EDITORIAL - Don't dish it out if you can't take it

LOUIS PIERARD
DEPUTY Prime Minister Michael Cullen has raised a censorious political eyebrow for his curt reply to a sarcastic emailer.
To Auckland businessman and National Party member John Middleton, who sent a message before Christmas headlined "Kiwis moving to Australia", the minister retorted "please join them".
The episode is being paraded as further evidence of Dr Cullen's intemperance (two weeks earlier he called National leader John Key a "scumbag" and a "rich prick") and a sign, says National finance spokesman Bill English, that "he has given up caring". Mr Middleton said the minister was a public figure ... "and with a reply like that it doesn't bode well".
Dr Cullen is unrepentant: "Rude writers can expect that kind of response," he said. And who can blame him?
What did the writer expect? It's bit rich sneering at someone then complaining when he replies in kind.
Mr Middleton told Dr Cullen he was doing "a wonderful job splitting New Zealand families and reducing our Kiwi population ... and how proud you must be as Minister of Finance in the final months of office. But then again just like the Electoral Finance Bill you will neither see nor listen".
As hectoring, unredeemed by wit, the letter doesn't bear repeating but for the fact its author believes it merited serious consideration.
Those who regularly receive abusive emails - newspaper editors among them - soon appreciate the diminishing returns from submitting to the impulse to deliver well-deserved ripostes to rude people. Satisfaction is short lived. Trading insults with one who demands a higher standard of conduct than his own is guaranteed to perpetuate the abuse.
The universal truth is that having opinions others don't share inevitably draws attention from folk who can't express themselves without being offensive.
In such an event, a serene silence is what's called for - or at the most, a simple receipt.
Regardless of whether Dr Cullen might reasonably be held answerable for the exodus across the Tasman, there's a limit to what a person should have to endure.
Clearly Mr Cullen understands far better than Mr Middleton that you don't dish it out if you aren't prepared to take it.