Peter Carr
We live under and, and are surrounded by, at least three layers of political governance. Not necessarily in the political party sense of those layers but in their sheer ability to smother the populace with over-arching and restrictive rules.
That each of the three practice this form of dominant stupidity is not in question. It is the very nature of the beast where many involved, who have minimal experience in governance, attempt to quell and control the non-sensical urges of their professional staff members. And before I get slaughtered by them too – there is much history that has gone on before. We are not talking about dishonesty here but, in essence, a continuum of self-preservation leading to a morass of contradictory rules that take a great deal of time, cost and patience to unravel. And thus, the retention of their roles.
Peter Carr
But layered over all this mess is the over-arching need and dictum of absolute honesty. By the time you read this I imagine the furore drummed up by the media will have been raised, thundered and passed on to another mouth-watering snippet that keeps us glued to our TV screens or scanning the (sadly diminishing) offerings of the printed media.
I am referring here to the frank – and would like to think honest – utterings of the recently departed Police Commissioner who, in a very open and well-placed TV interview gave his views as to ‘who knew what and when’ That he personally revealed that a previous Police Minister (and later Prime Minister) knew more than he is willing to admit is for Joe Public to adjudge. All the political mea culpa warbling downstream from the Sunday morning interview (which totalled almost an hour) will not stop the chit-chat over drinks, morning teas and supermarket aisle exchanges.
The key word that layers over all of the foregoing is ‘integrity’. My ever-helpful Concise Oxford displays it as ‘the quality of having strong moral principles’. So, back to the Concise Oxford, where ‘moral’ is defined (inter alia) as ‘concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour…(and the plural) standards of behaviour, or principles of right and wrong…’
Note repetition of words that are quoted in both and judge for yourselves as the common court of opinion for you are all, collectively, the voters that put those governance grandees in place especially in the nation’s senior chamber. If you can put aside the non-sensical babbling across the floor of that debating forum you alone (or as a group) have to decide the boundary between right and wrong. If an elected person clearly denies being told a juicy morsel, what is he or she hiding?
What have they got to lose? Other than a very well-paid seat and eventual very good pension for those who stick with the waffle, intrigue and sheer time wasting that invariably spews out into the media – who often take their own explanatory pitch to attract readership. Even if it is clearly not totally true.
The News’ columnist Peter Carr catches up with Waipa councillor Mike Montgomerie at the Meet the Waipa CEO event held in the Town Hall. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
