Now for the hypocrisy two-step

Just as the pundits in the LawsWatch Cave were falling about laughing at the breathtaking failure of the Mayor of Wanganui to win enough txt votes to survive beyond the second round of Dancing With the Stars, an alert watcher stumbled across michaelandlauren.co.nz.

Yes, Watchers, not content with desperately hijacking the Wanganui District Council website, using week after week of his sordid Sunday columns, and prostituting his kids in the women’s rags to buy votes, Michael got his web-pal Nigel Morris to knock together a web site devoted to the ultimately futile txt vote chase.

But even seasoned Watchers who no longer pause over their Sunday lattes to draw breath over Mickey’s endless litany of lies and hypocrisy choked on their Eggs Benedict this morning when they came across this whopper in today’s Herald on Sunday:

… Laws was voted off last week after recording the lowest score in the show's history. Laws said he had decided not to make use of his high profile as a mayor and radio host to campaign for votes. "I'm not going to ask for people to vote for me if I can't dance. I didn't lobby at all, didn't make any trips or say vote for me," said Laws.

And as a commenter pointed out on LawsWatch yesterday, Mickey got off to a galloping start in the weekend porkies and hypocrisy race when he went ballistic for the Chron(ic)’s benefit over an Amnesty International request for support for a petition protesting China’s human rights record.

The Chronic breathlessly reports him opining that “Human rights in China is foreign policy and not the domain of local government".

On and on he goes:

"I think it stupid local government get involved in international relations and it’s an attempt to embarrass government. I will not allow the Wanganui District Council to be used as lobby fodder by an interest group which has a grievance against the government’s foreign policy."

Now isn’t that rich coming from the man who has spent most of the past few years using his mayoralty “celebrity” trying to embarrass the government, culminating in his meltdown over its foreign policy on Tonga in a delightful little November 22 2006 “mayoral e-column” called WE’RE IN TONGA… WHY?

It’s been a rotten week for the man who would be mayor and then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Radio Awards judges joined the Dancing judges and voted him biggest talkback loser. Right at the moment he was being re-humiliated with the replay of his freakshow failure on DTWS, he was watching Marcus Lush get covered in glory at the radio awards as the old lefty from Bluff took the best talk or current affairs host award from shortlisted Leighton Smith and Paul Holmes.

And just to underscore his abject failure in the radio stakes, he didn’t even make any of the many shortlists, though just about everyone else who managed to sit in front of a microphone did.

Face it, Michael, they don’t like you

The Wanganui Chronicle tells us Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws was uncharacteristically ‘unavailable for comment’ in the aftermath of the humiliating on-screen trainwreck that saw him stumble from the annual orgy of mediocrity and stupidity that passes for celebrity entertainment in Godzone.

However, LawsWatch can reveal it has scooped the Chronic and the Women's Daze, and has obtained an exclusive interview with the elusive loser. After wiping the mayoral spittle from his face our intrepid reporter filed this dispatch:

LW: Well Michael, you sure made a fool of yourself this time. You must be wondering what made you do it?

ML: What gives YOU the right to even speak to me, you pathetic loser. What have you ever done to promote yourself, eh? How many acres of news coverage have you managed to whip up for yourself and your cronies? How many times have you managed to get yourself and your kids in the women’s magazines? How many hours of your own radio talkback show have you managed to hijack to try to con the fools out there to vote for YOU?

LW: Surely that’s not the point. But it’s good to hear you admitting that you’ve lied from the beginning of this slow-moving trainwreck by claiming it’s all for Wanganui and Cancer.

ML: Lie? Of course I lie! Everybody knows that. What are you? Some sort of fool?

LW: It’s been interesting to hear the council insiders’ story of how you threw a fit when you were told you couldn’t hijack the ratepayer funded Wanganui District Council website for your own promotional purposes, and how the CEO caved in and let you make a laughing stock of the city.

ML: Of course he caved in, you fool. Why do you think I handpicked him and the other crawlers I surround myself with? You wouldn’t believe what a sweet deal I managed to get for him, so of course he does what he’s told.

