The 2006 Mad Mickeys

It seems Mickey is ending the year with an armful of awards.

First there was the "Cheeky Darkie" Award from TVNZ's Eating Media Lunch for his opportunistic post-mortem insult to the King of Tonga (Mickey having worked out that dead people can't sue, or punch you in the nose). Then the NZ Herald gave him a second award for the same insult, its readership citing the Tongan remarks as "The worst insult of 2006".

We were shocked that Mickey received the awards for that comment. We can only assume that the producers at TVNZ and readers of the Herald had forgotten that he used the death of the Kahui twins as fodder for a weak jibe at Britney Spears earlier this year, speculating that she possessed "the Kahui gene". Then again, it is surprisingly easy to forget A Game of Three Losers, when almost no one watched it to begin with.

However, a kind Watcher with access to the appropriate technology has managed to capture both these moments for posterity. Keep watching right the way through to be reminded of just how funny Mickey found the deaths of Cris and Cru Kahui.

But the accolades don't stop there. Mickey also makes it to the Herald's "Where it all went wrong" feature. Whereas other communities are noted as having suffered various natural disasters during the years - ill health in Hawkes Bay, smog in Christchurch, storms in Wellington and the Wairarapa - Mayor Michael Laws was Wanganui's only disaster.

While Mickey and his supporters like to portray his antics as somehow "putting Wanganui on the map" we note that he didn't make it to that same newspaper's "Brash and Beautiful" for the past year - just the list of disasters.

All of which got us to thinking... it's time Wanganui had it's own awards. And we're not just going to let you choose the nominees, but the categories too. Yes, it's time for Watchers to give a bit of acknowledgement for the key players in the Black Comedy of Mayor Mickey’s Mad Reign during 2006, so it's our pleasure to present: The 2006 Mad Mickeys.

To set the ball rolling, we nominate the following memorable moments and people. It’s now over to you Watchers, to challenge our choices and make your own nominations for these and any other categories you can think of. We haven’t begun to tap into the rich, toxic vein of Policy Failures, Mayoral Displays of Malice and Arrogance (towards his own Visionites, other councillors, staff, public, other mayors etc), Mayoral Publicity Stunts… pour yourselves a glass or two of New Years cheer, put your imagination to work and share your nominations with your fellow Watchers as comments on this post.

Best Public Dicking of Mad Mickey by a fellow "celebrity" (& eye-liner wearer): Lilith (aka Gareth Farr) telling Whanganui to "get rid of its f—king mayor" at the Bad Horse night.

Most Promising New Anti-Mickey Malcontents: The organisers of the King of Tonga Protest at Council.

Best Public Dicking of Mad Mayor Michael Laws on National Television: Mad Mickey himself for his meltdown at the King of Tonga Protest. Special commendations for Ray Stevens, TV3 and Eating Media Lunch (for giving us a delightful second helping in their best-of awards and consistently taking the piss during the year).

Best Impression of a Vision Loyalist by a Councillor Claiming to be Independent: Sue Westwood for her chairmanship of the first Heart meeting.

Best Impression of a Vision Loyalist by a Newspaper Claiming to be Independent (also known as the "Craven Mickey's Approval Award"): The successive, submissive, editors and editorial staff of the Wanganui Chronic.

Best Letter Writer: Ross Mitchell-Anyon (judges' note: unpredictable, inconsistent and sometimes borderline incoherent, but often delivering insightful and witty commentaries in just a few words).

Best Protester Putting Herself at Risk in the Line of Duty: Stalwart campaigner Delphine Turney getting up at 5am and climbing the condemned Avenue plane tree.

Most Prolific Contributor to LawsWatch: Mad Mickey for managing to spray us with large volumes of comments almost daily despite claiming to be excessively busy with mayoral, family and media commitments.

Most Sustained and Blatant Lie by Mad Mickey: His frequent "I am not the Mayor" rebuttals of claims that he’s responsible for the most sycophantic and nonsensical (but often loaded with 'inside' information) comments.

So cast your votes now, via comments. And we leave you with this happy New Year thought: it's less than 300 days till Election Day.

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Did you hear the one about the dead babies?

Our thanks to an alert Watcher who pointed out this transcript (or a link to video of the original incident) on Damien Christie's section of the Public Address blog, in which Wanganui's Civic Leader makes a joke on Out of the Question about the tragic deaths of the Kahui twins.

