Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

To tell the truth, I’ve never much liked Act leader Rodney Hide. He comes across as a smug little bastard with an overly developed sense of his own importance. I agree that this label could be attached to probably 90 per cent of MPs, but at least none of them attempted to turn a yellow pastel blazer into some sort of election statement. Fashion crimes aside, there are a whole lot of reasons for my dislike of the Member from Epsom.

Partly my dislike was immediate. I’m not a great fan of obese people in general (and I don’t care whether it is ‘genetic’ or ‘hormone-related’). I well remember Mr Hide’s early ‘perk-busting’ days, when he was a corpulent and strident lap dog seeking to emulate Parliament’s original and most frightening canine – Mad Dog Prebble.

He was clearly a good student but it was all so superficial. When all was said and done he came in yelping about snouts at the public trough, and then slowly but surely started inserted his own proboscus into the available tucker. Prebble could get away with all sorts of behaviour in my view because at the end of the day, he at least had a basic respect for the institution of Parliament. Rodney has never developed that saving grace.

Partly, and this is not something I like to admit, it’s just him. I’ve heard too much. And regardless of whether any of it is true or not, the unfortunate fact is that I personally perceive that he could be capable of, whatever. That’s enough for me.

Partly my dislike has been driven by pure intellectual snobbery (I’ve got a Masters degree so this entitles me to judge the academic achievements of others). I tutored in politics and I’ve always thought that anyone who truly believes in the ‘New Right’ philosophy was taking the intellectual low road. This is not to cast aspersions on the contributions of Hegel, Nietzsche and co. to historical philosophic discourse but in the hands of someone like Rodney Hide the level of debate always took a dive into ‘shallow and arbitrary’ territory. I simply cannot understand how otherwise rational human beings can formulate economic policies based on the notion of the rational human being, let alone accepting that the most effective mechanism to determine everything from educational options to resource allocations is ‘the market’. What a crock!

The ‘New Right’ was a product of its time, just as the writings of Nietzsche and others were products of theirs. When the economists got hold of it, a proud and noble philosophy was quickly reduced to mere bagatelle status. However, I would like to register an exception to my general antipathy towards the neophytes of the New Right: Roger Douglas. His contribution to the transformation of New Zealand’s social, economic and political landscape has possibly been without parallel in New Zealand’s history. Regardless of what one remembers of the tragedy of dislocation and hardship that his reforms brought to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders (mainly but by no means exclusively Labour supporters), Douglas fervently believed in his mission. He lived and breathed it, and even died by it (although his Lazarus-like return to Parliament reminds me of the final chapter in Muhammed Ali’s boxing career – when you still remembered his glory days, but prayed that you wouldn’t have to witness the ‘great man’ taking another beating).

But, I hear my two faithful readers ask, your dislike is all based on things that happened in the past, in Opposition. Rodney’s ‘in government’ now so shouldn’t he be deserving of some reassessment, perhaps even rehabilitation? Well, to be sure he has showed some nerve in holding out against calls for special seats to be created for Maori around the supercity table. I agree with that call. Yes, the record of Maori in local government representation is dismal. I suggest that can be put down to a few factors. First, Maori have even worse voter turnout figures than us whities. As an aside its worth noting that the number of Maori elected to school boards of trustees is similarly abysmal – even when the voting population is predominantly Maori. So clearly, being Maori is no guarantee that other Maori will automatically support you.

Second, perhaps those Maori who do decide to contest local body elections are just not all that electable. In other words, its not about race at all. Full face tattoos and/or general belligerence are just not all that appealing in an elected representative.

Third, Maori seats are more than likely going to end up becoming Labour or Maori party platforms, so their true ‘representativeness’ would always be suspect.

Anyway, the issue was always a bit of a sideshow and Rodney’s general approach to the whole super city debate has not given me any cause to change my general feeling of distaste for him or his ways.

I give him credit for his weight loss and aquatic adventures but let’s face it, he’s not the first guy to suffer a marriage breakdown and suddenly find a gym. And if I was going to be really cruel, and why shouldn’t I be, I’d have to point out that there appears to be a bit of an ‘expansion of form’ slowly taking shape. That’s what getting a girlfriend does for you. You let yourself go, again.

But Rodney’s most revealing action and the one that confirmed for me that I was right all along, was when he voted in support of lifting the freeze on members eligibility for 90 per cent travel subsidies. The perk-buster became perk-snuffler. I don’t care what Rodney does. He could cure cancer, end all wars and solve the Palestinian question. Any of those would be great. But he’d still be a bloody hypocrite. And I’d still not much care for him.