Paul Holmes: Corrections Minister snookered

Fascinating it is, watching the political gnashing from the provinces, especially the drama between the Corrections Minister Judith Collins and her department chief executive Barry Matthews, who had the temerity to not resign when she clearly indicated that he should.

Instead, the Auditor-General had a look at Matthews' employment record and sent his report to the State Services Commissioner who, on examining it, declared there was no justification for firing him.

All of which snookered the minister, rather. So there is much discussion, I see, about whether the Government is really able to run things or whether the bureaucrats do and whether Judith Collins has been mortally wounded.

She has not, of course. However, on a flight from Auckland to Hawke's Bay a fortnight or so ago, I sat with an old mate of mine, a long-serving senior District Court judge, formerly my lawyer in the days I started negotiating broadcasting contracts, who shook his head and declared Collins had played her hand in far too cavalier a fashion and would now find getting rid of Matthews difficult.

Then I was talking to another Hawke's Bay mate, a man of gentleness and integrity and a former senior policeman who, among many special responsibilities in his long career, was in charge of a specific area of inquiry in the Mr Asia investigation. He worked alongside Barry Matthews in the police and has the highest of regard for him. He declares Matthews to be "an absolutely top man".

But what I really want to tell you about the Collins-Matthews battle is that outside the beltway, no one cares a fig. Oh, it provokes a passing interest, and I have watched with some intrigue, but not one person has brought it up with me and most people, I suspect, do not give a rat's about it.

Most people have their sights on the horizon for the arrival of the imminent holocaust that tips us into financial hell. In the meantime, the 3000km cycle track is something nice to contemplate. I wonder where it will go, how wide it will be and what it will be made of. It is an enjoyable way to pass the time contemplating a landscape project.

John Armstrong, a courageous and astute political commentator in the New Zealand Herald, wrote a piece which was headlined "Collins Down But Not Out". I read the headline but not the story to be fair, because, as I say, I can only narrowly avoid falling into a coma at the prospect of reading about the issue.

Armstrong is right, I suppose, but if half of the country does not know that Phil Goff is now leader of the Labour Party, it will certainly not know whether Judith Collins has come a gutser on the Matthews affair and may not even have heard of Judith Collins in any case. And people know in their hearts and minds that decisions about whom to parole are extremely difficult to make and following up some parolees must be a harrowing and intimidating process.

There was some insight on the Matthews/Collins affair this week from John Tamihere on his radio programme, which reveals constantly how far he has moved from his old Labour colleagues, describing Steve Maharey on one occasion this week as an idiot.

But he noted the callowness of the new ministers, like Collins. He said that if Helen Clark had wanted to get rid of a chief executive, she would have made sure any report that was done would contain the ammunition she needed. He implied that this was the part of the process Collins ignored. Helen was a fearsome operator.

As for private prisons, who knows? Does it really matter who owns them, any more than it matters who owns the telephone company? In the famous words of Deng Xiaoping , "what does it matter the colour of the cat as long as it catches mice?"

It was my understanding that the private sector-operated Mt Eden Prison was working well and it was only dogma that saw Labour take it back. A private service might even lead to better conditions and morale for the prison officers who, (while there are not infrequent allegations of corruption and irregularity) put their lives on the line every hour of every day in some wings.

I would not want that job. I am no good at physical fighting and would not appreciate a sudden, brutal forced entry of my person by either shivvied toothbrush or a body part.

* * *

Robert Vaughn has written a memoir, so I read in the British newspapers. Vaughn is the charming and intelligent actor who we remember for his portrayal of Napoleon Solo in the 1960s television hit series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He made about 150 films of which, he says, he can remember very few.

He was one of the stars of The Magnificent Seven. He won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Steve McQueen's Bullitt. He says filming The Magnificent Seven was chaotic, with scripts being written daily on the set and carbon copies of the next day's dialogue shoved under the hotel doors in the middle of the night for the actors to learn in the morning. He thought the film was doomed.

He says the director John Sturges did not have a cast together until quite late. Sturges asked Vaughn if he knew any good actors. Vaughn says he called his best friend in Greenwich Village, who was lying around smoking dope and going nowhere with his girlfriend and told him, "get out here, fast!"

His friend was James Coburn. Coburn borrowed the money from his mum and dad to get to California.

Anyway, Vaughn saw a lot of William Holden when they made The Towering Inferno. Holden loved his travelling, and told Vaughan that if he had not seen Africa he had not seen anything. Vaughn eventually went to South Africa and saw the animals and the vast skies and says that while in Johannesburg he had lunch at a posh restaurant with a special kind of beast, the actor Oliver Reed. Vaughn says Reed was already well ahead of him in the drinks department by the time they sat down. He began to offer toasts to "actors alive and deceased". Then, he asked Vaughn if he would like to see a beautiful bird. At which point, he stood up, undid his fly and showed Vaughn "a part of his anatomy on which was tattooed some kind of winged creature".

So, not the most exacting week at the farm for me. This weekend, however, it is back on to the coalface of current affairs with intense rehearsals for TV One's Q&A at 9 O'clock. With it will come, of course, the inevitable condemnatory comment from the usual, entirely predictable sources. Like that ever mattered.