Christie sarcastically suggests, somewhat unkindly, that possessing such sentiments makes Laws "an ideal candidate, not only as Mayor of Wanganui, but as a human being". Unkind to Wanganui, that is, as we're sure the majority of residents find nothing funny in the deaths of children. But that's what you get when you elect a self-promoting narcissist as Mayor - tarred with the same brush.

As Christie also notes, such callous flippancy is at odds with the "tough love" approach taken in his Sunday Star Times column on the topic. But then Mickey has no real principles - he simply writes or says whatever he thinks will play best to the audience he's addressing at the time.

Comments on this post are now closed. Do feel free to address your further comments to Ms Spears' attorneys, though :-D

Bemoaning the "moaners"

Displaying the sort of nonsensical syllogism which only Mickey can spew forth (bad parents harm their children; some Maori harm their children; therefore Maori are bad parents), his latest free election advertisement column in the Chron targets people who "moan". Indeed, such is his disapproval of such people that he spends well over 500 words... well, moaning about them.

The particular syllogism of this column runs: many people oppose me; some of those who do have a tendency to moan; therefore anyone who opposes me must be a "moaner". To support this argument he draws on opinion pieces evidently written by former Mayor Chas Poynter and former MP (and chairman of the council's economic development committee) the late John Lithgow.

Both men chastised the "moaners, groaners and whiners" who criticise every new council initiative - and want to keep Wanganui in a developmental straitjacket. They considered that there was a "negative element" in the city who never saw any good in anything. They were right.

He doesn't, of course, offer the thinnest shred of evidence that either man held such opinions: we have to take his word for it. And the phrase "moaners, groaners and whiners" is wrapped in quotes but not attributed to anyone in particular. Which wouldn't be a huge problem, except that he devotes some of the rest of his space to moaning about people who make statements but "offer not a skerrick of evidence". But that only applies, of course, to people who disagree with the Mayor.

Wanganui does possess a "chip on the shoulder" brigade who can't conceive that the district can ever prosper without their direct imprimatur or involvement... They tend to express this irritation through... nonsensical submissions to annual or long-term plans. If one was to distil their advice into a phrase, then it would be this: don't do anything unless I, personally, can gain a direct benefit.

Again, not a skerrick of evidence to support this remarkable assertion. Certainly not on the Council website LTCCP section, the most obvious place to make them available, where it would have been a simple matter to compile the submissions received. After all, they've had since 12 May. Just how many of the submissions were "nonsensical"? Why? And most importantly, how many failed to declare some conflict of interest, admitting that if their submission was accepted, they would "gain a direct benefit"?

So we have the Mayor of Wanganui alleging that an unspecified proportion of those citizens who made a submission to the Annual and LTCC Plans were fruitcakes and/or crooks. But not a skerrick of evidence - this too we are expected to take entirely on trust.

Then there are the heated imaginings of some letter writers that council has a secret plan to sell Wanganui Gas. Unlike most conspiracy theorists, they offer not a skerrick of evidence. Nor even the shadow. If we were going to sell it, we would have put it in our 10-Year Plan to be formally adopted this week. We haven't... It is currently a good investment. It is staying a ratepayer-owned asset. End of story.

We're meant to have confidence that an asset won't be sold by a Council which recently "found" additional surplus properties which were, in fact, for sale but weren't on the register. Okay... make a note, Watchers. That's as close to an unequivocal assertion from Mickey as you're ever likely to see. But given that if the Splash Centre budget looked any more pear shaped it'd be in an Alison Holst recipe book, start deconstructing that "promise" for loopholes now, just in case.

On to a predictable but somewhat unwise spray at Rosemary Hovey, which we won't repeat here as the whole business is likely to end up in messy litigation and we're running low on rupees here at the Cave. But then this...

...it didn't stop a former councillor coming out in support. Who would not have had a clue as to the redundancy process at council, nor the individual case.

So former Community Committee chair Vivien Eyers burst forth with a statement to the Chron without knowing even the basic facts of the Hovey case? She never discussed the circumstances of Hovey's redundancy with the person concerned, let alone read any of the many public statements made by the CEO, Cr Higgie and others putting the Council's point of view before offering an opinion? Then either she is incredibly stupid, or the Mayor of Wanganui has just made a baseless accusation of stupidity against a former councillor without a skerrick of evidence. We know which option we're backing.

Little wonder then that I smiled in empathy at the comments of Chas Poynter and John Lithgow. And a few other councillors sitting around our table would have done so as well.

We're sure Michael Laws was smirking - after all, that and a scowl is pretty much his full range of facial expression. But as for Dotty, Muzza, Nicki and the rest: someone should tell the Diva the difference between a smile and an idiot grin.

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