Free Money
Sunny says bye-bye, and Winston boxes clever.
Every night before I go to sleep (free money)
Find a ticket, win a lottery (free money)
Every night before I rest my head (free money)
See those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed
Songwriters: Patti Smith / Leonard J Kaye.
Bye-bye, Sunny.
Tough times at National Party HQ. The economy is stagnating, and with inflation barking at their heels, there are no further cuts from the Reserve Bank.
Every day brings more bad news on the Health front, and even the mention of Erica Stanford, aka “plan B”, drew boos at Waitangi.
All that’s left is crime, and so you start pushing out more and more adverts about ram raids coming down for people to see between doomscrolling the latest horrendous crime of the day. But it’s all you’ve got - Crime and Punishment.
So when something starts to look not quite right in the one remaining area you can reasonably argue isn’t worse than when you took over, you take care of it.
Surprisingly, it turns out “the fixer” is the mild-mannered Paul Goldsmith, a man blander than a David Seymour lunch or a Christopher Luxon curry order. Someone they would never suspect!
“I took stock” - funny thing to admit to the media when you’ve just cancelled an anti-shoplifting task force, I thought. You’ll have to get better at this; you can’t be confessing all if you’re the hit man.
My apologies for those jokes. In my defence, I couldn’t resist.
You know, just like Sunny feels about the National Party. It was love at first sight for Mr Kaushal, after Labour had scorned his advances*.
* In 2017, Kaushal joined the National Party after having stood as a candidate for Labour.
Now he’s clinging on like a limpet in the hope of a seat aboard National “Ignoring the Basics. Selling the Future” 2026, or whatever they’re calling it, and I imagine quite a few Nats are worried they’ve got their own Gaurav Sharma on their hands. High maintenance and in need of serious vetting.
By a huge stroke of coincidence, Paul Goldsmith decided to wrap up the Ministerial Advisory Group five months earlier than planned, just two weeks after headlines reported an Exodus from the Government’s retail crime advisory group.
Three of the five members had resigned, with Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young telling 1 News that she quit after deciding she could no longer work alongside Kaushal. The only remaining members were its chairman, former Dairy and Business Owners Group chairman Sunny Kaushal, and Hamilton liquor retailer Ash Parmar.
So, despite 60% of the team resigning, we are to believe that completing the work will now take five months less. This either suggests they’re not being entirely open about their reasons for closing the programme down, or that they weren’t finding the group’s output all that useful - in which case, why not just close it right away?
When asked why the work wouldn’t continue, Goldsmith said, “The simpler thing to do was say - look, you've got a couple of things you need to finish, you've got three months to do that, and then we'll go off on our merry way. The Government's got lots of ideas to work with.”
That sounds like “don’t call us, we’ll call you” to me, or, in other words, option two - it wasn’t that useful. So where did it all go wrong, Sunny?
From the Herald:
Labour’s crime spokeswoman Ginny Anderson said she was not surprised by Goldsmith’s decision, saying the “political decision” to appoint Kaushal as chairman was the real problem.
“That was clear when you had really expert people like Carolyn Young from Retail New Zealand exiting the group because of his behaviour.”
In response, Kaushal said, “Ginny is only highlighting her failures during her tenure as Police Minister; there was a lawlessness that crept across New Zealand.”
Hmm, I thought public servants weren’t supposed to speak out against MPs? Or are only those in power entitled to respect and even the semblance of neutrality?
To tell the truth, I wasn’t that upset by the news, and I posted:
Ha ha ha ha ha. Bye, Sunny. Go find a different grift.
Jan commented, “It made watching the news all worthwhile, and he didn't look too happy about it either. Luxon will be off his Christmas card list, and I loved Ginny Anderson...you rock girl.”
Brenda wondered, “Paid how much for this advisory board?” I don't have the breakdown, but as chairman, Sunny presumably gets a larger share. Over 18 months, the group of five has cost us $1,822,170, which is quite a lot for suggesting that shopkeepers should be armed.
Former group member, Carolyn Young, told Ryan Bridge this morning, “There’s nothing to suggest the rates of retail crime have fallen.”
Thomas said, “Imagine Goldsmith if this were under Labour. He’d be screaming for heads to roll and resignations.”
Sandy asked, “Any chance of a rebate?” I’m guessing there’s none, but perhaps we should hold an inquiry to see whether the taxpayer got value for money. That’s what we do now, right?
Winston boxes clever.
