Yawn – Jonathan Coleman quits – Northcote By-election

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Mana by-election National candidate Hekia Parata, Porirua, New Zealand, Friday, November 19, 2010. Credit:NZPA / Ross Setford

Jonathan Coleman has quit politics which is funny because politics and relevance quitted Jonathan Coleman a long time ago.

Coleman was an ineffectual beige fart on a beige wallpaper in a beige house owned by beige people.

He put the cracker into cracker.

‘A lighter shade of pale’ should be his political obituary.

His passing is celebrated with the same relief as learning you don’t have hemorrhoids, but the focus now is the Northcote by-election.

This is a chance for National to smack the current Government in the face with a huge win so the new Government has some options in front of them.

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Should the Government allow only one candidate to run against National in the hope of beating the National candidate or should they go through the motions and try to minimise the result?

As the new Government looks wobbly a huge win to National would not be a good look, where as a win would be an enormous blow to National.

28 COMMENTS

  1. Perhaps you are being a little harsh on Jonathan.

    He was a supremely arrogant and an unabashed servant of the Key era and took the job of Nationals Health Minister seriously. So much so he ensured, along with his predecessors, the facade of every hospital, it’s Emergency Department, had a massive facelift whilst the rest of the place suffered from budget strangulation and disrepair. Actually pretty much what Keys and English’s National government were all about, appearances whilst syphoning money off for tax cuts and other National Party favourites.

    And an Oscar award in the phoney leaders’ race when English took over, never more than a preordained sham process. Colemans B grade acting skills at least made it look like there was some kind of contest. Bravo sir!

    And I am sure his kids school in Northcote did not receive the biggest rebuild of any non-disaster hit place has because he was their MP. Just lucky I guess. Just a pity other needy schools in his electorate didn’t feel the love anywhere near as much!

    Anyway as the new government only now is coming to grips, just, with the horrendous mess he left behind, he will now enjoy the advantage he set up for privatisation, something the Nats will be salivating over for next time!

    • My kids went to Northcote school.

      Hardly a rebuild; knocked down a leaky classroom block to build a new junior block, which had been a mushrooming of pre-fabs on the sports field. The new build barely keeps up with roll growth, and it’s probably two classrooms too small.

      And the remainder is a new administration block, which has been operating in the library for the best part of four years.

      The middle school does its learning in a bunch of temporary pre-fabs on stilts. Been temporary for nearly two decades.

      This project is around 10 years in the making.

      If anything, the community never made the most of a parent as a Polly. But that doesn’t make them any less needy than the next school.

      • Has it not hit the 8 million plus dollar mark and counting?

        And there a so many schools reliant on exactly the same prefab infrastructure!

        Good on them, make the most of whatever it takes, but the imbalance between that school and all the others in the wider electorate is stark.

        • You’re missing the point made by the commenter above. Even if there is a “stark difference” compared to other schools in the electorate (not the 5 or 6 I’ve seen) then it can’t be political favouritism… the process doesn’t work like that, there is no sign that the process has been subverted, Coleman hasn’t been leveraged by the very parent-led fundraising for it, and Coleman’s kids won’t benefit. Even the youngest of his kids would only have a couple of years to go when it’s done and would be older than the kids for whom the new block will be used. And I assume he’s moving to Wellington for the new job so presumably none of his kids will actually have had anything to do with the new block except for attending school for several years next to a busy, noisy, dirty building site. Stop slandering on the basis of pure, paranoid supposition.

          • I know there is no evidence of Coleman’s influence in that school’s infrastructure funding and I would be very disappointed if there was nor will it matter to his kids. The kids of that school and its direct community of Northcote Point etc will be eternally grateful for the far better school it will be, no argument.

            But did he ever try to assist in using his influence that only an MP or star has at every other school’s fundraiser in the area as he did in September 2016 at that school to raise funds for them?

            This is not paranoia. He was supposed to be the MP for ALL of Northcote, afterall and it appears the even handedness was never there!

        • Think it’s about a $5m project. The board has had to fork out for the admin block, and the PTA has raised funds for the netball courts and landscaping. (Remember the infamous 2016 ‘incing sugar’ ball.)

          It’s taken over 10 years to replace a leaky, asbestos-ridden building with something that just keeps pace with roll growth.

          Northcote school has probably fared worse than most schools relative to buildings compared to most schools in Coleman’s electorate.

          Compare that wait with the way decile 10 schools in Wellington get refurbished and you wouldn’t begrudge Northcote Point a penny for its ministry-funded capital works.

          And the Point is only part of the catchment; most kids at the school don’t live on Northcote Point.

          That all said and done, it’s a bloody good school. And celebrates 100 years this year. A new building or two ain’t a bad nor undeserved birthday present.

  2. yes Labour/NZF/Greens must co-ordinate to stay in power if they want to make REAL change.

    Those three coalition Parties must learn how National actually got the patsy Act leader David Seymour elected in Epsom, (by recommending all national voters vote for seymour.)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Seymour_(politician)

    It worked so then Labour coalition must now act the same way here accordingly by strategising to limit the labour coalition to just one candidate to run against the National candidate.

