Danger: money

Funding of politics - everything from election campaign advertising to politicians' salaries - has long been a fraught topic. Given the standard of "representation" offered by elected representatives in most Western democracies since at least the mid-1980s most people are averse to being taxed to pay for what they see as unaccountable politicians living in the lap of luxury.

And they have a point. Like any service business, politics is suffering from not having done a particularly good job of serving the needs of its customers - so why should they keep paying? It's incredibly tempting to say that not only should they have to fund their own campaigns, but that once elected they shouldn't even get paid. That'll show 'em.

But, like most simple solutions, it doesn't work.

The problem for most people, disenchanted with the process and disillusioned by those elected through it, is that the notion of investing to improve the political process seems like an anathema. "Don't give them a cent; their superannuation is too generous; they waste our money on the baubles of office; hell, don't even pay them a wage" is a seductive battle cry. But it will have precisely the opposite effect - a fact that a political operator as canny as Michael Laws knows only too well.

That's why those who have done the research don't agree with him. In the UK the Power Commission, whose final report is well worth reading, was recently tasked with discovering "Why has disengagement from formal democratic politics in Britain grown in recent years and how can it be reversed?". It would have been easy for the Inquiry to appease the disenchanted by recommending less, not more, public money be invested in democracy. But it didn't. Amongst a raft of recommendations aimed at getting people to re-engage with the political process at all levels is this one:

State funding to support local activity by political parties and independent candidates to be introduced based on allocation of individual voter vouchers. This would mean that at a general election a voter would be able to tick a box allocating a £3 donation per year from public funds to a party of his or her choice to be used by that party for local activity. It would be open to the voter to make the donation to a party other than the one they have just voted for.

The Inquiry pointed out that "if 30 million people voted in a general election, there would be a potential pot of £90 million available to fund local party political and candidate activity". Why pay for politicians who are increasingly isolated and seemingly unwilling to listen? Because, as The Independent (the UK version) put it recently, "If you don't pay for politicians, the rich will".

At the same time as seeking to reform the political process to make politicians more accountable (and Power has many other recommendations seeking to do this) it's important to maintain access to, and equity within, our democracy by ensuring that lack of money isn't a barrier to running for office - and that an excess of money ought not to provide one candidate with an unfair advantage over his or her rivals.

Equally importantly, anyone who devotes their time to elected office needs to be remunerated - and for exactly the same reason. As Democracy Matters puts it "those without access to wealth are locked out of the system, unable to afford to run for office". If they don't earn their salary, then by all means sack them. Even institute some performance indicators which they must meet during their term. Make them subject to recall. But pay them - or risk a homogenous and unrepresentative council (or parliament or senate or congress); one at risk of widespread corruption.

Because to claim, as Michael Laws does, that holders of elected office ought not to be paid assumes one of two things:

1. Either that we are comfortable returning to the days when politics was the pursuit of "gentlemen"- wealthy landowners with independent incomes and time on their hands, elected by people who knew that their place in life was to be ruled by their betters. There were no women, no people of any ethnicity other than white, and of course no one who did an honest day's toil - they were too busy toiling.


2. Or that we want diversity but we're happy to have our politicians derive an income from sources other than the public purse. Inevitably, that will be business and other special interests.

Clearly the argument is populist nonsense, debunked perfectly by Laws himself: if a person is elected who is wealthy enough not to need the income, they can simply "put it back in the pot" by giving it to the body to which they were elected or, like him, devote it to private philanthropy within the community.

Similarly, allowing someone (in this case, Laws himself) to privately fund the election campaigns of people on a particular party ticket further erodes choice: why would someone less well resourced even try to run a campaign against a diVision candidate with access to the Mayor's deep pockets? And if they do run, what are their chances against an opponent who can afford billboards, glossy fliers and even electronic media?

By hand-picking the starters, it's possible to run a completely fair race but still bias the outcome. Then, as The Nation (Thailand) noted back in 1998 (in an article on increasing corruption in Asian democracies), "since for the most part only the rich people backed by wealth can afford to run for office, leading to effective control of the political system by economic elites that have the added advantage of legitimacy owing to their democratic election".

Even if election spending is capped, the candidate who didn't have to fund-raise from multiple donors, who got all their money from one source and could devote all their energy to campaigning, is at an unfair advantage. And more importantly, once elected they owe their allegiance not to a local branch made up of many people with divergent views but solely to one man or woman - their benefactor.

