So. Farewell Then
Melissa Lee.
I expect we will not be seeing
much more of you
After Saturday.
There is an old joke about the two young men
who left home.
One joined the circus
The other became a list MP
Neither was heard of again.
If you manage to channel
Marie Antoinette once more
a few months from
now,
Perhaps the gallery might
make an exception.
On the weekend John Key hailed the Big Little Mayor, John Banks, as "Super Mayor". We know what he meant, even though his minders now say we don't.
Feeling queasy about your local government makeover yet, Aucklanders? Leaving aside for a moment the very good question: will my voice be heard under the new set-up?, there are more questions you might ask: How they can make this transitional arrangement work? Is Mark Ford a superman? Can he scoop all the daily operations of all the councils into one operation and still ensure your rates and drainage and road maintenance will all continue to be managed in an orderly manner?
The simple answer seems to be: "yes". How? By jettisoning all the extraneous and onerous aspects of local government like community services and events and the buildings that accommodate community groups; think scout halls and the like. Let us watch carefully to see what goes overboard.
Call me a sceptic. Couldn't we have achieved the desired cohesion in transport and infrastructure by simply giving the regional council the same powers bestowed on all other regional councils in the last shakeup?
That said, I nonetheless have a proposition. John Banks as Super City mayor is just too dismal a notion. I propose we draft in an outsider. I propose we persuade a good person to move north. He talks nothing but sense. He doesn't duck the hard calls. He is so admired that every time his image appears on the cover of the Listener, they sell an extra million copies (check this).
If we must have a super city, then I propose we make our super mayor Gareth Morgan.
******
I lamented to a friend yesterday that I was running out of runway for TV news. It began a few weeks ago as the tawdry spectacle in Napier dragged on and Catherine Loft, live on the scene, delivered her words in a tone so slow and exaggerated it made a pre-school teacher sound positively highbrow and obscure.
Then on Thursday night I turned on the set, and was greeted by Wendy Cheerleader-Airpunch standing outside the Christchurch High Court, crossing to Vicki Wilkinson-Baker inside the Christchurch High Court. I considered waiting through ten minutes of nothing to find out what was happening in the Worth business, but I had the dejected certainty it would be no better.
My friend, who has had plenty of experience pushing a microphone into people's faces made some very good points, which are too good not to share:
Questions one might ask about Richard Worth:
What appointments has he made in 195 days?
What percentage of those have been women?
What checks and balances are there to ward
against this?
Has anything been learnt since Field?
The Dunedin One:
John Campbell gets Bain in front of a camera but never asks "Did you do it?" In fact no-one face to face with Bain has asked a single question about the events.
It's all so dispiriting I need to go lie down on the couch and turn on the tube. I hope I'm not too late to see something hilarious with a twist of misogyny. Around about now, Paul Henry should be fluffing up the cushion for his pal John.
That nice Mr Key has been having a difficult week. If we could read his mind, what a tale his heart would tell.
Perhaps:
Five dozen to choose from, and I picked that clown?
or perhaps:
Christ, Eagleson, do I have to fix everything myself?
or:
What does this Wilson woman want??
or maybe just:
I know! I'll blame Goff.
A pattern is emerging.
We first saw it in the flapping and fumbling over a small Thai tourist crisis. We saw it again over troops to Fiji and Afghanistan, and again with a Jobs Summit cobbled together to mollify disgruntled Herald reporters asking: "where's the policy to save us from a Depression?" We have seen it more recently in the matters of Paula Benefit, Christine Rankin and Melissa Lee and now, with this Worth affair, the Prime Minister appears to be fumbling once more. Why? Because as the unexpected question is put to him and he blinks in the floodlight, the thought going through his mind appears to be:
I am their leader. I must find out where they are going, so I can lead them there.
Thus we set out on the bumpy journey. First we are offered a slightly awkward and creaky response and then, gradually, if a little unsteadily, two days of refinement as the position is evolved to mesh with public opinion.
Calibrate, calibrate; figure out what the punters want; Always Be Closing.
Our Prime Minister operates to no discernible principle or ideology. Yes, politics is the art of the possible; but this is pushing the maxim awfully hard. When an issue blows up, there are no personal guiding principles he seems able to reflexively refer to or, if there are, they get short-circuited by his instinct to first check with the punters. Thus the stunned silence when he was first asked what position he'd held on the Springbok tour. Of course he knew. Of course he hadn't forgotten. He just didn't want to tell us and disappoint at least half the audience.
I've quoted a friend from the markets before, I'll quote him again: Great antennae, no compass. I remain convinced he is principally in this job for the prestige. If I might borrow his own words from last night's Checkpoint interview, my confidence in him is rescinding.
So. Farewell Then
Richard Worth.
You are departing,
but
we are not to be
told why.
Perhaps
it is because Mr Key has
awarded
you the DCM.
According to Swedish historians
at Waterloo
Napoleon did surrender
Oh yes.
And now it seems that
you
have met your destiny
in quite
a similar way.
My favourite Jesse James story is my only Jesse James story. He and his gang are outlaws. They're on the run. They come to a farmhouse seeking food and rest. The woman lives there on her own, a poor widow. She takes them in and, even though she has little, finds enough to feed them all. They learn that she is expecting a debt collector at any time, coming for the $1400 she cannot pay him.
So Jesse James the bank robber reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out the $1400. Give him this, he says, and make sure you get a receipt.
James and the gang then thank her for her hospitality,wish her well and ride away. But not very far. They take watch.
Before long the debt collector appears. He rides up to the farmhouse, knocks on the door, goes in. He reappears just a few minutes later looking content. He starts back down the road. The James gang descend on him, take back their 1400 dollars and ride away.
Robbin' banks - debt collectors, even - is wrong, and lawlessness is an unhappy state, but generosity to the needy, wherever one finds it, warms the heart.
Bill English and Chris Finlayson, our new minister for the arts, have been generous in hard times.
When the ASB Trusts' investment income takes a post-sub-prime thrashing, there's much, much less money to go around. The oxygen runs thin, and a whole lot of community and cultural organisations start to worry about paying their bills.
Reading now from the budget: Creative New Zealand gets an extra $7.1 million over the next four years, the Royal New Zealand Ballet an extra $3.4 million over the same period.
Sincerely: well done, Sirs.
I might as well ask: do either of you enjoy cycling?