Dialogue: Rankin hearing is not a battle of the sexes

By JOHN ROUGHAN

Mercifully, the legal merits of Christine Rankin's case have hardly entered the picture that has played to an utterly fascinated, utterly appalled national audience over the past fortnight.

The picture, and the inevitable public discussion, have a life of their own, with issues peripheral to the law but more interesting.

Do we, for example, blame Mrs Rankin or television news editors for the portrayal of the victim? That poor, defeated, woebegone figure on the witness stand, was that really her? Julia Roberts or Helen Hunt would never have played it like that.

Here was someone who for years has had the pluck to dress the way she wants, in glorious defiance of the drab, androgynous daywear of so many women in the workforce, and we see a broken spirit.

Did she really present herself that way? Herald reporter Francesca Mold, who watched her throughout, wrote that most of the time she was self-assured with flashes of defiance and controlled anger. That sounds more like it.

But somebody decided the proper image of a woman attesting to humiliation is to be tearful and tragic. So every time she let her face fall, or used her hanky, somebody took her picture.

The television tear has become an excruciating cliche. No interview with a person under stress seems to be considered a success until the camera has drawn in very close and empathetic questions manage to wring water from an eye.

Whatever happened to meeting personal slights with dignity and utter disdain? At Parliament in the mid-1980s I will never forget seeing Ann Hercus, Minister of Social Welfare, deal with a young Winston Peters who thought he was on to a scandal about a rental property she owned.

She stood and calmly, factually explained her private business to the House. She did not refer to Mr Peters until right at the end when she added, still absolutely calm, "and I despise the member." The effect was devastating.

Anybody, particularly a man, obliged to caution a woman about overt sexuality these days can probably expect searing contempt. Yet, oddly, female reaction to the Rankin case seems determined to regard it as a gender issue. It is not. Believe me. Believe any man. We do not mind Mrs Rankin's clothes. Not in the slightest.

In fact, when we read that women were being urged to dress in solidarity with her yesterday it warmed our hearts. It honestly did.

We heard what that man Prebble said on the witness stand, and that wintry fellow who admitted later he had made a "pig's ear" of at least one answer under oath. These are senior public servants, high priests of the mandarinate. In China those positions used to be reserved for eunuchs.

Their job, as the court well understands, was to see that the public service conformed to the will of the elected Government. Helen Clark had come to power promising a "new era of frugality" for the state sector. The ersatz corporate style of the new Work and Income New Zealand had been exhibit A in her election campaign.

The actions of Mark Prebble, head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Michael Wintringham, head of the State Services Commission, will be judged against the political circumstances.

Public debate should judge in the same light.

Constitutionally, it is not for a politician to deal with personal issues in the public service, although the Minister of Social Services, Steve Maharey, also weighed in. I wonder why he didn't call on a female colleague.

This is a Government of safe, sensible committee women who acquired their feminism in the 1970s. The task could have been given to "one of the Jills," to borrow a phrase from Pam Corkery's book.

That at least would have clarified the issue for the wider audience. This is a feminist issue in the best sense. It is between women. Men are watching with a great deal of interest naturally, but only watching.

And wondering, possibly, after the past fortnight: is it sexist to admire Mrs Rankin's style, or to condemn it? Both possibly.

Dress matters because it expresses what matters to the wearer. Mrs Rankin's taste reflected the character of the changes she was appointed to make to her branch of the old Social Welfare Department.

The Jills in their educated compassion think her style an affront to the department's poor clientele. I'll bet the woman from Blackball knows beneficiaries better.

Her brief when Winz was created by the previous Government only three years ago was to transform the agency from a welfare office to a consultancy in personal advancement. The real tragedy underlying this whole drama is that the new Government is reversing that change.

Whether it is doing so simply to get rid of Mrs Rankin is for Judge Tom Goddard to decide. Either way it is a tragedy.

The Government intends to recombine the thinking and operational sides of social welfare and it wants more "strategic" thinking from the head of Winz.

We have seen enough to know that is not her strength. She is an operator, a doer. Tell me what you want, she says, and I'll get on with it.

The weakness of this Government is that it doesn't really know what it wants. Mr Maharey in particular talks incessantly of "strategies" but hasn't got them. He needs departmental heads who can devise them.

Winz is not now to be the aspirational agency Christine Rankin was appointed to build. Ultimately that may be less her loss than ours.