Election disappointment [update 3]

Well that was disappointing, wasn’t it. Disappointing all round, really.

National will be disappointed that their Mt Albert candidate Melissa Lee got fewer votes than Ravi Masuku did in the last two general elections.

The Greens will be disappointed that Russel’s muscle could only wrestle him into third place.

ACT will be disappointed that despite him being the self-described “only credible centre-right candidate,” John Boscawen could only attract five percent of the vote.

The Christian parties will be disappointed that they each scored fewer votes than the cannabis candidate Dakta Green.

And of course we Libertarianz supporters are tremendously disappointed that four weeks of door-knocking, bill-boarding and well-coordinated campaigning brought Julian Pistorius only marginalisation by the MSM and a result of thirty-five votes – few even than the number of homes the main parties were all promising to knock over to build their favoured transport routes – which will obviously please the sundry whiners and knockers who always disparage principled politicking.

And even the victorious David Shearer will probably be disappointed that what was called “the hottest political contest this year” attracted fewer than half the electorate’s registered voters to the polls – prompting a few wags to suggest that at the end of the day the “no-government” vote was the winner.

And speaking of disappointing elections, how disappointing was it to see the rigged election result in Iran over the weekend that saw madman I’m-A-Dinner-Jacket reconfirmed as president.  Not just disappointing, but frankly frightening to have the nuclear dictator reconfirmed in power.  But how thrilling nonetheless to hear ringing out from the streets of Tehran the resounding chant  of “We Want Freedom!” from good people who refuse to do nothing in the face of evil – thousands of Iranians chanting not "Death to America" or "Death to Israel," but "Death to the Government." [Read more reaction on Twitter.]

How unlike people here who are happy with their temporary state-sponsored security, allowing themselves only the occasionally cynical kick against the various pricks.

UPDATE:  Liberty Scott on the Mt Albert result:

    I would have been pleasantly surprised and astonished had Julian Pistorius won, but the Mt. Albert result was disappointing. However, I guess an electorate that ticked Helen Clark consistently for 28 years was unlikely to be a place of free spirits or individuals who were gagging to have more control of their own lives. So voting Labour is clearly like breathing to most of them.
    Most by-elections are interesting, and produce results well out of kilter with a general election. This one didn't. The last proper one was Taranaki-King Country, when ACT came a close second. In Selwyn, the Alliance came a close second. In Mt Albert, the voters could have voted Green to say no to motorways - but didn't. They could have voted National, but admittedly there was no good reason for that. They could have voted Libertarianz, but clearly the idea of being responsible for yourself frightened too many of them.
    So all in all a bit of a yawn.

Read on here for more from Scott.

UPDATE 2: Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Euro MP who verbally flayed Gordon Brown, comments on the Iranian election:

It strikes me as pretty implausible, this Iranian election result. True, international observers sometimes side, knowingly or subliminally, with pro-Western and English-speaking politicians. European monitors looked the other way when Boris Yeltsin claimed to have defeated resurgent Russian Communists. They collaborated with Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili when, in 2004, he awarded himself a Saddam-like majority of 96 per cent in a post-putsch snap poll. They may even have been biased towards the Orange revolutionaries in Ukraine. Even so, the idea that Iranians would turn out in record numbers (the government had conveniently ordered lots of extra ballot boxes in advance) in order to bestow a massive majority on a regime that has brought them inflation, stagnation and isolation, is hard to swallow.

UPDATE 3: Christopher Booker weighs in.  The Iranian elections are a 'loathsome charade' he says:

The reality is that this was a completely sham battle between rival factions of a regime as ruthless as any in the world, in which the real power is exercised by the gang of hard-line mullahs round the "Supreme Leader", Ali Khamenei. In an election riddled with fraud (six million more ballot papers were printed than there are Iranians eligible to vote), all four regime-approved candidates had long been personally involved in the regime's murderous reign of terror.. . .

Labour still campaigning on election day

If Labour are so confident about David Shearer’s victory in Mt Albert, then why are they out campaigning today?

That’s the question that occurred to me when I received the following report from a Mt Albert resident:

    Today is Saturday the 13th of June, as you well know the Mt Albert by-election day. Just a quick note I am within the Mt Albert area and today I was visited by a person(going door to door) from the Labour party, asking if I had voted - with a little plug for Labour too. It is my belief that this breaches the election laws of no campaigning on election day . . .
    Good Luck with your results, hopefully one day we will see true democracy and a libertarian government!!