LW: Your blatant use of council resources to promote yourself has been commented on in the DomPost and elsewhere, including by blogger Aucklander-at-large in a piece titled Politicians and Reality TV do not mix. It was noted that Rodney Hide also tried to turn his dancing scam into public support, but at least he paid for it … and the blog wondered whether the Wanganui District Council would charge you for the website exposure, or at least count it against your election expenses.

ML: Who takes any notice of that sort of rubbish by journalistic hacks and has-beens? I haven’t heard John Maslin even mention any of that, let alone complain about it. And everybody knows that he’s the most fearless, independent media sycophant I’ve ever managed to batter into abject submission.

LW: But the fact remains that you’ve effectively subjected yourself to a national popularity contest and despite the vast amounts of free publicity you’ve managed to give yourself, the people have spoken. Face it, Michael, they don’t like you.

ML: That’s just the point, isn’t it? The whole country is awash with subhuman fools who don’t yet know that what’s good for Michael Laws is what’s good for them!!

Dirty Dancing mayor milks the public vote

A month ago, when Mickey’s dancing incompetence was just a matter for endless mayoral press releases and the famous broken toe was a mere twinkle in his eye, the Chronicle’s senior mayoral sycophant John Maslin noted that Mickey wasn’t about to resile from his criticism last year of the way Southland Mayor Tim Shadbolt curried favour with the public in order to gain a stay of execution from Dancing With The Stars.

In a March 10th story headlined “Dancing in Tim’s shoes” Mas breathlessly reported:

“YOU’VE heard of Dirty Dancing? Well, for Wanganui’s mayor it may be more of a case of desperate dancing. But he will not recant on his stinging criticism of Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, the man who took ballroom dancing to interesting levels in the first Dancing with the Stars competition in 2005. “This wasn’t about dancing in Tim’s case. He had so engineered the vote that the dancing was irrelevant,” Mr Laws said.

Well, engineering the vote is something Wanganui’s Mayor has obviously spent more time practising of late than the dance demeanour that is needed to convince the judges that, as one perspicacious adjudicator noted at the end of the horribly embarrassing performance in Round One, he’s more than “an overexcited smutty little schoolboy”.

Apart from the loyal and devoted Wanganui press, which has decided to draw a discreet veil over the leering, panting, poncing Mayor’s woeful performance, Mickey treated Women’s Day readers (prime DTWS voting demographic) to a heart-warming family photo and story about how he’s going to be Mr Mum because his partner’s following in that other Vision councillor Sue Pepperell’s tyre treads and fleeing Wanganui for Wellington.

Needless to say, Women’s Daze didn’t waste precious space discussing Ms Brookhammer’s already woeful performance as Mickey’s puppet on Horizons council, or asking whether she’s continue drawing her member’s salary. And even more needless to say, neither did Mas or his lady editor think to do any more than just run Mickey’s press release after being “scooped” by the women’s trash mag.

Nor has Mas thought to ask about the propriety of the Wanganui District Council throwing ratepayers’ dollars at the problem of how to persuade people to vote for Michael Laws despite his obvious incompetence and unwillingness to learn from his mistakes. Add up the hectares of space the ratepayers are buying for Mickey in the likes of Community Link and other council organs, and then ask why council communications like emails are urging people to gamble their hard-earned cash on a proven loser.

But if you have the misfortune to be a council staffer, whatever you do don’t try to defend the WDC website real estate against the mad marauding mayor, because that will land you in trouble. A recent LawsWatch commenter who noted that early resistance to Mickey’s demand for a vote-harvesting picture of him and his long-suffering dance partner had proved futile apparently triggered what’s been described by another commenter as a “witch hunt” at 101 Guyton St. In the event, the result has been a great promotion for this blog with the few remaining staff members who were not already visitors asking how to tap into the only real source of honest comment about Mickey’s Mad Empire.

So as we watch Mickey hanging on by his paws and continue to embarrass Wanganui on national TV with his best Hannibal Lector impersonations, it’s worth remembering Tim Shadbolt’s words of wisdom in Mas’s prescient March story:

“In terms of the dancing, Southland’s mayor has some wisdom to pass on there as well: “Get really fit and really disciplined. If you’re just disciplined but not fit, you’ll never make it. And if you’re fit but not disciplined you won’t make it either.”

