Golfers shouldn’t be handicapped – or barred from the trough – just because they fail a poverty test

It’s just a case of making the right pitch to have the millions spent here…

Alf’s good mate Steven Joyce is a beneficent bugger – a sort of Father Christmas for the well-off.

He distributes his largesse not on the basis of whether the beneficiary has been good or naughty over the past year, but whether he, she or it mixes in the right circles.

These are circles of people plush with money and an urge to donate to the National Party, usually to ensure against the election of a leftie or greenie government.

Steven accordingly would not have needed too much persuading when asked to consider whether taxpayers should bankroll the New Zealand Open golf tournament.

Too damned right they should.

Some niggly tossers ask: but will there be a positive return?

It doesn’t matter. We don’t get a positive return, so far as Alf can see, from the money biffed at domestic purpose beneficiaries and other people down on their uppers.

Why should golf be different?

Bread and circuses are prescribed to pacify the mob but an entertainment centre should do the trick

And if we run out of elephants, we could teach Gerry to sit up like this.

Alf is anticipating a bit of a hullabaloo from a raft of community groups that need weaning off government handouts.

The buggers are complaining today about the Government’s cutting $1.5 million from the Community Organisations Grants Scheme and giving it to four areas of its choosing.

Just imagine their chagrin when they find out about the $650,000 for rugby parties the Government is handing out in Christchurch.

More specifically, according to the Ministerial statement, the dosh is for a new temporary entertainment and performance events village to be set up in North Hagley Park.

The money will be ladelled from the Major Events Development Fund, according to the announcement today from Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Acting Economic Development Minister David Carter.

This is bloody good politics.

Christchurch needs cheering up after being constantly shaken up, and the poor buggers will be missing out on the Rugby World Cup matches that had been scheduled for their city before the earthquakes scuttled those plans.

The community workers who are being starved of funds are bleeding hearts who probably vote Labour.