Dialogue: Smug political outrage gets no brownie points

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

A neighbour and dear friend of mine recently blew a confidence by telling me in her excitement something that others were trying to keep as a surprise. She was very upset, but blameless because she didn't fully understand the desire for secrecy and had no malice nor any intent to cause distress. She had made a small error of judgment.

I pondered the case of Charlie Dempsey a few days later. Was his motivation lust, money, power, self-importance? Was he solely or even mainly responsible for South Africa not getting the World Cup? Did he know in advance his vote would be critical to the result? Did he maliciously intend to offend the South Africans?

Given the fact that the answer to all those questions is almost certainly "No" and that he did attempt to get support from his constituents for a change of mind, did he deserve the vilification heaped upon him not only by South Africans and some soccer players, but by our very own Akela Helen? Even if he did make an error of judgment, was he motivated by what he considered were sound reasons? (Oh, that politicians' motives were as pure!)

The national Cub mistress was reported as saying she was distressed by Dempsey's decision and that he should have been sacked instead of being allowed a dignified exit. "It's a fact that a New Zealander has done a very stupid thing that reflects on our country," she said.

I would have thought a New Zealand citizen would have been at least entitled to a hearing from a Prime Minister before being damned with such ferocity before the world. Indeed, I hear the echoes of Calvinism in these little throwaway sermons from atop the mount of superior morality. Scant sympathy is offered to any of us Cubs, except those she deems to have behaved well.

The brisk and frank leadership in the administration of Government during the early weeks of this year was welcome after years of muddled mediocrity and abdication of social responsibility. But is high-handed maternalism, national nannyism, our only other choice?

This was the latest example of too many too-fast morally judgmental intercessions in community affairs, starting with the prime ministerial comments after the police shooting in Taranaki when the normal process of the law should have been allowed to take its course.

And I wonder if the Government realises how many people are disconcerted by the smug outrage of the politicians who generated the renewed attack on smokers, with its promise of more dire action to come. I'm a non-smoker and I complain when the sniff of the stuff invades my atmosphere. I avoid places where smoke interferes with my social pleasure, just as I avoid restaurants with loud music. I used to enjoy the Comedy Playhouse in Auckland but I don't go there any more because so many people smoke.

But this Government's reinvigorated campaign has the strut of authoritarianism about it, the taint of policy formulated by people who know, better than we do, what's good for us.

If New Zealanders don't understand by now how dangerous smoking is they must be mentally retarded; and, if the decision to smoke or not is to be taken entirely out of the hands of the people themselves, will alcohol be banned next; and then fatty foods; and then refined sugar; and after that, perhaps, low-cut dresses and impure thoughts?

I discovered this week that the term "health Nazis" has more grounding in fact than I knew. Guess which Administration this review of a recent book refers to: "The result was an energetic, state-directed campaign ... to reduce alcoholism and to promote healthy nutritional practices. Once health dangers were realised, the regime launched a concerted campaign couched in the vocabulary of 'public enlightenment' ... to change bad habits ... The vigorous onslaught on smoking that ensued, including banning advertisements and raising cigarette taxes, exploited the curious fact that Hitler, Franco and Mussolini all abstained, while Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were rarely seen without a cigar, cigarette or pipe between their lips."

Yep, the Nazis drove the first big health campaign.

That may be taking the argument a bit too far, but the time has come for the Government to reflect on where the line runs between public and private moral responsibility, and at what point does it have the right to comment in an inadequately informed, gossipy fashion on the behaviour of its citizens.

Footnote: A spokesbloke for Telecom, asked to explain a price rise for some cellphone service, was quoted in the news as saying they were simply "matching our competitors." Where did I get the idea that competition was designed to make competitors match lower prices?