Nandor Tanczos
Politics
Low signal to noise
by Jane Clifton
It’s how you play the game in the parliamentary arena that counts.
Two righteous and bracing contributions were made to politics in the past week: Nandor Tanczos bashing his wristwatch to death with a hammer in the debating chamber, and Nicky Hagar outing a bunch of Aussie hucksters as National’s campaign advisers. Nandor, making his farewell speech to Parliament, was demonstrating he was no longer under the inane yoke of the division bells – although the destruction of a perfectly functional and presumably recyclable manufactured product was probably highly offensive to Gaia.
He also decried the bean-fest that is Parliament’s daily Question Time, saying it was the thing that made him the most ashamed to be an MP. Given that he’s a Green MP, whom you’d expect to be most ashamed by Parliament’s lack of action to save the planet, this was a stunningly strong condemnation.
Nicky, lobbing his triennial hand grenade into the election campaign, was guilty of less novelty. National’s relationship with serrated-toothed consultants Crosby Textor is one of the worst-kept secrets in politics. But he pulled together a worrying picture of the company’s tactics overseas and posed a fair question: if a party is prepared to consort with people who have employed sly mischief like push-polling, does it deserve to be elected?
Both political activists are above reproach in their diligence and motivation. What they say is undeniably true. Parliamentary life is full of inanities, and some political strategists appear to have been pimps in a previous life, only half-heartedly reincarnated.
But the reason Nandor and Nicky have, in the great scheme of things, limited tangible effect on policies or elections is that their central mission is to take the politics out of politics. It’s politics they dis-approve of, and, alas, politics is ineradicable.
Politics is rooted firmly in human nature – in all its glories and depravities. Even children do politics. By the time they’re teens, they’re on a par with Peter Mandelson at manipulation and half-truths.
Humouring one’s spouse, tactfully neglecting to tell one’s parents about one’s terrifying overdraft and participating in bitch sessions about the boss – these are the politics of everyday life. We can hardly expect people to stop practising it if they get elected.
The meek may inherit the earth, but till that great day comes, the only thing the Nickys and Nandors will be able to do is nag the rest of us.
Take Question Time.
Having covered this afternoon fixture for mumble-mumble years, I admit it drives me nuts, too. Sometimes I think we should just move out and leave it to the sports reporters. “It’s a penalty point-of-order for Winston … No, no, wait … the Speaker’s rising. The point’s been disallowed! Oh, what an upset! Egregious! So now the Prime Minister is padding up, and it’s a googly from the Leader of the Opposition … and the crowd goes wild!”
In all honesty, you don’t get much of a debate in that mad interval between 2.00pm and 3.30pm. A dubious factoid or two gets booted about, and that’s about it. The rest of it is noise.
Ministers seldom answer questions in good faith and with all the relevant information they could marshall to inform the House, because it doesn’t suit them to have the whole truth come out. On the rare occasions when they do give a frank answer, it’s only because that frank answer blows the Opposition’s case against them. At which point the Opposition accuses them of lying – the accusation itself a lie.
The questions are often inept, or coined for showing-off purposes. Points of order are almost always spurious, especially when raised by Winston, who regards them as a licit platform to boast about his personal record in Government. The standard of humour, save for when Michael Cullen is eviscerating someone, is feeble.
The group reactions – booing or cheering – run the gamut from ovine to bovine. And if Trevor Mallard keeps up the high-volume forced laughter he’s been going in for lately, he’ll break his ribs and get carried out on a stretcher.
But as the Speaker ceaselessly points out, no one can make ministers answer questions. You can’t force a person to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is hardly the end of the world. Thanks to the Official Information Act and the preponderance of leaking, the truth tends to dribble forth eventually, revealing the minister to have been mendacious at Question Time.
And that, perversely, is the real value and purpose of Question Time. It’s where we judge the players, not where we get the facts. Who is clever, who is tough, who cuts corners, who acts in good faith, who is dignified, who’s an oaf? It’s a testing ground. And, again perversely, the few MPs who engage without succumbing to the baser humanity prevailing in there can have their reputations enhanced.
Green MPs Jeanette Fitzsimons and Sue Bradford shine because they ask serious, genuine questions and resist the urge to subside in a sulk when, inevitably, they don’t get serious, genuine answers. They know it’s only a showcase, and the real work is done out of the public eye.
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