Michael and the Bad News Bunny

Wanganui mayor Michael Laws rubbed his eyes and realised it was Easter. He leapt out of bed and raced out to the lounge to see what the Easter Bunny had brought him. Then he remembered he was supposed to have a broken toe so he stopped, hopped up and down and cursed a couple of times because his kids were threatening to dob him in with Women’s Daze.

But there it was! He could barely contain his excitement! A big Easter Egg in a special box with HIS name on it. Shoving the kids out of his way and shouting something about every parents’ right to smack, his trembling fingers grabbed the gift tag on his Egg. To Michael, from the Local Government Commission is what it said.

"Well, that’s about time," he thought to himself. "They’ve left it till the last minute and Bob’s getting all antsy. But here it is, time to really stick it to those anti-democracy whingers and nutters who reckon Wangas need all the non-Vision councillors it can get."

He ripped away the foil wrapping and bashed the giant egg on the hearth. It shattered into dozens of pieces and out fell the Local Government Commission Determination of representation arrangements for the election of the Wanganui Distsrict Council to be held on 13 October 2007.

His eyes darted through the 14 pages... 91 written submissions... 11 oral presentations... 37 appeals! "So what?!", he screamed. That meant nothing compared to HIS referendum and he'd done a fine job of abusing those malcontents who objected to him chopping the council down to size in the best interests of Michael Laws. Of course, the Local Government Commission would see it his way.

Tearing off page by page and flinging them round the room, he got to page 13. Commission’s Determination. He read on... No (2) was all that mattered.

(2) The Council shall comprise the mayor and 12 councillors, elected by the electors of the district as a whole.

He couldn’t believe his eyes! The fools! The bastards! How DARE they meddle in his town! How dare they listen to those malcontents! He stamped his foot a couple of times and then... It happened! All his fury became channelled into his foot. It lashed out and hit the hearth with the full force of a man thwarted.

"My God!" he screamed, "I've broken my toe!"

Watchers can find the full determination here at the Local Government Commission website. Pages 6 & 7 in particular show that the Commission took the submitters / appellants views on Mickey's referendum misinformation more seriously than it did his grandstanding and abuse. Some excerpts:

We understand that councillors do not have the ability to decline the salary determined by the Remuneration Authority. We agree with appellants / objectors who said that the alleged advantage of a reduced number of councillors was erroneous... Some appellants said that some councillors and the Mayor had not engaged in the representation review process in an open and transparent manner, instead deferring to the referendum results. We note that the High Court has ruled that the weight of numbers in favour of a particular position cannot be a mandatory consideration for it, and that a single submission may, in itself, provide sufficient material for the Commission to reach a decision...

We are satisfied that Referendum '06 ultimately formed a small part of the Council’s formal representation review process.

Happy Easter reading, Watchers!

My name is Michael; my karma is bad!

Sunday night couch potatoes may have been laughing along with My Name is Earl while they bide their time waiting for Wanganui mayor Michael Laws to spin across the floor in an episode or two of Dancing with the Stars (or as some watchers have uncharitably christened it, Poncing with the Losers) before getting the shove by discerning judges and viewers.

Like the eponymous Earl Hickey, Wanganui’s hapless mayor has stumbled into late middle age leaving a trail of bad-karma-inducing acts behind him. In one last desperate grab to be taken seriously as a "celebrity" (now how hard can that be in the very small pond that passes for celebrity-dom in Godzone? – Ed) he put himself forward as the born-loser of the 2007 series of the tired, overwrought and passed its use-by date DWTS.

Just over ten years ago he and then dance partner Antoinette Beck slow-waltzed from the hallowed halls of Parliament into ignominy and disgrace; since his third-rate cha-cha into the Wanganui mayoralty partnered by the likes of Nicky Higgie and Sue Pepperell, he’s made more stumbles and falls than Tim Shadbolt and Rodney Hide put together on a bad day – especially when he’s in front of TV cameras.

