You think convicted drink driver Adam Holland sounds like an arsehole? It gets worse. Janie Cameron explains.
Self-described “anarchist” and Auckland mayoral candidate Adam Holland has been convicted of driving at five times the blood alcohol limit after he rear-ended a stationary car with a mother and two young children inside, TVNZ reported yesterday.
“Everybody has a DIC charge these days … the limit is absolutely pathetic. Only a lightweight can’t handle 400 [mcg of alcohol per litre of breath],” wrote 25-year-old Holland on his Facebook page. The legal limit is 250mcg per litre.
He added: “I blew 1054 and felt fine – the crash wasn’t even my fault and if I could relive the events, I’d have acted in exactly the same way.”
Holland, who collected 1,772 votes in the recent mayoral election, was most notable in the campaign for showing up inebriated to a debate at the Auckland University students’ bar wearing Islamic dress and a painted face, yelling, “Allahu Akbar!”
The Spinoff contacted Holland in June, curious about this campaign from a self-styled Trump-a-like and – so he claims – the grandson of former prime minister Sidney Holland.
Was this a dark and brilliant satirical stunt, a breathtaking critique of contemporary politics? Or was he just an obnoxious bigot? We wanted to find out.
Our conclusion: he didn’t warrant the oxygen of publicity. It takes a special quality of character not to be qualified even as a joke candidate.
Now that the election is over, however, and in light of Holland’s interesting stance on his drink-driving conviction, Janie Cameron has dusted off the transcript. Did we do democracy a disservice by denying him the spotlight?
Adam Holland sounded like he was the one rear-ended when he picked up the phone on a Wednesday afternoon.
“I do apologise, I’m just pretty hungover right now,” he croaked, sounding anything but apologetic.
“I’m facing two charges in Auckland District Court for excess breath alcohol, but in fairness I felt fine, you know, I felt completely fine. Oh well, shit happens. I smashed into the back of this woman’s car and drove off.”
After a few minutes of incoherent ramble about court proceedings, the 25-year-old, who says he is the grandson of former prime minister Sidney Holland, told me he was “dead serious” about running for mayor.
He described his “campaign for cession” with a startling likeness to the beginning of Trump’s crusade. His only semblance of policy was to build a wall around Auckland to keep out non-residents and immigrants.
“There has to be quite a few state-funded jobs to get that wall built. [We] would like to see gates everywhere, tunnels, toll fees. We want it pretty secure, we want snipers along the border. That should get rid of some unemployment.”
Holland said his policies “absolutely” reflected those of Donald Trump.
“I like the idea of Trump getting in. I like his policies. He predicts all these attacks, like the one in Orlando … I think the media is pretty unfair on him.”
He wanted to slacken New Zealand’s gun laws too. In his promotional YouTube video (where he also quotes Hitler), Holland can be seen brandishing some kind of pistol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqtMiQSplGM
“I’m all for legalising [guns] under certain circumstances.”
He described himself as “absolutely” anti-Muslim and anti-Jew. (He used the word “absolutely” a lot).
“Possibly more anti-Jew than anti-Muslim I think.”
Holland’s immigration policy came in the form of the wall he wanted to build, which he said would solve Auckland’s housing crisis.
“If they’re from Syria, they just can’t live in Auckland … We don’t know who they are – they could just be anti-democracy, anti-west, you know?
Holland said his first move as mayor of Auckland would have been getting Penny Bright to pay her rates, “or she’s out”. He also planned to banish newly appointed mayor Phil Goff, and prime minister John Key from the city.
Holland said the motivation for his campaign was best described as “Auckland first”.
“We’re being ripped off by Wellington, we’ve been ripped off by Christchurch, we’ve just been ripped off all across the board for decades.
“Our tax money goes all the way down throughout the country. There’s disproportionate rates, our budget is always just ridiculously low. The whole city is going to hell.”
The diplomatic candidate said if the rest of the country didn’t fall in line, he would impose “absurd trade sanctions on them and just rip them off”.
“Auckland would become so rich that we could build a military just in case the rest of New Zealand wants to start pushing their weight around.”
Holland, who says he lives off a hefty inheritance from family overseas, said he’s been retired for “quite some time now”.
“I don’t know if I’m going to go back to work. I retired when I was 18 and I’ve just been fucking around ever since.”