KEY POINTS:
Well the outcome of the 2007 local government elections has virtually been decided already. According to research in Invercargill about 50 per cent of voters fill out their voting forms within 48 hours of receiving them.
Over the next 2½ weeks only about 20 per cent of
voters fill out their voting forms and then there's a wild last minute frenzy over the last few days by the last minute voters who represent about 30 per cent of voters, bearing in mind of course that the voters are a minority sector in most New Zealand cities.
We are not like Australia where it is illegal not to cast a vote, we rely on volunteers to vote.
I suppose if we run volunteer fire brigades and volunteer ambulances and volunteer school boards, why not be a volunteer democracy? In fact my latest theory on the Skyhawks is that they should be sold for $1.00 each to local Councils.
We have plenty of hangar space at Invercargill Airport and will run a Skyhawk with volunteers. If a city like Palmerston North refuses to buy a Skyhawk, then all the other City Council Skyhawks will bomb them.
The world's first volunteer air force would meet once every two years at Warbirds over Wanaka. It's already the biggest, fastest growing international show in this country.
A display of bombing by the Royal New Zealand Volunteer Air Force would help make this event a huge international show attracting over half a million overseas tourists a year.
If global warming does happen and the icecap melts and half of New Zealand is flooded and our capital city is Queenstown simply because it's 1000 feet above sea level, then we will need an air force to defend our food supplies.
Although the Skyhawks themselves are old, they would make perfect firing platforms for modern, high tech, state of the art missiles. I believe that with China building a coal fired power station every week to fuel a red hot economy, the icecaps will melt and we should prepare lifeboat New Zealand for the inevitable.
Another aspect of New Zealand society that relies on the work of the volunteer is in the field of health, and by that I mean far more than St John Ambulance.
There is literally an army of volunteers and fundraisers who help with everything from Child Cancer to the Hospice. Every sickness or disease including alcohol or gambling has a support group and rely on volunteers and funding from charitable trusts.
Perhaps one of the most revolutionary acts of the year would have to be Russell Crowe for throwing the pokie machines out of the Rabbitohs' clubrooms.
He believes that the amount of money they raise for charitable and community causes is far outweighed by the misery they cause. It was almost a parody of Jesus turning over the tables of the money lenders who worked around the holy temple.
There will now be managers of licensing trusts, pubs, workingmen's clubs, RSA's and sports clubs all over Australasia shaking in their, not very moral, boots. I realise Russell Crowe's idealism is yet to be endorsed by the Rabbitohs' Board, but already Christchurch candidates are considering this issue.
As well as being a politician, I'm a part time comedian. One of my favourite types of shows are debates because as well as performing you are entertained by five other comedians. The most enjoyable debate of the year since the Queenstown Winter Festival Debate was Otago University's Great Speights Comedy Debate.
Ginette McDonald, former Lyn of Tawa, was our leader and she was in blistering form. It's always an honour to work with her. She consistently puts on a totally professional, award winning performance and I'm relieved to have her onside.
Cori Gonzalez-Macuer is relatively new to the comedy circuit, but he is absolutely brilliant. I just couldn't stop laughing as he took self-effacement to a new plateau.
Miriama Smith was a virgin mass debater, but she put on such a devastatingly dazzling display of charming, personal honesty. Timing. Delivery. Absolutely perfect. I'm not going to rave on about Te Radar and Paul Ego because they're big enough and ugly enough to stand on their own two merits.
If you simply rely on the news media for information on student life in Dunedin, you'd think they did little else but hurl bottles and burn couches.
There will be little mention of the 3,000 students who packed into the Dunedin Town Hall for a night of frenzied laughter and then spilled out into the surrounding cafes for an evening of dancing and frivolity.
Well I'd better prepare for my first presidential debate. An hour on CUE TV about my visions for the future of Invercargill, but somehow I feel the debate will discuss the Mayor's budget.
