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Opinion
I am a lifelong fan of Mott The Hoople, the greatest band in popular music history. Half a century later there is no such thing as a ‘former’ Mott The Hoople fan, as once hooked you can’t break the habit of their music. One of the amusing things about the band on tour in the 1970s, was that they would party after their concerts in gay bars, as, being married, they wanted to avoid ‘groupies’, and in gay bars celebrities tended to be left alone.
One day in 1971 they were in a gay bar somewhere in America and bumped into Elton John (who was probably doing the opposite and looking for groupies! haha!). A few drinkies later and John gave Mott frontman Ian Hunter advice on songwriting by pointing out that Bernie wrote the lyrics first and Elton put music to them later. Hunter took the advice and went on to write marvellous songs right up to the present day.
Fast forward a few decades and in a documentary about Elton John which I saw on television, some fool – a music industry non-entity – said, presumably in all seriousness, “…Elton writes songs all wrong; Bernie writes the lyrics first then Elton puts music to them….”.
This sort of logic has infected the New Zealand government to a rather frightening extent – literally today. As I write this the “Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation)” bill is being debated in Parliament this afternoon and some of the twaddle being trotted out by the likes of Tirikatene and Coffey makes me seriously question whether everybody, except me, has taken leave of their senses.
The argument in favour of the bill appears to be something along the lines of: the way elections to local bodies have traditionally occurred is all wrong because the misbegotten majority don’t vote correctly. They want to appoint Ngai Tahu grifters to the regional council to make up for it. Oh and “Rino and his cuzzies” know better than those fools at Crown Law too. So there!
Despite the best efforts of a brilliant speech by Paul Goldsmith (after a decade in Parliament he’s finally getting the hang of it), where he denounces this appalling piece of legislation for what it is, one presumes the Socialists will ram it through and overturn a century and a half of democracy.
Everyone should be deeply concerned by this bill for several reasons. First, it sets a precedent. Second, if the socialist loons can get away with this they can get away with other things. Chilling.
The bill has no merit and contains nothing which anybody could possibly agree with. Proof of this is that the report by the select committee was written in Maori (click on the link and you’ll see) – so nobody can understand it. Imagine trying to think of a reason to support the bill in English when you can’t read the bill in Maori!
What a shame several hundred thousand people in Canterbury are, as we speak, busy photographing themselves, posting inane tomfoolery on Facebook, checking their hair, racing somebody to be first in the queue at the fish and chip shop, amongst other mindless activities, rather than grabbing pitchforks and baseball bats and saying, “Not on your nellie chum!”.
