Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 10/10/2001
Music - Die Fledermaus
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show for Wednesday, October 10, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit & excellence against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
She's gone. Jenny Shipley, Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1997-99, Leader of the Opposition, 1999-2001. What she did to Jim Bolger - that which Bolger did to McLay, which McLay did to Muldoon, which Muldoon did to Marshall - has now been done to her. She's been rolled as National Party leader. She says she has "some scores to settle." Jim Bolger is laughing like a drain in the precincts of his pay-off, our Washington embassy. Do we care? Should we care?
When Shipley rolled Bolger I wrote:
"I returned to Auckland [from delivering a speech in 1993 to Shipley's electorate faithful in Ashburton] reluctantly persuaded that this politician of whom I had been tempted to think highly was in reality just another calculating power-tripper like her colleagues, measuring her every word for effect, cognisant of her party's stated principles [free enterprise & individual liberty] but in way actually beholden to them. Nothing in the interim has persuaded me otherwise. Mrs Shipley has presided over bureaucracy-ridden, Roundtable-inspired health 'reforms.' She has refused to countenance the relaxation of our fascist drug laws. She has said the Ministry of Women's Affairs will be abolished 'over my dead body.' She has voted against voluntary euthanasia. She has remained mute as the full horror of her precious Resource Management Act has unfolded. She has proved to be every bit as much of a lickspittle to the Land Transport Safety Authority as her disgusting predecessor in the transport portfolio, Maurice Williamson. And worst of all she has faithfully played the game - the cheap, tawdry, Machiavellian game of power politics. ... Simon Carr has recently likened politicians to psychopaths in their obsession with power (unearned), status (unreal) & money (other people's). What we saw in recent days, to borrow Carr's simile, was just another psychopathic orgy, one of thousands & thousands in the sorry history of power-lust all over the world."
Now, in Shipley's place, we have Bill English, who described himself today as more "pragmatic" than Shipley - which is to say, better able to play the game. He's personable & smart, to be sure. He may well lead National, against all odds, back to the Treasury benches next time. But he won't hesitate to pander to Maori racists, Politically Correct educationists, eco-Talebans & whining welfare bludgers in the process - that's what his New-Age, MBA-speak about "reaching out" with a "forward vision" really amounts to.
So what, really, is the point? The point, of course, is power.
"Plus ca change ..." I said when Shipley rolled Bolger. I say it again now.
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