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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