Nice work if you can get it

RECORD OF ATTENDANCE OF CR LEONIE BROOKHAMMER PROVIDED BY HORIZONS REGIONAL COUNCIL UNDER THE OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT

NB: CR BROOKHAMMER IS APPOINTED TO THE ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE AND THE PASSENGER TRANSPORT SUB COMMITTEE. ALL COUNCILLORS ARE INVOLVED IN COUNCIL MEETINGS ,STRATEGY & POLICY CTTEE MEETINGS , AND WORKSHOPS.

2004
Meetings held 6 Attended 5 Apology 1

2005
Meetings held 38 Attended 22 Apology 8 , Leave of absence 2 , No apology 6

2006 to August
Meetings held 27 Attended 16 Apology 8 Leave of absence 2 No Apology 1

Since Sept 06 to end June 07
Council/ Special Council ( 10 meetings )
26/09/06 Present 4hours Meeting duration 5 hours 23min.

24/1006 Present 50 mins Meeting duration 5 hours 49 mins

28/11/06 Present 1hour 35mins Meeting Duration 5 hours 12mins

19/12/06 Apology

27/02/07 Apology

13/03/07 Did not attend/ No apology

27/03/07 Did not attend/ No apology

24/04/07 Present 1hour 45 min Meeting duration 5 hours 55min

22/05/07 Apology

26/06/07 Present 1 hour 55min Meeting duration 6 hours 2 mins

Strategy & Policy ( 9 meetings )
12/09/06 Leave of absence

10/10/06 Present 4 hours 45min Meeting duration 5hours 56mins

14/11/06 Present 2hours 36min Meeting duration 3hours 55min

13/02/07, 13/03/07, 21/05/07, Did not attend/ No apology

23/05/07 Apology

6/06/07 Present 1hour 40mins Meeting duration 4hours 5min

Environment Committee ( 5 meetings )
13/09/06 Leave of absence

15/11/06 Present 2hours 2mins Meeting duration 3hours 52min

30/01/07 Did not attend/ No apology

14/03/07 Apology

9/05/07 Did not attend /No apology

Passenger Transport Subcommittee ( 3 meetings )
21/11/06 Present

20/02/07 Present

15/05/07 Present

21/06/07 Did not attend/ No apology

WORKSHOPS Records for attendance began Sept 05
2005 from Sept 2005 Held 11 Attended 4 Apologies 4 No apology 3

2006 to 16^th August06 Held 12 Attended 1 Apologies 3 No apology 8

from Sept o6 to 30^th June 07 Held 15 Attended NIL Leave of absence 1

Apology 2 No Apology 12

Summary

Meetings held during term 139 Attended 54 39%

Meetings held prior to parental leave 81 Attended 46 56% No Apology 7

Meetings held since parental leave 27 Attended 9 33% No Apology 9

Workshops Held prior to parental leave 23 Attended 5 21% No Apology 11

Workshops held since parental leave 15 Attended Nil Nil No Apology 12

Remuneration
TERM Oct 04 to June 07 $ 86,153.55
LAST TWELVE MONTHS 1^st July 06 to 30^th June 07 $ 32,429
Since returning from parental leave $24640
Hourly rate for actual attendance at meetings since returning from parental leave
( 20.5 hours) $1200
Per meeting ( 9 ) $2738

The stupidest tea-party

`At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. `It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'

It must be hell being a Vision CEO right now. On the one hand you’ve got the Auditor-General waving his pre-election guidelines and ruling out the use of council resources for electioneering purposes … on the other hand you’ve got your mad mayor demanding you flout those guidelines with one last mad tea-party … and on yet another hand you’ve got the same mad mayor publicly grandstanding over the cost of you providing him with the very same guideline-busting electioneering photo-ops that he’s demanding from you.

Watchers’ hearts go out to poor Dr Warburton after his very public smacking last week by Wanganui mayor Michael Laws. There he was, busy cleaning the red carpet and dusting off the best wedgewood china for the series of Mad Mayor’s Tea Parties he was told to arrange for voters in the run up to the October 13 elections, when ‘them upstairs’ told him to mind his budget.

