Hoardings with smiley faces have appeared like spring mushrooms and politicians are making their three-yearly pilgrimage to your door to share their love – it must be election time.
Not to be denied a soapbox, the Oily Rag community has been out on the hustings, meeting and greeting in supermarket aisles, smiling much while saying little, seeing every infant with a runny nose as a photo opportunity rather than a health risk, and generally encouraging people to give that all important tick of approval to the oily rag cause. Our party message is an all-inclusive one:
“Happiness through frugality – delivering a better brighter future for New Zealand. Let’s frugal this – love frugality”.
Here are some of our key election policies.
Workplace policy
- Cut lunches for all – it’s guaranteed to save you heaps.
Free fruit and vegetables
- Cost-free fruit and vegetables for all. The Oily Rag Party believes families should not have to pay for fruit and vegetables – they should grow their own. Why complain about the high price of tomatoes or spuds, parsnips or carrots, leeks or silver beet, apples or oranges, when growing your own is easy and much cheaper – and it stops you worrying about where the produce is really gown, and what’s in it. A house is not a home without a garden, we say.
Recycling
- We have a waste-not want-not policy, and that means anything that would usually go to the tip gets a second life. No more will you hear someone say, “I wish I hadn’t tossed that out”. We have strong policies in this area and when the Oily Rag Party is elected to high office on 23 September we will make it unlawful to throw out a piece of paper if it has one unused side.
Transport policy
- Other parties may be building roads but we are bridging the divided between having money and not. Reducing your speed from 110 km to 100 km will result in a 15% fuel saving – and we will ban speeding tickets by banning speeding! Maniac type driving not only costs money it aggravates everyone, endangers yourself, your passengers and other voters – and every vote matters.
Animal welfare policy
- Take the dog for a walk instead of a ride in the car.
The economy
- Use half as much and get the product at half price!
- Any debt is a bad debt. It takes five minutes to get into debt, and a lifetime to get out of it.
- Cheap is good but free is awesome – let’s do this.
- Idle time is a waste. Working for a charity is better than not working at all.
KiwiSaver
- Every Kiwi should be a saver and would be if they lived off the smell of an oily rag. As a famous person once said, “Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.” Rich may be taking things a bit far, just having no money worries is a good oily rag aim.
The retirement age
- Any age is a good age to retire, and many would do so sooner if they lived off the smell of an oily rag.
By Frank and Dr Muriel Newman.
Read more Oily Rag articles here.
You can contact the Oily Rag community via the website at oilyrag.co.nz or by writing to Living off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.