I understand the police are being informed.

Answering the Questions that REALLY Matter in Mt Albert

If you live in Mt Albert, then tomorrow is your chance to have a say for liberty, for freedom and for individual rights by voting Pistorius.

Here’s why you should vote for the young man:

• because unlike the other candidates his campaign wasn’t funded by taxpayers;
• because unlike the other candidates he doesn’t want to be a politician – he doesn’t just want to put his nose into the trough;
• because unlike the other candidates his loyalty is not to a party, but to his principles;
• because unlike the other candidates he doesn’t want government to be your master;
• because unlike the other candidates he doesn’t think he knows how to run your life;
• because unlike the other candidates he doesn’t want to spend your money;
• because unlike the other candidates he doesn’t want to take your house;
• and because unlike the other candidates, he’s actually got answers when they don’t even know they’ve got questions. 

See what I mean:

1. To Melissa Lee and John Boscawen: The National/Act government was elected on a promise that they would cut taxes. The government has now broken this promise. Why was this promise made when it was clear to everyone (except apparently to your parties) that we were in a global financial crisis? Why did your parties make a promise which they had no intention of keeping?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: Tax cuts are essential. Allowing people to keep more of their own money encourages wealth creation and business activity which creates employment. Government spending must be slashed. Borrowing money to fund deficits is fiscal child abuse.
   
2. To all candidates: The National/Act government proposes an extension to the motorway through Mt Albert which will involve bulldozing homes against the wishes of some property owners. Do you support the taking of someone’s home by force? Yes or no? Does your answer change if their house is taken for a railway? Or a cycleway?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: Your home is your castle. Respect for property rights is what differentiates a civilised society from an uncivilised country. In France, for example, options to buy are purchased on homes on alternative routes and these options are exercised when options on a route exist.
   
3. To all candidates: Economic theory shows that a minimum wage creates unemployment, especially for the youngest and most marginalised. If you are serious about helping those without jobs get a job, then why not eliminate the minimum wage?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: Unemployment can be eliminated by allowing wage rates to fall, if necessary, below the currently mandated minimum wage. The minimum wage ensures the most needy, the most unskilled, people in society will be consigned to the unemployment line.
   
4. To Melissa Lee and John Boscawen: Given the failure of council amalgamations from Toronto to Brisbane, and the estimated $240 million cost to bring together Auckland's councils, what possible justification can there be to steamroll ahead with the so-called "Super City" project?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: The so-called "Super City" plan will be expensive, invasive and will only make bossy councils worse – and your rates bill even higher.  The whole idea should be killed at birth.
   
5. To John Boscawen: In 2007 and 2008 you campaigned against the Electoral Finance Act in the name (so you said) of Free Speech. Yet now in 2009 you have just voted against individuals in W(h)anganui being allowed to wear patches on their clothing.  So just how deep is your commitment to free speech, John?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: Free Speech is Free Speech – even (perhaps especially) when you object to what the other person is saying.
   
6. To all candidates: Do you agree that National's so-called Resource Management Act "reforms" are not intended to make life easier for the little guy, but only easier for National to ram through its Think Biggish infrastructure projects?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: The best way to reform the RMA is to drive a stake through its heart, and to protect property rights under common law.
   
7. To all candidates: Do you support the right of shop-owners (who as we all know are under severe threat from violent criminals) to be allowed to defend themselves, and to possess the means of self defence?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: The law must recognise the right of shop-owners, and of all New Zealanders, have the right to defend themselves -- and to posssess the means to defend themselves.
   
8. To all candidates: Given the RMA makes it easier to bulldoze houses rather than mangroves and minor creeks, do you agree that we need to change things so humans are put before trees, rocks and mud puddles?
   JULIAN PISTORIUS says: Humans and property rights are more important than mud puddles.

And finally, here’s a question and answer of my own:

Q: WHY DO POLITICIANS SEEK EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE MORE POWER OVER OUR LIVES?
A: Might as well ask why a cat licks its arse. Same answer: Because they can.

Take power away from the politicians tomorrow, and Vote Pistorius.

Support Capitalism Support Freedom Support Pistorius

Back Benches Mt Albert TV [updated]

The Back Benches show last night [watch it here] featured five Mt Albert candidates who knew virtually no details about the motorway that’s about to be built through the electorate. That’s obvious.

