Dialogue: Road to hell is paved with good intentions

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

I'm not sure whether to call it the Rangi Whakaruru affair or the Liz Gunn affair but by any name it's a cautionary tale for all those well-known, well-intentioned people who may want to strut their stuff in the interests of good works. Extraordinary though it may be, some of these famous people seem not to have heard yet that the road to you-know-where is paved with you-know-what.

It's a presumption anyway that the problem of child abuse will be significantly reduced by celebrity advertising; but given that it does make some sort of difference, why get a pretty middle-class woman as a symbol? The impression is that Gunn's most pressing previous problem was deciding what sort of toothpaste to buy.

That might not be true, but television (and particularly the commercials) has little to do with truth - it's all about impressions.

Gunn is a member of that amorphous group labelled celebrities who are well known simply for being well known. The biggest hurdle they face is the misunderstanding by themselves and others that they are necessarily something more than that.

Despite her assertion at one stage that she knows how the media works, she clearly does not. She was entering active public life armed only with what she thinks are the most important qualities: good intentions and a self-proclaimed high CQ (compassion quotient). It seems she still has no idea that public issues involvement requires a mature judgment and experience that she doesn't possess. Yet, anyway.

Gunn is a beautifully carved prow on the ship of journalism, not the master nor even a decision-making crew member. She may also be a very nice woman, but her muddled grief at justified criticism and her call for a let-up from horrific abuse by media suggest an almost incredible naivety and sensitivity for one who must have at least walked through a newsroom from time to time.

I think she should go home after reading the news each day and enjoy her private life. Or maybe a maturing influence would be to do a bit of unpublicised frontline work in the campaign against domestic violence.

On the other hand, the presence in this aborted campaign of Michael Jones - famous as much for his manly self-control as for his athleticism in a tough physical sport - carries an implicit message that those who beat up women and children are dangerous cowards.

And when the row over Rangi Whakaruru's violent past blew up, only two cool-dude straight-shooters were uncompromised by serial dissembling - Jones and Whakaruru's stepdaughter, Jamila Dlala. The advertising agency and, most amusingly, the PR company both used longish sentences where one word, such as Yes or No, would have been nice.

I don't have to sob, wring my hands and insist I have a very high CQ to make a positive case for a former child-basher to front a campaign against domestic violence - but only if it is clearly a confessional after sufficient time for a person to have proved he has repented, is fully reformed, and understands the nature of his sickness.

There is absolutely no moral justification possible for a closet basher to head such a campaign. When Whakaruru said of his past, "Been there, done that," he left the impression that he could have added, "And I have the T-shirt with the blood on it."

Gunn, despite her protestations, also seems to think that child abuse is something like chickenpox - you catch it, then get over it. So let's be quite clear on this: a man who regularly beats up women and children is a psychopath, a seriously dysfunctional human being. If we start from there, we get some idea of the nature of the problem and can begin to take considered action against it.

The plight of one of the oldest and largest companies in the United States, Chiquita Brands International, is a salutary reminder of the hypocrisy of American trade policy.

The European Union places quotas on the import of Chiquita bananas to preserve from ruin the banana growers in some small Central American economies which are traditional trading partners. When the Europeans refused to lift the quotas, the United States Government, two years ago, imposed punitive duties on a broad range of European goods. Chiquita, ailing now from bad management, is angry and vituperative that the Europeans have not been brought to book more drastically.

The fact that New Zealand - a free trade nation and, like the United States and Europe, a member of the World Trade Organisation - is effectively shut out of the American market for butter, cheese and milk powder by prohibitive tariffs is probably unknown to the big banana at Chiquita and seems to cause no embarrassment in Washington.

Footnote: If weather forecasters' pay was based on performance, how much, or little, did they earn this week?