beatings, and cite the removal of section 59 as the impetus for further good results in 2009.

"Our kids can can be thankful for this kind of considerate, sensible, compassionate and effective law and we are very proud to have passed it".

After all it is about the safety of children.

5:00AM Tuesday July 08, 2008
By Elizabeth Binning

A 39-year-old woman has been charged over an assault that left an Avondale toddler fighting for his life.

Itupa Julie Mikaio appeared in the Auckland District Court yesterday charged with assaulting Benjamin Mikaio, 3, on or about June 27.

The defendant, who comes from Samoa and is unemployed, did not enter a plea. She was given bail.

Police say they are still considering whether other charges will be laid.

Benjamin was rushed to the Starship hospital three days after the attack - on the advice of extended family members - with life-threatening injuries that included internal bleeding, head injuries and several pelvic fractures. Continued

Related Political Animal reading

Police called as toddler fights for life
Sascha Cobern's letter to the Editor of the NZ Herald
Anti-smacking petition a slap in the face for out of touch Politicians
Sign the Anti Anti smacking petition
Cindy Kiro gets violent

c Political Animal 2008

Helen Clark kicks democracy below the belt

By Rod Emmerson

Helen "Mugabe" Clark and her stance to deny a referendum during the 2008 Election to the nearly 10% of Kiwis who voted in a petition to overturn the anti smacking bill is yet another full smack in the face with a closed fist, for democracy in New Zealand.

We shouldn't be surprised. I signaled her current stance last week when the petition came back to the house, but it is just another crime against democracy that Clark and her government have been infamous for over the last 9 years.

Labour and all who sail in her, and vote for her hate freedom with a passion and have done everything they could to stifle it.

Related Political Animal Reading

Labour's State Control out of control
Electoral Finance Bill Vote
NZ loses democratic freedom

Sacha Cobern's letter to NZ Herald Editor
Electoral Finance Bill Protest 2007

If it isn't the anti democratic Electoral Finance Act, where individuals and groups fear legal reprisals for speaking out against the government in election year, it is Clark and Winston Peters threatening the media with "correction" when they don't like what they are saying.

Removing legal freedoms by removing the Privy Council without indication or consultation before an election has constrained full and fair legal process in New Zealand.

The freedom to eat, smoke, say and do as individuals have a right to has been diluted to such an extent that most individuals and families live in fear of some government agency, or in the case of the EFA or anti smacking law, the police, knocking on the door to take citizens away for questioning.

While that sort of political correctness has reined supreme, the freedom for innocent Kiwi citizens to roam their neighbourhood safely has been suppressed because of rampant welfare bred violence and lack of consequences from the Justice Department and slack politically correct policing directed from the top floor of the Beehive.

Government's exist not to constrain freedom but to champion it. It is their job to make sure we all live our lives, as much as possible, without fear of consequences if we dare to voice an opinion or have a view that differs from our fellow citizens. Even this blog has been threaten by mentally deranged Labour voters plotting to illegally use photo-shopped pictures of my good self.

In Helen Clark and her government we have an administration clearly willing to remove our democratic freedoms in the vein hope they can hold on to power long enough to continue to remove the last vestiges of democracy that we currently cling on a steep cliff face to.

To most enlightened individuals, except Helen Clark herself, the irony of her speech yesterday in Parliament about one Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe and his current murderous rampage-his first one in the early 1980s supported by Clark- will not be lost.

In Mr Mugabe we have a tyrant who clings to power by removing democratic freedoms by bad law,threats,violence,torture and murder. In Ms Clark we have a dictator who clings to power by removing democratic freedoms with bad law and threats.

How long will it be before the relatively thick line between the two gets thinner?

I fear for the future of our democracy and the safety of its people if Labour are voted back in in 2008.

c Political Animal 2008

Herald Poll and Political Animal commentary

c Stan Blanch 2008



While in her own mind and those of her Labour party colleagues, Helen Clark is still the preferred Prime Minister , the all important voters are thinking something else entirely.

This morning on Newstalk ZB Aunt Helen blamed "volatility" in the polls, when talking about the loony Greens support wavering wildly since the Heralds last poll and by implication the idea was that the poll was not to be trusted. She had another go at the paper for its poll accuracy.

This and the polls of the last 10 weeks cannot be ignored by the former high flying minister.

A definite trend has emerged and the outcome looks like a hiding for the Labour party not seen in generations.

Voters could be forgiven for forgetting about party allegiance's and voting for a winning party, National, least they waste their vote on the big loser.

Hitch your train to the wagon Abner, cause its on a non stop trip to Wellington to take out the trash.


Key Joins his party at No 1 position

5:00AM Monday March 03, 2008
By Audrey Young, NZ Herald

John Key (right) has overtaken Helen Clark as New Zealand's preferred Prime Minister.

National leader John Key has overtaken Prime Minister Helen Clark in popularity in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey, and his party has extended its lead over Labour to 18 points.

It is the first time since May last year that Mr Key has been ahead of Helen Clark as preferred prime minister, although his lead is only two points.

