If you are not aware, it's valedictory season, as the great, the good and the 'has beens' line up to leave Parliament.
This week we have had Elizabeth Kerekere, Jamie Strange and Stuart Nash to name a few. There will be more next week.
It's sort of like a public morning tea shout at the office, the bit where you thank some people and talk about your time and how you will miss it.
The difference is we have put MPs on this weird pedestal and allowed them to run rampant with our money and their ideologies. They turn out to have an exalted status and their final utterances are not in the staff cafe but the house of Parliament, televised for all to see.
The trouble with MMP is it has allowed an increasing number of these people to be unaccountable. They don't have electorates, they don't knock on doors and, as it turns out, they don't have any sort of record to talk about when they leave.
The leaving is the other part. A number of them are swept in, and therefore out, on the whim of the political tide.
Watch out post-election as literally dozens of labour MP's who got a job they never thought they would get, lose that job in October. They have to traipse back to the capital to pack up their office and work out what they do next.
The ones we have seen this week have largely been the ones who already know they are toast, or the ones who leave under a kind of cloud.
Stuart Nash is one of those.
It's sad it ended the way it did. If you heard the speech you can't doubt his love for the job and you can't doubt his dedication to the work and the portfolios.
His speech was good, not only in its wording and delivery but also because he had something to say.
He said it was time judges were held to a greater account. Who, apart from the biggest of judicial apologists, could possibly argue with that?
He listed the things he had done. I noted in the two other speeches I saw, Kerekere and Strange, the list was absent. So the question remains - just what is it you did?
Is there a marker at all, anywhere that will show or preserve your presence?
The irony was this week we also had Steven Joyce in the studio as he released his book called 'On The Record'.
Forget your politics, forget whether you ever voted for the John Key Government. What you cannot argue with is the record.
Joyce, like Nash, has a list.
You can tell they were there. There are things, decisions, actions and outcomes that the record shows that they turned up and actually did something.
The only valedictory I ever actually went to was David Lange's. Now that was worth the price of entry and represented a time of real contribution.
The contrast between Lange and what we have seen this particular season is a different game. The real contributors are few and far between.
I don't think we are better for it.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
The trouble with MMP is it has allowed an increasing number of these people to be unaccountable. They don't have electorates, they don't knock on doors and, as it turns out, they don't have any sort of record to talk about when they leave.
The leaving is the other part. A number of them are swept in, and therefore out, on the whim of the political tide.
Watch out post-election as literally dozens of labour MP's who got a job they never thought they would get, lose that job in October. They have to traipse back to the capital to pack up their office and work out what they do next.
The ones we have seen this week have largely been the ones who already know they are toast, or the ones who leave under a kind of cloud.
Stuart Nash is one of those.
It's sad it ended the way it did. If you heard the speech you can't doubt his love for the job and you can't doubt his dedication to the work and the portfolios.
His speech was good, not only in its wording and delivery but also because he had something to say.
He said it was time judges were held to a greater account. Who, apart from the biggest of judicial apologists, could possibly argue with that?
He listed the things he had done. I noted in the two other speeches I saw, Kerekere and Strange, the list was absent. So the question remains - just what is it you did?
Is there a marker at all, anywhere that will show or preserve your presence?
The irony was this week we also had Steven Joyce in the studio as he released his book called 'On The Record'.
Forget your politics, forget whether you ever voted for the John Key Government. What you cannot argue with is the record.
Joyce, like Nash, has a list.
You can tell they were there. There are things, decisions, actions and outcomes that the record shows that they turned up and actually did something.
The only valedictory I ever actually went to was David Lange's. Now that was worth the price of entry and represented a time of real contribution.
The contrast between Lange and what we have seen this particular season is a different game. The real contributors are few and far between.
I don't think we are better for it.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
I often wonder how much better NZ would have fared, if labour had just stayed home in bed and so done/wasted nothing.
They have achieved so little and wasted so much of NZs future.
'Gone for a generation'... as Sir Bob Jones predicts, along with 20% on the big day. That gives me the strength to forge on.
Agreed Kevn. And someone, somewhere could make a list of all the wasted projects and millions/billions over the last 6 years. It would be enough to make all the grown men cry, and all the women to wail and weep.
I'm not planning to vote for National as I can see that they just want more of what they had last time including rampant house prices. I'm voting for a small party for a more thinking NZ.
MC
I can appreciate your sentiments MC, but you're wasting your vote, unless you are certain that small party is going to have a voice in the next Govt. Something will be very wrong if National don't make it, just ensure someone is there to keep them honest and give them a backbone. Willis, on The Platform, when questioned on identity politics the other day showed precisely how National are lacking any kind of moral honesty and fortitude. Just like her 'don't rock the boat' gutless leader.
Post a Comment