Remembering my friend Dave Lennard
It was with deep sadness I heard that Dave Lennard was tragically killed when his house on Shore Road was struck by a landslide in Friday’s record breaking rainfall.
Dave and I used to have long wandering discussions over the kitchen table in his beloved old villa over the state of the world. Over the same kitchen table Dave masterminded the Mana electoral campaign to upset the Act and National Party plan to get the then ACT leader and white supremacist, Don Brash into parliament on the back of an MMP electoral list vote and an ACT electorate win in Epsom.
Act had put up John Banks the former National Party MP and former Auckland Mayor as their candidate in Epsom.
It had been decided by the Act Party that their party’s leader, white supremacist Don Brash might just be a bit too controversial a figure to get elected, even in the Blue Rinse electorate of Epsom.
To defeat their plans, Dave came up with the electoral slogan, “Vote John get Don”.
How Paul Goldsmith was caught taking down his own electoral signs
Dave had fitted the front of his house with video cameras, with views of the Shore Road cricket grounds and car park.
At an election meeting in Epsom National Party MP Paul Goldsmith had been handing out business cards to anyone who wanted one. Goldsmith’s business card was an exact miniature of Paul Goldsmith’s electoral campaign billboards which were never made.
Dave had the brilliant idea of enlarging the miniature replica of Paul Goldsmith’s electoral hoarding, to full size, and erecting them on Goldsmith’s behalf, on the grass verge of the cricket ground in the view of his cameras.
The rest is history.
The video of Paul Goldsmith shiftily caught pulling down his own election signs was leaked to the press and became the lead election story on TV3 news the next day.
At an candidate meeting in Epsom the Act Candidate John Banks was photgraphed by Dave pulling down an image of his own party’s leader and hiding it down the back of the stage.
Again the images were leaked to the press.
In the end Dave didn’t succeed in convincing his fellow citizens of Epsom not to vote for John Banks as their MP. But I like to think that Dave’s campaign, which got national and even international media attention, helped suppress the Party list vote for ACT preventing Don Brash getting into parliament on the coat tails of John Bank’s win in Epsom.
Postscript:
After Brash’s failure to get into parliament on the electoral list vote, Don Brash was demoted and replaced as leader of the Act Party by John Banks.
John Banks was later ‘Found Guilty’ of “transmitting a return of electoral expenses knowing that it is false in a material particular” relating to Banks failed 2010 campaign for Mayor of Auckland.
Don Brash went on to found the anti-Maori hate group ‘Hobson’s Pledge’
I leave the last word to Frank MacsKasy
“Oh my gods – Jaymam, your sense of humour and ability to think outside the square make you one-of-a-kind…”
Pat O’Dea is a trade unionist and human rights activist.
RIP Dave Lennard. Thank you for your service, and cameras! Exposing the grifters since last century.
https://www.change.org/p/remove-wayne-brown-as-mayor-of-auckland?recruiter=17011788&recruited_by_id=89b4acd0-3e07-11e4-962a-b7c95331ab0c
So interesting Pat and a sadness for that particular way of passing on of Dave Lennard, whom I had not heard of. I think this quote from Karl Marx would have resonated with him.
“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat.” ‘
“Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.”
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Speaking of the Mana Party, or ‘Mana Internet’ — whatever happened to all those people?
At least it vaguely resembled a replacement for the Alliance, and therefore an actual left-wing party. More than anything that currently exists.
What happened to the Mana etc afficiandos. Is it a plant that can be rejuvenated with the right amount of growth solution?
Thanks Pat, classic story about Dave’s activities. And what a bizarre way to go–but hey it will likely not be so for much longer–as Climate Disaster kicks in with increasing intensity.
Thanks Pat, for this illuminating article … and the Herald left out any ‘political’ references in writing about him … making sure kiwi’s dont know the real history of a human rights activist.
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