KEY POINTS:
Every girl who's been around a few suits in her life knows there is no such thing as a free lunch. Last week, the Prime Minister, who seems to have led a very sheltered life when it comes to men and romance (and that's not necessarily a criticism),
discovered the truth of this cliche.
Owen Glenn, Labour's 2005 electioneering sugar daddy, couldn't keep his mouth shut when it really mattered. He "kissed and told", so to speak, about his $500,000 donation and $100,000 loan, and Clark and party president Mike Williams now smell as sweet as the dead rabbits we hang on the fence to attract the hawks.
This is not just a scandalette, as one commentator said, but a stinky, hypocritical farce: Labour passes the Electoral Finance Act saying it makes political party funding transparent, and is caught hiding a donation of around $10,000 (10 per cent of an interest-free loan) - and from a "rich prick", no less.
Not content with being gonged in the New Year Honours, Glenn then joked he'd been offered a ministerial warrant, and a quasi-diplomatic honour. What a guy.
No one believes Clark seriously offered Glenn a cabinet post, especially when she was dressed as a paua at the time. A possible scenario is that Glenn eyed the Prime Minister as if she was dinner, and she brushed him off muttering; "you'd be a sitter for transport".
Glenn may have interpreted this as Minister of Transport in a future government, when she really meant he'd be road kill in the path of a Mac truck if H2 got hold of him.
Another possibility with which women will identify: Glenn pressed Clark on the chances of being bumped up the party list and into cabinet if he returned to New Zealand and stood for Parliament. Not wanting to offend, Clark could have said: "chance would be a fine thing but if pigs ever fly you'd be a sitter for transport".
It's like being pestered by a boyfriend who's too keen to talk in future tenses - marriage or cohabitation is mentioned every five minutes. Eventually, to keep said puppy quiet, you toss a bone: "Yes, I'd like to settle down and marry". You omit to add, "but never with you", and it comes back to haunt you.
Continuing with the cliches, it's indeed been a karmic week, proving what goes around, comes around.
I almost believe Real Estate Institute president Murray Cleland when he says he didn't gloat over The Joneses real estate company filing for voluntary liquidation, but it must have provoked understandable glee from other members of the Institute, who had been accused by Joneses' director Chris Taylor of charging too much for indifferent services.
His criticisms were welcomed on the back of Clayton Cosgrove's campaign (it will be worth changing Government just to see the back of him) to tighten property marketing legislation.
But who was ripping off whom? The Joneses charged a flat fee of $9000, saying sellers would pay half the average fee other agents charged in terms of their commission.
Taylor claimed to be reinventing the way we sell property: "Change the face of real estate and that means being big". So successful was his business model, he boasted, he was turning away customers.
But look at what Professor Chris Eves of Lincoln University's property department says. It was no surprise The Joneses couldn't survive because he worked out it was charging too much. With most agents charging between 3 and 1 per cent commission, Eves said you'd have to sell your house for between $450,000 and $800,000 to be getting a cheaper deal with The Joneses' $9000 flat fee.
In other words, The Joneses were more expensive for anyone selling their house for less than $450,000, about half their customers if Saturday's paper is any indication.
Chris Taylor had his day in the sun when the Real Estate Institute threatened to lay charges against The Joneses, smugly insisting his company was purer than snow.
But it's petty of me to be vindictive when hundreds of house vendors and purchasers look like they'll lose money down The Joneses' drain.
Hopefully, sanity will prevail, and people will realise most agents aren't ratbags, and many earn below the average wage working hard for their clients.
But I doubt it. Estate agents, business tycoons, National and Act supporters - they're all members of the Finance Minister's "rich pricks" club in the view of New Zealand's collective chip-on-its-shoulder. I wonder if Owen Glenn is a paid-up member.