Debate in part two of the programme was all about the motorway, but for all the candidates knew about it host Wallace Chapman might as well have asked the beany-wearing buffoon behind him for answers – or Libertarianz  candidate Julian Pistorius who was in the crowd, but not invited to speak (so much for modern democracy, eh?  All candidates are equal, but some are made more equal than others by decisions like this).

And the real reason Mt Albert homes will be demolished for motorway construction? Says Pistorius:

    Because regulations in New Zealand now make it easier to bulldoze family homes than to touch ‘green’ areas. Plants and puddles are now more important than people. It is time to put individuals and their property rights first. That is what a free and prosperous society is based on.”
    “It is obvious that without the Resource Management Act (which all but prohibits touching the mangrove swamps and minor creeks that the motorway could have gone down), the NZTA could be more creative when planning motorway routes. And to protect property rights, the Public Works Act - which allows them to steal people’s homes - should be scrapped.”

Quite right. 

And since TVNZ didn’t want him on their programme last night, you can see Julian Pistorius in action here in his campaign message to the people of Mt Albert.  Isn’t he a fine chap:

UPDATE:  Annie Fox, who watched it live to air, tells me that last night’s show “was a fucking shambles.”  She always tells it like it is:

Everyone but the host was a fucking pain, especially the mob.

For those who know “Annie,” by the way, she has some new news which is not all good.

Confession time in Mt Albert

The Mt Albert candidates fronted up tonight at the Mt Albert Baptist Church for confession time.

Dakta Green from the Legalise Cannabis Party confessed to the policemen in the room that he might have smoked weed.  (Apparently they followed him home to check.)

Julian Pistorius from Libertarianz confessed he is disgusted by politicians wanting to bulldoze people’s homes.

Melissa Lee confessed to wanting to recriminalise prostitution – and not knowing what she wants on smacking.

Russel Norman confessed to “growing lots of greens upstairs in his flat” – to loud laughter from Libz and Legalise Cannabise folk in the room.

John Boscawen from ACT confessed (speaking of compulsory superannuation) that "to have 25 years of freedom when you are 65, it is necessary to have 40 years of compulsion."

And David Shearer confessed to having “pictures of dogs copulating” in his possession.  Whatever the hell that was about.

And that was True Confessions tonight in Mt Albert.

If the future of “transport” was Green . . . [updated]

Today Russel Norman and several thousand fellow luddites took a walk over Auckland’s Harbour Bridge to show the future of Auckland transport under Green governance.  And so they did. The the result of their somnambulist, self-absorbed stroll over Auckland’s most important traffic conduit was predictable: complete traffic chaos around Auckland. And this was on a Sunday!

Anybody wanting to drive around the city’s inner suburbs this morning while Norman and his sweaty rabble hiked their way over the bridge would have been better advised to have stayed in bed, since the resulting gridlock meant that any kind of movement was Sisyphian, and painfully slow.

“We need a revolution in transport in Auckland,” says Russel Norman fresh from demonstrating just what his Green transport “revolution” would do for anyone who wants to move around the city using anything more potent than an ox cart.  Just as the defining characteristic of Green energy systems is that they don’t really produce energy, so was can now see the defining characteristic of Green transport solutions – that they make it hard to get around.

What’s needed is not a revolution for luddites, but one that takes cognisance of how the vast majority of Aucklanders actually want to move around the city, not how a vocal minority think we should.

If the future of transport was Green, then the idea of actual transport – to move people and their things around – would be something to be read about only in history books.

UPDATE:  Liberty Scott weighs in:

Oh and if you think NZTA stuffed up, you might find it isn't legally empowered to exempt people from traffic rules - the fact it did so before for the Hikoi does not change that.

    The Greens endorsed it, so it's about time to see how many other traffic laws the Greens happily will let you break. . .  The Greens have decided it's better to break a law than propose a new one. The oath that Green MPs declared to uphold the law has slipped to one side when it comes to inciting people to break this one - odd for a party that is so keen on promoting new laws. . .
    Let's be clear, I don't care either way if a walkway or cycleway is attached to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, as long as those who will use it pay for it. The NZ Transit Authority cannot authorise people to walk and cycle on a motorway . . .  However, this rather pathetic little protest is about people wanting to force you to pay for a facility for them to use - and not giving a damn about who they disrupt along the way.

That’s “green transport solutions” in a nutshell.  Read vav .

Budget Week billboarding

Julian Pistorius’s billboards got some titivation ready for Budget Week – a simple reminder that this government is about to break its foremost campaign pledge . . .