All very amusing, no doubt, for the Auditor-General’s lot who seem to labour under the delusion that CEOs are generally a decent, independent bunch of chappies who will happily blow the whistle on blatant electioneering with ratepayers’ money – not merely quibble over the amount to be spent buying votes for the incumbent political party.

Meanwhile, not even the Auditor-General would be naïve enough to expect the Vision dwarves to resile from the chance to push their vote-collecting barrow at the ratepayers’ expense in the Council’s weekly newspaper spin sheet. Since the onset of the three-month pre-election period on July 13 the ‘Councillor comment’ Roll of Shame has featured Vision look-alike Rangi Wills, the incredibly thick Marty Lindsay, bob-each-way Don McGregor, and mayoral wannabe Philippa Baker-Hogan.

However, credit where it’s due and LawsWatch is pleased to toss a bouquet in the direction of perpetual bridesmaid Dot McKinnon who, despite being jilted at the altar by Michael Laws, is gamely sticking around for a slice of the wedding cake. Her last appearance in the tacky little River City Press was on July 11th and she has since spared RCP’s masochistic readers her froth and drivel. Well done, Dotty!

Watchers wondered whether Rana Reckoned he’d also been torpedoed by the RCP after last week’s McKinnon & Waitai-free issue, but it turns out he was just off having an epiphany. No doubt inspired by his fellow ex-cop Chester Borrows’ recent stomach stapling, our Rana has had a bile duct reassignment and he won't be coming to Mad Mickey's tea party after all! After a suitable period of bed rest he was back in print warning the voters against having any truck with his ex-pal Mickey, while beating the drum for challenger John Martin.

Those commenters who have concluded, on the basis of Rana Waitai’s weekly ‘columns’, that he was a prime contender for microchipping or worse, especially those when he’s been barking in support of Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws, may like to take a peep at page 7 of the current River City Press. There he is, pointing the bone fairly and squarely at Mickey for playing the vote-splitting game and treating Whanganui with contempt.

My, how things have changed since the Xmas fairy tarted up her eye-liner and prepared to drop down the Buy-election chimney on December 23, 2005, when our Rana was only too happy to leap in and split the vote for Mickey’s crew. Back then, our favourite anonymickey (the one with 20:20 Vision into the mayoral brain, not to mention his running shorts – but let’s not go there!) made a heartwarming declaration of academic and filial love for “independent” Candidate Waitai:

You've got Rana Waitai wrong - he and the Diva are good mates and saw them together last month. They were in the same Vic law classes and it was actually Laws who encouraged Waitai to stand. They have a mutual relative too I've heard – anonymickey, 5:36 PM, December 23, 2005

Now, Watchers, doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the kind of vote-splitting bile that same anonymickey is now spreading all over the blog, and every other available outlet, as he strokes the Ego from Double SS, aka Candidate Stevens?

Whistling up the dogs

Well done, Wanganui! Your mayor (the one who dragged you into the national sewer when the King of Tonga and Kahui twins died) is at it again.

Just when it seemed he had no better topics than his battle with the Employment Relations Authority or the Museum or the Arts Trust or the iwi … for his Sordid Sunday Sermon, an abused Rotorua toddler was unfortunate enough to end up in Star Ship Hospital. She promptly became collateral damage in Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws’ desperate dog-whistle politicking for the recognition (and votes) of the same rednecks whose racist insecurities lead them the slimy downside of the radio dial. (See Nicky Hagar’s The Hollow Men for an introduction to this sordid form of politicking as cynically employed by Barmy Brash during his brief reign, and across the Tasman by his ideological twin Horrible Howard – or for that matter, any study of Hitler’s enlistment of the anti-Semite cause. Closer to home, refer to Laws’ ignominious days of Asian and Somali refugee bashing as Winston Peters’ chief string-puller with New Zealand First).

So here he is last Sunday:

Maori culture is simply a motif to pick up when the cops come calling … What is it about Maori and child abuse? .. and then back to the familiar refrain: The time has arrived: remove these children at birth from this sub-culture.

