Williamson does it again

Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson became the darling of the so-called liberals (I say “so-called” because people who like to think of themselves as liberal are often anything but) when he made a speech in Parliament ridiculing opponents of the same-sex marriage bill.

I wonder what those people think of their hero now, in the light of his puerile, oafish and sexist antics as MC at an information technology dinner – a performance that so embarrassed the host company that it emailed an apology to its guests.

The supposed champion of gay rights revealed himself as a childish sniggerer, happy to play for laughs at the expense of homosexuals. I wonder, will he be feted internationally for that, as he was for his “gay rainbow” speech? Somehow I doubt it.

His gig as MC confirmed – not that confirmation was needed – that Williamson is a buffoon and a compulsive showboater with the emotional intelligence of a fourth-form schoolboy. I wonder how long it will be before either the National Party or the voters of Pakuranga decide they’ve had enough and pull the pin.

Let's see what the opinion polls say

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, May 7.)

It is possible to be intelligent and a buffoon. Maurice Williamson is such a man.

He can’t be a complete thicko, because despite what people think about politicians, it’s hard to remain an MP for 27 years – and hold down several ministerial posts – without a modicum of intellect.

Besides, Williamson has a degree in computer science and applied mathematics. 

But there is intelligence and there is intelligence. There is the type of intelligence that enables people to get degrees in subjects that, to lesser beings like me, sound impossibly pointy-headed.

Then there is the type of intelligence that enables people to make sound judgments. It’s the type of intelligence that stops you from making a dick of yourself. It’s the little voice in your head that says, “Whoa! Don’t go there”.

There doesn’t seem to be any such voice in Williamson’s head. That makes him accident-prone – the type of politician who makes party leaders and whips feel nervous.

From time to time throughout his career, his propensity for saying things that were probably better left unsaid has got him into bother.

In 2003 he broke ranks by criticising the performance of the then National Party leader, Bill English. He may have been saying what other National MPs were thinking, but others held their tongues while Williamson sounded off. Predictably, he found himself isolated and was suspended from the party caucus.

In 2010 he made a lame, if harmless, after-dinner joke that offended Muslims. A more prudent politician, knowing how touchy religious minorities can be, would have resisted the temptation to play for a cheap laugh – especially when he represents a multicultural electorate such as Pakuranga, whose population is nearly 30 per cent Asian.

But that’s the sort of man Williamson is. He’s the class clown. He gives the impression that he just can’t help himself.

And sometimes, it must be said, this works to his advantage – never more so than when he gave his famous speech in Parliament ridiculing opponents of same-sex marriage.

That made him an unlikely international hero overnight, but to me it just confirmed that he can’t suppress the urge to show off. 

There was a less endearing side to that speech. Many of Williamson’s own constituents and party supporters would have opposed the same-sex marriage bill, for sincere and deeply felt reasons. But to Williamson, they were fair game for derision and mockery.

To me, that speech exposed him not only as someone who loves to be the centre of attention, but as a bigot in reverse – a man contemptuous of anyone who didn’t share his progressive views, and happy to have fun at their expense.

Given this background, it was no great surprise that Williamson had to resign his ministerial portfolios last week after he caused deep embarrassment to his party.

This was more than just another case of him shooting his mouth off. This time there was a serious moral dimension to his lack of judgment.

It’s hard to believe he could see nothing wrong in phoning a senior police officer about domestic violence charges faced by the wealthy businessman Donghua Liu, on whose behalf he had previously lobbied for citizenship.  

A drover’s dog could see that it screamed impropriety. Either Williamson’s political blind spot is even bigger than we imagined – so big, in fact, as to block out his vision entirely – or there was something more disturbing going on.

In an interview with TV3’s John Campbell, Williamson tried to distance himself from Liu but failed wretchedly. It turned out that Liu, on Williamson’s suggestion, had bought the house next door to his own holiday home at Pauanui, on the Coromandel Peninsula – and that Williamson had done work on the house for him and even used it himself.

Added to the revelation that Liu’s citizenship ceremony took place in Williamson’s electorate office, this made nonsense of his protestations that they weren’t really friends.