And a few other slogans were added around the Waterview area . . .

“Melissa Lee is right” says Libz Mt Albert candidate [update 2]

Support for Melissa Lee this morning from an unlikely source.

"Melissa Lee is right about criminals coming from South of Auckland," says Libertarianz candidate Julian Pistorius.

 Read on here for details.

UPDATE 1: Join Julian tomorrow morning over brunch at Ocra Cafe in Sandringham Rd for his campaign launch (that’s just down the road slightly from Helen’s old office), and then feel free to join him and his team out on the streets talking about Freedom for Mt Albert – or just tell him how he could be doing it better.  Head here for details.

Support Capitalism.  Support Freedom.  Support Pistorius.

UPDATE 2: Well that didn’t take long.  Melissa Lee concedes defeat. Time to get on board a better candidate, folks.

NOT PJ: Long hard road in Mt Albert

This week Bernard Darnton takes all the jokes other people have made about Melissa Lee and gathers them in one place.

It would be fair to say that Melissa Lee’s legend burned out long before her candle ever did.

Mount Albert voters have had a week to absorb the news that they’re going to get a new motorway. Where Labour had promised them a tunnel, National offered them two tunnels. At half the price. For a limited time only. Act now! Pick up the phone because our operators are standing by.

The only downside was that the motorway was going to bring in criminals from south of Auckland to steal people’s houses and bulldoze them.

There are always people who complain when new roads are built. When the Wellington bypass cut through Te Aro a few years ago some of the scruffs who lived nearby were quite upset. The odd thing is: in Te Aro none of the Not-In-My-Back-Yard types who complained about the bypass actually owned any of the back yards that the road went through. All the land was purchased voluntarily.

Not so in Mount Albert. There are residents there saying that the motorway will be built over their dead bodies. That will only encourage the land thieves. Ask the residents of the Bolton Street Cemetery, who gave way to another Wellington roading project in the 1970s, the Wellington Urban Motorway. They’d be turning in their graves if they still had graves.

The taking of part of the cemetery caused huge controversy when it happened. I’d like to think that turfing living people out of their houses would be just as – if not more – controversial. The media are more interested in Melissa Lee having her foot in her mouth than having her jackboot up the backsides of the local residents.

Not that any of the others are any better. National and ACT are happy to evict the residents of 400 houses before the government bulldozers flatten their soon-to-be-empty homes. Labour would have done the same for about two hundred homes around the tunnel entrances. The Greens would happily shift the entire population into detention centres – er, sustainable eco-villages – to make way for the 930,000 km of canals that would be required to shift all of New Zealand’s road freight onto solar-powered mule-drawn barges.

As usual, it’s only the Libertarianz candidate, Julian Pistorius, who’s suggesting that if you want something you should ask the owner nicely. It’s always valuable to be reminded that a government big enough to insulate your home today is big enough to smash it to bits with a wrecking ball tomorrow.

Faced with the stormtroopers of “progress” and the blitzkrieg of eminent domain, we should be more like the French. Wait – that’s obviously not right. Forget that analogy.

The government should be more like the French. Usually when I say that I mean that they should take long lunch breaks, long summer breaks, and don’t – under any circumstances – do anything under urgency. In this case I mean it more constructively.

French roadbuilders pick multiple routes, buy options on properties on all the routes, and then when one route is complete all the property owners on the route are paid out in full. The road is built. It turns out that pocketing a fat wad of Euros and buggering off is more popular than living in an intact house next to a motorway.

There’s no reason that the same scheme couldn’t be used here for roads, electricity pylons, nation-spanning cycleways (assuming that wasn’t just a joke – I live in hope), or any other construction that comes in an inconveniently long skinny shape.

If a politely worded letter and a suitcase stuffed full of cash is all it takes to make the French look organised we should at least consider it. If the letter was polite enough and the suitcase stuffed enough, it might even persuade miseducated lifestyle-block housewives that electricity pylons don’t microwave their kids’ heads and make them explode.

But the biggest advantage would be having a government that wasn’t a gang of looters and pillagers. Returning property rights in New Zealand from myth back into reality will be a long hard road but one well worth building.

* * Bernard Darnton’s NOT PJ column appears every Thursday here at NOT PC * *

More on stealing people’s homes

Paul Walker at Anti Dismal links to a piece by Don Boudreaux challenging the conventional idea that the existence of “hold outs” necessitates governments stealing people’s homes in order to build motorways, or power lines or railway lines.  Not so, says Boudreaux. 

