The Grinch who stole the Port

One thing that's relied upon by any politician intent on dissembling is that the public have short memories. Most of us are too busy living to recollect what Mickey said last year and compare it to what he said yesterday. But one of the functions of LawsWatch - perhaps its most important function - is to catalogue Mickey's disingenuousness. By preserving as much as possible of Slippery Mickey's spin, the blog becomes a means to compare yesterday's rhetoric with today's actions, and vice versa.

Let us review, then, the Chron from 3 March last year. Laws' call to bank sinks port group plan screamed the headline. The story went on to tell how "a possible investor in Port of Wanganui’s deep water port/industrial park proposal will not now be coming to the city next week, following contact from Mayor Michael Laws".

Seems Mickey had telephoned Macquarie Capital associate director Tim Symons, who'd visited Wanganui the week before and had discussions with PoW, and knifed the Port company's proposal. Symons had planned to visit again on the weekend of March 12-13 but faced with what must have looked to them like a squabbling and unprofessional rabble, they retreated.

PoW director Tim Hungerford-Morgan had emailed then WDC CEO Colin Whitlock saying Macquarie had "commended the quality of PoW’s business plan and, along with PoW, wanted to address council at the first available opportunity to outline the full plan and financial package".

But Mickey didn't wait to hear the plan, he called Macquarie to tell them, among other things, of the "commercial background of PoW partners, and in particular that of Mr Churton". Macquarie won't say exactly what was said (we asked them at the time) but we'd bet all the presents under our Christmas tree that it wasn't complimentary. In fact, it was probably libellous.

A director of the Port, Vivienne Chapman, wrote to councillors asking what Council (i.e. Mickey) had been saying behind their backs but the Mayor, taking it upon himself to speak on behalf of all councillors, said "...we won’t be responding to that. I don’t take these people seriously. The majority of council don’t take them seriously". As opposed to the way the majority of citizens view Mickey, presumably.

Back then the Chron still had the faintest glimmer of a pulse, so thought to ask Mickey why he'd torpedoed the proposal without having even consulted Council (not there was much chance of that lot having an independent thought, but still, for the sake of appearance...) to which he replied "he was the Mayor, and it was his job to safeguard the best interests of Wanganui ratepayers". And Mickey, being omnipotent in international finance as in all things, knew precisely what was in our best interests.

Back in those days, he was claiming to be in "commercially confidential" discussions with Westgate. So confidential that they went nowhere, evidently.

So now, having taken it upon himself to sink a proposal which might have brought forth an answer to the Port's problems (we cannot tell, and more to the point nor can you), Mickey is leading us (or at least, our money) into a prolonged and expensive court fight.

Control of a potentially lucrative asset like the Port would no doubt be a nice stocking filler for a mad despot. We can only hope Santa has a very good idea of who's been nice and who's been naughty this year.

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A view from above the trenches

From time to time a Watcher submits a contribution to the Cave which is somewhat longer and more involved than the usual comment. Often such missives contain insights that have eluded those of us whose sorry duty it is to monitor Mickey on a regular basis, because eventually sustained exposure to untruth and spin starts to inure even the most easily outraged amongst us.

Like the oft-repeated porky that Sue Pepperrell (and with her, Sam Hoyle) were merely in Wellington on a temporary sojourn and would be back in the bosom of Wanganui before we knew it. Now the replacement of the latter is acknowledged by Mickey without so much as a mention of the obvious need to replace the former - let alone an admission that promises of their fealty to Wanganui were an outright lie.

Keen-eyed commenters have already noticed this obvious, blatant bit of spin. Mickey knows we know. We know he knows we know. And so a strange kind of ennui sets in. The news that Mickey has been less than honest, or has procured someone else to be less than honest, becomes commonplace.

Thus it's the contributions of occasional Watchers which often bring a fresh perspective to events. The last such effort was well received, so - from a different Watcher this time - we present the latest contribution (slightly edited for brevity and grammar):

Good on LawsWatch for doing just that… watching Laws. It’s not the responsibility of the LawsWatch crew to figure out the solutions to city problems but to inform on the issues and be responsible enough to give their views and recommendations. I elected not comment on the "Kept in the dark again" post because its contents convey facts that all responsible citizens should learn.

However, it would seem that mayor Laws' "victory" in the Code of Conduct investigation has been a body blow that knocked the wind out of some of the citizens of Wanganui in calling him to account. When the litigants are poorly represented and up against a biased Wanganui District Council, naturally the ruling would have been against the them.

Next time, get better legal representation - one that can keep a calm head when dealing with mayor Laws' immature antics. One who keeps in mind that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words will never hurt me"; concentrates on the case at hand; does their legal "homework", and offers to do some for free; and "burns the midnight oil" doing legal work for the sake of winning for their clients.

It only took me three hours to find a flaw in that case that would have turned the tables in favour of the complainants. There was a point in the process prior to the Council’s ruling that the complainants' counsel did not take up.

On to the most current LawsWatch post, "On the rocks". This raises a barrage of issues: Why now? And why wasn’t it addressed long before? How much is this going to cost the city again? Would this make the "Heart of Wanganui" project even less affordable than at present? And why does the port matter motivate Mayor Laws and the Wanganui Council into kowtowing to special interest group (port users)?