National has been ahead of Labour since Mr Key became National leader in December 2006 but apart from a surge in his popularity in May because of his role in the anti-smacking-bill compromise, Helen Clark has convincingly led the preferred prime minister polling. That has reinforced the view that despite poor party polling, she is Labour's strongest asset.

But in the past month, Mr Key and the National Party have both gone up 7 points in the survey.

Mr Key is preferred by 46.3 per cent of decided voters and Helen Clark by 44.3 per cent in the poll, conducted between February 11 and 28.

In January, Helen Clark was ahead of Mr Key by 10.5 points.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters polled 3.3 per cent. Trade Minister Phil Goff, often tipped as the next Labour leader, scored no support as preferred prime minister.

The gap between the two main parties is so wide and coalition partners so limited for Labour - the Greens are below 5 per cent - that National could easily govern alone if the poll's figures translated to votes.

National is on 54.5 per cent (up 7 points), 18 points ahead of Labour on 36.5 per cent (down 2.2).

In the January survey, the gap between the parties was only 8.8 points.

Gender bias between the two leaders persists - men disproportionately favour Mr Key and women disproportionately support Helen Clark as prime minister.

The poll shows that voters aged over 60 have a strong bias towards National and New Zealand First.

It also shows that New Zealand First supporters have a strong preference for a coalition with National over Labour (90 per cent v 9.1 per cent) and that Maori Party supporters are not overwhelmingly disposed to a Labour deal - 57.1 per cent of Maori Party supporters would favour a deal with Labour, but 42.9 per cent would favour a deal with National.

The poll was conducted after an intense political start to the year in which both leaders made "state of the
nation" speeches and announced policies on youth crime, education and training.

Polling began after both leaders visited Waitangi, where Mr Key's meeting with Tame Iti received top billing, as did Helen Clark's aversion to Te Tii Marae.

Helen Clark hinted at media bias, saying last night through a spokesman: "Obviously the Leader of the Opposition has had a lot of publicity since the beginning of the year." She believed Labour polling was holding up and was reasonably close to the 1999 result - 38.74 per cent - when Labour took office.

"The important issue now is who has the best plan for the future," she said.

Mr Key did not believe he'd had more publicity than Helen Clark at the start of the year "and in fact she got enormous coverage from the [Sir Edmund] Hillary funeral ... not that that was political."

He believed they both received extensive, though contrasting, coverage at Waitangi.

He said he never thought his hongi with Tame Iti would damage him in the eyes of the voting public.

"I thought the mood of the nation has moved on and they started looking at Helen Clark fighting the battle that has been and gone and I think they responded positively to me wanting to engage and make a day of national celebration rather than harbouring some sort of historic dispute."

Support for the Greens is showing some volatility, falling to 4.4 per cent from 9.1 in the previous poll and 3.5 in the one before that.

New Zealand First is down 0.7 points on 2.1 per cent.

Falling below the 5 per cent threshold means neither party would win seats in Parliament unless they won an electorate.

Mr Peters has not yet confirmed that he will try to regain his former Tauranga seat, won last election by National's Bob Clarkson.

The Maori Party polled 1.5 per cent (up 0.5), United Future 0.4 (up 0.4), Act 0.4 (down 0.3) and the Progressives were unchanged on zero.

Tax cuts remain the issue most likely to influence votes, 20.7 per cent of those polled listing it top.

* The poll was of 734 respondents, and results presented are from decided voters only. The margin of error is 3.6 per cent.

Related Political Animal reading

Helen Shoots herself in both feet
Colmar Brunton Poll and comment

c Political Animal 2008

Helen Clarks slipping teflon makeup leaves her naked

c Moreu 2008, from Stuff The crystal ball


Watch Video: Helen Clark on poll result (Newstalk ZB)


Helen Clarks spectacular outburst today, blaming the media for her and her party's bad showing in the latest political polls out last week, on a rampant media with the sole purpose of having her removed from parliament seems more than a little laughable considering the huge left-wing bias in the majority of the mainstream stuff written.

Clark has had them in her clutches, and mostly on her side for the last 9 years and her conspiracy theory that the media are out there to get her have shades of Robert Muldoon(yes I'm that old) as he crumbled drunk from office, and the worlds greatest conspiracy theorist when it comes to the media, Winston"Baubles" Peters.

I guess it is true what they say huh, you lie down with lapdogs...

The thin veneer of humanity left in Clark has slipped, like last weeks chardonnay and fish and chips, into the compost bin.

You can almost see her true personality soaking through the gritted stained teeth, and the unhinging looks more lovely everyday.

She has attacked the media in the past, when they don't say what she thinks is acceptable and a usually politically savvy Clark(probably the best political animal NZ has ever seen) has attacked a media, rightly or wrongly, in election year as being too stupid to make up their own minds about the PMs popularity.

Does she now expect them to go easier on her after that?!

Audrey Young and Fran O'Sullivan are no doubt sharpening their pens for another bite at the bitch again tomorrow, pass the dynamite.