And little more than a year ago when the Kahui twins tragedy was unfolding, he was there too – our very own racist Forrest Gump, putting the boot in and tickling the talkback tongues:

But why Maori? What dark skein twists itself within that culture to produce rogue whanau like the Kahui? … And are the Kahui rogue? Or are they symptomatic of an underclass within Maori who are resistant to both mainstream and Maori assistance?

As a LawsWatch anonymii with a penchant for numbers reminded us on July 30:

Last Sunday when yet another battered toddler made the front page of the paper he leapt in and hurled abuse at the perpetrators. How profound. In a column that used the words Maori or Maoridom eighteen times, sixteen of the references were extremely negative. He excused himself of racism on the grounds that he was throwing off the bonds of political correctness. This will give racists a righteous rallying point.

I wonder if the grand plan is for the child beaters to go to war with the racists, or if there is no grand plan and he just can’t pass up a chance to set one part of society against another.

Thanks, Watcher. And predictably, within days Mickey had his Mouthpiece John Maslin whipping up a bit of front-page and editorial page racism in our nasty little excuse for a local rag.

Meanwhile, on the home-front, he’s also stepping up the war with local iwi over that perennial whipping boy – the H! Seems those uppity iwi thought they had been commissioned to come up with a carved entranceway to the council chambers that, as Mickey proclaimed in November 2005, would:

"… recognise the invitation our local iwi gave to settlers to share this region" … “At last,” he said, in the full flush of a little bicultural tic, “we have a Council Chambers that belongs to all of Wanganui, that celebrates our heritage and of which we can all be proud."

But then he saw ‘H’ and then he saw ‘Red’ and a predictable mayoral ‘H’issy Fit ensued .. and you read it here first, Watchers.

So what, we hear you ask yet again, maketh the man(iac) who rides the troughs of gutter politics? Is it that Michael Laws is simply a father and family man beyond moral reproach (you’ll have to ask his extended whanau what they think about that proposition as paraded in the wimins’ mags) or is it something deeper, darker … altogether dafter in fact.

Turn a couple of pages in last week’s Sunday Star-Times from his breakfast bilge and we find Victoria University psychologist Dr Marc Wilson neatly assessing Michael Laws’ political personality as being “remarkably similar to the psychopath”. Says Wilson:

It’s pretty common for people standing for political office to talk about devotion to the public, their commitment to the nation’s interest, their strong sense of responsibility. It’s unusual for politicians to say ‘I’m interested in getting paid and I’m a megalomaniac.”

(And before the sad, single anonymickey of Porritt St rushes to proclaim our First Citizen’s selfless devotion to the public good that leads him to give away his salary, we would point out that the unique ‘salary cycle’ he rides simply positions the mayoralty of our unfortunate city as a means to an (inflated salary) end via the media mouthpieces and dancing spectacles that are sufficiently desperate to be wagged by his 2% redneck tail).

Take a spoonful of sleaze & call the doctor in the morning

Shocking as they are, the revelations reported in the Chron(ic) and DomPost about the sordid goings-on and contempt for employment law shown by CEO Dr David Warburton following the firing last year of Wanganui District Council’s community development manager, it will have come as no surprise to Watchers who remember LawsWatch’s revelations about the then newly-appointed CEO. (NB:For the benefit of those who foolishly rely on the Chron(ic) for their information, we hear that after pouring good ratepayers’ money after bad at the Wellington lawyers running the case, the good doctor made an acceptable offer at the end of a torrid two-day hearing to settle the case.)

On Friday, September 9, 2005, this blog reported that the good doctor’s Kaitaia timber company Tanner Group had recently lost an Employment Relations Act case in which it was alleged to have "threaten[ed the] applicant with disciplinary action over [a] term of employment that had not been directly and expressly negotiated and [the] contents of which remained uncertain between parties".

“Hopefully”, we told Watchers with amazing percipacity at the time, “Council staff have dotted the i's and crossed the t's in their employment contracts”.

We also noted that Dr Warburton’s list of achievements included the fact he was also a director of Fibrecraft Industries, placed in liquidation in Wanganui High Court on 2 June 2004 on petition of Nuplex Industries. Interestingly, Warburton’s fellow director in the failed fibreglass venture, Bruce Nicholson, was installed as a director of Wanganui Inc, about the same time as Mayor Michael Laws, deputy Dot McKinnon and the rest of the capitalist raiders were finding their new CEO (and we all know what happened with WINC, don’t we).

