Gotta say Alf hopes the book is thrown at the Greenpeace tossers who staged the day-long protest yesterday over what they say is government inaction on climate change.
Even better, let’s throw a library of books at them because this should inflict greater hurt.
The tiresome foursome are believed to have used scaffolding at the rear of Parliament to get onto the building, then make their way to the ledge which overlooks the forecourt.
Alf didn’t pay much attention to their antics, but it seems they placed solar panels there and unfurled a benner with a photo of the Prime Minister, John Key, and the words “cut pollution, create jobs – yeah, nah”.
Mrs Grumble phoned during the boring bit of Parliamentary proceedings today to recommend giving a Sergeant Schultz award to Police Minister Michael Woodhouse.
Woodhouse won plaudits from her for his skill at saying nothing about his role in the Mike Sabin matter.
Well, almost nothing.
He refused – again – to confirm whether he was briefed by Police about Sabin.
‘But he said he was “absolutely” confident he had handled the situation properly.
If he handled the matter properly without being briefed by the Police, of course, he is entitled to another award, this one for prowess in the Police portfolio while being kept in the dark.
Alf’s good mate Phil Heatley, back in Opposition days, enjoyed watching Chris Carter wriggle at Question Time in Parliament. Alf enjoyed watching him wriggle, too.
Carter, you might recall, was Housing Minister before he came unglued within the Labour Party hierarchy.
And on more than one occasion our Phil had the bugger on the back foot – for example, when he asked how come a person could be allocated a State house in Māngere while owning a holiday home in Russell.
If you are going to dish it out in Opposition, you have to be able to take it in government, of course.
And when he became Minister of Housing, it looked like Phil was a feller who did not mind hard questioning.
As a highly principled politician, Alf publicly champions decency, democracy, fair trials and the admirable notion that we are all innocent until proven guilty.
He firmly believes the well of justice will be poisoned by the pre-trial publicity that too often can be given to a case by circulation-hungry newspapers and ratings-obsessed broadcast media.
He accordingly condemns news media that feed off the plight of well known public figures who find themselves the subjects of police investigations. Leave it alone (he urges) until the police have done their thing and brought the suspect to court, where all the relevant facts are publicly aired before a judge and/or jury.
He is dismayed, therefore, that the NZ Herald has gone fishing for more information (or, more likely, is hoping to dig up more dirt) after Labour’s Darren Hughes confirmed he is the MP at the centre of allegations about a police investigation relating to a late-night incident.
Chris Carter has been given 500 good reasons for wanting to leave the Labour Party without being kicked out for trying to undermine leader Phil Goff.
If he were to stay with the cash-strapped party, they would tap him for $500 for a war-chest to fight the Mana by-election campaign.
Whether or not the party kicks him out, the sad bugger lacks David Garrett’s sense of what is the decent thing to do, although this might be explained by his having nothing much else to do except politics.
Looks like Labour’s Shane Jones has lost lots of brownie points within his party over some of the purchases he made with his ministerial credit card back in the days when he had the privilege of carrying such a card.
Among other things, he watched pornographic movies.
Shame.
Labour Party members are apt to frown on blokes who watch pornographic movies, although it’s fair to say many Labour blokes probably have done just that, except they did not use ministerial credit cards and hence have been able to keep their habit strictly private.
In the aftermath of what is happening, Alf’s Labour leadership tip is to keep an eye out for Chris Carter.
While Jones’ aspirations of leading the party have been sunk, Carter’s probably have been given a boost.
Alf was interested in a parliamentary question put by Labour’s Annette King yesterday. She wanted to know on what date Cabinet decided to support the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and what Cabinet believed the impact of such a decision would be.
The answer from Bill English, acting PM, was that Cabinet made the decision to support the declaration on 22 March.
He went on:
The statements made to this House and to the UN accurately reflect Cabinet’s view that this is a non-binding, aspirational document.
The Government has affirmed that New Zealand’s existing legal and constitutional frameworks will define the bounds of the influence of the declaration.
Posted by Alf Grumble 
