Wedge issue

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, October 2nd, 2011 - 14 comments
Categories: act, don brash, drugs, john banks - Tags:

Don Brash has weaved his magic again. He’s going to have a minder now and everything he says will be vetted. But it’s too late. His cannabis speech brilliantly highlighted the disjunction between ACT’s values and those of the man they need to win Epsom. A major ACT donor calls John Banks a twerp, while Don Nicolson has, surprisingly, sided with Brash.

A prominent Southland ACT Party backer has called its Epsom electorate candidate John Banks a “twerp” over his comments on cannabis law relaxation.

Invercargill resident Louis Crimp, who donated $100,000 to the party earlier this year, slated Mr Banks after being asked his opinion on decriminalising the drug.

…

ACT’s Clutha-Southland candidate Don Nicolson, who is ranked fourth on the party list, welcomed the issue being raised, but Mr Banks – who is the party’s lifeline to Parliament on current polling – rejected the suggestion completely.

“I don’t agree with that twerp John Banks,” Mr Crimp said. “He doesn’t believe in anything, he just wants the position.

“Brash is the man who says what he is really thinking.”

Mr Crimp said he was in favour of decriminalisation

“I’m an ACT supporter mainly to stop Government wasting money,” he said. “If people want to get lung cancer or whatever you get through smoking marijuana it’s their own blooming lookout, and it’s no business of do-gooders to tell them that (they can’t).”

Mr Nicolson said ACT was a party of free-thinkers and everyone in it was allowed to express their opinion.

ACT’s election campaign was built around the economy and cutting bureaucratic waste, and the $100 million spent on fighting cannabis was not well spent, he said.

With Government expenditure having risen by $60 billion since 1999, ACT wanted to look at every area of spending, he said.

“$100 million is not small change, and with all the bureaucratic inflation it was right for him to question spending which is obviously not working.”

There was now a clear understanding between Dr Brash and Mr Banks, he said.

Yeah, that’s a Tui billboard. Someone ask Banks about his views on homosexuality or the place of religion in politics – how do they fit with ACT values?

14 comments on “Wedge issue ”

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  1. burt 1
    2 October 2011 at 11:00 am

    There was now a clear understanding between Dr Brash and Mr Banks, he said.

    This is them sorting it out.

  2. vto 2
    2 October 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Eddie, surely you mean a wedgie issue, for this lot of clowns

  3. Steve Wrathall 3
    2 October 2011 at 2:45 pm

    So all Labour, Green , etc candidates have the same view of marijuana law? No? Well I guess they must be disfunctional, in free fall, on death row, etc. etc.

  4. fender 4
    2 October 2011 at 3:19 pm

    Brash getting himself a minder to keep his feet away from his mouth! What a joke the guy needs to accept hes overdue to enter retirement village. Never thought ACT had anything good going but with Brash hijacking his way in to the party hes destroyed them totally. Epsom must be an odd place if polls are right showing that total twat Banks leading? So much for dinosaurs being extinct.

  5. prism 5
    2 October 2011 at 9:18 pm

    Pity that the one time Don Brash’s fine analytical economist mind gets turned to consider a policy that could show value to the citizenry from an objective viewpoint rather than an ideological, moral, middle-class complacent or traditional one, it is the wrong time to properly consider it.

  6. Rodel 6
    2 October 2011 at 10:14 pm

    Brash and Banks are National members really, not ACT and have simply taken over ACT on behalf of National.
    Real Act members have left the sinking ship..or is it vice versa and Act is now extinct.
    So National have cleverly worked it so they have two candidates in Epsom and North Shore or wherever it is that Brash is standing. Funny how Epsom blue rinsers don’t know how they’ve been conned.

  7. Jasper 7
    8 October 2011 at 1:40 pm

    A leaked internal National party poll. Oops! The nat’s are in trouble!
    National 44%
    Labour 23%
    Greens 22%
    Mana, NZ First, Maori Party 11%
    Act are history and did not feature in their polling results! Meaning they’re going to stand Goldsmith as their Epsom candidate.