Meanwhile, back in Kaitaia in 2005, according to MP Sue Bradford, “in (Warburton’s timber company) TGL ... we have a company that has obviously kept its workers in the dark for some time and has then attempted to make itself look good by offering a fig leaf of consultation."

Welcome to the world of Dr David Warburton, whose contempt for employment law obviously was not left at the door to 101 Guyton St. As for his pretence of recognising the fundamental provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 -- “I will need to learn to work within the constraints of the Local Government Act,” he said at the time of his appointment – the DomPost coverage of last week's Employment Relations Authority hearing revealed he may have missed the bit about the CEO – not the mayor – being responsible for hiring and firing staff.

As commenters have pointed out, Sally Patrick hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory since taking her seat at the right-hand of Warburton and Laws, and it was no surprise to experienced Watchers to see her name on the roll of shame of the “anonymous” Greek chorus of letter writers eventually outed by Warburton and listed on the Chron(ic)'s front page. There she is, with the Spin Fairy's former squeeze Julian Rewiti, the impeccably pedigreed Stephanie Rose and non-entity Jill Jones.

Another area of CEO responsibility for political neutrality that seems to have escaped Dr Warburton’s notice has become glaringly apparent in the first week of what the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) calls “the pre-election period”, ie the three months leading up to the October 13th election. According to the LawsWatch calendar, that started July 13th -- but you wouldn’t know it from the likes of Philippa Baker-Hogan who commandeered the ratepayer-funded Councillor Comment advert in the July 18th MidWeek, and on the WDC website, for a fevered bout of electioneering.

Like many “watchdog” provisions, the OAG’s Communications Guidelines are the sort of toothless tigers that Mayor Mickey, his Visionaries and their pet CEO routinely treat with utter contempt. But it’s safe to assume the OAG is keen to hear about blatant flouting like we’re already seeing, and no doubt will be seeing much more of ,in the next 12 weeks. You can read the full Guidelines here

You can find contact details for the OAG here if, like us, you find it hard to see why Warburton thinks he can continue to turn a blind eye to Vision’s contempt for clauses like these in the OAG’s guidelines:

Principle 12: Communication of a Member’s personal views or opinions using Council resources is unacceptable during a pre-election period.

Principle 13: A Council’s policy should also recognise the risk that communications by or about Members, whether in their capacities as spokespersons for Council or otherwise, during a pre-election period could result in the Member achieving electoral advantage at ratepayers’ expense. The Chief Executive Officer (or his delegate) should actively manage the risk in accordance with the relevant electoral law.

Principle 14: The use of Council resources (including stationery and internet, e-mail and telephone Communication facilities) for re-election purposes is unacceptable.

The princess & the plonker: a Grim tale

Gather round, Watchers, for a story by the Brothers Grimly.

Once upon a time there was a far-away place by the river with lots of lovely old buildings. On the top of the hill in the middle of the town lived a beautiful princess who had so many books she kept running out of room for them.

Next door to her were some people who lived in a very beautiful old building. They loved paintings and because they were such nice people they were given lots of lovely paintings and they tried very had to look after them but they didn’t have enough room, either.

Down at the bottom of the hill were two more big buildings. One had lots and lots of very old stuff in it and the people who lived there also tried to take good care of their old stuff, but they too had run out of room. Nearby was yet another building where the townspeople liked to gather to make merry fun. Like the other three buildings, this one looked very sad and dirty where once it had gleamed a brilliant white.

“Oh dear,” said the beautiful princess. “What is to be done? I simply must get some more space for all my lovely books but I have no money and those people next door with all those paintings are going to get lots of money so they can make their building bigger and more beautiful while I get none.”

She sighed as she slowly stirred her coffee. A tear trickled down her cheek and dropped into the cup. “If only a handsome prince would come and build me a new palace for my books, I’d be so happy,” she thought.

A sudden gust of cold air rushed into the room and people at the other tables screamed and rushed for the door. A strange little man appeared before her. “One day soon I will be the mayor,” he said, “and because you are such a beautiful princess I will make you the Queen of the Park.”

