Caleb Anderson: Are our politicians really accountable?

I suspect that I am not alone in feeling that our politicians are not accountable in the ways many other New Zealanders are accountable, or in a way that many of us would consider truly, genuinely, accountable.

The refrain that they are accountable at the ballot box doesn't quite cut it.

Chris Hipkins' disparaging comments this week on phase two of the Covid Inquiry have two obvious intentions:

1. To undermine the inquiry

2. To provide him with a get out of jail free card when his performance during the covid years has inevitably found him wanting.

New Zealand is in a mess because countless Prime Ministers, of both persuasions, with their hapless governments, have failed to read the room, to draw the line, to tell the truth, and to be courageous.

What about standing for principle, no matter what?

The divisions and tensions so manifest across New Zealand society, including the unrelenting fracturing along tribal lines (I mean tribal with both a capital and lowercase "t"), and the wholesale denigration of truly decent and hard working people, can be largely laid at the feet of those who should have known better, and who, in spite of having the power to do so, failed to:

1. Do what they promised to do before election

2. Anticipate (and subsequently own) the downstream effects of the compromises they were willing to make

There is barely a thing we struggle with now that could not have been anticipated by anyone with a modicum of knowledge of human nature, of what people do when they have the opportunity, and of the lessons of history.

MMP has delivered many blows, but one of the most egregious is the gold plated excuse that parties are constrained by their coalition partners and so compromise is inevitable, and in fact necessary.

When is compromise a convenient euphemism for lying?

The big concern now is that a growing number of people are losing faith in the people and the parties we elect. Promises are made and seldom delivered.

This is a dangerous place to be.

We are frequently lied to, or the truth is spun, same thing, and the media is generally happy to perpetuate and augment these lies when it suits their agendas.

I think it is time to send a message to our political masters that they ARE accountable (media too), and the covid phase two inquiry is a chance to drive this message home.

I can think of numerous Prime Ministers over many years, and their willing stooges, who exited politics for lucrative post-politics careers ... their legacy is, in part, the mess we face today.

It's a bit of an old fashioned idea, but I kind of think there should be consequences for lying, not rewards. And let's remember that lying is as much the omission of truth as it is the telling of an outright lie.

Lying is an indictable offence in the United States. Three presidents (Johnson, Clinton and Trump) were all removed briefly from office while being investigated for lying under oath ... before being acquitted by the Senate.

Maybe the second phase of the covid inquiry is a start. I suspect many of us will hope so.

Or is that just too much to hope for?

Maybe we have become so conditioned to the trading off of truths that we have ceased to notice.

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.