NZ First must be dreaming

Ha. The triumph of hope over experience.

According to Newstalk ZB, New Zealand First wants to be back in Parliament after the 2011 election.

The way Alf remembers it, they wanted to be back in Parliament after the 2008 election.

Thanks mostly to Winston Peters’ antics before and during the election campaign, they didn’t make it.

Profits down but Air NZ’s boss gets a bigger bonus

Alf can be bewildered by the boardroom antics of our company directors and their executives.

He can be puzzled, too, about the business press’s disinclination to look too hard at their more questionable decisions.

Take – for example – the decision to pay Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe an increased cash bonus for his performance during the past financial year.

Although his base salary remains frozen at $1.2 million, his short-term bonus for the 2008-2009 year will increase from $287,100 to $1,240,800. That will be paid next year.

Consulting Field about perks is being much too precious

Alf is astonished at the rigmarole being gone through to decide a no-brainer: that MPs convicted of crimes should lose their travelling entitlements.

As the Herald notes today, Speaker Lockwood Smith proposed changes after former MP Taito Phillip Field was this month found guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption as an MP, and 15 charges of wilfully trying to obstruct or pervert the course of justice.

But there is nothing to stop him from claiming thousands of dollars worth of travel entitlements.

Maori Council should try tipping the scales with a case

Dunno what sorts of dickheads are running loose in the New Zealand Maori Council.

But the buggers are vowing to keep fighting for Maori ownership of water, even though the High Court has refused them leave to take the case to the Supreme Court over the issue.

That means pissing more Maori money – or is it public money? – against the courtroom wall.

Why Crusher will be the toast of the Eketahuna Club

Must say Crusher Collins is on a roll – the sort of roll that will have her being toasted in the Eketahuna Club tonight.

First, she has accused union bosses of wasting tax-payers’ money.

Corrections Minister Judith Collins has accused prison union bosses of “living a jet-set lifestyle” on the taxpayer after they received $127,000 in expenses from her department in one year.

Nah to Naida’s notions about equivalence

Te Runanga o Ngati Whatua chair Naida Glavish uses an interesting expression when complaining about the unequivocal government ‘no’ to Maori representation on the new Auckland super council.

She says the decision is another slap in the face for a people constantly striving for equivalence in New Zealand society.

“Day in day out, year in year out, century in century out we are told we are not equal. This is just more of the same; treating us as second class citizens,” she says.

Cops bring law and order back to Kaikohe

At last it’s over – and Alf likes to think his needling of the spineless police contributed to the result.

The cops have evicted a group of Maori occupiers from a disused furniture building in Kaikohe, allowing the property’s new owner to finally take possession four months after he bought it.

About 10 police went to the two-storey, 700sq m former furniture store in Broadway yesterday to evict about 15 members of a group known as Nga Uri o Tupoto Maori.

They had occupied the building since Australian property investor Glenn Hannah bought the premises at a bank mortgagee sale for $80,000 in April. Some were living in it.

Kaikohe police would not comment on the eviction, saying the issue was in the hands of court bailiffs.

Chucking should be banned

There are some bits of news that Alf couldn’t give a toss about.

Example: Anna Paquin and her fiance Stephen Moyer are house-hunting.

The 27-year-old starlet and her 39-year-old True Blood co-star – who got engaged earlier this month – are currently searching for the perfect family home ahead of their nuptials.

Tuku tosses his toys

Alf is fascinated by the news that Tainui iwi are vowing to boycott any alternative, weaker role offered to them after the Government’s decision to rule out Maori seats on Auckland’s Super City council.

What can this mean?

Biting the hand that feeds them in the lawless North

It’s becoming the lawless North.

And no bloody wonder. The cops have let a few stroppy Maori get away with defying the law for too long.

Allowing the law to be flouted was especially agregious in the case of the Aussie property owner who couldn’t clear his commercial premises of rabble in Kaikohe And couldn’t get the cops to help him.

The property-owner, Glenn Hannah, was trying to do the town a favour by investing in jobs and what-have-you.

But it seems there are are some nasty buggers in the region who don’t welcome the offer of a helping hand.