Still there is always the ever present Electoral Finance Act for her to fall back on. Its eyes over ones shoulder are ever present.

I'm picking a landslide win to National come election 2008.


Related links

Labour has 'work to do' - Clark



c Political Animal 2008

State backed sub prime mortgages in New Zealand a recipe for disaster

If large banking institutions like Countrywide, Citibank &
Bank of America are affected by todays sub prime mess why
is the New Zealand Labour Government about to embark on
our own sub prime fallout in the future by lending taxpayer
money to individuals to buy houses who wont be able to pay
back the loans?

"government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem".

Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address
West Front of the U.S. Capitol
January 20, 1981.


The fuss made last Tuesday over Helen Clark's "state of the nation" address by politicians on the left and their supporters has left me dazed and confused.

There was much talk of the "problems" that must be solved post a 2008 election and also that the Labour Government had worked hard for the last 8 and a half years to solve many of the problems that faced the nation over that time.

Surely if the hard work had been truly fruitful we really wouldn’t be facing any major problems now?

That’s where I got confused, the dazed part came after Helen Clark’s address but more about that below.

Ronnie was and is right, Governments, of all colours, make problems and then politicise these problems in the media when they offer to “fix” them.

Labour though has been the biggest problem maker in this small countries political history.

The most public example of that lately has been the anti graffiti legislation. Something made worse by Labour’s casual attitude to law enforcement and socialist family centered legislation like family group conferences instead of jail time or appropriate punishment are the problem.

The legislation is actually there already, but it is election year and Labour are merely grandstanding for votes.

You can pick through any of the huge problems that this Motley Crewe have either engineered or been responsible for and it is quite clear that Labour cannot “fix” what it has fucked up.

From the crippled health “service”, crumbling education standards, record high crime figures to record numbers of New Zealanders on welfare.

I would like to dig deeper on a future “fix” that Labour seem stuck on.

In Clark’s verbose and unsustainable “address to the nation”, she mentioned the word “sustainable” more than a dozen times, she made a feature of her governments efforts to fix the “housing unaffordability crisis”, whatever the hell that means.

The fact is, houses have always been “unaffordable” but in this day and age it seems unacceptable to those on the left for people to start at the bottom, earn their own money, save for a house and then buy one themselves. Logical isn’t it but it worked for us in a previous less politically correct life.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

Ronald Reagan, 1984

Don't worry citizens, Labour is going to help you buy a house, providing taxpayer funded loans or “shared equity” subsidized hand outs to those on “low wages”, in most cases up to 100% of the value of the house!

To fix the “housing unaffordability crises” Labour also propose to build more cheap taxpayer funded homes in increased densities, you know, like the ones they built in the 1930s onwards, the ones that still breed poverty, crime, dependence and hopelessness. Most sensible individuals call those housing developments slums.

Little boxes made of "ticky tacky" should remain as
part of a song or on the monopoly board, not causing
repeated social decay generation infinitum as State
housing always turns out to be.

They will go further than that though. They will force local government to get involved and local housing commissions set up, ones that in the United Kingdom in the past were filled with corruption and favouritism and led to the current social mess they are having. Tower blocks of hell filled with poor dependant UK nationals and disaffected immigrants, some with Koranic scythes to grind.

It’s a fact that slums don’t and never have worked. Labour propose to follow this well worn path of failure, evidenced here and in every other nation. If they did work we wouldn't still have them decades after they were introduced.

You want to know the really funny thing about Labour’s ultimate “solution” to this thing they call a “home unaffordability crisis”?

They helped cause it!

Record high taxes have burdened lower paid workers with low take home wages, while those same record high taxes have funded a government that have spent the proceeds recklessly on social interference and handouts to those undeserved of taxpayer largesse.

Even a third form economics student at the bottom of a class full of deaf and dumb mutes could tell Michael Cullen that his spending was inflationary.

That reckless spending has led to record high mortgage rates, the highest in the “developed world” and increases in local rates, petrol and food prices and all the essentials of life.

Not much left over for mortgage repayments huh Helen and Mike?

I haven even got to the main thrust of this piece though(I’m sure many of you lefties wish you hadn’t read this far-I hope you can grasp what it is I am saying)

By attempting to “fix” this self made “problem” Labour will set up the economy for a fall, one such fall that is having repercussions on us at this present moment.

I’m talking about the sub-prime mess in the United States.

The sub prime fallout was basically caused by defaults in fringe private institutions and Freddie Mac and Fannie May, two state run lenders, lending money to those borrowers in the USA that wouldn’t normally be able to get funding to buy a house.

Surprise, surprise, they eventually couldn’t pay back the loans. Labour propose to State back these same sorts of loans because they are being politically and philosophically motivated to get another 3 years at plundering the treasury benches.

If we in New Zealand are unlucky to get this vermin voted back in again will the same government propose to “fix” our own sub prime fallout when it inevitably happens here and will we forget that they caused the problem in the first place?

