If you were in a war, you wouldn’t want the Labour Party on your side: their physical abilities would probably be on a par with their mental abilities. After six years in government we know how seriously their abilities were found wanting. Their reign will be remembered for a succession of policy blunders which climaxed in an explosive election loss in October.
Labour have proven time and again that public opinion means little to them. This all started when the maniacal madam from Morrinsville paraded herself in front of her subjects daily to spit venom and threaten them with vile retribution should they dare to step out of line. Her tyrannical tirades finally caught up with her and, realising her once-adoring public were against her, she literally ran away from Office. She’s been on the run ever since, like some criminal trying to evade justice and being held to account.
Her talent pool, which according to her was as deep as the Pacific Ocean, in reality was no deeper than a teaspoon of Buckley’s cough mixture. Ministers Stuart Nash, Michael Wood and Kiri Allan, among others, managed to create their own blunders, but almost all ministers made blunders simply by opening their mouths and disseminating nonsense. While Michael Wood was happy to label his fellow citizens “a river of filth”, Chief of the Maori Caucus Willie Jackson spouted a river of nonsensical racism.
Labour really are the blunder party. It didn’t matter what area they waffled about, they blundered. Finance, health, education, welfare, housing, agriculture, poverty,
infrastructure…they blundered in the lot. The reason for this was their inward-looking and determinedly ideological thinking. Nothing else mattered. They blundered into things people didn’t want but they did. Their outright majority, which anyone with half a brain and a modicum of ability would have turned into a positive, they managed through their own diehard beliefs to turn into a massive negative.
They couldn’t see the error of their ways then and, if Chris Hipkins is to be believed, they still can’t see them now. Chippie doesn’t know of anything they could have done differently. Labour is a party completely at variance with the majority of public opinion. They call themselves progressives: that’s an ironic joke. Their progress is akin to a snail trying to find a lettuce leaf for breakfast. How can they possibly be progressive when their paymasters, the unions, keep dragging them back into the past.
Most of the causes of Labour’s current demise can be laid at Jacinda Ardern’s door. Everything she touched turned to the equivalent of what is currently preventing swimming at some Auckland beaches. She put herself in charge of solving child poverty. That reminded me of Maid Marian, born around the 12th century, who worked and did good things among the poor. Unfortunately, the modern day Maid Marian from Morrinsville couldn’t even manage that. To cut her some slack, it is tricky when your real priority is to keep the subservient comrades in order.
I suppose losing the election must rate as their biggest blunder after their landslide win three years before, but the announcement of an honour to a man who is less deserving of it than many who missed out must come a close second. If Trevor Mallard had an ounce of decency in his body he would refuse it. He admits he wasn’t a good politician, which is tantamount to stating the bleeding obvious.
He got his gong for his service to parliament as speaker, a position he should never have been given. In this Ardern lacked spine, judgment and intellect. It was a case of one tyrant not disappointing another tyrant. Birds of a feather stick together, as the old saying goes. She wasn’t about to disappoint her Lord Protector. He brought parliament into disrepute and National lost confidence in him. His bias and overall behaviour as speaker earned him the honour of being labelled the worst speaker in the history of our parliament. That is the only honour he should have received.
But, as we all suspected, the man who tried to deafen and drown his subjects was rewarded for his despicable and disgraceful conduct. This does nothing but bring the entire raison d’être for these honours into disrepute. His name is an affront to all the other names on the list. What is needed now is for the government to appoint an independent body to oversee the honours process. The political aspect needs to be removed. Every speaker bar one might have got a gong, but they shouldn’t be handed out on that basis.
If we bothered to research the others mentioned we would no doubt find them all more deserving than Mr Mallard. But our bully boy Trev doesn’t care: it’s water off a duck’s back to him. Waddling around and having a gong to quack about is all that matters. It’s abhorrent and disgusting.
