Have you lost the will to live yet? Don’t bother answering. That’s a rhetorical question. We have all lost the will to live. At the time of writing – having to write that is the very definition of having lost the will to live – we have been waiting a month for something, anything, to happen. We are all still locked in that room with the clock that stopped on election night.
As political tactics go, it’s not a bad strategy. If we’ve all lost the will to live we won’t care about the outcome of National’s cobbled-together government, as long as something, anything, happens. Oh, they all agreed Winston Peters can be President for Life? Whatever. Now, can we go back to our lives?
Scoff not. Stranger things have happened in politics. Donald Trump became the president of the United States, and may yet be president again. Meanwhile, in Britain, former Tory prime minister David Cameron has just been made foreign secretary. Cameron was arguably Britain’s most divisive leader since Margaret Thatcher because of his bonkers Brexit referendum on leaving the European Union.
Cameron is not even an MP any more. He had banked on Britain voting to stay and went off in an almighty huff after the vote didn’t go his way. No matter. Cameron can be in the Cabinet again, though not in the House of Commons, by being made a peer and sitting in the House of Lords. Political commentator and associate editor of Britain’s The Spectator, Rod Liddle, said Cameron’s appointment was like “pulling a dead rabbit out of a hat”. So there you go: why not Peters as President for Life?
Where’s winston?
Loose lips sink ships, so it’s probably best to not get in a waka with Shane Jones. Having presumably been told to zip it, the New Zealand First deputy leader couldn’t help himself, revealing there were some “jagged edges” about tax policy in the coalition negotiations. It isn’t just his language that is flamboyant. He has been known to wear a pink sports coat that makes him look like an extra in Miami Vice.
But by the time the press pack descended the next day, he had gone beige. He wasn’t saying a thing. Except that he didn’t know anything, he wasn’t privy to anything, the journos would have to ask “rangatira” Winston.
Chance would be a fine thing. We were back to playing that old game: Where’s Winston? He had not been spotted at Wellington Airport. He hadn’t been spotted at Parliament. He wasn’t at what Jones called a “group solidarity lunch” with NZ First MPs. Nobody knew where he was. Casey Costello, third on the party’s list, didn’t know.
Jones claimed to not even know whether Peters was in Wellington. Yeah, and the moon is made of green cheese. At this rate, we’ll have to resort to reading the tea leaves, or the entrails of dead rabbits. Jones later admitted that Peters was not in Wellington.
Later still, on Tuesday evening, Chris Luxon and David Seymour were seen racing through Wellington Airport having, presumably, been summoned to Auckland by our future President for Life.
In the absence of any clarity we get gobbledygook, an outbreak of nonsensical metaphors.
“It’s a bit like swimming in the ocean; you’re stroking away and you’re not quite at your destination yet.” That was Seymour, on 1News.
“It’s really important to iron out the wrinkles before you put the clothes on.” That was NZ First’s Jenny Marcroft on the same channel.
What does any of that mean? Don’t bother trying to decipher it. You’d go around the twist trying. Oh, that’s right. We’ve already gone round the twist.
In for the kill
“You guys are really going for me. Is there any particular reason?” This was Labour MP Helen White. The guys were the media. Really, do not ask that question of the media.
You are not going to like the answer, which in this case was that White had, according to Newshub, “decimated” the votes in the holy seat of Mt Albert.
As prime minister, Jacinda Ardern won it by 21,246 votes in 2020. Helen Clark won it by 10,351 in 2008. It was the seat of the holiest of holy ‒ Labour’s first prime minister, Michael Joseph Savage, known as the architect of the welfare state, who held the seat – then known as Auckland West – from 1919 until his death in 1940.
White now holds Mt Albert by her fingertips. The recount this week confirmed her majority was reduced from 20 votes to 18.
White entered Parliament on the Labour list in 2020 so she is not a newbie. By now, she should know how to deal with the lions who stalk Parliament’s corridors looking for the weakest zebra to separate from the herd. She should know that political hacks go in for the kill.
White was particularly vulnerable, not just because of the paltry 20-vote lead over National’s Melissa Lee when the special votes were counted, but because of leaked feedback from her volunteers, which included a “keep” and “chuck” list for the next Mt Albert campaign. The “chuck” list flung the blame widely: “bad numbers” in their phone database; the Greens having the temerity to run a strong campaign; Labour’s manifesto being late and sucking. White denied her volunteers were “leaking against her”. Okay. And the moon is still made of green cheese.
The press pack is dangerous when nothing is happening. A weakened zebra has no chance of escape. But it should never run. Chasing running zebras is a lion’s favourite game.
Flower power
Pity poor Damien O’Connor. Due to the interminable wait for a coalition deal, the soon-to-be-former trade minister in the now-caretaker government has been deputised to go to Apec in San Francisco as a stand in for PM-in-waiting (and waiting) Luxon.
Given the Governor-General re-swore the caretaker Cabinet last week, you might have expected Labour’s former foreign affairs minister Nanaia Mahuta would be on the plane but because she lost her Hauraki-Waikato seat, she’s an ex-polly.
So, instead, it’s poor O’Connor. He will spend his time at Apec being a political wallflower because nobody wants to hang out with the caretaker at parties when Really Important Matters of Global Significance are being discussed. The caretaker is the geezer who gets to mop up after the party’s over. At least O’Connor will get to keep as a souvenir the silly shirt every Apec leader is expected to wear.