I question the veracity and honesty of Labour’s position on this and urge them to seriously rethink a socialist backed dream of all of us owning a state funded house. I question a New Zealand mainstream media, especially the business and finance sector, that would let this lunatic idea go unscrutinised and unaddressed.

Here at Share Investor and Political Animal , we see our job as that of informing readers of things that are not ordinarily looked at or maybe looked at in a deeper or alternative way. A commonsense approach if you like.

Labour’s intention to foist this future “sub prime” housing fallout on Kiwis should be a major concern to all sectors of the economy, from business, to the higher and lower wage earners. It will impact on all of us if their plan gets snowballing.

The push into the Sub Prime lending market in New
Zealand will affect more than house prices, the economy
will be seriously affected when the fallout comes, and it will.

Look around now. The US sub prime fallout is already negatively affecting your share portfolio, your mortgage rates and is having a serious impact on business lending and therefore business and economic growth.

Imagine if you will the direct impact it will have on a small fragile economy like New Zealand.

The word serious would be understatement.

“The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away”.

“Don't be afraid to see what you see”.

Ronald Reagan

Related Political Animal and Share Investor reading

Share Investor Blog

Current credit crunch a blessing in disguise
What happened to risk?
Share Investor Friday free for all: Edition 12 - 2nd story "I'll be baacck"

Political Animal Blog

Labour's Socialist Peril
Labour's State control out of control
Pointing fingers in the playground


c Political Animal & Share Investor 2008

Owen Glenn given the cold shoulder

c Stuff 2008

A picture tells at least a $600,000.00 story.

Billionaire Owen Glenn is protected by bully boy Trevor Mallard from the clutches of her former friend and secret donor to the Labour Party.

Trevor was hear to say from someone just out of frame of this picture-possibly Winston Peters, " Helen my dear, should I do to Glenn what I did to Tau Henare?"

Related Political Animal reading

Snouts in the trough bent out of shape
The Owen Glenn story: Singing the same tune but hitting a bum note
Labour Party Election funding murky at best
Mallards new anti violence advert
Trevor mallard must go

c Political Animal 2008

What happened to risk?

What happened to risk?

A question no doubt in some of my readers minds.

In relation to financial markets, investing and business it seems to be an archaic concept only seen as a entry in the Oxford dictionary.

The market turmoil that started with the Sub Prime fallout and associated credit crunch, several months ago, has highlighted what has been going on for many years, those that take risks in business and investing no longer seem to suffer consequences when the risk that they took doesn't quite give the expected payoff.

After global State bailouts of banks with "liquidity" problems and talk of sub prime borrowers being bailed out or their bad decisions to buy houses they could ill afford, the latest avoidance of risk involves the insurance companies that insured sub prime bonds against collapse.

For goodness sake you want to remove risk from insurance?

Let me borrow and modify a classic Tom Cruise flick, insurance is risky business!! Please don't sue me Tom.

The talk of a bailout last week led to US markets doing a Lazarus and finishing up by around 2.5%.

It ain't a positive investors, its a pure unadulterated negative.

The investing world isn't the only place risk and consequences has been removed from life, Governments worldwide have been trying to do this for years.

In New Zealand Helen Clark, and her merry bunch of Labour Party socialist risk aversionists have recently passed a law to allow citizens to easily declare bankruptcy and come out of it without paying back debtors. This is linked to student loans that don't attract interest and therefore students have no incentive to pay them back.

All risk taken and no consequences for that risk.

Over the last 9 years Aunty Helen has bubbled wrapped an entire nation so much so that the risk that she talked about when she gave a eulogy at Sir Edmund Hillary's Funeral has almost been completely removed.

When we remove consequences for risk though, we increase the risk that mistakes will continue to occur.

Those in the financial industry being bailed out, institutionally and individually are simply going to continue to do what they have done if there are no brakes on their behaviour.

The looming danger is ironically low interest rates, what led us into the whole sub prime fallout and reckless borrowing and lending in the first place.

Record low rates after 9-11 led to a frenzy of cheap credit and with similar low rates coming down the pipeline one doesn't have to be a Warren Buffett to figure out that this is not such a good thing at all.



Related Political Animal Blog Reading

Labour's Socialist Peril

Related Share Investor Blog Reading

Leaders must come clean over losses
Credit Crunch a blessing in disguise
Global Credit Squeeze: There is no free lunch


C Share Investor & Political Animal 2008

Helen Clark's words ring hollow

Dear old Sir Ed was buried on Tuesday and it is now time to get out the knives and stick them firmly where they belong, in Helen Clark's back.

Sure, the Prime Minister had a job to do in the State Funeral for Sir Ed and she executed her part in an adequate manner.

What wasn't appropriate though was her use of the occasion to make political capital for the sake of polishing her highly tarnished image.

In her eulogy, she mentioned Sir Ed's individualism, his tenacity in the face of adversity, and his ability to take risk, and responsibility for that risk.

Was I listening to a new Helen Clark, one who has turned over a new leaf in the holidays and one who has done a complete 180 degree turn and become a rational, free thinking, truthful, moral, aspirational individual?

