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| “That’s the sort of constitutional reform he favours: conceived in secret; revolutionary in intent; implemented incrementally without fanfare; and under no circumstances to be placed before the electorate for democratic ratification.” |
TO SAY IT WAS RAINING would have understated seriously the meteorological conditions. Simply put, it was pissing down. One of those cloudbursts that causes people, having reached shelter, to slam the door behind them as if they’d just run the full length of no man’s land without being hit.
That, at least, was the look on Les’s face as, trailing rainwater behind him, he made his way to the bar.
“Laurie’s already got them in, Les”, said Hannah, staring despairingly at the growing pool Les’s greatcoat was dripping onto the pub’s just mopped floor, “He’s waiting for you in the corner.”
From their usual table, Laurie nodded in recognition and gestured grandly at the two glasses of ale standing before him.
“It’s not fit for man or beast out there!” Les exclaimed, hanging his sodden greatcoat over the back of the nearest empty chair. “Honestly, when the weather’s like this, I really miss the days when everyone drove to the pub.”
“Long gone, mate. And a good thing, too.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Even so.”
“Otherwise alright?”
“Fantastic!” Les’s glum expression belied his affirmation. “At least it would be if we didn’t have my bloody son-in-law staying with us.”
“Oh Lord! What’s brought David to town?”
“The usual. Some sort of workshop, seminar, hui – I’m not exactly sure which. Quite possibly all three at once. Of one thing I am sure, however. You and I, the long-suffering taxpayer, are footing the bill!”
“Is Allison with him?”
“Oh, yes, she likes to catch up with her Mum and Dad whenever she can. We look forward to it.”
“But not to Mr Political Correctness?”
“It’s just such hard work, Laurie. I’ve got to be so careful what I say. Sitting at the dinner-table last night I let slip something vaguely pro-Israeli, and for the next half hour we all had to endure David’s take on the United Nations’ definition of genocide. I was about to offer him the much simpler definition of ‘Southern Israel, 7 October 2023’, but Rosemary shot me one of those ‘Don’t you dare!’ looks, so I bit my tongue and tried to look neutral.”
“Half-an-hour? Sounds to me as if you got off lightly. Didn’t you once say that David could give Fidel Castro a run for his money in the long speeches stakes?”
“Oh, don’t worry, he still can! You should have heard him waxing eloquent over the appointment of Steven Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner. To hear him tell it Rainbow’s the ideological love-child of Joseph Goebbels and Lavrentiy Beria! Had Rosemary’s watchful eyes not been on me I would have asked him how believing in Free Speech makes Rainbow a fascist. So, I contented myself with asking him whether his job at the Ministry was safe.”
“Oh boy!”
“You can say that again! I got a painful kick in the left ankle from Allison, and an even more painful one in the right from Rosemary. It was worth it though, just to see the look of displeasure on his face.”
“And is it safe? His job?”
“As houses, Laurie! People like David are never made redundant – for the very simple reason that it’s people like David who get to decide who stays and who goes. My question did, however, elicit a rather dark remark about this government not being allowed to serve more than a single term.”
“I rather thought that was our decision to make”, muttered Laurie. “As, you know, the voters.”
“Hah! David has a very low opinion of voters. Regards the overwhelming majority of them as an unsavoury collection of ignorant, sexist, transphobic white-supremacists and Zionists. If he could get away with it, I’m convinced he’d only allow those who demonstrated an ‘acceptable psychographic profile’ into the polling-booths.”
“Not a big fan of David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill, then?”
“No. But he knew a couple of the people who helped write the He Puapua Report. Went to varsity with them. That’s the sort of constitutional reform he favours: conceived in secret; revolutionary in intent; implemented incrementally without fanfare; and under no circumstances to be placed before the electorate for democratic ratification. David does not believe ‘decolonisation’ and ‘indigenisation’ are compatible with ‘majoritarian democracy’.”
“Jeez!” Laurie sighed. “When’s he flying back to Wellington?”
“Not soon enough, mate. Not soon enough!”
This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 30 August 2024.
3 comments:
Fiction, Chris? Seems more like documentary to me.
" I let slip something vaguely pro-Israeli, and for the next half hour we all had to endure David’s take on the United Nations’ definition of genocide."
I let slip something vaguely pro-Palestinian and was accused of supporting Hamas' war crimes. So maybe sauce for the goose?
One of the problems with using fiction as a vehicle for political opinion is the tendency to put forward populous misinformation under the cloak of story telling.
The issue about the appointment of Steven Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner is an example. It is a position with an independent but legislated role. Any appointment must be able to operate in accordance with the HRC Act and other relevant legislation. This requires adjudication and investigation of allegations of breach of of the Act. Rainbow had two comments highlighted, one in regard to Palestine the other could be interpreted as reflecting on trans people. It is not a matter of 'freedom of speech' as the factious L & L suggest on your behalf, or that Rainbow responded to himself. It is a matter of bias and confidence. Any responsible reading of the highlighted comments would show that the comments could not be concluded as showing sufficient bias for those sectors not to have confidence in his ability to enact the legislation in his role. It is my view that trying to make this a 'freedom of speech' issue undermines the position Rainbow has taken up. It draws the wrong picture of what his position is about, and the expectation in the job. If the agenda is to change the HRC focus, legislative change is required. I hope Mr Rainbow binds himself to the current legislation and is an effective Commissioner and will not to bow to those that believe that free speech does not come with responsibility.
Then there is the the He Puapua Report. It has taken a fictive place on this blog, so I will simply state - it is a discussion paper that was a result of the Key government signing on to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people. Having signed this, the NZ government was required to get advice on how the commitments as a signatory could be enacted. This fell to the Labour led government and He Puapua the discussion paper which addressed this. The rest in this blog is misinformation directed at the paranoid. I doubt it would feature heavily in a pub conversation with the aged boomers whispering inside information about the tertiary origins of the panel that wrote it.
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