NEW ZEALAND PARLIAMENT – MISSING IN ACTION?

People have always sneered that Parliament’s standing and standards have never been worse. Alas, it might be coming true. When my wife’s away, sometimes I draw the curtains, bolt the door, turn the TV on and watch question time in Parliament. The Speaker has no control, and like an irritated school librarian, scolds and pleads with MP’s, "Please, please behave!" Very few questions are asked without a stream of points-of-order that are usually out-of-order comments which breaks the flow and momentum to the advantage of a beaming Government that still can’t believe its luck. Serial sleaze, accusations of ‘pervert’, and tiresome mini-scandals reduces Parliament to a bad version of the Jerry Springer Show. Anything goes as long as it gets you on TV, ask Rodney Hyde, who would be a superb editor of a London tabloid. As the tabloids say, "If it bleeds, it leads!"

How does a politician judge success? By the number of media hits. Media rewards go to the stunts, it’s not entirely the politician’s fault. You can spend several years writing a book and not get noticed. I launched a book once in Wellington to questions of who paid for the typist, how could I write this and do my job as a Minister? Was it always like this? No. Feminist revisionist historians write that Marilyn Waring was elected the first gay MP, she was exposed years after she was elected. But no-one in Parliament mentioned it. This was when being gay was an issue. Families were out of bounds. I received an affidavit about a very senior pro-life MP showing he had paid for an abortion . I destroyed the letter. Sure, National leader Muldoon broke the rules in a sordid, sorry way, but there were rules to break. What’s gone wrong?

The business of Government is now full-time campaigning, what else do some Ministers do? Now we have polls, not as marketing devices but as policy formation instruments. Government by focus groups, allows the Governments to kill issues, contain and manage them. This Government is awesome at this. It’s fast food politics. Business runs just-in-time supply lines, we now have just-in-time politics. It’s Parliament’s solemn duty to hold Government accountable. Opposition is a place and space to prepare, propose, oppose and depose. The present National opposition can’t get a grip on themselves, let alone the Government, they won’t even give their leader their undivided attention. People say the National Party doesn’t stand for anything. They are wrong. It does stand for anything.

The new political bosses, advisors, pollsters, advertising agents manage to grey-up everything. Lines are rehearsed before focus groups, spontaneity is to be discouraged, public meetings are no longer public but by invite only. Here’s why this happens. On the campaign trail the most trivial, bizarre or aggressive incident leads the news, knocking the candidate off message. Bland is good. If Lord Rutherford, the great scientist came back and at the town hall, announced a cure for cancer and AIDS, then tripped and fell into the orchestra pit – what photograph would lead the news?

Meanwhile serious issues of substance seem not to rate with Parliamentarians. Can this be true? A bankrupt is offended when the person he owes money to makes public the details and goes to the Human Rights Commission claiming loss of dignity and humiliation. Wins, and the guy who already is owed thousands of dollars must pay the bankrupt for his insensitive act. Another bloke drove past a speed camera and gave the camera the finger, and within an hour the police visited his home and he was booked, not for speeding, but for offensive behaviour. I saw a clever Saatchi Toyota advertisement where the storyline was a battle between partners to get the car key in the morning. Slapstick humour; they sabotaged appliances, bowling balls dropped, wire trips on stairs – real Pink Panther stuff. I thought the TV ad. would win an international award but was told the Advertising Standards Authority had the ad. pulled because it promoted domestic violence. Bureaucracy is the rule of no-one and is the modern form of despotism. How has it happened that unelected authorities now have the power to confiscate property and tell us what to do? It’s Government by the busy for the bossy on behalf of the apathetic.

Basic liberties are being eroded by unelected people who have power only courts should enjoy. Where’s our Parliament when we need it?