While it is easy to imagine such problems [such as the recalcitrant homeowner], I doubt that they are significant enough to entrust politicians with the power to take private property.  .  .[Especially since] with skillful contracting maneuvers — for example, buying each plot of land contingent upon the successful purchase of all other plots of land necessary to build the road or airport — a government intent on serving the public should be able to do its job without powers of eminent domain.

Concludes Paul, “If only our government had the same skills as private developers.” But then they wouldn’t be in government, would they.

Frankly, if there’s burglars coming to Mt Albert by motorway, it’s the burglars who are there stealing people’s houses to build it.

Support Pistorius in Mt Albert!

Here's Julian Pistorius' new brochure for Mt Albert he and the team will be handing out. . .

 

He scrubs up well, don’t you think, for a scruff who used to sport a beard and ponytail!

Sign up at Julian’s Facebook Campaign page to jump on board to help out.
[And if you can’t the there on the ground, then just throw money. :-) ]

Charles (Bud) Tingwell, R.I.P.

Australian actor Bud Tingwell (right) died today, but his work (and his blog) lives on – and one of his most well known roles, as the wise old lawyer in film The Castle who rescues the Kerrigan family from being thrown out of their house, is as directly relevant today as it’s ever been.  At least it is if you live in Waterview – or value private property rights.

Watch him here in this edited clip from the film, asking the court to consider the meaning of the words “the acquisition of property on just terms,” and how they relate to real people in homes from which they don’t wish to be moved.  Turns out it’s more than just the vibe.  [The words quoted start around 4:00 in, but the full speech is unfortunately cut short.]

PS: A good American resource on eminent domain abuses like this is The Castle Coalition. Check it out.

Timeline of a short political career

Here’s a timeline on Melissa Lee’s political career arc as measured by the Man in the Street:

• 2007: “Who’s Melissa Lee?”
• 2008 Maiden Speech:  “Oh, who’s this Melissa Lee then?”
• 2009, voted world’s 56th sexiest politician: “Hubba hubba! Who is Melissa Lee!”
• 2010: “Who’s Melissa Lee?”

The reason she’s in a tailspin is not because what she said on Wednesday night was “offensive,” or “racist,” or anything else along those lines: it was because what she said was something you can’t apologise for – for being a lightweight.

The silly woman went to the meeting utterly unprepared, and almost completely uninformed about the issue she was there to "debate."  The meeting was nowhere near as hostile as has been claimed (as John Key suggested all day yesterday), and nor was she under pressure from people there who were going to lose their houses (as she claimed last night on Close Up).

No, apart from the usual political flunkies you get at every election meeting, the audience was composed mostly of people who had followed the issue of this motorway for years, who wanted to hear the details of Steven Joyce’s decision, and to have explained the reasoning for it. Quite simply however she hadn’t done her homework – so, when she was placed on the spot and asked to make her best argument for Steven Joyce’s motorway proposal, instead of consulting the facts she should have had with her she blithely repaired to something she'd only half heard a few days before.

And then when called on it at the meeting, she pointed the blame for her silly statement to the policeman she claimed to have told her what she'd so obviously misunderstood.

You see, if she was the sort of person who does her homework, neither this nor the making of her video would have tripped her up.

Fortunately for you, the reader, Liberty Scott has put together the briefing on the Waterview motorway that Ms Lee should have insisted on before showing up on Wednesday night.  Read Bullshit about the Waterview Connection, and be more informed than four-fifths of the Mt Albert by-election candidates.

Nats’ ad man attacks Nats’ bulldozer [updated]

The copywriter for National’s election billboards in 2008 (“Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes” – Yeah Right!)  attacks National’s Waterview motorway decision this morning

“Residents of Mt Albert and Waterview in Auckland are preparing to defend their homes against government bulldozers,” says Glenn Jameson at SOLO of the decision by the government he helped to elect, “and every citizen in New Zealand who values their own property should stand beside them in solidarity”:

    Transport Minister Steven Joyce is planning to use 1.4 billion dollars that don’t belong to him to level 365 homes that don’t belong to him or the citizens who will benefit from the 4.5km motorway link. Using the excuse that it’s for the greater good of the community effectively crushes the rights of every member in that community – and the only ones who have the temerity to call that good are thugs.
     One has to sympathise with resident Leonard Purchase: ‘Bastards. They're a bunch of no-hopers – rats. I've been here 23 years. I inherited this place from my father. My old man bought it [and] he died here – I thought I was going to die here too... Nobody's come to talk to me – it's just things that have come through the mail.’
    The day a government reserves the right to flatten your house without your permission is the day you cease to actually own your property. Your beloved garden, hand-built barbeque, and painstaking renovation are disposable chattels to the politician who coldly draws a line across a map on his way to building another monument to draconian law. It’s time we all linked arms and told the government to get off our land and bugger off out of our lives.