Unless we restore the people’s sovereignty over government, unless we reform our public institutions to meet the demands of a new millenium, we will squander our destiny... I have spoken against forces that have turned politics into a battle of bucks instead of a battle of ideas. - US Senator John McCain

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Since when is politics a charity?

Much discussion in comments as to the disposition of the Mayor's salary and his support for the idea that elected representatives ought to perform their duties for free.

One anonymous commenter even went so far as to locate a back issue of Community Link (15 December 2005, for those other anonynmii who keep every word written by and about Mickey in their scrapbooks) to note that:

For the 12 months from inauguration in late-October 2004, Mayor Laws has donated his net salary to the following purposes:
Event Sponsorship $17,720
Public Art Commissions $10,552
Additional Staff & Wages (2) $5,625
Mayoral Entertainment $4,738
Upgrading Communications $3,030
Charitable Donations $2,029
Bank Fees/Misc $1,250
Total Distributed $44,944

The events that have gained sponsorship from Mayor Laws include the Mayoral Mile ($10,000), Stayz/YMCA Salsa Spectacular ($3,200), Storm Relief Fund ($2,500), Bridge-to-Bridge Swim ($1,000), Red Eye Mural ($500) and Reclaim Wanganui Vigil ($500).

That's around $45,000 from a total income of $71,000 less tax at 38 cents in the dollar, so there's no denying he gave the lot away.

But let's look slightly more closely at those figures as we eagerly await the release of details of this year's largesse, shall we? Yes, we've already reported on this when the figures first came out, but it's a useful preamble to the next post, which will deal with the funding of political campaigns - specifically those of diVision's candidates.

Event sponsorship and art commissions, which make up over 60% of the total, are entirely at the personal whim of the Mayor. Sure it's his money, but most wealthy philanthropists establish an independent trust to make the hand-outs. That way they can't be accused of using their charity to favour some groups, events or people over others. Which is not to say the events or the art he sponsored aren't worthy of support - just that most donors keep themselves at arms length from the actual distribution of funds, having first set parameters for the type of event they wish to support. That avoids any perception that, say, if you disagree with the donor you might as well forget applying, no matter how worthy your event or good your art.

Additional staff and wages are, in fact, completely improper. If the WDC pays your wages, you answer to the CEO and you act solely in the best interests of the public of Wanganui. But if Mickey gives you a "top up", who's your boss? Where do your loyalties lie, especially if his interests diverge from those of the rest of Wanganui?

And if WDC wages need topping up to attract a suitable calibre of person to the job, that's a policy issue that needs to be considered as part of the budget round. No one expects David Warburton to dig into his handsome salary package to top up the pay of his PA, do they? And imagine if he did - what possible reason would people attribute to such unwarranted generosity? Setting aside that Warburton wasn't reading from The Bill Clinton Manual of Staff Relations, some might uncharitably assume he wanted some goings-on kept quiet.

Which is precisely why no employer, Warburton included, explicitly subsidises an employee's wages from their own pocket.

Upgrading communications is merely a euphemism for "paying to print and deliver party propaganda on behalf of Vision". If that's charity, then Labour just found the perfect excuse for their pre-election "pledge card" spending.

Mayoral entertainment apparently used to be paid out over and above the Mayor's salary. In this case it totals more than 10% of the Mayor's nett income. And according to official records it was spent on activity such as a celebration of the outcome of the referendum. That's a political victory celebration, for diVision and its supporters. If Chas Poynter had held a champagne knees-up to celebrate winning a vote and tried to charge it to the ratepayers, how many would have been happy to pay?

It's entirely right and proper that Mickey foots the bill for such things himself - but to imply that it's somehow a charitable donation is disingenuous in the extreme.

Which just leaves actual charitable donations of a little over $2,000 and bank fees of $1,250 (on what is presumably a simple chequing account?! Change banks, Mickey!).

Of course this strategy of feigned nobility isn't new. It's carefully designed to buy publicity which, to someone like Mickey, is more precious than gold. We reproduced this Tom Scott cartoon back in December and it's worth repeating again:


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Separated at birth?

Television reception is, at best, erratic here at the Cave. So we weren't watching a couple of nights ago when "Austin Powers: Goldmember" was apparently screening.

Thus it fell to an alert Watcher to... well, alert us... to the striking resemblance between Powers' nemsis Goldmember and Wanganui's very own Mad Mayor.

