Incoming!!

Welcome, Dear Readers, to a LawsWatch summer special report. Today your favourite blogspot has embedded a reporter on Wanganui’s Direct Democracy Mayoral Spin Chopper One as it tours the mountains, lakes, forests, farms and beaches of New Zealand and beyond seeking out buy-election candidates for re-education Diva-style.

Our intrepid reporter is joined in turn by a fellow embedee from Notional Radio's Soporific Summer Series as we take to the skies at dawn on yet another beautiful January morning for the first sortie in Operation Re-education, with Colonel Laws and Tail Gunner Larry Mitchell.

But first, dear readers, turn off the sizzling sausages and join us for some background to this extraordinary example of Democracy in action...

"Cheap shots score no bullseyes" was the unusally provocative (for the Chron) headline above a story on Monday quoting buy-election candidate Allan Anderson's suspicions that the Diva might be being just a tad alarmist in his buy-election hyperbole.

"Is it safe to live in Wanganui? Or even to venture into the city?" he asked, rhetorically we hope. "… is it safe to walk the crumbling footpaths, drive on our dirt roads, drink the water or even flush the toilet? And, as for bird flu… just forget it. Update your will."

And hitting several nails on the head with a resounding bang, Anderson added, "This is the stuff of populist politics. Denigrate everything in sight and blame the previous administration. It sometimes works and helps deflect attention from one’s own shortcomings. But it does not make for harmonious and constructive decision-making.

"Instead of denigrating all that exists Wanganui needs to acknowledge that most of what is now coming to fruition – roads, footpaths, wastewater scheme and the revamp of the avenue/Mainstreet – was initiated by previous councils," he pointed out, adding presciently "it will take more than a mayoral mile to pay for our sewerage scheme." And our flash new swimming pool, and just about everything else on the buy-election bread and circuses agenda, he might have added.

Such a clear and down-to-earth analysis didn't go unanswered for long. The Diva promptly cranked up the spin machine to announce he was "disturbed" (we've known that all along - Ed.) and accused Anderson of having "no idea how serious the council's state of finances is".

So... because a candidate points out that the city needs to find money - money it doesn't have - to pay for sewerage let alone a swimming pool, that shows he doesn't understand how bad finances are?

Anderson had "obviously [not] read any council document over the past year or the reports of the Audit Office or independent auditors. His lack of awareness is just bizarre." Then leaping deflty from unwarranted assumption to unsupported conclusion, the Diva added that Anderson's comments "did highlight the fact that candidates might not be as knowledgeable as current councillors".

Oh those informed Councillors like Dotty "Professor Phard" McKinnon, perhaps? Or Muzza "what's with all these annoying meetings?" Hughes.

Candidates need not fear, however. The burden of forming their own conclusions will soon be lifted from their shoulders. Just like the present crop of spineless lackeys councillors, candidates are to be deluged with reams of Mayoral spin telling them how to think.

But now we return to our embedded reporter on board Spin Chopper One ...

Since this is the zenith of the holiday season, and candidates need all the relaxation and recharging they can get to prepare for the possibility of two years in the Guyton Street war zone (which is precisely the reason the buy-election was called for this time of the year - Ed.) - Colonel Laws' first stop this morning is a faraway beach on the Chatham Islands and he wastes no time rushing out with his whiteboard and laser pointer, and delivering his briefings to startled sunbathing candidates, one of whom was seen to stir slightly in his lounger and reach for the sunblock at the chopper's approach.

Gunner Larry Mitchell, the Diva's favourite report writer, has come out of retirement on his Puhoi farm, and is handing out remaindered copies of his $44,000 vanity publishing exercise, replete with lots of nice pictures and stories about the Diva's fancy fiscal footwork. One grateful candidate was seen tossing their holiday reading (a work of fiction by that psychopathic pollie Jeffrey Archer) into the surf and plunging into Larry's masterpiece, once the Diva has explained just why and how it is remotely relevant to the business end of WDC.

Meanwhile we can report that en route to the Chathams Gunner Mitchell was able to drop copies of his 50kg bomb on unsuspecting candidates sheltering high in the Southern Alps and walking the Routeburn Track.

Colonel Laws has however issued an official denial to rumours that yesterday's operation struck a snafu when Gunner Mitchell programmed the wrong coordinates into Spin Chopper One's GPS and large quantities of the Mitchell Report were dropped on a Norweigian ski trail, startling Prime Minister Helen Clark and her entourage and prompting her to call the Skyhawks out of mothballs for a defensive action.

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