But this afternoon, just 11 days from his debut with the latest TV One stable of fellow dog-tucker nags like Paul Holmes and Suzanne Paul, Michael Laws breathlessly tells us he danced into a whole new self-generated publicity frenzy by BREAKING … wait for it Watchers … HIS BIG TOE!!!

Here in the LawsWatch cave we’ve been getting a mixed response to this SHOCK!! HORROR!! PROBE!! D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!!! Some Watchers say it serves the little crawler right … others say that in view of the fact he’d be gone by lunchtime if he’d fronted up to the start line of DWTS it’s more than a fortuitous accident. Remember, they say, his oh-so convenient scratching (due to oh-dear so unfortunate injuries) from the 2006 Mayoral Mile and the Twin Towers climb. Not to mention his failure to deliver on his threat to appear naked in the main street of Ohakune when the Overlander was saved.

Remember, say the Doubting Thomases (and Julians, Dicks, Annes, Georges and Timmys), his ignominious exit from Julie Christie’s Trashy Celebrity Treasure Island after a couple of episodes in which the contempt of his fellow wannabe-celebs was almost palpable?

Could it be, they insist, that Cunning Mickey did the numbers and figured he’d get more column centimetres (certainly from his old pal Mas at the Wanganui Chronic) and seconds air time by bumping his BIG TOE and scratching himself from the BIG EVENT, where he was sure to be an also-ran? Or does he figure (as one National Radio commenter posited) that if he does limp up to the birdcage he’ll get a “sympathy vote”. Certainly, his constant faked self-deprecation about flat-footedness would have worn thin by the second ad break and txters all round New Zealand, desperate to get him out of their lounges, would be boosting TV One and Telecom’s profits.

As an aside, LawsWatch – ever concerned about the health and wellbeing of Wanganui’s one and only mayor – admits to having been more concerned in recent days about the threat to Michael Laws’ typing digits, such has been the overactive commenting emerging from the Laws camp after kids' bedtime and during the 9-noon news and commercial breaks at Radio Live. As Watchers have pointed out, much of it, especially the evening frenzy, has been quite breathlessly obsessed with the bodily attributes of Mickey’s 20-something dance tutor.

Curiouser and curiouser … because as the 11am news hit the Radio Live frequencies this morning the dedicated commenter who some Watchers have christened anonymickey (because he’s got Mayor Mickey’s inimitable style down to a tee) made this prophetic contribution to this blog:

That dancer girl is beautiful. How come a prick like ML gets all the breaks. It is enough to make me lose my faith in karma.

Perhaps he too is an inveterate watcher of My Name is Earl and, as Mickey Hickey must have worked out by now:

When you do good things, good things will happen to you, do bad things and they'll come back and bite you in the ass.

Let’s hear what you think, Watchers? But with all due concern for our poor Mayor we would urge anonymickey to give it a rest and keep that BIG TOE of his RICED (Rested Iced Compressed and Elevated) and to save his typing digits for his next BIG PRESS RELEASE to Mas.

Comments on this post are now closed.

Sold to the lowest bidder

We've had quite a few people complain that the diVision recruitment pamphlet was so poorly reproduced on the front page of the River City Press that they could hardly make out the faces, let alone the names, of most of the people pictured on the back.

Every ready to assist, LawsWatch forensic scientists have placed the pages under a microscope and, by applying certain specialised filters we are able to reproduce at left, in perfect clarity, the line-up of compliant sock puppets Mickey and Bog Walker are planning on foisting on the electorate*.

What's more, our filters have been able to bypass the somewhat prosaic descriptions in the diVision document and provide essential background information on what drew these folk to want to mouth Mickey's madness in the first place.

Especially when those who were inveigled (or narrowly avoided being inveigled) last time are now busy spilling the beans.

Rob Vinsen, target du jour of Mickey's supporters, revealed on LawsWatch that he'd been received not one but two "telephoned approaches" from Mickey to join the diVision ticket. As he tells it:

In the last election after refusing Michael Laws two telephoned approaches to me I ran for the Regional Council. The Vision momentum (and advertising) was enough for Leonie Brookhammer to pip me by about 5,300 to 5,600. Bob Walker trailed well behind. I wonder how many votes Leonie would have got if voters knew what her subsequent attendance record at Horizons meetings was going to be.

