Editorial - Tuesday October 22, 2013

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

THE Len Brown debacle all seems so very Auckland. Secret trysts in upmarket hotels, assignations in council offices, the supposed thrill of flaunting an illicit relationship at glittering functions. One commentator said yesterday that the sordid story had reinforced heartland New Zealand's view of the shallow, venal, seedy city that is Auckland. He also suggested that a great many New Zealanders were behaving in similar fashion every day of the week. Perhaps. But that cannot be used as a defence. In fact it offers an argument as to why this particular surrendering of moral standards should not be tolerated.

None of the major players in this tawdry affair have come out of it with any credit, and it only promises to get worse. Len Brown has been exposed as a hypocrite of the first order, a supposedly God-fearing man who believes implicitly not only in the sanctity of marriage but in the family. And he used those virtues to good effect in his campaigning, especially in South Auckland, the home of a great proportion of the votes that saw him elected for a second term, where electors also tend to believe in God, marriage and the family. Only in his case it wasn't true. He won the election by portraying himself as someone he was not.

Bevan Chuang, the woman with whom he conducted an affair for two years, has been exposed as a conniving conspirator who doesn't quite match Mata Hari. She can't seem to decide what she wants, and has clearly allowed herself to be manipulated by a number of others who see her as a means to a political end. Now it turns out that she has a criminal conviction for illegally accessing the computer system of the then head of the Auckland Museum after she, the mistress, was made redundant in 2008.

It might be a bit much to expect a Mayor who can't control his libido to vet his potential mistresses, but it doesn't say much for the right in Auckland politics that a woman of Chuang's character, who reportedly made the conviction known, was welcomed so far into the inner circle that she was endorsed as a candidate.

Then she granted her sexual favours to South African Luigi Wewege, a self-proclaimed political strategist who would struggle to run a raffle let alone an election campaign, while the beneficiary of his machinations, John Palino, knew absolutely nothing. He did meet Chuang in a carpark 24 hours after election day, under cover of darkness, but only to discuss their shared experience of receiving threatening texts, as you do.

And now we are told that no one in this extraordinary cast of characters that would have done Gilbert and Sullivan proud had any intention of unseating Len Brown. Not even the blogger who provided the vehicle for breaking the story. Furthest thing from their minds, apparently. What an absolute crock.

If this is how politics functions, for want of a better word, in our biggest city, whose Mayor, we are told, is second only to the Prime Minister in terms of influence, is it any wonder that this country is in the doldrums? And how can so many people say that none of this matters, as long as Brown can do his job?

There was a time when honour was important to New Zealanders. There was a time when the great mass of people (as opposed now to a small majority, according to one of last week's polls) would have found Len Brown's behaviour so abhorrent that he would have had no choice but to resign. How we got from there to here isn't easy to explain, but the reintroduction of some old-fashioned morals wouldn't do us any harm.

To say that Brown's ability to do his job as Mayor remains intact despite his 'private' behaviour is ridiculous. That 'private' behaviour included a deliberate campaign of deceit over a two-year period, when he not only deceived his wife and children but an entire city. That reached a new level when he set out to win a second term, by cloaking himself in a stupendous lie.

To suggest now that his judgement and his principles can be trusted in every other field but his sex life and his domestic relationships is foolish. Our collective acceptance of this sort of behaviour (which, one suspects, would have been much less acceptable had it been perpetrated by a woman) sets the bar far too low. Those who would emulate this behaviour need to know that it won't be tolerated, not that they simply need to display a little more intelligence to get away with it, or contrition if they don't.

Len Brown, if he has any honour at all, has no choice but to stand down. He might well offer himself in a new election, but Aucklanders should have no illusions about the man he really is before they give him their tick. If they still want him, good for them. That's their business. But they, and electors in general, should always be wary of those who make a public display of their piety. Ralph Waldo Emerson had the idea: 'The louder he talked of his honour the faster we counted our spoons.' Men of good character should not have to tell people how good they are.

Meanwhile Len Brown's circus gave rise to another interesting revelation last week. Many of those who regularly pontificate in public, including NewstalkZb's Mike Hosking and political columnist Fran O'Sullivan, didn't bother voting. It is not only the great unwashed who can't be bothered.

Is that a problem though? Does it really matter if fewer than half of those who are enrolled to vote actually do so? A widespread lack of interest might suggest that many people have become disengaged with local government, but why should politicians fret over that? Do they really lose sleep over the apparent fact that many people think they are irrelevant, or is this simply a three-yearly display of concern for the preservation of democracy?

To some degree we have undoubtedly become so dumbed down that some people can't comprehend the issues, even at local council level, and don't have the wit to see why they should try. And if they can't be bothered, why should they be compelled to vote?

Moves are now being made to enable local body voting online, which some can't-be-bothereds say would encourage them. Texting might be even easier, but it would be better if they stayed silent.

The value of this process lies not in the casting of votes, but in understanding the issues and what the candidates have to offer. Casting a vote purely because it is one's civic duty to do so has the potential to pervert the outcome, and that wouldn't benefit anyone. It is the fact that every adult has the right to vote that is important. That vote should never be exercised by compulsion or coercion.

Many people's loss of interest in voting, particularly at local body level, could be attributed to a number of things, including a stunning lack of awareness - a Far North policeman was surprised to hear that the Far North had a new Mayor; he hadn't even known an election was taking place - and the centralisation of local government, with the attendant disempowerment of its most local manifestation, the community board.

It would help too, perhaps, if politicians were seen as decent people who could be trusted. The Far North has never had any problem there, but Auckland does now.