And the most damning aspect of all, of course, is that a company associated with Liu made a $22,000 donation to the National Party. 

Now, think about this. In the latest annual global corruption survey conducted by Transparency International, New Zealand and Denmark were rated the world’s most corruption-free countries.

That’s a status we should be proud of, and determined to protect. It sharply distinguishes us from Australia, where corruption is rampant. But I wonder how much longer we will be able to make that claim.

No one has alleged Williamson is corrupt, but appearances matter. It smells – there’s no other word for it – when a cabinet minister lobbies on behalf of a wealthy immigrant businessman and a generous donation subsequently turns up in party coffers.

The odour intensifies when the minister phones the police about their investigations into criminal charges against the businessman, pointing out to them that he’s an important investor in New Zealand.

This comes on top of the John Banks/Kim Dotcom scandal and the suspicions swirling around Justice Minister Judith Collins and her association with the Chinese company Oravida. Those controversies, too, involve wealthy business interests and generous donations.

I don’t accept that Collins has crossed the line in the way Williamson did, although there’s persuasive evidence of a conflict of interest. But the truly worrying thing is that there’s a pattern here.

In other countries, it has long been accepted that money is paid for political favours. In China, especially, corruption is part of the business and political landscape.

Now it’s starting to look as if that’s the way we do business here, too; that the government’s door is open to whoever produces a fat chequebook. But that’s not the New Zealand way, and nor do we want it to be.

This year’s election is National’s to lose. It’s said that elections are lost by governments rather than won by oppositions, and this government is looking increasingly tainted by its murky associations with wealthy business interests.

Prime minister John Key promptly cut Williamson loose, but I wonder if public distaste has passed the point where it can be neatly managed with the usual damage control strategies. The next opinion polls may tell us.

Buffoon of the week

Maurice Williamson is being lionised as some sort of international celebrity for his speech in Parliament in support of the same-sex marriage bill. He has become an improbable hero in the eyes of the media, which abandoned all semblance of professional impartiality on Louisa Wall’s legislation. (I say “improbable” because Williamson has been more whipping boy than poster boy for the media in the past. It’s just that on this occasion, his politics happened to align with those of most journalists.) But I see nothing to admire in Williamson’s grandstanding. On the contrary, I think it was a contemptible speech – contemptible because it mocked and ridiculed people who had merely exercised their right to express a view on the bill. That’s called democracy, a point apparently lost on the ego-tripping MP for Pakuranga. Democracy confers the right to hold unpopular, silly and even offensive views without being smugly derided and held up to contempt in Parliament. Others may regard Williamson as a hero, but he confirmed my impression that he’s a clown and a buffoon – and worse, a clown and a buffoon with no regard for the right of constituents to freely communicate their honestly held opinions to their elected representatives. And while he may boast of having a degree in physics, I’m curious to know how anyone could get to the age of 62 without learning how to pronounce the word celibacy. Thank God ministerial rules prevented him from accepting Ellen DeGeneres’ invitation to appear on her TV show. I shudder to think of the harm that might have been done to New Zealand’s reputation.

A Daihatsu society with BMW pretensions

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, September 28.)

SEAN Plunket wrote a thoughtful column in this paper last Saturday in which he contrasted the media coverage given to two events in Auckland: one a conference on offshore petroleum prospects, the other the annual Fashion Week extravaganza.

One event was about New Zealand’s economic future. The other was about frippery, goody bags and celebrities most of us have never heard of. Guess which event got more attention.

There is a much bigger issue here. The New Zealand economy is a crock. We haven’t paid our own way in the world – by that I mean earned more than we spent – since 1973. Our leaders talk optimistically about catching up with other OECD countries, notably Australia, but we’re steadily slipping further behind. Yet we continue to live as if in a fantasy world where we can afford to pamper ourselves with every self-indulgent excess that the consumerist economy dangles in front of us.

We consider it our right to enjoy a standard of living that our parents would never have dared dream of (even though, paradoxically, the country was far more wealthy in their time than it is now). We want to dine in the trendiest restaurants, drink the finest wines, holiday in the most exotic locations and live in the most lavish homes, but we don't want to vex ourselves wondering whether the economy is prosperous enough to sustain this lifestyle.