"Not only did his general appearance seem to be [some sort of] ghastly mayors doppelganger…… but his behaviour wasn’t too far off the mark either!" our informant wrote.

His general appearance, his facial expressions, his frothing excitement at doing evil… his evil bid to destroy the planet… his penchant for crotch enhancing lycra… The parallels were endless…"

Whilst we'd dispute that any crotch is enhanced by lycra, we'd concur with the general... err, thrust... of these remarks.

Our correspondent notes that she is "now left wondering if indeed the aforementioned mad mayor has used Goldmember as a prototype for how to look / behave".

If that is indeed the case, what models have the other diVisionites followed, we wonder? Dotty, of course, is Mini Me, with Nickie Higgie as her eager understudy. But who, for instance, is Fook Mi? And who is Fook Yu? Who's Frau Farbissina? And who could possibly be Foxy Cleopatra?!

Watchers are welcome to speculate, but we don't just mean look alikes, we're interested in which method actors in the diVision troupe have taken on the personas of these characters. But in the interests of remaining relatively charitable, we won't be taking nominations for the role of Fat Bastard.

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Slogans rule OK?

As a rule, Watchers take the pronouncements of Wanganui’s propaganda chief Michael Laws with a large pinch of salt. But when he walks out of yet another secret meeting about his grand plan for the heart of Wanganui and tells the Chron that hearing the projected cost would "scare people" we’re inclined to believe him.

The upgrade is likely to cost many millions. Mr Laws said hearing the full amount would scare people and Wanganui District Council’s finance team was looking at ways the work could be done in stages and paid for over 50 to 60 years. We think it can be afforded without a significant rise in rates.

The upgrade could include big changes, such as the demolition of the museum, the library moving to a central place, drastic alterations to Majestic Square and reconnecting the park with the Whanganui.

And when he reveals that his "communications strategy" to soothe the scared populace into meek submission will be "slogan driven", we just know the referendumb rollercoaster has already left the platform, with Mickey Mayor at the controls.

Laws is also making sure the EXCLAMATION MARK!!!! features prominently in his Heart hard-sell! Taking his cue from the TV advertorials in which peddlers of everything from eternal youth potions to home gym equipment try to part worried Watchers from their hard-earned cash in the wee small hours, he tells us:

...the slogan for the public information campaign on the Heart project – leading to the proposed referendum in mid-2007. It is – 'It's your money, your city, your future ... your choice.'

Be prepared, Watchers, to be assailed by this exquisite piece of spin at every turn because it will help take your fellow citizens’ minds off what lies below as the Vision roller coaster plunges Wanganui into their bottomless debt lake.

Crs Higgie and McKinnon are already squealing with delight and hanging on to MayorMichael for dear life.

HIGGIE: Please be part of this, as it's very important for our generation, as well as for our grandchildren and generations to follow. Mark October 26 on your calendar and be there if you can! Best wishes for the school holidays and the joys of spring! (Exclamation marks are called 'screamers' in the journalism trade for good reason - Ed)

DOTTY: There are various options for the library, one option for the Gallery, two for the museum and one for the War Memorial Hall. The concepts are very exciting and it would be a wonderful achievement to commence a revival project for our cultural centre.

Watchers have been observing new and very pleasing developments as Mr Maslin’s formerly withered organ stiffens its resolve to ask questions and knock the stuffing out of mayoral spin. The palpable disgust at Mickey’s bout of ratings-inspired verbal diarrhoea about Tonga has rippled through Wanganui and well beyond. Even Mickey’s formerly loyal lieutenant Rangi Wills was moved to expose a little mayoral lie in an item in the Chron last week and is making no secret of his wavering affections for his commander in chief.

So Watchers were left shaking their heads in sadness and wonder at today’s front page riverfront propaganda exercise by the lovely Mary Bryan who allowed Mickey to get away with claiming a referendumb mandate for a $1.5 million project that started out as just $260,000 in ratepayer spend.

But not to worry, Watchers, because the Chron is also suffering from an acute bout of Silly Slogan Syndrome with the revelation that Fat Newspapers are Bad!!!! Lean Newspapers are GOOD!!! But wait, there's more!!!!

"SINCE WHEN WAS FAT A GOOD THING? We’re lean, trim, healthy and full of ESSENTIAL daily NEWSTRITIONAL value.

