The good, the bad and the ugly – NBR's plays of the week

Len Brown’s vision derailed
The National-led government has finally shown some respect to taxpayers with its refusal to pay for new Auckland supercity mayor Len Brown’s extravagant rail promises.

Mr Brown wants to splurge about $5 billion of other people’s money on a series of rail projects that overseas experience suggests will be financially disastrous.

His hobbyhorses (or hobby carriages, perhaps) include a CBD rail loop, an underground harbour rail crossing and a train to Auckland Airport.

These are all part of his “vision” to copy larger and more densely populated cities overseas that have also plunged billions of dollars into loss-making train sets.

For example, Sydney, a city with more favourable geography and about three times the population of Auckland, has a railway link to its airport that is losing money hand over fist.

New Zealand is already poor relative to Australia and most other Western nations, so pouring billions of dollars of capital down the gurgler is almost criminally stupid.

Government says no
Fortunately the government has lobbed the ball back into Mr Brown’s court, pointing out taxpayers are already stumping up about $5 billion for Auckland’s roads and $1.6 billion for its rail.

Prime Minister John Key has basically said, “If you want more you’ll have to pay for it yourself.”

This is a change of heart for a government that has had trouble saying no to special interest groups, keeping in place Labour’s expensive bribes like interest-free student loans and Working for Families then bailing out South Canterbury Finance investors.

If Auckland’s ratepayers are asked to stump up thousands of dollars each to benefit a few thousand heavily-subsidised rail commuters they will have a more realistic idea of the cost than if it had been spread across the whole country.

When they see how much these “visionary” projects are going to remove from their pockets they might start to question whether being a “world-class city” is really worth being a bankrupt city.

Henry reaction a load of Dikshit
The over-reaction to Paul Henry’s moment of mirth over a funny-looking name is almost as unpleasant as the recently resigned breakfast host’s comment that sparked the controversy in the first place.

On his weekly segment with Prime Minister John Key, Mr Henry asked if the next Governor-General would look more like a New Zealander, and asked if current Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand was even a New Zealander.

Implying that Sir Anand doesn’t look like a New Zealander is incredibly offensive to Indian Kiwis, who have had to deal with plenty of racism in this country – as recently as the 1950s barbers in Pukekohe refused to serve Indian men at their shops.

However, Mr Henry’s ignorant and insensitive comment has been almost overshadowed by his giggles at the surname of Indian politician Sheila Dikshit, which contrary to how it is spelled is actually pronounced ‘Dix-it’.

Sure, it was immature in a teenage boy kind of way, but surely India has bigger things to worry about than a New Zealand TV presenter laughing at a mispronounced name.

Funny-sounding names
There are plenty of words and names that sound like something rude in another language.

Phuket, for example, sounds nasty if mispronounced while Whakatane has provided plenty of laughs for Australian entertainer Rove McManus over the years.

And I’ll bet Ms Dikshit never had to endure being nicknamed Nicobrevin at school.

As for radio host and former Whanganui mayor Michael Laws calling Sir Anand fat, well, who really cares what his weight is? It’s about whether he is good at his job.

Thanks to Mr Henry’s ill-advised comments people know more about the man who is theoretically the most powerful person in New Zealand, who until now has been virtually anonymous.

This is why Mr Henry was good at his job- as well as generating controversy and ratings he also got people thinking about issues that wouldn’t have crossed their minds without someone saying something outrageous.

Breakfast viewers tuned in to watch Mr Henry, not the interchangeable blondes that sat next to him wearing almost perpetual grimaces as they listened to him putting his foot in his mouth.

Chris Carter saga drags on
Just when it seemed former Labour minister Chris Carter was finally gone from the limelight he has returned to add to the bizarre string of events he has been involved in recently.

After handwriting an anonymous note to media in an attempt to kickstart a coup against Labour Party leader Phil Goff, Mr Carter’s situation has gone from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous.

Following a few weeks away on stress leave he was finally expelled from his party on Monday night.

Now he is having his pay docked for not showing up at Parliament, an indiscretion that is costing him a whopping $10 a day from his $145,000 a year salary package.

“I've had a bit of a rough week really, my reputation has taken a bit of a battering and I just think it's like putting the boot in when someone's down,” he told media of his modest financial penalty.

A positive side
The ongoing saga of Mr Carter is right up there with some of the Act party shenanigans in terms of Twilight Zone-type weirdness.

But maybe Mr Carter has finally set a positive example for other MPs to follow.

If more of our politicians just didn’t bother showing up to work the country would be in much better shape, unencumbered by unnecessary, counterproductive and poorly written laws and regulations.

For instance, instead of dreaming up ways to censor bloggers, Justice Minister Simon Power should just take the next few weeks off.

Or, as a friend suggested, we could just hand colouring-in books to the politicians to keep them busy while the rest of us do the real work.