Regarding the legal action over the port, we are informed that, "in 1998 the then Wanganui Council transferred the management of the port assets to a private company - Ocean Terminals Ltd. - by way of a perpetual lease". However, Mayor Laws and the Wanganui Council fail to indicate the reasons why the then Council made that transfer, nor have they disclosed to the public the conditions of the perpetual lease.

Laws and the Council are characterised as "fighting a legal uphill battle". This "uphill battle" is going to cost money and I’m more than certain that Laws and the Council are not going to reach into their own pockets or purses to pay the legal expenses. I suspect that instead, they are hoping to find a legal loophole big enough to drive a truck through in order to regain Council control of the port again, to the benefit of a special interest group of port users rather than Wanganui as a whole.

Management comes with responsibility and funding to maintain port operations. If there is no loophole, then Laws and the Council may find fault in regards to the conditions of the lease, but it will have to be vast departure from the lease conditions to justify the lease being nullified and the relinquishment of control back to the Wanganui Council.

The pitiful thing about this matter is that Laws is using the lives of the people as leverage under the guise of launching the Coastguard rescue boat being main issue. Why only now is this matter being addressed? Who is to be held responsible for this shortcoming? The Coastguard... for not speaking up? Mayor Laws… for ignoring the dilemma till it suited him? The Wanganui Council… for also ignoring it? Wanganui citizens… for not speaking up?

I would liked to have seen the headlines if someone had drowned because the Coastguard was impeded from doing their job properly as a result of neglect from the Mayor and Council. Yes, River City Port Ltd is not innocent either. But in this matter, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Isn't it the responsibility of a mayor to protect his citizens? Surely, this matter involving the Coastguard’s inability to perform their rescue operations properly did not need to be addressed this late by pointing fingers at the Port company's alleged operations "mismanagement".

Unless Laws has had an almost a 3 year long lapse of reasoning, thinking no one will drown until he takes control of the port, it’s obvious that this matter should have been rectified a long time ago.

In light of all this, how much more money is this going to cost the city? And how long has it been since dredging was done while Mayor Laws has been in office? Not only are Laws and the Wanganui Council "a day late and a dollar short" in their endeavors, but they seem intent on illustrating their delusions of grandeur by sensationalising in the Wanganui Chronicle the great job they're supposed to be doing.

Similarly, Mayor Laws and the Wanganui Council both know that this "Heart of Wanganui" project is not financially feasible for a city that is in great debt. It is not practical to imagine that it can be accomplished as a legacy for a one-term mayor. You finish paying off the completion of one project before you start the other. And the first priority is, get the city infrastructure "up to par" and stabilise the city’s financial situation.

Furthermore, this matter of the Wanganui District Heath Board. This didn’t get this much attention until the ACT party leader, Rodney Hide, exposed the debacle months ago and it has gained momentum ever since, before Laws took the opportunity to "ride the wave" to have the matter addressed.

While all this was going on prior to Mr Hide coming to Wanganui, why didn’t Mayor Laws raise the flag by going to Parliament to address the matter much earlier? Why so late in the game did he finally make an effort amongst all the publicity? This is yet another example of taking corrective action instead of preventative action. And once again putting lives at stake.

Clearly, in having the Wanganui Chronicle publish all the good he has supposedly done, Mayor Laws is attempting to re-write history and deflect attention from these very serious oversights which have occurred during his term. Just as when he became a lame duck MP and resigned from Parliament, then tried to portray it as a noble act. This is what any politician would do in similar circumstances. All politicians, here and even in the United States, play this game. However any reasonable person would find the actions of Mayor Laws and the Wanganui Council in many important matters as being unacceptable, period.

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On the rocks

Made most famous by Ella Fitzgerald (but covered, bizarrely, by Bananarama) is a little ditty which goes:

Oh 't ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
'T ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
'T ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
That's what gets results

Obviously that was never amongst the bedtime lullabies crooned over Mickey's crib or, if it was, the message never imprinted. Because even when he occasionally gets the right idea - things that are pretty much indisputable, like hospital services need fixing, or the port's a mess - it's the way that he sets about dealing with the issues that upsets and offends so many people.

First, by claiming that all or some of the people presently in charge are incompetent (usually adorned with unsubtle implications of corruption or mismanagement) rather than decent people doing their level best to deal with situations which can't be solved within the space of a talkback soundbite.

So it is with the Port of Wanganui. It's hardly in first class condition when the Coast Guard have to point out that they can't launch their boat at certain times of the day. Commercial users are also less than impressed. Were this almost any other town or city in New Zealand the majority of people wouldn't feel any alarm at all at the prospect of the entire operation coming back under Council control.

But this isn't another town, it's Wanganui, where two years of divisive "leadership" has seen Council shed senior staff like a turkey sheds feathers at this time of year; which has proven itself incapable of building a swimming pool without it turning into a money pit; and which cannot be relied upon to be truthful about anything, ever, unless the truth coincidentally suits whatever the Mayoral agenda happens to be.

Something needs to be done about the port. On that much we agree with Mickey. But 't ain't what he does, it's the way that he does it.

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