I don't think a mangy leopard can change its spots, let alone a collective freedom basher like our dear Prime Minister.

Can you?

Sir Edmund Hillary stood and his achievements still stand for excellence and he achieved his goals in a society that embraced risk, and rewarded those who took those risks.

Clark and her merry band of Socialists punish those who would put their heads above the masses and try to reach their goals, while mediocrity is rewarded to stop feelings being hurt.

One could be forgiven for a slip of the memory by Clark during her eulogy yesterday but it must be remembered that Sir Ed stood for truthfulness, a moral compass that led him in the right direction and a firm handshakes that meant an agreement was adhered to.

Clark's hypocrisy in the face of her empty words filled my bones with a cancerous bile thick with her lies, broken promises and moral free conscience.

Perhaps the largest legacy that Sir Ed leaves behind is his spirit of freedom, the ability to do and say what he wanted, within the bounds of being a gentleman, without the repercussions of the State apparatus coming down on him to put a stop to it.

Helen Clark and the sisterhood put everything in the way of freedom that they possibly can, the epitome of their stomp on the head of freedom being the passing of the fascist Electoral Finance Act, rushed through without multi party consultation at the end of 2007.

I would go as far to say that if Sir Ed was educated in today's education system and our politically correct straight jacketed ways, it would have damped his spirit to such an extent that the individualism and freedom that he was famous for would have been stomped out before he turned 10 years old.

I mourn the loss of a great man, and the passing of all the great things that he stood for.

A collective such as Helen Clark, even though she was a friend of his, is an enemy of all Sir Ed will be remembered for.


Related Political Animal Articles

Electoral Finance Bill: The purpose is clear
Labour's State control out of control
Labour's Socialist peril
Pointing fingers in the playground


C Political Animal 2008

Helen Clark and Jenette Fitzsimon's in conflict with business

Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, continues to have a problem with separation of her job from conflicts of interest and possible conflicts of interest.

Apart from the numerous personality, and socio-political conflicts she has in her day to day activities the topic up for discussion here is her and her Government's numerous conflicts of interest with the business world.

We have had recently Clark herself, Micheal Cullen and other Government Ministers interfering in Air New Zealand by making public statements that have affected the share price of the airline, likewise she and her Ministers erred again in 2006 when making inappropriate comments, on several occasions, about Telecom New Zealand that lost shareholders 100s of millions of dollars.

Most recently we have had Winston Peters, a Labour Government partner and lapdog making inappropriate comments in the media about influences they could use to stop the Auckland International Airport from being sold.

The most glaring example and probably least known, is the conflict that arises from Jeanette Fitzsimons from the Green Party and her major shareholding in the listed NZ windfarm owner , manufacturer and developer, Windflow Technologies.

Fitzsimons is a partner to the Labour Government and drives Labour's "Green Agenda" for them. Fitzsimons has been responsible for passing law and changing rules to give companies like hers an advantage over competitors and as a result she has financially benefited directly from her activities in Parliament. Jenette has a knack of forgetting to mention her large shareholding in Windflow Technology when dealing with such matters when doing Parliamentary business.

You cant get more corrupt and conflicted than that but she has a good role model for her modus operandi in Al Gore, but that is another story.

If we get back to Clark's role in this though, not only is her Government culpable in the conflict of interest by allowing Fitzsimons to feather her own nest but she has also been directly championing the company with financial, moral and media support for Windflow Tech.

Helen Clark with Windflow Technology
head Geoff Henderson,centre, and Derek Walker,
chairman of NZ Windfarms, at the commissioning
of NZ Windfarms' turbines near Palmerston North.

This sort of Parliamentary, legislative and Prime ministerial support for Windflow Tech is clearly a huge conflict of interest that shouldn't be allowed to continue, although we shouldn't be surprised by this sort of conflict as it is apparent at most of our listed companies: Tim Saunders at Contact Energy, Lloyd Morrison at Auckland Airport and a host of other rapscallions and rascals at a whole host of other listed companies.

The shareholders at Windflow Tech should be worried too.

Government interference, as outlined above, can also change to the negative at a whim, should policy, Government or thinking change.

We have to remember, as shareholders in companies, however small or large our holding maybe, it is our personal property rights that are at issue here. Interference from individuals, entities, whether Government or private have no more rights than you or me and their influence shouldn't be able to be subscribed to the extent that they can change laws to suit their own agendas and line their own pockets.


C Political Animal 2007

Helen Clark and Jenette Fitzsimons knee deep in Windflow Technology conflict

Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, continues to have a problem with separation of her job from conflicts of interest and possible conflicts of interest.

Apart from the numerous personality, and socio-political conflicts she has in her day to day activities the topic up for discussion here is her and her Government's numerous conflicts of interest with the business world.

We have had recently Clark herself, Micheal Cullen and other Government Ministers interfering in Air New Zealand by making public statements that have affected the share price of the airline, likewise she and her Ministers erred again in 2006 when making inappropriate comments, on several occasions, about Telecom New Zealand that lost shareholders 100s of millions of dollars.

