Dialogue: No, nanny doesn't know best at all

The unfortunate Ruth Dyson's reaction to Norm Hewitt's continuing to play in the NPC final with a broken arm is all too typical of the whingeing, wowserish, tut-tutting nanny state which is doing its best to take over our lives.

"By playing with a broken arm," twittered Ms Dyson, "Norm has been a poor role model for his young fans."

What absolute balderdash. Hewitt exhibited just the sort of courage, determination and willingness to sacrifice himself - true grit, if you like - that once made this nation able to punch far above its weight in just about any field of endeavour you care to name.

It wouldn't be so bad if the erstwhile ACC Minister's concern had been for Hewitt and the possible effect of his courageous act on his personal and professional future. But no, her concern was that he might have undermined the ACC's "safety message."

This really means that her main concern was that Hewitt, and others like him, might cost the ACC a few dollars for running repairs. And that indicates that the penny-pinching attitudes of the corporatised ACC live on in the renationalised version.

Who gives a damn about the ACC's safety message? Why, indeed, does it even have one? We pay through the nose for the ACC to compensate us for the costs resulting from any accidental injury we might suffer, and since it is a no-fault system it matters not one whit whether we contributed, even deliberately, to our own injury.

But the nannies who are running our state (the Skirts in Charge, as one letter-writer put it so pertinently) are determined that they will prevail with their "We know best" and "You'll do it our way or else ... " dogmatism, which seeks to put every one of us in the same little pushchair so we can the more easily be manipulated.

So just for the record, let it be said again: Norm Hewitt displayed just the sort of bravery, sacrifice and individuality that is all too rare in this country today and provided his young fans (and older ones, too) with just the sort of example that's needed to restore our self-confidence and pride. So have runner Matt Slade at the Paralympics; Chris Cairns in Kenya and South Africa; and Daniel Vettori in Zimbabwe.

The proof of the argument? Wellington, captained by Hewitt, won the NPC final; Slade won silver and bronze medals; Cairns is considered the world's No 1 all-round cricketer; and Vettori is the youngest spin bowler in the world ever to take 100 test wickets.

Meanwhile, the Chief Nanny has made it quite plain that her politically correct dogmatism is not be to confined to New Zealand. Last weekend she set about telling the nations of the Pacific that she knows best and if they don't do things her way, she'll take her ball home and won't play any more.

Helen Clark's rude, arrogant and dictatorial behaviour at the Pacific Islands Forum heads of government meeting was so embarrassingly undiplomatic that someone should withdraw her passport before we all die of shame.

Just like the schoolmarm she should have been, she strides in wagging her finger, jumps down everyone's throats, insists that things better change, snubs anyone and anything Fijian, and sets about laying down a whole set of new rules.

Who the hell does she think she is? As the new girl on the block, she would have served this nation better had she sat quietly in that formerly gentle and laidback forum, listened and, perhaps, learned a little about the way things are seen and done in the Pacific.

The trouble is, of course, that know-alls never learn. Intellectualism, which Helen Clark and others in her cabinet have in abundance, does not equate with intelligence. In fact, it ensures that intelligence - which is a combination of knowledge, experience and wisdom - never gets a chance to develop.

In the meantime, our carefully nurtured and vitally important position in antipodean politics, to provide a solid and reliable bulwark between the Australian whale and the Pacific minnows, has been seriously if not irreparably compromised.

And here's a message for Margaret Wilson, another of this Government's wet-behind-the-ears intellectuals, who is about to stump the country to try to tell us what we all should think and do about the Treaty of Waitangi: Don't waste our time and our money. We - Maori and Pakeha alike - have had the treaty shoved down our throats for so long now that those of us who give a damn know what we think about it and what we should do or not do about it.

So, Dr Wilson, just stay in the Beehive, grab Helen and rueful Ruth, and each of you write out 1000 times: "Live and let live."

* garth_george@herald.co.nz