But more telling still is the admission from Joan Street that Mickey's hand-picked candidates are assigned tasks that most people with an ounce of integrity would refuse:

I was given by the great man the task of being in charge of letter-writing - this was in the presence of other Vision candidates at the time I was to agree to letters being written by ML(and, perhaps, other candidates) and then I was to have them signed by someone who supported Vision from a list to be given to me by ML.

Nicki Higgie and I discussed the morality of this - I refused - and the proposition was dropped... though letters were written by Sue's husband at that time and signed by his mother - remember???

Now why would Mickey and Bog Walker think that the people they'd surrounded themselves with would perpetrate such a fraud? Simple: they'd paid good money to own them. Joan Street again:

Without going over old ground I need once more to clarify the cost of standing for Vision and the fact that - having paid the $2,500 to ML as [the] cost, according to him, of my proposed candidature, I was appalled to find that the cost - according to the sheet presented to [the] council [returning] officer after the election by ML (unseen by me!) of my standing was twice that!

I told Noeline M of my dismay at knowing nothing of this - and was told it was legal for ML to pay extra as he had done!!!! -for me!!! I remember the conversation with Sue P. where she stated, like me, she knew nothing of all this and both of us agreed we would have refused such an offer if we had been asked to accept it...

I was such an idiot not to see what ML was really like! I feel sad for those at the coalface who still bear with him and those who post here without any real knowledge of his horrific personality.

Now this may or may not be true. We'd tend to take Ms Street at her word, but at least one anon proposed a different scenario - one which, we must admit, we also find plausible:

If Mickey had approached you he'd've said "On top of your own contribution you'll receive an extra $2,500 from party coffers for your own personal campaign fund - that's our investment, a symbol of our belief in you, Joan!"

That's what campaign managers do.

And you'd have gone along with it. That's how Laws and other populists get by. Enough people are prepared to go along for long enough.

Joan however came to her own defence, pointing out that our anonymous commentator was somewhat naive to think that in this alone Mickey would have acted honourably.

Regardless of whether the additional funding was offered before or received after the event, however, the intent is the same - to purchase the loyalty and, perhaps, the conscience of the recipient. That's why political parties and candidates must declare any sizeable donations received from a single source. But at local body level the amounts spent are so relatively paltry that the price of a councillor's soul - at least on Mickey's abacus - is a mere $2,500.

Does it really matter, therefore, whose picture ends up appearing on diVision's electioneering material? Because every face staring back at you shares one thing in common - they're owned by Mickey.

* Resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, may not be intentional ;-)

Update (1.30pm 27 March): Much debate over Mickey's performance on TV3 last night. The interview - for those who missed it or would like to see it again - can be viewed here.

Further update (3.30 pm 27 March): The LawsWatch review of the interview would have to disagree with those commenters who thought Campbell did a good job.

The proposed gang legislation is a muddled, populist, impractical, inoperable piece of legislation and that's where the focus should have been. A few questions about enforcement would have easily tripped up Mickey, but Campbell chose to pursue a line of questioning centred on the fact that Mickey's Sunday Star Times "damn the politically correct" rantings on everthing from peanut allergies to Section 59 was utterly morally inconsistent with his stance on gangs. Well of course it is.

Mickey is the most expedient politician New Zealand has ever produced (and that's saying something). He'll say whatever suits his case at the time and if he's called on his inconsistency he'll respond with some schoolboy insult such as "Are you on drugs?". Going that route with Mickey - attempting to get him to admit he's inconsistent - was about as likely to work as trying to get Winston to admit he's grabbed his office by the baubles and isn't about to let go.

Campbell let an opportunity to grill Mickey about just how his populist flim-flam would be practically applied to everyday life in the streets of Wanganui go by. Instead he merely demonstrated - yet again - that Wanganui's Mayor is an unabashed populist with dictatorial tendencies who'll resort to personal abuse about anyone who dares disagree with him. And that's hardly news.

Comments on this post are now closed.