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Legal Performance Enhancement

New Zealand's Olympic cyclists are secretly testing in France a revolutionary new cycling suit they hope will shave critical seconds off their times. Apparently, all perfectly legal, with just a slight question over how much an advantage this latest development might provide.

This was front page Dominion Post this morning. And suddenly, every thing fell into place.

A suit with slip stream qualities par extraodinaire? Teflon coating that represents a quantum jump in technology? One that shaves seconds and indeed keeps rivals second guessing just where in space the Kiwi Cyclists will materialize?

And also on page one Winston accused of receiving another undeclared donation. But Winston has always said there are perfectly reasonable answers to these impertinent questions. And I've figured it out. He's sold his suit design to the NZ cycling team, and has been living off the royalties. These large amounts of money going into various trusts are not so much donations as royalty cheques. No doubt, his pinstripe suit has also been adapted for horse wear, shaving valuable seconds off the Vela family thoroughbreds.

I thought there was a reasonable explanation for all this, and pinstriped double breasted cycling suits will really lift our profile at the Olympics.

I heard that he tried marketing the same suit for the pool. Unfortunately, it sunk like a Spanish galleon loaded with gold, and they had to throw the swimmer a life buoy.

And now the Privileges Committee is going to decide if Winston's performance enhancing donations are perfectly legal. But will they have time before the election? Politically, it's doubtful. The moment the house rises the complaint gets shelved. We'd need the Privileges Committee to act like they are in the 100 yard dash, not the 26 mile marathon.

Trouble is, politics is a bigger game than the Olympics, and our political athletes have been using performance enhancing products for years, many of these sources highly suspect.

For Labour, unions and adroit manipulation of the media and public service; for National sponsorship by big business; for NZ First, rich special interest groups backing the dark horse of politics.

All attempts to provide mandatory fiscal screening have ultimately failed. The Prime Minister herself pointed out that the code of practice Cabinet Ministers are held to are "guidelines only". And what is discovered to be illegal just gets retrospectively made legal. The EFA was supposed to write a new rule book - what a joke.

Voters never had a sporting chance.

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