Most recently we have had Winston Peters, a Labour Government partner and lapdog making inappropriate comments in the media about influences they could use to stop the Auckland International Airport from being sold.

The most glaring example and probably least known, is the conflict that arises from Jeanette Fitzsimons from the Green Party and her major shareholding in the listed NZ windfarm owner , manufacturer and developer, Windflow Technologies.

Fitzsimons is a partner to the Labour Government and drives Labour's "Green Agenda" for them. Fitzsimons has been responsible for passing law and changing rules to give companies like hers an advantage over competitors and as a result she has financially benefited directly from her activities in Parliament. Jenette has a knack of forgetting to mention her large shareholding in Windflow Technology when dealing with such matters when doing Parliamentary business.

You cant get more corrupt and conflicted than that but she has a good role model for her modus operandi in Al Gore, but that is another story.

If we get back to Clark's role in this though, not only is her Government culpable in the conflict of interest by allowing Fitzsimons to feather her own nest but she has also been directly championing the company with financial, moral and media support for Windflow Tech.

Helen Clark with Windflow Technology
head Geoff Henderson,centre, and Derek Walker,
chairman of NZ Windfarms, at the commissioning
of NZ Windfarms' turbines near Palmerston North.

This sort of Parliamentary, legislative and Prime ministerial support for Windflow Tech is clearly a huge conflict of interest that shouldn't be allowed to continue, although we shouldn't be surprised by this sort of conflict as it is apparent at most of our listed companies: Tim Saunders at Contact Energy, Lloyd Morrison at Auckland Airport and a host of other rapscallions and rascals at a whole host of other listed companies.

The shareholders at Windflow Tech should be worried too.

Government interference, as outlined above, can also change to the negative at a whim, should policy, Government or thinking change.

We have to remember, as shareholders in companies, however small or large our holding maybe, it is our personal property rights that are at issue here. Interference from individuals, entities, whether Government or private have no more rights than you or me and their influence shouldn't be able to be subscribed to the extent that they can change laws to suit their own agendas and line their own pockets.


C Share Investor 2007

A Rare Breed

The bullshit that passes for accountability amongst our leaders; politicians and business leaders alike, makes a farce of the meaning of the word "leader".

What does a leader do Darren?

Well, it is quite simple really, even though some individuals in the positions that they find themselves in and in rarer and rarer cases those than actually achieve those positions, would like others to think that being a leader is a complex issue only understood by the likes of those with over sized craniums.

Being a leader as such is as straightforward as setting examples for those that you lead, for it is clear, even to a two year old, for those that observe a good leader doing good things are likely to model themselves on good behavior. Psych 101 really.

Conversely, bad behaviour by a leader will almost guarantee a negative culture: at the workplace or anywhere else for that matter.

Bad leadership flows down to individuals in a company. It can cause resentment among workers, gossip and it saps productivity, morale and effects the long term viability of the organisation or business.

The worst and most public example of leadership failure in New Zealand would have to be Teresa Gattung, the recent retiring CEO of Telecom New Zealand [TEL.NZ]

Her culture of blame, resentment, lies and underhanded competition at leadership level managed to pervade the company culture to such a core extent that any customer getting in touch with a customer services representative at Telecom would have been well aware that there was something going horribly wrong at head office.

Gattung was the head at that head office and she was fully responsible for the disastrous mess that she managed her way into while in tenure behind the big desk.

After leaving of course she was rewarded for her mismanagement with a bundle of cash and plaudits from other mediocre managers of other businesses and arse kissing mainstream "business media" who patted her on the back for "a job well done".

Excuse me!!

On the other hand, the quiet achievers like Don Braid, the CEO and Bruce Plested from Mainfreight Ltd [MFT.NZ]:


"As we grow to become a world player we must maintain our culture and style of business by keeping a strong grip on our policy of being anti-bureaucratic; continuing to allow branch managers to make bold decisions; being energetic and entrepreneurial; and so continue to grow our business.

Don Braid, GM 2007.


Braid and Plested lead from the front and as a result an excellent company culture has evolved. The workers love working there and most of all customers enjoy their contact with Mainfreight.

Without this strong, leader led, focused running of this business Mainfreight would no doubt be floundering in the extremely competitive business environment that they operate in.

Plested and Braid would be sorely missed if they ever left the company so hopefully they can pick a good replacement when that happens.

Given that company culture is so good, the likelihood is that other good leaders will emerge, thanks to the example set by Mainfreight's leaders.

The lack of accountability by leaders when things go wrong in an organisation or business is probably the biggest barrier to business excellence for the medium and long term in this country.

Corporate history in NZ is littered with the corpses of businesses mismanaged to the point of surrender and over the last 8 years the level of managerial incompetence has continued.

The difference over the last 8 or so years though is that management and specifically leaders of that management haven't been accountable or been made accountable by fellow board members, shareholders and customers.