I am joking.
We don’t need any inquiry to know that we didn’t get value. And while we’re at it, I don’t imagine the taxpayer was very well served by Winston Peters’ visit to Saudi Arabia, organised very shortly after he was invited to a boxing match.
Things happened quickly, at 1 pm on 12/12/24, Parker’s promoters emailed Winston to notify him of the fight, saying the Saudis would be delighted to host Peters and that there was “huge trade potential”. And if anyone was to know, it’s got to be a boxing promoter, right? They’d never exaggerate, not that it matters, because Winston isn’t the Trade Minister anyway.
By 5 pm that day, Peter’s team informed the Foreign Affairs Ministry that he was "very intent on visiting the Gulf next year" and would be "a keen spectator at the Joseph Parker event", if possible.
Turns out it was…, and Peters attended the Parker bout on February 23 last year.
There was no international conference taking place, and no obvious reason for the trip. When challenged about attending a sports event on the taxpayers’ dime, Peters said he actually went to the horse racing to find out whether investors might be interested in our stud farms.
Even though he’s not the Trade Minister, and you’d be hard pushed to consider the flogging of race horses to be within Winston’s ministerial remit.
You can see the Foreign Minister’s diplomatic skills at work with the media here:
Winston’s excuse for a taxpayer-funded trip to Saudi Arabia to see Joseph Parker box is that he was actually there for the horse racing. You’ve got to be kidding!
Can I say, given the “jokes” earlier, how proud I am of not resorting to any one-liners about stud farms, NZ First, and the flogging of dead horses. If you’d like to congratulate me by supporting this newsletter, you can do so right here, right now:
Green Party foreign affairs spokesman Teanau Tuiono said, “What came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it the foreign affairs trip or the boxing match? That's the important question, because there are really important issues out there, and I don't think taxpayers would appreciate that.”
Some will question whether we got anything out of funding this trip, but that cynicism fails to recognise that the Saudis gave Peters a shiny horse statue in a special case.
Was anyone really shocked by the idea of Winston going to the boxing or the horses? By this point, I assume he’s mostly collecting passport stamps and frequent flyer miles, and it wouldn’t be NZ First without a bit of troughing. What I find more interesting is the timing of the story.
With a battle for credibility raging over who, if anyone, is telling the truth about National’s FTA with India and how many migrants it will allow, wouldn’t this be a convenient distraction, even at the expense of one of your coalition partners?
The coalition might be smiling serenely on the surface, but it’s madly paddling beneath, jockeying for position before they hit the final straight. Meanwhile, the crocodile waits, as always, to drag his accuser beneath the water for cool revenge.
I’m talking about your job, Christopher Luxon. He wants it, and as much as I don’t want the old reptile to win, my money would be on him.
Do you hear it, Christopher? The tick-tock within the belly of the croc? It tocks for thee.
Have a good one, folks, it looks like it’s going to be a warm one in Tamaki Makaurau. I hope you have a lovely day wherever you are.
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, the magnificent Patti Smith with Free Money. The theme has nothing to do with the jerks above; I just like the song.
Had to post in my Facebook, I’m sure it won’t be necessary here…
“While I think Sunny is self interested and dodgy it doesn’t mean it’s ok to post anything generalizing about people from India. If you post things like “Go Back to India”, they will be deleted and you’ll probably be blocked. Racism is never ok.”
What a gobsmackingly awful day of news for the CoC. The grifters are being exposed. Anyone who had anything to do with Sunny when he was standing for selections in multiple seats for Labour years ago knew this would all end in tears. Sadly he has managed to leave us with an ill thought out piece of legislation now in the House on citizens arrest ; despite the retailers, police and many others warning it was dangerous. There's also something about instant fines for shoplifters I think in the same legislation. And his next job before he is sacked in May - working on facial recognition - he and his mate from a Liquor outlet. OMG! Then Winston. Honestly I am not surprised, but going to a boxing match in the UAE, sitting in the front row, then saying going to the races was the purpose of this jaunt, is just so breathtakingly outrageous. I thought our Labour / Greens team were great in the House yesterday exposing the shoddy energy "policy" of the Nats. Expecting another day of it today in the House, but also please watch the Brooke van Velden screw the workers even more Employment Relations Bill up to committee stages this afternoon. For the record NZ First (and of course ACT and National) voted in favour of the second reading. There is so much damage being done to workers by this bill. I will report accordingly, but it will become law, probably by the end of this week.