Desperately attempting to match Media Mickey at his own game, the Chron’s very own sloganeers then urge Wanganui-ites to GET THEIR DAILY WORKOUT with the Chron because they LOVE THIS PLACE, LOVE THIS PAPER.

As the Daily Workout lands with a wee thud at letterboxes throughout the River City we’d suggest it will be judged on whether people like Mary Bryan (and soon-to-be senior reporter John Maslin) ask the hard questions and let readers in on the secret that mayoral propaganda has only a fleeting relationship with the truth. Beside that test, the fact that its paltry pages don’t even have the thermal rating required of fish and chip wrapping is neither here nor there.

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Where there's smoke ...

Speculation has been mounting about where Michael Laws may seek further fame and fortune after he gets the big thumbs down by Wanganui’s increasingly disgusted voters next year, and gets the flick from his various media slush funds.

As one Watcher has pointed out, Touchdown bossette Julie Christie, who controls the purse strings for great big dollops of Creative New Zealand money - and hasn’t been slow to funnel lots of it Mickey’s way - isn’t going to be at all happy with his poisoning of the Pacific well that she draws on for her trashy Treasure Island ventures.

No one gave a toss while Michael Laws was boring the people of Wanganui with complaints of how he’d picked up hives during his short-lived visit to Tonga in February 2005 with Christie’s ill-fated Celebrity Treasure Island expedition (though his fellow celebs had decided with alacrity that Laws himself was a source of intense irritation and put him on the boat at the first opportunity).

But now that he’s well and truly bitten the hands that feed him, Christie and her crew, with or without Mickey, will be about as welcome on any Pacific island as David Irving would be at a Passover in Jerusalem.

Over at Radio Slide, desperate Mickey still has three weeks of the current radio ratings survey period to go and that means more of the same offensive racist ageist diatribes in hopes of rescuing himself from death by ratings. No sooner had the media started to lose interest in his war on Tonga than he opened up a new front by proposing extermination of dementia sufferers in hopes of provoking sufficient outrage to get him back in the New Zealand Herald.

Just another step, apparently, in the eugenics and cleansing policies he’s cribbed from his study of Germany circa 1944.

Interestingly, the current six-week survey period ends on Friday October 13 and we’re predicting that will indeed be a Black Friday for Mickey. By the unhappiest of coincidences that’s also exactly one year ... 12 months ... 365 days till the voters of Wanganui get to tick the only box that matters.

Which brings us, back, dear Watchers to idle speculation about life after Wanganui for Michael Brian Laws. We wouldn’t be the first to wonder if he’s spent the last year cultivating the National Front and other bottom-feeders as a prelude to launching a new political party in the mad hope of making his way back to Wellington and completing his unfinished business at the heart of the body politic. But that wouldn’t come cheap and at the very least he’d need a filthy rich backer with a penchant for Mickey’s style and his politics.

Coincidentally, the fax machine at The Cave chugged to life and out popped a copy of the love letter from the master of the offensive bon mot, Sir Bob Jones, that was excerpted in the Chron at Mickey’s urging. While the Chron was happy to quote Jones’s views on where Wanganui’s flag should fly, it apparently was rightly squeamish about what followed. In deference to the sensibilities of Watchers everywhere we’ll just say that Jones’s speculation on the predilections of Tonga’s new king would not have been appropriate for the front page of a family newspaper.

Reminded about the way Jones bankrolled the short-lived New Zealand Party in an attempt to oust Muldoon in 1984, The Cave's resident francophiles wondered if Jones’s billet doux to his man in Wanganui could be the start of a new roman politique.

Given Jones is now enjoying a minor bout of television celebrity of his own, on Touchdown’s home-grown version of Dragon’s Den, we even wondered if Mickey might be preparing to line up before the dragons to make a pitch for some of Jones’s millions:

MICHAEL LAWS: I’m not going to waste my time introducing myself, Dragons, because you all know what an absolute fascist bastard I am. I just want money, loads of it ... millions in fact, for another assault on Wellington. In return you’ll receive absolutely nothing but I’ll get my rocks off sticking it to Clark and her PC nancy boys and girls in the dirtiest erection election campaign the world has seen.

BOB JONES: This one is mine, Dragons, all mine. Michael, you are absolutely right in showing clear-thinking on this matter (reaches for huge wad of cash). Dragons, this boy and I are going to make sweet music together. (unaware of the irony, they embrace in a clinch that would make Ian Wishart’s day - and Investigate’s front page - and stroll off the set hand in hand).

