The croneyism crock: McCully rewards his mates because he would be daft to do favours for his foes

So which one of these dots is Niue?

Alf is deeply offended by all this stuff being bandied around about “croneyism”. The word trips too easily off the sharp tongues of our political enemies.

First it came from Labour’s Maryan Street. Then it came from that chronic Greenie grouch, Keith Locke.

In both cases they are trying to embarrass Murray McCully, for most parts a splendid fellow, although Alf was somewhat disappointed by his failure to scuttle the misspending of $2 million on a plastic waka.

Packing our oldies off to Niue is an attractive idea, but maybe it could be turned into a penal colony

Sending our oldies here is one idea...sending Black Power here is another.

Alf is a great mate of neighbouring MP John Hayes, down in the Wairarapa, a splendid fellow in most respects although opting to have stomach-stapling surgery seems a somewhat extreme way of losing a bit of weight.

Anyway, he is a former diplomat who chairs Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

And this committee has come up with a great idea – it reckons we should be shipping elderly retirees off to the warmth of Niue to give the economically broke nation an industry and to save millions of dollars of aid wasted on the remote Pacific island.