SOLO-NZ Press Release: Phil's Freedom-Flirting

September 13, 2009

If new Labour Leader Phil Goff is sincere in his remorse over his party's "political correctness" while in office, Labour could be back in power sooner than polls currently indicate, says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo.

Goff has reportedly apologised for "mistakes" made by the last Government and its focus on "politically correct" issues.

In his keynote speech at the party's annual conference in Rotorua, Goff said, "We were voted out because they [voters] thought we were getting distracted by sideshows. The Winston Peters funding saga, the Electoral Finance Act. Errant MPs. Smacking. Light bulbs. Shower heads."

"He shouldn't have stopped there," says Perigo. "Smoking, drinking, party pills, flatulent cows ... every which way one turned, there was the wagging finger of nagging Nanny State, usually with a cop at her side. People got tired of her screeching and her Thought Police.

"Goff will have his work cut out if he wants to end the dominance of his party by the Nannyists. But he may be helped by National's inevitable capitulation to its own state-worshippers. The Mordi Party, one of its coalition partners, is demanding a 'hefty rise' in the price of tobacco and a ban on retail displays. I once engaged in a television debate with Mordi Party MP Hone Harawira in which he was demanding the banning of tobacco outright.

"While it appears Prime Minister Key and Health Minister Ryall are resisting the nico-nazis at the moment, it's likely that they will crumble, as they do on most issues, because they are weak and unprincipled. They will also crumble before former Labour Prime Minister and alco-nazi Sir Geoffrey Palmer's Prohibitionist juggernaut. This will give Goff the opportunity truly to renounce his Nannyists and come out on the side of the working man for whom he professes such empathy.

"He might even extrapolate from these single issues and realise that as a broad generality the best way to help the working man is to get out of his way and the way of the entrepreneurs who create jobs. That's a big expectation, but Labour politicians have been known to come to this realisation, albeit imperfectly, in the past. (Mr. Goff is rumoured to be one of them.) When they acted on it they were re-elected handsomely; when they abandoned it for a 'breather and a cuppa tea' they were thrashed.

"As National, after a promising start, reverts to form and becomes the National Socialists again, Mr. Goff could do worse than contemplate making a pitch for the anti-Nanny vote," Perigo concludes.

ENDS

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