Dunne has stab at pollie ‘circus’
As MP Peter Dunne prepares to leave Parliament after 33 years, he’s taken one final swing.
Last week, the UnitedFuture leader, who has held the Ohariu seat in the Wellington region for 33 years, announced he would not be standing for re-election.
On Thursday, he released a scathing review of the current political landscape and the buildup to the September 23 election.
Dunne said that as his time in Parliament drew to a close, he had disengaged from the active political process and ‘‘some scales have fallen from my eyes’’.
‘‘Already I have come to see many of my soon-to-be former colleagues through a different prism. I smile quietly but cynically at their strutting earnest ways and the egregious ever-so-keen-toplease and not offend tones of the political wannabes, now realising that until recently I too was playing the same games.’’ He then turned to the media. ‘‘I watch the news media, taking themselves ever so seriously as they rush breathlessly from one photo-op to the next, pontificating about this bit of trivia or that, as though it really counts for anything, all the while allowing themselves to be manipulated by the absolute worst of politicians focused on nothing more than their own promotion.’’
Dunne said chasing political leaders up and down the country did nothing for the credibility of the political process as a whole.
‘‘[The election campaign] has all the trappings of a circus rather than a serious democratic event by which we elect our government for the next three years.’’
Dunne said if he had come to this view a little more than a week after deciding to leave, he could only begin to imagine how ‘‘longsuffering’’ voters must feel.
‘‘I have always treated politics as a serious business, where the great issues of the day were debated properly and thoroughly; where local politicians earned the trust and respect of their communities because of their presence within and immediate connection to those communities; and where getting to know political leaders was based around personal interactions, not slick media profiles or glossy magazine interviews. In short, in my world, trust was earned through hard work and practical achievement, not manufactured by a public relations profile and other inanities.’’
Dunne said ‘‘superficial promises’’, ‘‘shallow politicians’’ and an ‘‘indulgent media’’ did not help to engage voters – especially the younger demographic – who did not see politics as being relevant to them.