Michael Laws and Democracy: an oxymoron

In running for election, Laws, who promised to stay til the job was done (he just didn’t say what sort of job he meant; turns out it was a job not for but on Wanganui) ran a divisive campaign modeled after Karl Rove’s tactics in the US. Instead of gays as the community scapegoat, Laws targeted a so-called “elite”, those people who supported the arts. He ridiculed opera. And anointed himself as a populist with tastes that reflected the majority, hip-hop say, or jazz.

Never mind that Wanganui has had a flourishing arts community which as a creative whole contribute a great deal not only to the cultural attractions of the city but periodically to its coffers through various events featuring the arts. An example is the very successful Wanganui Opera School, a on-week master class that has during its ten years existence attracted international attendance and participation to a city of 43,000.

Taking another leaf from the Bush-Rove playbook Laws concocted a claim that the Wanganui Art Gallery extension project, which had been approved by the previous Council and which had government support to the tune of 2.2 million dollars. had a deficit of a million dollars, owing to a pledge of a private donor which remained unfulfilled. The burden of 3 million in construction costs would, Laws claimed, fall on ratepayers. He intended to save them from that indebtedness. He would promise also a nil rates increase, if elected.

Parenthetically, the Bush-Rove-Laws playbook owes much to the groundbreaking work of Jozef Goebbels (and before him Nicolo Machievelli, Rove’s acknowledged bed-time reading) and his famous epigram: “If you repeat a lie often enough and long enough most people will come to believe it.”

The fact is most such pledges remain abstract and are not fulfilled until just before the project breaks ground. The Gallery, known as the jewel of the lower North Island, with great exhibition space for local artists Maori and others, as well as a collection of more traditional art, has been allowed to drift. It’s curator, Bill Milbank, was forced to retire and direction given to the local librarian as an arts czar (sound familiarly Bushevik?) whose chief credential is her cronyism with Laws.

The nil rates increase is a sham as property re-evaluations disproportionately increased the rates for the homes of those in the Castlecliff suburb, a region known for low income and higher crime rate.

Laws and his rubber stamp Council have instituted projects which benefit cronies and have already doubled the city’s debt.

Oh, and the central government funding? Well, when the Gallery project folded and Michael Laws insulted Arts Minister Tizard, calling her an idiot, government took its money and hasn’t brought a dime back to the city.

And Laws liking for the popular taste. Well, after two appearances on tv1's "Dancing with the stars", he was finally kicked off after a bad attempt at the hop. In his first appearance he looked like a vampire. His second could have been the title of a new book "Dead Man Skipping"