A whole new genre of “aspirational” magazines fosters a sense of entitlement. These glossies, along with a slew of hedonistic TV shows, are devoted to the proposition that we should imagine ourselves driving the finest European cars, living in houses created by the most fashionable architects and wearing whatever designer-label clothes are currently deemed de rigueur.

We have even created our own faux celebrity culture to promote the idea that we are sophisticated, cosmopolitan, racy and prosperous. Auckland’s Viaduct Basin is our pathetic little pretend Riviera, where frou-frou types guzzle Moët (though they can’t pronounce it) and jostle to get their pictures taken for the social pages.

Problem is, our wheezing economy cannot sustain such delusions. We are a Daihatsu society with BMW pretensions.

The ancient Romans had a phrase for all this: panem et circenses, or bread and circuses – the buying-off of the populace with showy distractions to keep their minds off more important matters. The difference is that in modern New Zealand, we don’t wait for our leaders to supply the bread and circuses. We do it ourselves.

* * *

HOW SAD that the New Zealand Federation of Islamic Associations is insisting on an apology from Building Minister Maurice Williamson for his after-dinner joke about Muslims and stoning.

It’s plain that no harm was meant. That should be the sole test of whether Mr Williamson should apologise.

But there’s more to it than that. Many Muslim immigrants come from repressive, authoritarian states, and it seems reasonable to assume that one of the factors that attracts them here is our reputation as a liberal democracy.

Free speech is a fundamental tenet of liberal western democracies, and freedom of speech includes the right to upset others. It’s a tradition without which free and open societies simply couldn’t function. (This newspaper wouldn’t exist, for a start.)

Muslims must accept that this is the way we operate. Free speech is part of the price they pay to live in a country that enjoys an unparalleled reputation for freedom and human rights. When they come here, they buy the package.

They should also come to terms with the idiosyncratic New Zealand sense of humour, which holds nothing sacred but is hardly ever malicious.

Perhaps most important of all, Muslims should realise that nothing is more likely to arouse resentment against them than the perception that having migrated here, they now insist on us modifying our behaviour to suit them.

* * *

I AM no fan of the Pope, nor of the creaking ecclesiastical bureaucracy that he represents, but I thought the British media allowed its anti-Catholic bias to get in the way of fairness and balance in its coverage of the recent papal visit.

Stories in advance of the visit were overwhelmingly negative. Anti-Catholic feeling remains strong in Britain, and nowhere more so than in the aggressively secular media. Most journalists in the liberal press clearly wanted the visit to fail, and did their best to ensure that outcome by focusing relentlessly on the clerical abuse scandal and playing up planned protests.

They must have been bitterly disappointed that after all their hard work, the visit seems to gone off quite successfully.

The media bias was evident in the coverage of a comment by Cardinal Walter Kasper which touched off a firestorm the day before the Pope touched down. Kasper, a high-ranking papal aide, was quoted as describing Britain as a “Third World” country. Cue the predictable howls of outrage.

But when you read Kasper’s comment in context, it wasn’t the bald, sweeping statement that the media made it out to be. What he said was: “When you land at Heathrow you at times think you are in a Third World country”. Anyone who has been to London in the past 20 years, and seen what a polyglot society it has become, would know exactly what he was talking about. He wasn’t comparing Britain to Bangladesh or Zimbabwe.

A Vatican spokesman said the cardinal was making a point about Britain’s cultural diversity. He might have chosen his words more sensitively – Catholic prelates are not noted for their PR skills – but it was hardly the insult the hostile British media made it out to be.

The papal visit also provided an excuse for a fresh outbreak of Acute Sensitivity Disorder, a condition first identified in this column some months ago.

Pope Benedict said in a speech that Britain had stood against “Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society”. It’s hard to see how anyone could take offence at that – but no, the Humanist Society of Scotland decided it was a slight against atheists; that the Pope was comparing non-believers with Nazis.

“The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God,” a press statement spluttered.

Now there’s a breathtaking non sequitur for you. Clearly the Scottish atheists weren’t going to let a papal visit pass without seizing the opportunity to make idiots of themselves.