True.  You want to build a motorway without doing people over?  Then learn how to do it peacefully.

UPDATE:  Nat’s ad man Glenn Jameson clarifies in part:

While it is true I did co-write the National Party campaign I wish to point out a glaring and embarrassing inaccuracy from my own agency, which has only just now been linked to my attention: I have never been nor will ever be a "dyed-in-the-wool National Party supporter” . . .

Read the whole clarification here.

Quote of the Day: LGM on Melissa Lee [update]

“Funny how this daft bat blames South Aucklanders for stealing when she is part of an outfit that is about to steal people's homes. I wonder if the irony of that ever occurred to her.”
- Little Green Man

UPDATE: And this, from commenter Buggerlugs at Kiwiblog is very good too, in response to Lee's "... it will stop criminals from South Auckland coming into the suburb to commit crimes . . . "

as opposed to the criminals currently living in Mt Albert? Oh, that’s right…one of them has already shifted out. To New York apparently.

Keep those quotes coming in.

Mt Albert: Where South Aucklanders come to burgle? [update 2]

Given Transport Minister Steven Joyce's announcement today of his decision for the Waterview motorway, tonight's Mt Albert electorate meeting -- a "Q&A on transport issues" -- was always going to be a debate on The Motorway. A noisy debate. Little did we know it was about to turn into a debate on South Aucklanders' propensity to burgle. On that more later.

First of all, as a Q&A it was hopeless: The politicians all brought their fictions to a fact fight. No candidate actually had the facts to answer the audience's questions. (Well, the Greens' Russel Norman did, but he preferred to make up whatever hurt the other candidates the most; and ACT's John Boscawen did, but unfortunately they weren't the facts about Steven Joyce's project but on the project Boscawen himself would like to see built.) It was all very bizarre, particularly as Melissa Lee's refrain for most of the evening was "I don't know," and "I'm here to listen."

Either National's Steven Joyce hadn't bothered to brief his party's by-election candidate about the motorway that's about to bisect her would-be electorate, or (being both a pretty girl and a former journalist) Melissa Lee simply hadn't bothered to find out the facts and thought a nice smile would be enough instead. Either way, it was apparent even to people in the room holding up National Party signs that when Melissa Lee says "I don't know" or "I can't remember" that on this much at least she's probably telling the truth.

I don't say that like it's a good thing. Clearly, details are not Ms Lee's thing. (And if she really was "there to listen," then why the hell was it so hard getting her to shut up when other people were talking?)

Details really are Russel Norman's thing. He thrives on details like the envirogeek he is, but he uses details less to explain than he does to explain away.

• He berated National "borrowing billions" to fund the motorway (which Liberty Scott points out it won't be), but was happy to have it borrow several billions to pay for his train set. He lambasted National for for building a motorway that will "cut the community in two," but is happy to build a heavy rail line that will have the same effect.
• He was happy to characterise the National proposal as "the above-ground option," when as he quietly conceded to David Shearer it is in fact to be in tunnels for around sixty percent of its length -- expensive tunnels built simply to avoid sites that are considered politically sensitive.
• He talked about how some American cities have up to eighteen lanes in their motorways "and we won't need that if we invest in public transport" -- strangely oblivious to the fact that all major American cities have made significant investments in public transport, but people still choose to use their cars.
• And in a question about the need to build roads to carry freight, he started blathering on about cycleways, prompting the person sitting next to me to ask if he really thought we were going to have the city's freight carried on a few cyclepaths?
  

Surprisingly though, I found Russel oddly impressive for a man who clearly believed hardly a word of what he was saying, but was comfortable just spinning these fatuous one-liners for the benefit of the Green goon squad in the room.