We have had a litany of cases of unaccountable leaders recently. Tim Saunders, former director at failed Feltex Carpets has recently been voted back in as a director of Contact Energy Ltd [CEN.NZ] after being found by an independent body as being partly culpable for Feltex's demise.

Is it any wonder why those working at the coal face at Contact are suffering from low morale. Its CEO or its board should have summarily dumped Saunders. Totally the wrong message sent to the troops and not good for the long term health of the company, global warming fuzzies or not.

Countless heads at the restaurant operator, Restaurant Brands Ltd [RBD.NZ] have failed miserably at the helm, none of them were held responsible in any way, other than they were forced to leave, long after the rot of their management had set in. RBD continue to suffer this vacuum of leadership all the way down to store level and it is obvious in almost every aspect of the business, from the non responsive middle managers all the way down to the surly staff serving customers.

There is a more successful culture in low fat yogurt than at RBD head office.

Sky City Entertainment Group Ltd [SKC.NZ] CEO Evan Davies made a series of mistakes that ended in his being pushed out the door earlier this year but not before he resided over dramatically falling fortunes in gaming profits, a couple of bad asset purchases and a conflict of interest case when his wife was promoted to a position of significant importance in the company.

Davies was allowed to stay at the helm despite his failures because his fellow board members and Sky City shareholders failed to make him responsible and he himself failed to realize that he wasn't managing the company the way it should have been and to fall on his own gilt edged sword.

Management under him at the time are still there at head office and continue to run around like headless chooks wondering what to do, while bargain hunters are hanging around, presumably with better management skills, waiting to pounce on the mismanaged beast that is Sky City.

When is it that leaders will take responsibility for company success and its failures?

It will happen when others make them responsible for those failures. In the case of company leaders; shareholders, employees and customers fail to make them accountable and need desperately to do so.

It shouldn't be up to others to make individual leaders responsible though. Being taught to be a leader from an early age is the antidote to the sickness that we as a society are suffering in terms of leadership.

The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, should be a leader to look up to but her copybook is unfortunately blotted with so much irresponsibility and lack of accountability the ink is turning into a sickly red and spilling over the whole corpse.

With good role models in New Zealand being as rare as 15 year old virgins it looks like the problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Our socialist education system where it is taught that it is OK to lose and that the word"failure" has been erased from the school vocab to be replaced by the phrase "did not achieve" is certainly only going to make the problem of future good leadership a goal that is "not achieved".


Disclosure: I own SKC & MFT shares in the Share Investor Portfolio

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From Fishpond.co.nz



Buy Bird on a Wire: The Inside Story from a Straight Talking CEO & more @ Fishpond.co.nz




c Share Investor 2007

Global Warming: Power to the People

The grab for more taxes by the Labour Government increased this week.

In the week where a NZ$8.7 billion dollar surplus for the last financial year was announced, it seems lunacy that the nanny state would want to steal even more of your money right out of your pocket.

But yes siree Darryl and Sharon New Zealand, you are about to be right royally frisked again because the power you are using is not "sustainable" and therefore you will be taxed to pay for the damage they say you are doing to the environment because of it.

You see the Labour Governments latest tax is being foisted upon us in the form of "fear" taxes, new taxes that will come about because of the left and Greens adherence to the lunatic man made "global warming" lie.

I'm not here to argue the merits of the man made "global warming" movement because quite frankly it has none.

The "science" on which it is based is severely flawed despite what the leftist politicians, green freaks and the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and Nobel Prize winner, Al "I'm running for President " Gore tells you.

For goodness sake do some objective reading people!

The sinister undertone of all this green washing from the GW proponents is that it is a push for imbecile individual knuckle draggers like Gore to make money out of the fear and lies that they are spreading and for Governments around the world to raise taxes.

It just so happens that Helen Clarke, the Prime Misinster of New Zealand and her Sisterhood, through the bequest of Jenette Fitzsimons from the Green Party, because they hold the balance of power, seem to be at the vanguard of this movement to tax New Zealanders for living their normal lives.

New Zealand is going to have to rely on wind power and solar energy to power our economy, according to David Parker, the Chief idiot and slopey fore headed one charged to drive Kiwis back to the middle ages.

According to Parker, we need to be driving electric vehicles, using public transport and doing away with old appliances.

Jenette Fitzsimons goes a step further and wants the size of large screen TVs restricted.

Remember these are the people who like to tell us what to do and have changed laws to get us to eat, drink, smoke,watch and listen to what they want us to.

Restricting our right to parent by removing our ability to lightly smack indolent children its another moral crime they are guilty of.

Certainly, Jenette Fitzsimions lack of morals and boundaries also crosses into the financial sphere.

We have our very own New Zealand Al Gore in Fitzsimons.

While Gore is making hundreds of millions of dollars from his ownership of a fund that puts its money into the carbon free environment that he is slavishly advocating, our little Jenette is doing similar stuff here in NZ.

