Peter Carr
As the weeks rush by we hurtle towards a national election.
There is huge unrest politically, socially and economically and the various (can they be trusted) polls all have a material common theme with Labour and National hovering at around 35 per cent, Greens and ACT in the 8 to 10 range with NZ First and the Māori Party in that uncomfortable less-than-5-per-cent threshold.
Mainstream parties have been going through their national conferences – in election year Labour somewhat strangely label their gathering as a ‘congress’. It’s not necessarily aligned with ‘congruous’ although they possibly would wish it to be so. All are thundering their feelings from the microphone adorned lectern either in slamming the policies of the opposition or perhaps even announcing something serious that they want to achieve post-October.
The party faithful lap it up, the balloons pop, the raunchy music blares and the soggy sandwiches are consumed as though food has not been seen for weeks. The mayors of the host cities rub their hands at the increase in hospitality income and then everyone scatters to the four winds to await the media scrum’s postmortem on the laboured utterings from the stages.
Regardless of your political persuasion I think that we are all of one mind in accepting that the country has several problems which collectively come together to give a perception of a big muddle economically and socially. A health industry that has a problem announcing that there is a crisis, new housing developments well behind the planned target, ministers of the Crown scattering – or being pushed – to the four winds and a likely lottery as to how that U-shaped seating plan on the TV will be coloured by early November. And will ACT sit on the cross benches?
Unlikely bed mates may have to share the same sheets – metaphorically at least – for early advances by parties to tango together may have been rebuffed too soon in the process. And layered over all this is the mess associated with the current census where over 60,000 residents have not attempted to complete the requisite record. Even with tantalising promises of hot and deep-fried high cholesterol food – or tickets to the Warriors – this latter telling you how the census organisers view those who have not bothered to undertake a very simple civic duty. Now call me churlish if you will but nobody offered me any goodies, of belly-filling consumption or sporting seat type, to fill in the papers that I dutifully sent into the nice people who run the huge databases that are being compiled. Somewhere well in excess of $100 million above the budget has been spent to attempt to coerce recalcitrant form completers.
Somewhere this mess is immoral. Looking at my trusty Oxford dictionary I see that perhaps this inaction by those 60,000 – who could not care less – is possibly construed as amoral which is defined as being unconcerned whether something is right or wrong. Jack Tame on Sunday morning tried to get the minister in charge of the census debacle to fall on her sword, but she forgot to bring it to the TV studio.
