‘Undercover hippy’ the talk of the town
‘‘In this rural town, having an 'undercover hippy' in our midst left some with a feeling of unease.’’
Someone in my town voted for the Green Party at the last election.
Scandalous indeed in a village where ‘riparian planting’ and ‘regional council’ are dirty words and fossil fuels are burnt with no thought of global warming, because keeping warm is more important. The information came to light because one of the pensioners had a lot of time on his hands and access to the internet, which can never be a good thing.
The identity of the scurrilous voter has long been debated over a pint or three at the pub.
In this rural town, having an ‘undercover hippy’ in our midst left some with a feeling of unease.
This week that alleged mung bean-eating, roman sandal-andsock wearing voter outed himself, purely because he was proud of the fact he had not voted for our local MP. Outrageous behaviour but he won’t be run out of town by pitchfork wielding locals.
At the risk of identifying just how far Outside Auckland this writer is, I can tell you that our local MP hasn’t exactly endeared himself to his constituents in the last week or two and he’s hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The pitchforks could well be pointed at him.
There’s an air of ‘I-told-you-so’ in the local pub. It’s usually farming politics that are discussed around the leaners, unless someone commandeers the remote and puts the nightly news on the TV.
Then there’s mutterings of ‘‘he’s a [insert expletive here]’’ when a shot of any politician pops up on the screen. Not this week.
This week the locals are chuffed that their usually sedate electorate has been mentioned in the news, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. Of course, those wrong reasons have long been discussed, but now the rest of the country has caught up.
We told you so, they’re saying.
The local MP has never made an official appearance in our neck of the woods, although he has been seen in the pub twice.
Murmurings of ‘I wonder if he’s putting those beers on his expense account’ were made, but no-one asked him, because no-one wanted to appear nosey, and who has ever got a straight answer out of a politician anyway?
Apparently you could still get a straight answer out of the Prime Minister, who still owns a farm in our electorate, where he was the local MP for many a year.
The fact he shore a sheep at the World Shearing Championships, taking on David Fagan, gives him cred in a town where you only have to take your gumboots off at the shop if they’re muddy.
He’s the sort of bloke who would still stick his hand up a cow’s arse if he had to, one of the more rustic blokes at the pub muttered this week.
Perhaps he’s been practising that in parliament in the last week, the funny one replied.
The hippy might not be the only Green voter in town come the next election.