You see Fitzsimons is the 6th largest shareholder in a company called Windflow Technologies, a company that is developing the very technology that she advocates for and has changed New Zealand laws to benefit her company.

Like Gore, Fitzsimons doesn't make her biases clear when discussing the mushrooming of these visual polluters all over our countryside. We cant have Shania Twain having her house show on a ridge near Queenstown eh Jenette, but we can have these monstrosities covering the nation just so you can get rich from your shareholding in WT.

The Green taxes that Fitzsimons and the Clark sisterhood want to impinge on Kiwi individuals isn't about "saving the planet" or reducing pollution.

It is actually about wealthy green tinged individuals making money, state control and raising taxes to re-distribute them to those individuals too lazy to work and to those 3rd world countries who form a bloc in the UN, that want to lay their hands on Western nations money because they have successfully developed their economies and the 3rd world hasn't.

Aunty Helen, Fitzsimons and their lap dog David Parker clearly want to punish those individuals in society that have made a success of their lives through hard work and innovation and NZ as a whole.

Of course, that is the way of socialism an ism that they all slavishly follow.

The lack of a spiritual and religious base for these 3 collectives and their mates is being fulfilled by the new religion of worshipping at the foot of the Global Warming crusade.

Like all religions the GW movement is based on fairy tales, superstition, fear, greed and jealousy and it is going to end in confrontation.

The sensible among us mustn't be silent against the bias of left wing media that would have you believe that GW is an issue. It clearly isn't.

Let the war begin.


c Darren Rickard 2007

Desperation by Labour Backfires

The New Zealand Labour Party is desperate.

2o points down in the polls, an all-time low against this National Opposition, Labour Ministers mired in scandal and political stuff-ups and the Prime Minister Helen Clark and her underlings are in full filth mode trying to dig dirt on John Key. If serious accusations are to be found true then any politician must be harangued , it just so happens that none of the accusations placed at the feet of Key are serious or truthful

While New Zealands financial and political security and economy is on the brink of collapse and looking like it will consume this government and the country with it, all Labour are interested in is hanging onto power any way they can.

Scurrilous accusations have been made against John Key which haven't stuck and in fact they have indeed backfired on the detritus that have pointed the wagging fingers. What is that phrase again about glass houses and stones?

The energy being put in by Labour to discredit the National Opposition would be better used to govern the nation out of its present sliding fortunes. On second thoughts it might be better for NZ inc if Labour didn't try to "help" us, things always get worse when they intervene!

To simply ignore the mayhem surrounding them though is a crime that should be punished by an early election and a solid beating of the government reminiscent of what David Benson Pope used to dish out to his pupils while he was a teacher at a Tauranga High School.

Labours thrust at another term in office has them ignoring the basic issues a government is elected to do. We have the highest interest rates in the developed world, hospitals unable to cope with patients, finance companies losing almost $2 Billion dollars so far, government Ministers and bureaucrats involved in corruption and cover-ups, crime at at an all-time high, education standards slipping, record numbers of Kiwis leaving the country while questionable immigrants flood in unabated and a continuing lust to curb our freedoms by Labours lap dogs in parliament, Winston Peters, Sue Bradford and the usual hangers on.

Perhaps the biggest lunge at power lust by Labour is the introduction of a a contentious bill to parliament that will make it almost impossible for detractors of the Government to criticise them or use money in an election year to advocate against them or for an individual or party that one supports. That includes blogs such as this one. (I will not remain silent though dear readers)

The Electoral Finance Bill would curb advertising by political parties from January 1 of an election year that would cap their electoral spending, while government advertising on programmes like KiwiSaver would be uncapped and able to continue unrestrained. This advantage would also apply to Labour supported interest groups such as left backed organisations like the PPTA and other unions.

This kind of introduced legislation-it hasn't been passed yet-is the kind of law that would be passed by jurisdictions such as Mugabe's Zimbabwe , Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Hitler's Germany.

The successful passing of this bill and its repercussions on democracy cannot be understated. The main purpose of the bill is to shut down free debate and the ability of the silent majority to elect an alternative government, whatever colour that government might be. It cannot be allowed to pass and any individual in parliament who votes for it must surely hang their heads in shame and perhaps think of packing their bags for a seat in Zimbabwe's Governing dictatorship. Clearly those who vote for such individuals must also question their motives for doing so.

A government whose sole focus seems to be power at any cost and the neglect of the country and those that voted for them in the first place is indeed a sad state of affairs. Regardless of how badly Labour have governed New Zealand over the last 8 years and history will look back and judge this period as one of the blackest since the great depression and more recently Rob Muldoon's tenure in the late 1970s and early 80s, a Governments focus must be on governing the country. It is from the outfall, positive or negative, from a governments running a country that a voters ballot must be judged and cast not the corruption of the democracy by fascist law and filth flinging at opposition.

Either way Helen Clark's Labour Government must be judged and whatever angle one looks at it from , whether it be from Governmental success/failure or unbridled muck raking and various legal/ illegal attempts at remaining in power they have been a dismal failure at both.





c Darren Rickard 2007