Dalziel laughs through pain

By MATT CONWAY



Call it gallows humour, but there was frequent laughter at Lianne Dalziel's Christchurch home yesterday.

Not that she isn't hurting, or that she wants to trivialise the lie that cost her her job as immigration minister. It's just that Ms Dalziel has had darker hours than this - much darker.

And in many ways, ironically, it was her emotional collapse almost seven years ago as an Opposition MP that has enabled her to lighten up and put her humiliating downfall into some personal perspective.

Dalziel quit her portfolios after being caught deceiving the public about her role in leaking a letter concerning a deported Sri Lankan girl.

Quizzed by a reporter last Monday if she knew who had leaked the letter to TV3, Ms Dalziel said: "No. They didn't discuss that with me."

Four days later the force of Ms Dalziel's reported denial made her job untenable.

She penned her resignation to Prime Minister Helen Clark from Tertiary Education Minister Steve Maharey's Palmerston North home about 3.30pm on Friday. She had earlier been meeting special education teachers with Mr Maharey, as her political career was disintegrating. She talked to Helen Clark by phone.

"A few tears caught in the throat," Ms Dalziel recalls.

"It was at that moment you realise the enormity of it. I started off by saying 'Helen I am sorry, I'm sorry, I am so sorry.'

"She did indicate to me how sorry she was. She was very kind. I know that she's disappointed in me ... and I know she's disappointed for me as well.

"People don't see all sides of Helen, but she's a human being. She's not a machine."

Adds Ms Dalziel: "I made the decision to resign. I did not offer the resignation ... what I had done had crossed the line."

By 4pm it was all over.

Of the dozens of cards, emails and faxes to arrive after she quit, Ms Dalziel was particularly tickled by a pick-me-up from her brother-in-law on the Top 10 dumb things Lianne didn't do this week. It began with ... invade Iraq and she joined in the laughing with everyone at her home.

During her three hours with this reporter she oscillated between regret, sadness, anger, warmth, passionate politicking, raw confessional, but surprisingly little melancholy.

Early on, she jokes about a Sunday newspaper photo of her with a rumply neopolitan mastiff dog at the Bromley Carnival on Saturday.

"I thought they might have run something else underneath it: Lianne Dalziel - Dog Tucker."

So why the good humour?

"Well, as I said to my brother, 'I guess I'm resigned to it'."

It's a lousy one-liner.

But this isn't a front. Ms Dalziel, smarting as she is, prefers to look on the bright side; her many achievements in Cabinet, the love and support of family and friends, and how her life could now open up in exciting new directions.

"I've always had a good sense of humour, I'm an optimistic person at heart. I have been upset. To say that I haven't been upset would be, would be ... " Rob Davidson, her husband, chimes in: "A lie".

" ... inaccurate," Ms Dalziel giggles lightly.

"I have been upset. I've been terribly upset, I've been upset with myself. I've been upset for other people who are affected by actions, my staff in Wellington and I've been upset for the people who really offered me support, who have felt that I've contributed much."

All weekend people came to knock on the door, bring flowers, offer comfort.

As bad as she feels, it doesn't match her 1997 breakdown when, as an opposition MP, she carried the fight of constituents who had lost loved ones to suspect health care at Christchurch Hospital.

"I broke, yeah," Ms Dalziel said.

"Nothing will compare with that. I'm not at rock bottom. I am an optimistic person. I know that I have more strength than I did before that happened and, as a result, I will survive."

Ms Dalziel says she does not know what her future holds. She has made no decisions about life in or beyond politics - except one.

She would not tread the well-worn path of MPs such as Jenny Shipley, Wyatt Creech and Tuariki John Delamere to become a hired gun for prospective immigrants.

"I would rather die than be an immigration consultant," she said.

"I find it utterly unethical, in the extreme ... "

Ms Dalziel said she would "take stock" before planning her next move. As a Government backbencher, her pay drops from $195,000 to $110,000. She could stay on, serving her Christchurch constituents, until next year's election.

Ms Dalziel returns to Parliament tomorrow to "front my caucus colleagues and apologise to them face-to-face."

She has also penned an open letter to her supporters, apologising for her behaviour.

- NZPA