Update (6 pm): Over at Mirage Media, a certain irony has been noted:

Laws - who I heard say earlier this year on his Radio Live talkback show that Tonga is a nation of inbreds - believes King Tupou is a despot and for that reason has ordered his city council staff not to lower the New Zealand flag to half-mast to mark his death. A despot - isn't that a man in power whose rulings, no matter how arcane, are permitted on the strength of his celebrity and the fear he invokes in his subordinates?

Mirage also notes several examples of incompetence and foolishness at Radio Slide. Can they be long for this world?

Mickey makes an ass of himself

LawsWatch got it wrong.

We'd always held that the Mayor's lycra-clad pavement-pounding was due to to nothing more than simple vanity - the typical response of an aging roue to the vicissitudes of age. We were wrong.

Clearly, the hours spent negotiating the often cracked footpaths of Wanganui (who needs to walk safely when we'll all soon be able to swim further?!) have but one purpose - the reduction in size of the Mayoral derriere, thus facilitating more effective ass-covering.

After all, when one is as prone to bouts of discursive dysentry as is Michael Laws, then protecting the source of the outbreak becomes critical. Hence the "small target" strategy.

If we may be forgiven for extending the analogy for one more paragraph as Watchers gag over their evening gruel, Mickey has spent the past week digging himself an ever-deeper latrine while at the same time filling it.

First, he attempted to cite everyone from the CIA to... well, himself... to justify his "fat brown slug" comments. Apparently half a day pretending to be a "celebrity" on a TV show makes one an authority on the region in which the show took place. On that basis, winner of the first "Survivor" Richard Hatch ought to be being cited as an expert on Malaysia rather than cited in multiple counts of charity fraud.

When that didn't work, there was the usual spray in the Sunday Star Times in which he accuses Tonga of practising:

"...institutionalised sexism..."
What, like the regular abuse of female staff, to the extent of allegedly calling one a "useless c___"?

"...the cowering of the independent media..."
As opposed, say, to the fiercely independent River City Press and the Chron?

"...and the domination of the cabinet by royal appointees."
Step forward, Sir Nigelwho, Spin Fairly Mk II et al.

No, that wasn't going to wash either. So the latest Mayoral e-coli is classic Lawsian spin, claiming to have "learned a few lessons" while making it plain he's done no such thing. "Some places are so insular, that if you criticise their leader then you insult the whole country", Mickey marvels. Well, duhhh. Remember the time your mentor and role model Rob Muldoon called US President Jimmy Carter a "peanut farmer", Mickey? And all those "insular" Americans - including those opposed to Carter - took umbrage?

It's basic human nature - we rally round our leaders in times of crisis, and while we may delight in insulting them ourselves, woe betide the "outsider" who does so. Which explains why Bush's approval ratings stayed as high as they did for as long as they did and why Joe Lieberman no longer has political career. But so much of people's basic humanity seems to escape Mickey's understanding, for reasons we will leave it to the experts to speculate upon.

The fact that Michael Laws, Mayor-of-someplace-most-people-have-never-heard-of, draws parallels between himself and Pope Benedict might be something else they could take into account.

Mickey's second, implied, defence - that he's merely standing up for his oppressed Tongan brothers and sisters - doesn't stand up to much scrutiny either. Yes, Tongans are generally poor, and the distribution of income shows much greater disparity than amongst New Zealanders. But it's not that different to all Pacific Islanders. We await his attacks on the leaders of the Samoan, Cook Islands, Tokelaun, Fijian and Niuean peoples. Or his efforts to redress these inequities. Guess which road he's most likely to take.

Important as it is, don't let the Tongan tizz distract you (as it's possibly meant to) from the rest of the e-coli. Wanganui Gas - and today's top secret meeting thereon - gets a passing mention. It is, Mickey regally informs us, a "very important meeting and will have a great deal of influence upon the financial future of our district".

Although these machinations are of "of some commercial delicacy", we can presumably rest assured that Dotty and the Dwarves are more than capable of grasping the full long-term fiscal ramifications of whatever secret proposal they're being asked to consider. And that the King of Tonga will make a posthumous visit to Wanganui to promote the benefits of Xenical.

As the gas leaks, we'll be sure and keep you posted.

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