Mayor Mark
Saturday’s Dominion Post had three article on Mark Blumsky.
The first confirms that Mark will stand for Mayor of Wellington in 2010, as Kerry Prendergast is not seeking a fourth term.
The second is about Mark’s term as an MP, and how unhappy he has basically been as an Opposition MP, and plans for the future:
Mr Blumsky’s future plans are mapped out on a long list. Among other commitments, he’s on the board at his daughter’s school, has bought the New Zealand rights to an electronic game cards product, and is considering two franchises. He is also a business adviser and he’s setting up a Cuba Precinct Business and Residents Association.
All worthy causes and interests, but his eyes are on a bigger prize, with a mayoral election in October 2010.
In the corner of his third floor office, Mr Blumsky has a fat red folder bulging with scraps of paper. It’s titled “Wellington Flavours,” and in it he has squirrelled away a year’s worth of ideas on what he’d do if he won the mayoralty again.
There are speeches he’d give, articles on successful cities, and pamphlets from councils around the world.
And the third is about that mystery attack in 2005:
Mark Blumsky says he has met the “lovely young man” who punched him in the face, blackening his eye and denting his campaign as a National candidate for Wellington Central in 2005. …
Mr Blumsky said a woman later called him and revealed her boyfriend was the assailant.
They arranged to meet, and the young man, who was 17 at the time, said Mr Blumsky had caught him smoking cannabis in the stairwell and had confiscated it.
The young man punched Mr Blumsky, sending him hurtling down the stairs.
“Story is: I tried to take his joint off him.”
Mr Blumsky said the youth was “a lovely young man” and very apologetic.
The youth had told Mr Blumsky that he was too young to be in the bar, and that was why he had run off.
Some people will by cynical about this, but Mark told me soon after the incident about the girlfriend of the assailant coming forward. She didn’t want her boyfriend to be arrested but was very sorry for what had happened. Mark didn’t want to break her trust by giving her name to the media, and it was thought that revealing what she said, without naming her, would not convince those who thought the injuries were not the result of an assault, and would just keep the story alive for longer.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
What a truly pathetic Parliamentary career. Still making excuses for losing Windy Central… I don’t know a single person whose view of him changed because of the attack, if anything it gained him votes because of the sympathy.
You really can’t expect anything from National MPs though, too pussy to ever have the guts to do what’s right. Like Banks he’s only in it for the power and knowing he will never get anywhere in Parliament he just wants to be in control again and have the fame and glory at the expense of ripping off ratepayers now that Kerry’s pissing off.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
One sentence summary: he’d rather be mayor than MP because the mayor can pretty much do as he pleases without media scrutiny or the inconvenience of needing to convince others to back his projects.
I’m not surprised about the red folder. If only there was a blue folder of pointless things the council currently does that he would put a stop to.
And I’d rather have a mayor who gets drunk and falls down stairs than one who steals someone else’s joint.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Blumsky:
If I tried to take someone’s joint of them, I think I know what the Police would call that.
Question is, what did Blumsky plan to do with the joint? Bet he wasn’t going to send it to philu as a present!
August 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
What is interesting about this is how little is known by so many people about the role of an MP. If you are in “the top lot” it’s great, and the ministerial jobs are there to be taken and challenge you. But if you’re a new backbencher, you are nothing more than a factory worker!
The role of an MP is to process legislation, from concept (at the cabinet and ministerial level,) through to a signed Act (at the Governor General Level). IN the middle o0f the sandwich are the three readings and Select Committee process. The Factory!
This isn’t too bad a position if you’re on the Treasury Bench side of the house, but if you’re in opposition, it’s quite likely to be basket case time. You don’t start the legislation, it’s VERY hard to change it, and yet you are expected to regard it as a very special product that has to be nurtured by YOU – unless that’s not your allocated area, in which case you’re expected to just be there when the votes are called!
Mark Blumsky is one of those unusual characters that make politics so enthralling. HE has charisma AND brains. I worked with him a little at WCC when he first arrived, and remember him saying to me that his number one goal was to put the Service back in the local government aspect of Public Service! He gave it a damned good try, and really did get some traction. (Sadly there’s been a bit of a slowdown recently, but nothing that a good push won’t get back!)
Wellington, as a city, is not the easiest place to be the civic leader. Besides anything else you compete for media coverage with the Bee Hive – so only the Bad and Ugly ever makes it onto peoples’ breakfast table! But for a man who demonstrated the value of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer (he met with Jack the Old Socialist Lad with the Rolls Royce at least once a week BEFORE he caught a by-election seat,) the role can be a fulfilling one. Mark has shown that in Local Government he can and will make a difference, and after a few years of polite mediocrity it’s time for someone to take Wellington by the throat and give it a good shake again. Starting with a new team of younger elected representatives, and some new leadership and ideas in the officers ranks!
Good luck to Mark. I know at least one person who will do what he is able to get the votes in – me!
August 25th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Why are aspiring Mayors so goddam tedious? People who want to sit on committes and pass motions, in between having cups of tea and a wholemeal biscuit, no chocolate please, drive the juice of life right out of me. Blumksky is a career bore like all the others.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Go back to the 1992 local body elections – might have been 1995, but I cannot quite remember. Mark retained the Mayoralty on election night but was faced with a potentially ‘hostile’ left wing council. These left wing councillors held a ‘caucus’ the following day and mapped out their policies, who was going to be deputy mayor, committee chairs etc.
However there were three councillors (all experienced) who stood under the ‘Labour’ banner who saw that such a council would not be going places and did a deal with Mark. To get them on side was a political masterstroke on Mark’s part. These Councillors raised the ire of Labour Party officials but the Councillors considered they could achieve more of mainstream Labour policy by siding with Mark than by siding with the other leftwingers.
Mark is not the first ex Mayor to find Parliament hard going. Others have chafed at the bit under Kiwi Keith’s ‘breathe through your nose for the first three years’ rule as they have had to do a fresh political apprenticeship.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
What a moaner and a whiner! Blumsky’s two stories in the DomPost paint a story of a backbencher MP who has failed to take the precious opportunity given to him by Kiwi voters of sitting in the House of Representatives and instead who is complaining about “…the loneliness, the nights passing time in the gym, his office or the house’ which he describes as where he sits just for company. This is shocking: he barely knows his fellow MPs, has hardly achieved anything, and doesn’t see the point of the house – and now wants to be the Mayor again after under-performing as a democratic representative. Contrast this with the six Green MPs who get things done and have a tremendous legislative success rate this term even being outside of Government like Mr Blumsky. Its not for a lack of good causes he has failed as an MP, but more a lack of vision.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Mark
Why don’t you tell thincident for what it was – we al get a liitle tipsy from time to time – the long winded story ( and the others before it) only damage your credibility – in the US you would be a hero for admitting your problem !!!
August 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
What… like banning all sorts of things while our environmental record goes from bad to worse ?!? A pack of last-millennia commies and totalitarian control freaks who completely drown any sensible environmental voices …
Back on topic… as a backbench MP in a party that has no influence on the incumbent steamroller it’s no wonder Mark fees ineffectual.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am
When there are just six of you to spread about 35 portfolios between, it’s not hard to get a bit of press. When you are the third speaker for your party on any topic, including the one you are the most qualified to speak on, life gets a bit tough.
Yet another example of a good mayor becoming a bad MP. Not unique, just another lesson that many will fail to learn from!
Just as interesting is how many good MPs went on to become poor mayors, but left behind a monument to their ego. Anyone got any examples?
August 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
How did the Dominion come to run two stories on Blumsky?
A minor list MP with delusions of becoming the Mayor (again).
Was the Dom Post a little short of news that morning?