On yer bike? No, that’s to be hostile to motorists – it’s better to go walking instead

Here’s a good reason for sticking to the motor car.

Alf thinks the merits of the motor car are easily demonstrated.

First, greenies  are fond of bicycling and disparaging of vehicles that emit greenhouse gases without explaining the miracle by which cyclists don’t emit such gases.

Second, he has seen Trevor Mallard on a bike and it is not a pretty sight.

Accordingly Alf has no urge to sympathise with  Alex Mann, the bloke whose champions say made a legitimate choice when he decided to travel by bicycle on the day a police officer fined him for impeding traffic.

As one of his defenders has argued: 

Sure, Larry has billions of dollars, but obviously not enough to help his Warkworth company’s R&D

Driven by a fair wind and a nice Kiwi subsidy…

Alf’s mates in the Eketahuna Club are pretty keen for him to have a chat with Steven Joyce about some of the R&D funding handouts he loves to toss to people who seriously look like they don’t much need it.

They are livid that some of this boodle has been tossed to Oracle’s boatbuilder – potentially worth up to $17.25 million, according to media reports.

Annette King can now say her Mercedes Benz was Borrowed – but what were they doing at Ratana?

Alf has been invited to spare a thought for Chester Borrows, the National MP for Whanganui, who has made a dick of himself at Ratana.

He backed into a car “in front of a gaggle of chortling political journos”.

This news prompted Alf to spare some thoughts for the hacks in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

“A gaggle of chortling journos” pretty well sums them up in just a few words.

As for Chester Borrows, frankly Alf finds him a bit of a plod and not his favourite person in the caucus.

Moreover Alf was not invited to be one of the MPs who travelled with Borrows to the Ratana celebrations.

This is just as well, as it turns out.

Let’s go along with Mallard and bring back the moa – but Treaty claims about kai are bound to follow

Uh, oh … is that an indigenous hunter who fancies a feed of moa?

Alf was tempted to muse on the Treaty implications (among other things) on learning that Trevor Mallard is promoting the idea of bringing back the moa.

Trev might have started small by aiming to bring back the huia.

But no, credit where credit is due – he thinks big and bold and he has set his sights on the moa.

This comes from his fascination with “the science of de-extinction” and its rapid advance, according to a report at Stuff.

Accordingly

… the Hutt South MP has laid down a challenge for Lower Hutt and for scientists: Let’s work towards the possibility of moa one day striding again through the bush of Rimutaka Forest Park.

The Cabinet Club here in Eketahuna North is focused more on tippling than peddling influence

Good old Tau has summed things up pretty nicely when he says Opposition attacks on National Party fundraisers, where individuals can pay for access to ministers, is Labour Party envy.

Alf is bound to say he was deeply disappointed by Labour and NZ First attacks on the Government yesterday and their claims to have proof that The Boss was involved in talks to ease citizenship restrictions for wealthy foreign investors.

As Stuff explains here, those allegations came out of reports on National Party events run throughout the country, called Cabinet Clubs.

Labour can’t have Cabinet Clubs because they are in opposition. They are bound to stay there, too.

They could try running Shadow Cabinet Clubs, of course, although Alf can’t imagine why anyone would talk to the shadowy buggers who would be the best they could provide by way of star turns.

The Problem Gambling mob are moaning about muzzling but maybe others can do their job better

It looks like the Salvation Army had a better hand.

Running a business always has risks, the more so should it become dependent on Government money.

In that case, you might say, there is an element of a gamble about maintaining the business’s cash flow, because the bosses can never rule out the tap being turned off at some time by the politicians, the bureaucrats or both.

The same goes for providers of social services.

We should bear this in mind while listening to bleats from pinkos, lefties and other assorted hand-wringers that the Problem Gambling Foundation has had its Government funding cut off because it opposed the controversial SkyCity convention centre deal.

When you bet your future on the loser it takes gall to expect Govt help to get you back on an even keel

Let’s see if we’ve heard this right.

The Marine Industry Association is calling on the Government for support in the wake of Team New Zealand’s failure to win the America’s Cup.

Presumably they are banging on about financial support.

They want taxpayers to help them make more money.

Radio NZ told us of this brazen bid to dip into the corporate welfare trough earlier today.

The item also tells us the association took a punt – and lost.

All power to the Minister and the Speaker as Russel Norman’s question is short-circuited

It was great to see Russel Norman get his come-uppance from Mr Speaker in the House this afternoon.

Norman obviously hoped he was going to screw some politically embarrassing information out of our splendid Minister of Energy, Simon Bridges (although Alf likes to think he would be an even more splendid Minister).

At Question Time, Norman asked (here) if Bridges believed the electricity reforms of the late 1990s delivered lower electricity prices and – if so – what had happened to household electricity prices over the last 20 years?

Obviously 20 years is a long time, and it would have required lots of beavering away in the database to come up with the figures.

So Bridges short-circuited things and said yes, the reforms were on the right track.

Good answer.

Throwing up Trevor Mallard as a candidate means David Carter is a shoo-in to become Mr Speaker

Well, that’s gotta be a thoroughly untempting proposition.

The Labour Party has said it will nominate Trevor Mallard to be Speaker of the House.

They know the bid will fail.

The chances of failure became that much greater when Mallard became their choice.

Invitation to Eric Joyce: come Down Under, mate, and teach the MPs here how to toughen up

Learning how to butt heads and come out the winner would be useful at Question Time.

Never thought it would be written here. But Trevor Mallard is a pussy cat.

Mallard – it might be remembered – escaped an assault charge when he was Minister for the Environment after an altercation with National MP Tau Henare by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of fighting in a public place.

But fair to say, Trev is thoroughly genteel when compared with Britain’s Eric Joyce, who recently was convicted of four counts of assault and – when asked to tally the number of people he has thumped over the years -reckons it’s probably 100.