Things are getting weird on the campaign trail – and the campaign hasn’t started yet.
John Banks, photo Michelle Hyslop/The Aucklander
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that there’s something hallucinogenic in this year’s spring pollen. University students are protesting against more freedom, the leader of the most conservative political party wants to decriminalise pot and the Rugby Union is threatening to pull the All Blacks out of the next Rugby World Cup. It really is the perfect delusional climate in which to enter an election campaign.
At least the novelty gets us through the worst of the election-year clichés: the brow-smiting about the Government’s end-of-session use of urgency, and the legal Punch-and-Judy about whose ugly hoardings have gone up too early, are unauthorised or, most shamingly of all, have been airbrushed. The bald truth about urgency is that governments of all stripes have been abusing it for the past three decades. The present Government is probably ahead on points – but that’s just a continuation of the rising curve.
The great fallacy about urgency is that it leads to poorer legislation. Actually, Parliament is perfectly capable of passing poor legislation at its normal, glacial pace. All urgency does is allow them to pass it without weeks and weeks off between periods of deliberation. It’s possible that forcing MPs to concentrate on a bill in one long go, without distractions, makes for better legislation. But not likely; let’s not get carried away. The present chorus of sanctimony about urgency has been enlivened no end by the fact it’s being used to pass retrospective legislation, without proper scrutiny by a select committee. That’s three cardinal sins against parliamentary propriety in one go. Someone should check Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s blood pressure.
It’s undeniable that retrospective legislation offends the spirit of our justice system, and politicians especially detest it because often as not, it’s needed because one of them made a serious boo-boo, and this legal turning back of time is the only way to get their arse out of a sling. That’s certainly the case with the iffy law surrounding the police’s ability to use covert video surveillance. It turns out that the bill, bits of which the Government is now hastily ripping out in order to pass it under urgency, should have been passed a year or so ago. It had been through a select committee and everything was all set. But Labour made difficulties about a few aspects of it, and suddenly the whole thing looked too hard, so it was quietly shoved down the queue.
All this happened despite an explicit warning from the Law Commission that the surveillance issue needed tidying up. No one in National is owning up to being the big wuss who decided that having a barney with Labour about human rights and police powers was too scary. The bill was Simon Power’s, but decisions about these things tend to be taken collectively by senior ministers. The upshot is that this notoriously risk-averse Government is now having a barney with Labour about human rights, police powers and abuse of Parliament, shoddy law-making and its own incompetence, on the eve of the election campaign. Well done, ministers.
Even so, it pays to take the piety about lack of select-committee scrutiny with a pinch of salt. Parliament is perfectly capable of passing botched legislation after the longest, most exhaustive select-committee scrutiny – even, dare one say it, because of that scrutiny. Despite Sir Geoffrey’s best intentions as the architect of the select-committee system, the brutal fact remains that governments have the power to pass whatever laws they wish, despite the recommendations of these committees. Usually they have the numbers on the committee to dictate the recommendations, and if not, they have the numbers in the House to ignore anything that doesn’t suit. The committee process has the merit of forcing MPs to consider the views of experts and concerned members of the public, but it’s still the Government’s call in the end.
At the time of going to press, it was by no means clear whether this particular botch-job would pass in a hurry or be held over for the next sitting so MPs might get it wrong at their leisure, because – and this is the only truly novel aspect of the whole fiasco – the Government for once might not have the numbers. Doubtless the Prime Minister will declare the Government “relaxed” either way. Because he knows the only numbers that really count are those awarded by voters on election day, and on present indications, National has little to worry about.
National’s long-time conundrum about whether it’s best off helping keep its handiest coalition mate, Act, fattened up by tossing it a seat, or ridding itself of a vote rival by cutting it off, is being resolved – by the curious expedient of the leader of that party re-enacting Mr Bean at every turn. Not only has Don Brash gobsmacked his party by campaigning to decriminalise marijuana, without so much as an FYI text in advance to Act’s key candidate, John Banks (whose blood pressure needs attention, too), but he has managed to lose every single sitting MP. This is beyond careless. Now that even the stoical anchor of that storm-tossed caucus, John Boscawen, has announced he has worn his last lamington, we really need to demand proof of life.
Even if Act survives via a win in Epsom, the portents are dire. Banks and Brash have had their first serious policy rift before the election campaign has even started. Most ominously, Brash, seeking to assure everyone he wasn’t out to blindside his candidate, has described Banks as “a very close friend!” We all remember what happened to that other very close friend, Rodney Hide.
At first blush, appealing to the stoner vote might seem quite smart, for marijuana use is one of those special single-issue hot buttons, and could be a vote-mobiliser. But for Act? The law-and-order party? Brash’s call might chime with the party’s libertarian underpinnings, but it could hardly conflict more hilariously with his constant exhortations to New Zealanders to become more productive, less self-indulgent and to thrustingly embrace our global opportunities. Perhaps he envisages a sort of Bill Clinton compromise: we can have our dak, provided we promise faithfully not to inhale.
Eerily, now the hoardings are starting to go up, it appears many candidates for this election are on something rather too strong, even if only laxatives or worm medicine. As with passport photos, hardly anyone looks any good on an election hoarding. And if they do, it’s usually because they’ve been digitally enhanced. And anyway, some creep will always visit in the night and add a moustache or a rude body part, or simply take an axe to the whole thing and plant your giant, beaming face in the mud.
Surely to goodness no one ever voted for a candidate on the strength of seeing his or her hoarding. More likely these eyesores present a good reason not to vote for the person if they look smarmy or shifty, which is the usual range of expression. The only reason parties persist with these horrors is for name-recognition – itself an admission that the candidate has not done enough work locally to be familiar to voters, which in some cases can only be an advantage.
The worst are those in which the candidate is partnered by the leader, especially when – as with John Key these days – the leader is in a popular phase. What is this trying to tell us? “Look, I support my leader!”? Or “Look, my leader supports me!”? This should go without saying. Or is it a power-enhancing ploy? “Look, I’m so important, my leader wants to appear on my hoardings!”? This won’t wash either. Thanks to Photoshop, the lowliest candidates can get an All Black, Elvis or Sirocco the amorous kakapo to “pose” with them. It’s simply another creepily insincere ruse to spread whatever glamour the leader has around the ill-favoured.
The coincidence of the Rugby World Cup makes us see these hoardings through visitors’ eyes, and all power to the Auckland Council for trying to eradicate them from tourist spots. A better reform would be to ban them – though we might have to have retrospective legislation to suspend the ban should Richie or Dan ever run for Parliament.