New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

12 LISTENER NOVEMBER 5 2016

Most of us get a large signed card and a cake, and

our colleagues at least pretend to be sorry when we

resign. Departing politicians get a protracted and

inconclusive version of the final scene in a Poirot

mystery.

First comes frenzied speculation that, as it’s

utterly unfounded, can never be answered. Did he

fall or was he pushed? Was there Another Man or A

Scarlet Woman? Has there been a massive ideologi-

cal schism in the caucus that he/she has lost? Is this

out of spite to force an embarrassing by-election?

Or is there a secret illness? A gambling addiction?

Perhaps he/she threw a hissy-fit because the Prime

Minister said they couldn’t be the next Foreign

Minister or high commissioner to London.

Then come the career obituaries. Some are

humanely crisp: good riddance; about bloody time.

Others are slyly rendered in code: he worked hard

but never really made his mark (plodder); she never

shied from polarising people (cow); he never

quite fulfilled his early promise (up

himself).

But perhaps the most wound-

ing elegy to the exiting MP is the

instantaneous calculation about

his or her replacement. This is

expressed internally as, “Me! Me!

Pick me!” Externally, pundits rifle

chin-strokingly through the caucus

middle order to ordain the new,

improved version of

oneself. It must be excruciating, the

more so as Parata – as with Simon

Power and Chris Tremain, to name

another couple of self-selecting

retirees – has made a rational and

admirable choice.

No one can do the job of being a

minister well while having a fully

functional, rounded and balanced

private life. Ministers have to sacrifice

family time, sleep, health and any

sense of personal serenity. They’re

hardly alone in the workforce there,

but they get exponentially more

public excoriation for their troubles.

Bowing out voluntarily before your

career has peaked is a rare but smart

decision, almost always made in

favour of having a life.

Parata has also, implicitly, admitted

she’s not the best person to imple-

ment education’s next phase of

voucher-style funding, decile

re-categorisation and e-learn-

ing – any one of which would

hospitalise most mortals.

UNPOLICED BRUTALITY

Still, education may not, as

is popularly believed, be

the most intractable

portfolio. It’s true

it has terminated

more senior

Cabinet careers than any other

ministerial job, but now it has a rival.

Who in their right mind would take

on Primary Industries when – perhaps

sooner rather than later – Nathan

Guy is determined to have Made His

Contribution?

This week’s new evidence of casual,

unpoliced brutality towards bobby

calves is just one of the ministry’s

colossal embarrassments of long

standing. September’s Heron Report

into MPI’s stewardship of illegal fish-

dumping was vintage Yes, Minister

only without being remotely amus-

ing. It showed officials knew existing

policy wasn’t working, but couldn’t

think how to make it work, except via

exemplary prosecutions, a course it

nevertheless decided against because

court cases would only underline

how much the policy wasn’t working.

That was despite having videoed

evidence of serious dumping – col-

lected on its behalf by the industry

doing the dumping – which it had

promised the industry in advance

wouldn’t be held against it. The

ministry seems to see itself as a benev-

olent adjunct to the industry, trying

gently to jolly it into not being too

naughty, rather than as the agency

charged with policing it.

Aren’t we lucky that the police

don’t go in for such “pilot schemes”,

and invite gang members to video

their own robberies and drive-bys,

say, in return for immunity from

prosecution? (Although admittedly,

this MPI-pioneered policy of self-non-

policing has been thriving in prisons.)

That it’s a fringe pro-vegan

organisation ferreting out the calf

P

erverse though it may seem,

there’s one thing worse than

losing one’s political career

unwillingly at the ballot box and

that’s choosing to go under one’s

own steam, as Education Minister Hekia

Parata is finding out.

POLITICS

Timing is everything when it comes to leaving Parliament.

Going, going, gone

JANE

CLIFTON

Minister Nathan Guy:

has he Made His

Contribution yet?

Departing politicians

get a protracted

version of the inal

scene in a Poirot

mystery.