If you missed part one of Michele Hewitson’s 2026 election commentary, read it here.
Bugger Bunter. That was Sid Snidely’s first thought. Bugger Bunter for buggering up the party’s election campaign with his crackpot publicity stunt. The only possible outcome of being fired out of a giant cannon at the ninth floor of the Beehive was an untimely demise. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist, or even a cannon scientist, to work that one out. Death was certain – and on that front, Bunter had certainly not disappointed. He and his political career had gone out with an enormous bang, followed by an enormous splat. What no one could have predicted, not even a cannon scientist, was that Bunter’s stunt would trigger an enormous gas explosion and level the Beehive.
Now, because the weekend’s election had ended in the closest of ties, and because both major parties now needed the Quite Cross Party to get them into government, the high-wire act of coalition negotiations was Snidely’s burden. So, yes, bugger Bunter.
Snidely suspected he’d been chosen as the new leader because his party thought him the perfect patsy for the impossible job of doing a deal with the famously shy and retiring Quite Cross Party leader. Though he didn’t know it, Snidely’s nickname was “the Lettuce”, not because he was green, but because he had a big head and wilted when the heat went on. Snidely was to be the party’s sacrificial salad.
Well, he’d show them. He hadn’t been in Parliament for 30 years without learning a thing or two. Of course, he’d made a complete hash of his previous shot at the big time: as minister for statistics he’d managed, inadvertently, to delete – and what were the chances of this? – the entire 1996 Census by sitting on his computer keyboard. So, this was his chance to erase that cock-up and instead be remembered as the man who, against the odds, got the party into power.
But what bauble to dazzle the Quite Cross Party with? He had decided to offer them the Ministry for Drink, a new department, a more-or-less fictional department, but one that would keep the Crossies too shickered to interfere with his party’s agenda. It was worth a try, and the Quite Cross leader was due in Snidely’s Bowen House office at any moment to discuss it.
As the clock ticked, Snidely sat looking out his window at the still-smouldering remains of the Beehive, waiting for Godot.
Desperate trade
Bugger Bolshie. This was Sheila Stroppy’s mantra. Bugger that bugger Bolshie. If he hadn’t agreed to that farcical, fatal photo-op boxing a kangaroo in front of the Australian High Commission, she would not be in the invidious position of trying, as her party’s new leader, to do a deal with the Quite Cross Party and its modest if elusive leader, Hercules Ezra Godot.
It was six weeks since Bolshie’s demise at the hands, or rather the feet, of that malevolent marsupial – the Aussie media had dubbed it “Skippy the Bash Kangaroo” – and five weeks since the election. But the Quite Cross Party had still not decided which party it would go with. She wasn’t the only one fed up; the entire country was now sick and tired of waiting for HE Godot.
Stroppy had heard through the rumour mill that the other lot had offered the Quite Cross Party the Ministry for Drink, a ridiculous proposal given Godot was a Quaker and a lifelong teetotaller. Snidely would be remembered as the man who led a horse to water only to find it didn’t drink.
Mind you, every time she thought of the proposals she’d put to the Quite Cross Party she felt a little bit of sick rise in her throat. Had she, a lifelong leftie, really agreed to bring back public floggings and the restitution of poor houses? Was she really that desperate? Yes. And yes.
And there was that other little matter of her major compromise. The one she had yet to actually cough up about to her comrades. She reached for the wastepaper basket and began retching violently.
Dunny role
Howler came to with a start. His mouth felt like something had moved in, had a rowdy party, set fire to a couch, failed to flush the toilet and then left. How much had he had to drink last night?
His eyes eventually focused and he found he was staring at a door. On it, someone had written, “Shameless Howler was here.” That was him. Had he written it? He was pretty sure he hadn’t. He only bothered with a byline when there was a chance of winning another media award.
Below the graffiti was an empty toilet roll holder. Aha. He’d passed out on a dunny. It was probably one of the lavs at the Green Parrot Cafe, the famous Wellington steak house now known among its more jocular habitués as “Godot’s Ministry for Drink”. It was where Howler and the rest of the parliamentary press gallery had spent most nights since the election four months ago. Drowning their sorrows at the Parrot was the only way to get through the interminable wait for Godot’s decision.
If Howler was honest, and he tried not to be, it wasn’t the first time he’d woken up on this particular bog. He’d done it so often now that his cunning career move to give up the drink, get some NZ On Air money and then make a documentary about giving up the drink was looking shakier than he felt.
Goddamn Godot. Mind you, it didn’t matter which way he went. If Snidely won, the country was stuffed; if Stroppy got it over the line, the country was poked.
Howler’s biggest fear wasn’t any of that. He didn’t much care for politics anyway. What gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies was the thought of being scooped on the deal by his nemesis, Ed Spanner at the Daily Chunder.
His phone went bing. He dug it out of his jacket pocket and read the text. It was from Spanner. It was one word: “Loser”.
As he tried to make sense of the slur, someone came into the men’s dunny and, without a word, pushed a newspaper under the door of his stall. It was a copy of the Chunder. The lead was by Spanner. As he read the headline – “Waiting Over: Godot New PM” – Howler’s phone slipped from his hand and, with a surprisingly pleasing plop, dropped into the loo.
All names, characters and incidents portrayed are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or dead, or back from the dead), is intended or should be inferred.