The princess couldn’t believe her eyes. The scrawny little man was ugly and unshaven, with bright black paint around his eyes. “But how can you be the mayor?” she asked. “You look just like the troll that lives in the bushes on the hill.”

“Just shut up and listen to me, lady, or you’ll be sorry,” snapped the strange little man. “I’ll make your dreams come true. You’ll be Queen of the Park and everyone will have to bow when you pass. But most importantly, I will give you all the gold and silver you need to build a glittering palace for all your books.”

“Oh thank you, mayor,” said the grateful princess. “Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it.” She grabbed a pen and a paper napkin and drew a picture of a glittering palace. She showed it to the mayor, who said, “Sure honey, you can have one just like that but first you’ll have to do lots of things for me that will make the peasants hate you.”

The princess grasped the mayor’s knarled and twisted hand. “Oh sire, I’ll do whatever you say.” But then her dream turned into a nightmare. She toiled from morning to night doing whatever the mayor told her and every day she felt the wrath of the people. But she was steadfast and never wavered in her devotion, even when the people laughed and jeered at her and made fun of her plans for the glittering palace.

But worse was to come. The mayor grew tired of her and their glittering palace plans. “Forget it, Princess,” he said with a cruel twist of his ugly mouth. “You and your books are so yesterday. Lady Philippa’s hot, baby, and you’re not. The peasants don’t care about books or art or old stuff. I’ve wasted $250,000 on you and you’re not getting another penny. I’m going to bury your silly palace plans and weave my magic spin for Lady P’s velodrome.” With that he hitched up his green lycra shorts and rushed towards the door.

Suddenly, the princess woke. She had fallen asleep amid her books and she realised the whole thing had been a nightmare.

New Projects Referendum – 2008:

The most far-reaching decision is that the 'Heart of Wanganui' project – and its constituent parts – will go to district-wide referendum in February/March next year. But the projects will compete against other intended capital works to determine their public and funding priority. Those other projects include the Events Centre/Velodrome and the redevelopment of Kowhai Park.

We salute you, Mickey!

As the NZ Listener pointed out last week, its latest Readers’ poll shockingly showed Sir Edmund Hillary to be the most admired New Zealander. This, observed Listener hack Denis Welch, was …

“Another setback in Michael Laws’s campaign to get his face on the $5 bill.”

Here at the Cave, Watchers’ hearts went out to Murray Hughes’s very own hero. What a cruel blow, especially in a week when that very campaign reached a pinnacle (or nadir) of sorts with Mickey’s desperate attempt to convert the awarding of a VC to a New Zealand soldier from Somewhere-other-than-Wanganui into a Michael Laws feature story.

So sad. So desperate. So very very Mickey. So in the spirit of recognising true heroism and humility for what it is, LawsWatch has given Mickey his place in history and put this real Kiwi hero on our Five Dollar Bill. In doing so we right the wrong perpetrated by whichever government flunkeys made the foolish mistake of selecting Ed Hillary when, as Cr Murray Hughes would enthusiastically proclaim, Wanganui has its very own hero.

COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

Michael Laws’ shameless attempt to muscle in on the VC limelight prompted a spate of send-up stories from LawsWatch resident wits who posited that naturally, Taranaki’s tornado headlines must have been hard to resist by the talkback mayor who sees opportunities for self-promotion in the most unlikely places. A sample of winning comments by our anonymii:

"Wanganui needs to have a tornado or two of its own, Mayor Michael Laws said tonight.

AND

Mayor Laws said Council would take action to ban tornados from the CBD. "They are urban terrorists. The previous Council's attitude to tornados was to pretend they didn't exist. They misled Wanganui and this new report from Larry Mitchell will show that they in fact covered up hundreds of tornados. Not this mayor."

STOPPRESS:

Word from Guyton St is that they've lost their nerve about putting the Heart of Wanganui out to referendum in conjunction with the October election and they're retreating to Feb-March 2008. After almost three years of shambolic spending and mayoral meddling the stark political reality is that not even SpinMeister Laws and his tame Guyton St spin machine could turn that turkey into a vote winner.