  3. I have just commented on the standard about this resignation and what a coincidence it is – the same day there is a damning report of the toxic mould rotting Middlemore Hospital – you would wonder if these cabinet ministers get a sniff of what’s going to fall on their heads and quit and get out before they are answerable for their lack of due diligence in their portfolios.

    What an incompetent he was – apparently this problem was known in 2012 so what the hell was the man doing all the time he was in the job. Sweet bugger all. The private sector is welcome to him.

    • Yes Whispering Kate

      New Zealanders must realise that the whole aim of National is to remove Democracy from Aotearoa.

      This is easily done by privatising every essential service and making sure that millions of New Zealand Citizens cannot afford the essential services.

      John Key and Bill English clearly had a pact together to achieve this. And they set about making wages low; housing unaffordable; renting unaffordable; Health Service a matter of constantly revolving lists and luck; Establishing and funding brand new private schools and starving State Schools.

      Not a single National Party person went to visit a struggling New Zealander. Obviously Key and English declared that verboten.

      To quicken and advance their rape of NZ – National introduced manic immigration. Provided no infra structure. Allowed open slather to foreign wealthy Chinese and Indians, Germans, English to purchase homes – which our people could not hope to buy. Unregistered Land.

      There was an element of cruelty within Key and English. A lust for breaking the hearts of millions of people. Poking fun at the kids of Kiwis.

      Johnathan Coleman was one of Key’s and Bill’s stars. He has a natural tendency towards a hard heartedness. A cruelty really. For a lot of persons waited too long for necessary surgery – and he failed to provide the surgeons.

      Not a problem to Coleman. He was doing the work of the National Party. He praises himself for that.

  4. Coleman walks. So another Tory bites the dust! Good riddance too, useless piece of excrement he is! Hasn’t done a damn thing to improve the public health system, or the health of Kiwis in general during his term in office.

    As to be expected, staying true to form, Coleman is getting a job as the CEO of a private health/hospital, while as a result of his neglect, Middlemore hospital is in the throes of decay and falling apart!

    And the next Natz to walk is …. ??

  5. The result of chronic underfunding by a National party that is utterly inept at funding core social services.

    Now Coleman is going to work for a private hospital? Isn’t that where New zealanders are forced to go when DHBs can’t afford to provide services we expect? What a coincidence!! (NOT!!)

    • He has been gifted this new position as a reward for his wrecking the public health service and sending work to the private sector – simple really.

    • The health budget went up from under $10bn per annum to over $17bn per annum under National. Unlike Labour’s last term, much of that was spent on additional services and not just additional wages. Feel free to dislike National based on facts… even selective facts, that’s your call. When you resort to hyperbole, you’re just showing how detached from reality you are.

  6. These sort of guys have their jobs lined up, after shafting the needy public for years, they qualify for top dollares jobs in the corporate business sector, as usual, and that is where Coleman is heading:
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/nationals-jonathan-coleman-quit-politics-new-role-health-company-ceo-reports

    I watch and hear these SHIT journalists on TV and radio, commenting empty and useless talk and crap on this story, like this is all some clean and tidy transition into a ‘decent’ job.

    They are all sell outs and dirty mercenaries, those cheap and useless ‘reporters’ and ‘commentators’, look at that monkey called Patrick Gower, licking the backside of Obama and Key, to get a ‘story’.

    What a disgusting state of affairs in this country, rock it and shock it, the only solution.

  7. There’s Nothing Grey about the dismantling/destruction of the Public Health Service.

    “In my socialist State”….Ministers will be expected to use the services provided by their Portfolios (ie no private Health care for Coleman) and there would be laws around politicians moving on to jobs directly relating to their last portfolio.
    In the case of former National Party Politicians I’d recommend a year long sabbatical picking apples in the Hawkes Bay. Actually, on second thoughts, the same goes for Labour Party Politicians.

  8. Tactics needed here
    The Greens should step aside in Northcote. With 40% of the vote (Lab/ Greens in 2017) a unity candidate could get close to National, or even smash them.
    In Nelson, let the Greens go for it.
    And in Ilam let Raf Manji have a free run – he came second in September.
    As for NZ First … a free run in Northland in 2020.

  9. Another arrogant born-to-rule Natzki who can’t cope with the reality that he is no longer in the government, no longer in the big time, no longer on the ball (to paraphrase John Lennon).
    But hey he can congratulate himself on coming agonisingly close to his main aim – completely gutting the public health system.
    And remember if at first you don’t succeed, then throw all your toys out of the cot and screw up your face and blame everyone else.
    What a bunch of pathetic wankers these Natzskis are.

  10. The government should put one good candidate up and take the seat. The only problem with that is they won’t because they don’t know how MMP works.

  11. Martyn, I agree with you on almost everything but sadly you are completely wrong on this occasion. “Assholes” are useful!

Comments are closed.