Quick, let's take offence

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, September 14.)

ACUTE sensitivity disorder has broken out again. In New Zealand, the Muslim community has taken offence at Building Minister Maurice Williamson’s after-dinner jokes. In Australia, meanwhile, Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice, a triple gold medallist at Beijing, has had a sponsorship deal cancelled by Jaguar because she made an imprudent comment on Twitter using the word “faggots”.

The question surely should be, in such instances, whether there was serious intent to stir up hatred or ill-will. In neither case is that apparent.

Mr Williamson was just being the class clown, as is his wont. His joke – about Muslims being stoned after committing adultery while New Zealanders committed adultery after getting stoned – was in questionable taste, but that’s all.

As for Rice, her grammatically challenged tweet, “Suck on that faggots”, following the Wallabies’ win over the Springboks, seemed merely puerile and impetuous – the product of an immature mind rather than a calculated slur intended to incite ill-feeling against homosexuals. It doesn’t even make sense. What’s the bet she had been drinking?

The main lesson to be taken from Rice’s misfortune, and that of countless other not-very-bright celebrities before her, is that Twitter, the very name of which implies empty-headedness, is dangerous as well as pointless.

* * *

MY HEART goes out to the parents of the little boy who was killed by a reversing vehicle in a South Auckland driveway last week, but the question has to be asked: when are people going to learn?

Toddlers and driveways are bad combinations. They are even more lethal when the next-door neighbour’s vehicle is a big four-wheel-drive (as in this case) with poor rear visibility. Anyone who drives an SUV has to be almost obsessively cautious when reversing, especially if there are children in the neighbourhood.

What other lessons can be learned from this tragedy? One is that little kids move fast – a point brought home by the sad death of Lucas Ward, who drowned in Gisborne’s Waimata River while his grandmother was momentarily distracted.

In the case of 18-month-old Sirj-Michaels Siaea, of Otara, who was killed under the wheels of the neighbour’s Land Cruiser, his mother was reportedly having a cigarette with her partner nearby when it happened.

The newspaper account said the little boy was too young to understand the dangers of playing in driveways. Of course he was; that’s why children need adults to protect them.

I wonder if the coroner will say anything about this. It might sound heartless, but too many small children die because the adults responsible for them seem to lack any awareness of how quickly an everyday situation can turn to tragedy.

* * *

FOR AS long as most of us can remember, there has been a clear differentiation between TV One and TV2.

TV One was the channel for the more mature (and, dare I say it, discerning) viewer. It was where TVNZ chose to show its serious drama and current affairs programmes. TV2, on the other hand, was pitched at a younger audience and was largely about fun and frivolity.

But without any public pronouncements, or at least none that I’m aware of, the state broadcaster appears to have abandoned this long-standing policy. Look at the programme schedules now, and it’s virtually impossible to detect any difference between the offerings on TV One and TV2. Most nights they are an interchangeable selection of crass pseudo-reality shows and formulaic American crime dramas.

My question is this: when will the government abandon the pretence that the taxpayer has any interest in owning a broadcaster that goes for the lowest common denominator and doesn’t even pay lip service to the public service values that were once its raison d’etre?

The government might as well own a chain of sex shops or fast-food outlets. TVNZ has become an embarrassment and should be knocked off to the highest bidder without delay.

* * *

CHRIS CARTER was right about one thing: as things stand, Phil Goff looks as if he’s merely keeping the seat warm for whoever will be the next Labour Party leader.

Mr Goff is a decent, personable man. He was an effective and respected cabinet minister. But he has never looked convincing as leader. His minimal impact in the role shows there’s a big leap from being a capable team player to running the show.

Part of the problem is that as leader, he is under much closer public scrutiny than ever before. He has not responded well to that scrutiny, often looking awkward and self-conscious. His media trainers appear to have advised him to be warm and sympathetic, but often the result is that he looks wishy-washy and ineffectual.

My advice would be to stop trying so hard and be himself. Otherwise he risks becoming the embodiment of the Peter Principle, which holds that employees in an organisation rise to their level of incompetence – in other words, they keep advancing through the hierarchy until eventually they find themselves in a job that’s beyond them.