The one candidate who did mean what he said was Libertarianz candidate Julian Pistorius. (Disclosure: I was there carrying his pamphlets.) And ironically the one group with whom he made the strongest connection were the chaps from the Socialist Aotearoa grouping. It was only Julian, they pointed out, who is prepared to stand up for the people who the State is going to throw out of their homes against their will. And they're right. He is. Everyone else is prepared to use the "Federal Bulldozer" to ram through their own preferred option of either road or rail (and as Scott points out, if even the French can work out how to build motorways without throwing people out of their homes, then surely we could learn something from them, couldn't we? Couldn't we?) but only the Libertarianz candidate was prepared to point out that the government is supposed to protect people's property rights, not do them over.

And what of Labour's David Shearer -- "the grey machine man"? Well, his own goon squad was noisy, but he wasn't. His tie was colourful, but he wasn't. I'm sure he can write a memorable report, but whatever it was he said tonight left me as soon as I left the room. Perhaps that's why he was known as a bureaucrat's bureaucrat. What he said was so forgettable, but said with such authority, that he's bound to romp in come polling day.

In fact, most of what every mainstream candidate had to say on the night was both instantly forgettable and intended only for short-term political advantage. But there was one thing one candidate said that is now going to dog her through the rest of the campaign. Maybe longer. It will probably be the meeting's headline tomorrow morning. I say "her,"because the foot in the mouth belonged to Melissa Lee.

Asked to explain how the new motorway would most help the good people of Mt Albert, she explained that it would stop the bad people of South Auckland driving to Mt Albert to burgle people's homes. Asked to clarify by a questioner, she repeated the claim. Showing she's truly not one to stop digging when she creates a big hole for herself -- a hole as big as the number of open mouths in the room -- she insisted that the local police commander had told her this very morning that the biggest issue with which he has to deal is the number of South Aucklanders driving to Mt Albert to burgle people's homes.

I swear I am not making this up. It's true that the likely winner of the by-election, David Shearer, grew up in South Auckland . . . and in being Labour's "machine candidate" he could be said to be burgling the seat . . . but what the hell she was talking about, only Melissa Lee herself would know. Probably.

It was as incongruous and frankly ludicrous as Jenny Shipley's comment in Parliament several years ago (apropos of nothing relevant) that Polynesians tend "to climb in the windows of other New Zealanders at night." And it deserves to be treated with equal contempt.

UPDATE 1: Let me clarify something here. Steven Joyce and several commentators around the traps -- and now John Key -- have all suggested Melissa's South Auckland comment was made "in the heat of the meeting," "in the face of a hostile audience" and so forth.

That's not the case, and those commentators weren't at the meeting, which was hardly "hostile" in any sense. More bemused. Posting at Hard News, commenter Stephen Horsley is spot on:

I was at the meeting, and I would have to disagree [that this was a rushed response to a hostile audience]. It wasn't something that she just blurted out, in fact she seemed very pleased with herself for having thought of it. When asked to clarify the comment, she went into a fair amount of detail justifying herself. . . it appeared to be a view that she genuinely subscribed too.

That's exactly as I saw it too.

UPDATE 2: Liberty Scott runs the rule over the Mt Albert candidates, and says Vote For Freedom in Mt Albert:

I said on 4 May that "It might be better to just wait to see who all the candidates will be, before making a choice." of candidate. So I am pleased that Julian Pistorius is standing for Libertarianz.
Let's be clear, the motorway will be built, but only Julian can be a solid advocate for the private property rights of landowners who may face compulsory purchase, and for ways to respect that while progressing the road (for example, the Melbourne Citylink motorway was built by the private sector negotiating the land purchase from all those along its route).
Let's also be clear, a Labour MP will mean no change, a backbencher in a party that has no power over the next 2.5 years and which has shown a willingness to pillage taxes to buy an electorate.
A National MP will mean no change. Melissa Lee is already in Parliament, being MP for Mt. Albert will just give her a little more to do, but she won't be fighting for private property rights.
A Green MP will mean no change. Russel Norman will lead obstructive direct action against motorway building, whilst cheerleading on the pillaging of Mt. Albert taxpayers for a railway that even ARC has as a low priority.
ACT candidate John Boscawen has shown his level of judgment in voting for the W(h)anganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Act.
ALCP candidate Dakta Green is worthy of your vote if that one policy matters above everything else.
However, Julian Pistorius IS worthy of your vote if you want to shake up Parliament and get a man dedicated to standing up for Mt. Albert taxpayers and property owners. He wont be a backbench voice on a major party, or speaking to increase taxes or spend more of other people's money. He won't be claiming to speak for property owners on the motorway issue, but at the same time running roughshod over them with the RMA. He wont be supporting the megacity -- or even existing local government as long as it continues to have a legal "power of general competence" to do as it sees fit.
You see Julian will call for the government to undertake the tax cuts it promised. Julian will support private property rights as an absolute. Julian will also support the right of ALCP candidate Dakta Green to campaign to legalise cannabis without harassment, because Julian too supports legalising consumption and sale of cannabis for adults on private property.

