Penn Raine: Snitching it altogether

Remember back in primary school when the goody-goods and the cry-babies were often the same people?  Mystifyingly beloved by the teachers their MO was a cunning blend of ruthlessness and manipulation as they honed their skills to become the school snitches.

I’ve always supposed that snitches are either frantic for validation or are malicious troublemakers. Or both. Last week’s leaking of Coalition policy drafts to the media have originated almost certainly in relevant Ministries where resentment of the tribe’s October loss continues to simmer. You’d think that the shadow of the knife that must be hanging over some of those bloated bodies would give malice and pride some pause when imagining how little pleased a Minister might be to discover the owners of the exact computers whence sprang the leaks.

 

Or perhaps not. The last six years have embedded entitlement and grievance so deeply into the psyche of Wellington’s apparatchiks that even as they work to demonstrate how unsuited they are to the positions entrusted in them, they likely think that they are part of a fine and honourable resistance. Like Hamas.

 

On Sunday Act’s State of the Nation event was held at the Royal NZ Yacht Club and David Seymour gave his address immediately beneath the glinting silver of the Auld Mug. Make what you will of the symbolism.

 

He quipped that most of the week’s leaks had involved Act policy docs thus reminding us that your enemy’s weaknesses will most likely be the platform on which he most vigorously attacks you.

 

Seymour’s speech never deviated for 45 minutes from the relevant and interesting.  He talked about the things his audience care about: the strangling regulations around running a business, getting houses built.  About how the Three Strikes law will be revived, and Three Waters will not. The discussion around Te Tiriti was mentioned but not laboured. No pun intended. 

 

The packed venue was reminded of NZ’s sliding education standards and how partner schools would be re-established to benefit the children who needed them most. He was applauded for stating that Act wanted to encourage more responsible behaviour as seen, for example in getting children to go to school. With a lunch.

 

However, most comment worthy was that his speech lacked both insult and hyperbole. Goodness knows the last six years has given the opposition many, oh many, chances to smear, satirise and scorch Labour, TPM and the Greens. But no one was called a racist or a bigot. No cheap jibes were made about drunk driving, freedom shopping or bizarrely conferred honours.

 

And in a political environment where the snitch and the crybully have asserted their moral right to be indulged, it was a rare privilege to hear a politician sound so, well, Prime Ministerial.

 

Penn Raine is an educator and writer who lives in NZ and France.