Russell Abnormal was particularly pleased with himself and so too was his co-leader Metaphor Two-rear. Ms Two-rear was grinning like a Cheshire cat; the post-persons had defied attacks by magpies and delivered the bright orange envelopes into the letter boxes of an anxious public no doubt desirous to have their say.
The bicycle express had got through.
They were going to put it up Don Key’s followers in a big way. How dare he opt to sell 49 per cent of the country’s crown jewels, a move which they and their constituents so avidly opposed? So what if the referendum cost $30 million. They were convinced that close to 100 per cent of the hoi-polloi were certain to vote “No” to the question: “Should the gu’mmint be allowed to sell shares in state-owned assets to their rich mates?”
Heck, the county didn’t need the money. Just because we are borrowing massive sums from the gnomes of Bay-Jing on a weekly basis, we can’t be too hard up, thought Metaphor. After all didn’t the Higher Celery Commission just give them all a generous pay rise?
Abnormal leant back on his leather recliner clasped his hands behind his head and thought what an inspired decision he’d made some years back when he left behind the self-imposed impoverishment of the Horse-tralian Komyounist party and set sail for Ayer-tayer-rower. Despite his falsetto voice the land of the wrong white crowd had fallen for his vexatious brand of pollyticks and he fully expected to hold the balance of power in less than a year.
Kevin Dudd would live to regret that he was never schooled by him.
Meanwhile Wonton Peters, just finishing a Chinese takeaway, straightened his tie and combed his hair for the umpteenth time as he contemplated an afternoon at the racetrack. He still had the sign with “NO” on it that he’d held up to TV journalists when they queried whether Onerous Glen had given him $100,000 to pay his legal fees. It reminded him that he was going to say “No” to the question posed in the orange envelope, despite at one stage promising to support the Prime Misery over the issue, only to have his offer spurned.
But David Cunningness was keeping shtum. What if the public recalled that Layber privatised Ayer Knew Zeeland in 1989, selling it lock, stock and barrel to Sing-a-poor owned Briar-lee investments and Sing-a-poor Ayer Lines? He remembered Layber had bought back eighty per cent of it in 2001. And then in 2002 Herr Klark, operating out of her Wasp-hive office in Helengrad, tried to sell 22.5% to Kwantas. Don Key has just sold 20% to Knew Zeelanders whereas Herr Klark had tried to sell 22.5% to those pesky Horse-tralians and in the process would have destroyed trans-Tazmin competition.
Wouldn’t the public recognise the sheer hypocrisy, Cunningness worried?
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David Cunliffe may well have scored a political point with the same people who will have forgotten Labour’s record of selling off state-owned assets when he said a Labour government would instruct Treasury to pay the $3.5 million which is currently owed to the Pike River families by way of a court-ordered reparation for health and safety failings at the mine.
He said he would then use all the means at his disposal once he became Prime Minister to ensure Treasury got the money back in full from the shareholders of companies like NZ Oil and Gas and other businesses and individuals who had a stake in Pike River Coal before the firm went into receivership. “For too long,” he said, “These people have ignored their moral obligations.”
Bill English however makes the point that ACC had already paid out $5 million to the families of Pike River on the same basis of any family that suffers a work-place accident. The full support from ACC would amount to $20 million when paid.
Other commentators have said that NZ Oil and Gas has paid out $25 million since the disaster for salaries, creditors and tunnel recovery. A resolution at its annual meeting in October to pay more was lost.
It could be reasonably argued that there are few companies that would voluntarily pay $25 million when there was no legal requirement for them to do so.
Apology:
A few columns back I inferred that half of our politicians are idiots. I now withdraw that statement.
Half of our politicians are not idiots.
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