Set And Setting: Was the Prime Minister's harassment of waitress, Amanda Bailey, a form of political punishment? The behaviour of right-wingers when confronted with left-wingers in "places where they don't belong" is often both punitive and confrontational.
DID THE PRIME MINISTER pull Amanda Bailey’s pony-tail
because her “strong political points of
view” conflicted with his own? (We know that Ms Bailey holds strong political
views because that information was passed on to the NZ Herald’s gossip columnist, Rachel Glucina, by her employers.)
Now, many New Zealanders will object that a waitress’s
political views cannot be used to justify prime-ministerial hair-pulling. They’re
right, of course, but I hope they’ll bear with me a little longer, because an
examination of the way powerful right-wingers behave in the presence of
left-wingers promises to recast John Key’s acknowledged misconduct in a new and
very interesting light.
Let me give you an example of the phenomena I’m describing
from my own experience. Some years ago, I was the guest of the French
Ambassador at his official residence in Thorndon. An hour or so after my
arrival, the Ambassador and his guests were joined by the former Prime Minister
of New Zealand, Jim Bolger. Spying me, Mr Bolger called out in a very loud
voice: “Good God, Trotter, when did they let you out of jail!”
"Good God, Trotter, when did they let you out of jail!" - Jim Bolger.
I took his “jest” in good part and joined in the rather
startled laughter of the other guests. But I did wonder how the former Prime
Minister would have responded had our positions been reversed. Would Mr Bolger
have openly challenged the misbehaviour of a person holding such elevated
political rank? Or would he, like me and Ms Bailey, have let the indiscretion
(or, in the case of the Parnell waitress, the first of many indiscretions)
pass?
Jim Bolger, the blunt King Country cocky and son of
impoverished Irish settlers, may well have returned fire without inhibition, I
simply don’t know. What did intrigue me, however, was the former National
Party leader’s motivation. Quite simply, I believe it was shock. Encountering a
well-known left-winger in what, to Mr Bolger, must have seemed the most
unlikely of settings, can only have been profoundly surprising.
And, perhaps, just a little affronting. Because the presence
of a person holding views so radically at odds with his own was likely received
by Mr Bolger in the same way as a soldier on neutral ground would respond to
the presence of a soldier from an enemy army. One can no longer speak freely,
for fear of giving away important secrets. One’s behaviour, too, must be
carefully controlled – lest the enemy be given an opportunity for ridicule or
reproof.
Was this how Ms Bailey’s presence at Rosie’s Café, in
upmarket Parnell, was perceived by the Prime Minister and his right-wing
supporters from the neighbourhood? Did they fear that their “fun and games” and
“horseplay” were being silently judged by this left-wing waitress? Had she
overheard them saying things that might – if taken out of context – have
sounded just a little bit racist, sexist or homophobic? And wasn’t that just a
little bit unfair? That John Key, his wife Bronagh, and their friends and
neighbours, couldn’t let their hair down and speak freely without every word
and action being recorded and used as evidence by this young
thought-policewoman?
It may not even have been conscious on Mr Key’s part. His
fondness for dangling tresses is now well attested in the photographic and
video record. But it’s also possible that the urge to tug Ms Bailey’s ponytail
was driven by the same feelings that prompted Mr Bolger to put me so firmly in
my place at the French ambassador’s residence.
The New Zealand Right has always had huge difficulty in
accepting the Left’s socio-political legitimacy (and it’s by no means alone in
this). Throughout the Cold War, self-identifying as a left-winger was
tantamount to acknowledging high treason in the eyes of many National
supporters. Trade unionists, particularly, were received with venomous
hostility by National, which “made its bones” as a conservative political party
by brutally enforcing the great Waterfront Lockout of 1951.
But the Cold War isn’t the sole explanation. The New Zealand
Right’s hatred of the Left predates the onset of the Cold War by several
decades – extending all the way back to the strike-breaking actions of the
Reform Party government of William Massey. It has also survived the Right’s
victory in the Cold War. To declare oneself a person of the Left, even in the
twenty-first century, is to define oneself as not-quite-fit for polite company:
“Good God, Trotter, when did they let you out of jail!”
With each tug of Ms Bailey’s “tantalising” pony-tail, was
the Prime Minister sending a very similar message of “light-hearted” political
disapproval? Was he telling her: ‘You really shouldn’t be here, but, since you
are, it’s only fair that you join in (even unwillingly) all the “horseplay”,
all the “fun-and-games”, in which the other wait-staff at Rosie’s Café happily
engage.’?
What’s the matter, Amanda? Can’t you take a joke?
This essay was
originally published in The Press of
Tuesday, 28 April 2015.
