An Honourable Dick: In the week of Campbell Live’s demise, Richard Harman’s (above) career-long refusal to “have” the politicians [by becoming a spin-doctor] should, surely, be taken as a vote of confidence in honest witnesses (i.e. good journalists) everywhere.
ANDREW DEAN, the twenty-something author of Roger, Ruth and Me, offered a
particularly acute response to the TVNZ reporter who asked him if he intended
to go into politics. Dean, who subtitled his book about growing up under the
influence of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, “Debts and Legacies”, thought about
the question for a few moments and then replied: “I don’t think politics would
have me.”
How right he was – and is. There are some people whose
approach to the great issues of the day is so heterodox, so untethered to the
usual ideological suspects, that in the unlikely event of them ever finding
their way into “mainstream” politics, they would very quickly be chewed up and
spat out. Sometimes the best you can hope to be is an honest witness.
Author of Roger, Ruth and Me, Andrew Dean: "I don't think politics would have me."
In a week when memories of the events in Dean’s book (like
Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of All Budgets”) have been at the top of many aging
journalists’ minds, it was astonishing how little of substance the Leader of
the Opposition had to say in response to Bill English’s effort.
Much of the blame for Labour’s woeful performance belongs to
Andrew Little himself, but it is also true to say that he was not well served
by his advisers. The people in the Leader of the Opposition’s Office should not
have been taken by surprise by English’s token gestures towards child poverty.
The parliamentary complex is a veritable vortex of rumour and gossip, and the
capital city outside rustles with secrets like a hedgehog among autumn leaves.
Opposition staffers should never be surprised by anything a government does –
not if they (and their spies) are doing their job!
It’s difficult to imagine Helen Clark and her
Chief-of-Staff, Heather Simpson, being surprised by the contents of a National
Party Budget. Both women boasted extensive networks of friends, allies and
informants, and seldom found themselves without a number to call. And, if the
worst happened, and their networks couldn’t supply the needed information, they
could always rely upon Clark’s excellent Press Secretary, the highly-experienced
Press Gallery journalist, Mike Munro, to fill in the gaps.
About three weeks ago, another highly-experienced
journalist, Richard Harman, was delivering a speech to the NZ Fabian Society on
the importance of effective political communication to electoral success. Like
Mike Munro, Richard Harman was one of the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s “bigfeet”,
a now dwindling breed of journalists who knew everyone and could find out just
about anything. Indeed, the Labour Prime Minister, David Lange, included Harman
among the “Three Dicks” (Richard Griffin of Radio New Zealand, Richard Long of The Dominion and Richard Harman of TVNZ)
without whose cooperation no political message could be guaranteed to make it
through to the voters. It would be interesting to know how many staff from the
Leader of the Opposition’s Office turned out to hear Harman speak.
Harman, you can be sure, would never have left Andrew Little
flicking over blank pages as he struggled to find anything remotely sensible to
say in response to the Budget speech with which Bill English had just ambushed
him. Interestingly, Harman, now back in the Gallery for his “Politik” blog, was
one of the very few journalists to flag the possibility of English doing
something interesting with social assistance in the Budget.
All of which raises the rather obvious question: “Why didn’t
Little invite Harman to be Labour’s Communications Director?” After all, with
his production company “Front Page” no longer producing The Nation, Harman was at something of a loose end.
The answer, probably, is that Labour knew Harman wouldn’t accept
the position. The former TVNZ Political Editor is very much “old school” when
it comes to crossing the line from journalism to spin-doctoring; arguing that
by agreeing to spin for a political party, a journalist instantly devalues
everything he or she has ever written on the subject of politics.
Which is, in its way, reassuring (even if Harman would
easily have equalled Munro in terms of effectiveness!) It also takes us right
back to the beginning of this discussion; to Andrew Dean’s shrewd observation
that “I don't think politics would have me”.
In the week of Campbell
Live’s demise, Richard Harman’s career-long refusal to “have” the
politicians should, surely, be taken as a vote of confidence in honest
witnesses (i.e. good journalists) everywhere.
A version of this
essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 27 May 2015.
