Preferential treatment of associates is a hallmark of corrupt administration, of gangster politics. In Labour Party governance, is it the norm? Is this why New Zealand does not trust Labour to be elected? Should it ever? …
As much as Christchurch City is directed by Labour influence, the very pressing question is, how far up the tree does this rot go? For without unobstructed democracy, real majority voice from below, there can be no answers or forward movement in earthquake recovery. It is our moral duty to attack and root out democratic obstacles and political corruption wherever these are found.
Abusing a position of authority to treat associates preferentially is a variety of personal corruption. And this is common practise for Paul McMahon, Labour local government leader and current Chair of Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board.[1] McMahon fails to separate his affiliate loyalty from his council governance role, as is required of an elected board chair.
Whereas on Burwood-Pegasus Community Board it is permitted for a community resilience volunteer to speak and to vote, on McMahon’s Board it is not. The difference? – Whether the volunteer is a Labour Party member. McMahon thus demonstrates a vile corruption.[2]
Another instance of McMahon’s anti-democratic pattern, his manipulation of speaking order as a corrupt Chair, came when he claimed shortage of time, cut off questions of a deputation but then invited them from his party colleagues, Melanie Coker and Helene Mautner. Accepting this preferential treatment, this subordination of community voice to their own bureaucracy, Mautner and Coker implicated themselves in McMahon’s overt corruption too. These also must answer for it.[3]
An Aucklander in Christchurch for the past ten years, McMahon lives outside Spreydon-Heathcote ward so is not part of our community; he just exploits and oppresses it. [A Creationist pastor on the make,?] McMahon’s shoddy governance, his crushing of public voice, stems from dangerous disconnection from reality. A Labour Party is a closed, cliquey mechanism by which second-rate talent can escalate beyond its potential. And then it always comes down.
McMahon is a sloppy Chair and cannot control his own party colleagues: standing orders are not maintained and a bullying environment prevails on his watch through constant partiality in speaking rights. A council continuing to stand by Paul McMahon would be equally corrupt, equally deserving of attack.
McMahon’s dictatorial abuse of office requires that he must STAND DOWN. Immediately.
Answer the charge of corruption and take punishment, Paul. You will become the better for it. Cleanse your wayward soul.
So what did the Labour bureaucrats do once they had illegitimately barred the only trained and experienced civil defence volunteer at their table from communicating in public session with civil defence staff? They showed plain ignorance of how the city’s emergency response works, how its decisions are taken, and an eagerness to implant themselves as interference in action where up to now they have offered none. Clearly, the city is safer without such foolishness.
For those wanting to move John Key’s National government on, of which I am one, we must start with not accepting National’s imitators as replacement. The open crooks in office should not be replaced with the pretend-not-to-be crooks of Labour. Genuine Opposition, of higher ethical and intellectual quality, is essential to lead New Zealand through sustainable development, onto its next plane of prosperity. This must extend democracy, the greatest source for good that industrial society has known, and not restrain it.
Silencing competition anti-democratically is the trademark of Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Labour politics is a related fake-left breed, of no further contribution to humanity: our greatest roadblock instead, which Paul McMahon exemplifies well.
Paul McMahon is a shame upon Labour’s reputation. The New Zealand Labour Party must advise him:
STAND DOWN NOW!
Kim Jong-un McMahon
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Haere atu. Kua mutu.
[1] http://www.ccc.govt.nz/thecouncil/communityboards/spreydonheathcotecommunityboard/
[2] Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board meeting, 5 May 2015.
[3] Opawaho-Heathcote River ‘No-fishing Zone’ objector, Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board meeting, 3 March 2015.
Kia ora.
Postscript – 15/5/15:
Was Dame Margaret correct when she said Christchurch City Council dealt in words other than the truth? http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8771242/Christchurch-City-Council-totally-incompetent It appears so.
For the record, the minutes in this agenda – at page 5, item 2, 5/5/15 – are falsified: http://resources.ccc.govt.nz/files/TheCouncil/meetingsminutes/agendas/2015/May/SpreydonHeathcoteCommunityBoard-Agenda-15%20May%202015.pdf Today I voted against the adoption of these minutes as ‘a true and correct record’, and not for the first time in relation to minute accuracy there. But this fact never gets recorded. The record never gets put straight. So here I must document the facts; to right the formative wrong.
There was no ‘interest’ to declare in relation to the agenda items listed, and none was declared. However, our board chairman insisted that there was, that I must stand down from the decision-making table during their discussion. I re-countered disagreement with him twice, and the matter was either way in fact none of his business to manage, but my own. That is the law. So Paul McMahon broke the law for personal advantage. Yet faced with the choice of public argument, in which standing orders give him all power to order anyone’s removal from the boardroom, the rational thing to do was to step away, for the time being, and keep the peace of public decorum that good offices require. McMahon had succeeded, from of a party-political agenda of aggressive bias, to create a discussion (leading to ‘perception’) of conflict of interest, illegitimately – to rudely drive competition out of the expected democratic debate for which rate-payers elect and hire us. For that work Paul McMahon characterises the council he represents as dishonest and corrupt. Christchurch City democracy is suffering.
This is the second time that Paul McMahon can be proven to have lied, in a public forum, for political advantage. And both times he has had a particular target he is trying to discredit and disable, and that is the community of Cashmere and communities’ independent ability to organise their own resilience well-being. For some reason.
McMahon’s law-breaking is important to recognise and understand. It explains why Labour, McMahon’s affiliated party, is not trusted by New Zealand electors to govern. And that is for their dishonesty, their corrupt lack of principle – their abandonment of the sector they claim, in their commercial branding, to represent.
Cast as ‘left’ on the political spectrum, Labour are in fact a dirty platform monopoly of semi-professionals, setting the pattern of misleadership for all the fake left. Fake because the general public can see straight through Labour (and its imitators, like the Greens and MANA) and are seldom fooled into electing them to significant office. Fake because Labour cannot be trusted to make and uphold law that they do not themselves respect, hypocritically. Double-standards do not wash.
The real left knows that law is all we have to cohere society, in the main, and does respect it. Being in a small political minority thus, with interests the same as the general public, the real left is most often disempowered – like the public it serves – by the wide mass of crooks in government.
Let us change this status quo, for a better now and future. Build the Left Opposition. Kia ora.
19/5/15 – Mike Yardley: Give community boards more power?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/68636843/mike-yardley-give-community-boards-more-power “do our community boards currently comprise the requisite calibre and nous, to make the hard calls and reach firm decisions, frugally and fairly?” – The presentation in question: https://youtu.be/uPV0U6Vl3pk and board chair response: http://paulmcmahon.info/image/119538624772
20/5/15 – Observation from direct experience:
You would think that Labour-aligned decision-making on a community board would be to enact what was best for the community, but it is not. Labour representative decisions always reflect, first and foremost, what will best enhance and reinforce their power and control OVER the community, their collective hold on their seats, and what is best for the community second. Labour local reps constantly watch for good ideas that they can champion – having few of their own – to ride their way to popularity through local news reports, monopolistically. So the Labour-aligned approach to community development comes across as erratic and making little sense, being parasitic in fact. Community is much stronger without it.
[page maybe still being drafted – please check back later]
natural autonomy N/A 