The Fairfax Awards
Fairfax hands out some awards:
- Politician of the Year – Winston Peters
- 2nd place – Bill English
- 3rd place – Kelvin Davis
- Backbencher of the Year – Chris Bishop
- Losers of the Year – Sam Lotu-Iiga, Kevin Hague and David Cunliffe
- Mallard Cup for bad behaviour – Ron Mark
They also hand out some others:
Annette King – Survivor Politics award. Subject a cockroach and King to a nuclear holocaust and the cockroach may not survive, but King would still be Labour’s deputy leader.
Colin Craig – Coro Street award for best political soap opera. The year ended in a cliff hanger. Can he make a comeback? Tune in 2016.
Ron Mark – the Donald Trump award for tolerance towards migrants.
Murray McCully – the Lawrence of Arabia award for services to desert agriculture.
Phil Twyford – the Rewi Alley award for building NZ-China relations as mastermind of Labour’s “pick an Asian sounding name” housing policy.
David Cunliffe – Whack-a-Mole award for refusing to know he’s been flattened.
Simon Bridges – the Bridge too Far award for unsuccessfully parachuting policies into a by-election battle.
Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce – the Pantene award for services to hair care after his department was revealed as buying hair straighteners for its staff.
Kelvin Davis – the Santa Award for spreading the Christmas Island spirit.
Act leader David Seymour – The Bastille Day award for pointing out “the French love the coq”. Say no more.
Speaker David Carter – The Nigel Llong award for poor umpiring
Health and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse – The Bear Grylls award for highlighting the dangers of worm farming
Conservation Minister Maggie Barry – the Tame Iti award for services to Tuhoe for renaming Te Ururoa Flavell Te Urewera Flavell.
Housing Minister Nick Smith – The Promised Land award- for pointing out unattainable building sites in Auckland.
Judith Collins – The Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator Award. She’s back!
Labour MP Phil Goff – the Panasonic Microwave award for warming up his political career
Key – Bad Hair Day award for Ponytail-gate. The Ball Boy award for services in the All Black dressing room. And the John Oliver award for services to late night comedy shows. Yup. It was a big year for the prime minister.
Peters – Mr Congeniality. Okay so he’s still cantankerous and argumentative 80 per cent of the time. But he does seem to be mellowing.
Sam Lotu-Iiga – The Reverse Great Escape award for tunnelling into trouble.
Gerry Brownlee – The Snow White award for naming Treasury Dopey.