Mt. Albert voters might baulk at voting Libertarianz when it is about choosing the government, but this is a by-election not a general election, and who could have a louder voice for Mt. Albert than a Libertarianz MP? Who will in principle oppose the confiscation of land for a road, or any purpose, and call for less government so Mt. Albert residents can make their own choices?
So go on Mt. Albert, vote Julian Pistorius as your local MP. Beyond anything else it will give Helen Clark the most unwelcome surprise when she wakes up in New York the next morning to see who she handed the seat over to.

Isn't that a delicious thought!

Vote Julian P in Mt Albert

To the Grey Machine Man, the Ginger Whinger, the world’s sexiest Asian MP, and Galt knows who else, Mt Albert voters can now add the choice of voting for Libertarianz candidate Julian Pistorius in the coming by-election.

Unlike the other candidates, Julian – a former Libz Deputy – doesn’t have to leave home or a job with the UN to visit the electorate, and he’s keen to highlight some local and national issues that no other candidate will be brave enough to mention:

• Who else is going to champion the people whose homes are about to be stolen from them to build the new motorway, by a government to whom the words “property rights” are still a dirty word.  People like 85-year-old Leonard Purchase (right), who says of the thieves: 
      "Bastards. They're a bunch of no-hopes - rats. I've been here 23 years. I inherited this place from my father. My old man bought it [and] he died here - I thought I was going to die here too. The tunnel sounded all right, but this - where the hell am I going to go now? Nobody's come to talk to me - it's just things that have come through the mail. I didn't think for a minute that it would come to this. I don't feel like moving - this is my home - and now they're going to go right through. What are they thinking?"
      A government that did respect property rights wouldn’t need to bulldoze people’s property – they’d know it’s possible to purchase voluntarily a motorway route that’s been planned for decades, and they’d do it.
      Is Leonard the local Darryl Kerrigan?  Is National a party of principle?  Julian for one will tell ‘em they’re dreaming.
• Who else is going to provide principled opposition to the ACT/National super-shitty Super City. It should embarrass local ACT supporters that their leader is setting up (in Owen McShane's words) "the first fascist state in New Zealand."
• Who else is going to remind people that the new law on Gang Patches allows any local council to add themselves via regulation. Just another reason to worry about an out-of-touch Uber-City able to ram things through by decree (and local ACT supporters might also remember just which party leader’s vote tipped the balance on this bill? and which Mt Albert candidate and erstwhile supporter of free speech also voted for it!)
• Is anyone else going to point out that National’s RMA “reforms” are not reforms in our favour, but are only intended to make it easier to bulldoze through Steven Joyce's billion-dollar Think Biggish infrastructure programme (of which this motorway is a lading part), and for councils to take your property rights away without challenge (of which every council District Plan is a leading example)?  If not us, then who?
• It’s Budget Month, and is anyone else pointing out that National is about to break a major election promise – their pledge to cut taxes?  That they’re about to backtrack on a major part of their election platform? That they value their promise not to cut spending more than the promise to give taxpayers their money back when they most need it. That they must have either been lying about their intention to deliver them, or so incompetent they didn’t notice they were never affordable. They broke their promise on superannuation in 1991 – and they’re breaking this promise now.  Let’s make this a referendum on Trust in Taxation!
• Is there anyone else going to defend local shop-owners who have the temerity to want to defend themselves?
• Is any other candidate going to speak out on behalf of “political criminal” Dakta Green, Mt Albert candidate for the ALCP Party, bullied, harassed and arrested three times in one week for cannabis activism?

If not Julian, then who the hell else in Mt Albert is going to speak up on all these issues!

Look out for his billboards starting to go up this weekend. And if you’d like to help out, then why not email him: julian.pistorius@libertarianz.org.nz.  (And if you’re looking for dirt, just ask him about those photos. The ones with the coconuts.)  

UPDATE:  Keep up with Julian's campaign, or better yet join in, at his Facebook Campaign Page.  Go to it!