Life Bill Ralston
Poor Nigel died loveless, but Labour is repairing its broken marriage with Māori.
Curse you, DoC! You and your plan to lure gannets to Mana Island by installing dozens of fakes. Because the scheme failed for years to do the trick, people worldwide have been feeling sad just lately, and tears have been flowing.
For a very long time, there was only one real gannet living on the island, off the Wellington coast. He was nicknamed Nigel No Mates by a visiting botanist because he had no friends. The bird fell in love with one of the concrete decoys, built a nest for “her”, danced for her and even tried to mate with her. Sadly, she remained stony cold.
In December, after conservationists repositioned the fakes — tizziedup with new paint – as well as speakers broadcasting bird sounds out to sea, another gannet arrived, but it was a bloke called Norman. Then three more landed, but Nigel refused to abandon his concrete mate and soon after died, brokenhearted. DoC wrote a farewell poem to him.
The story of his passing was carried around the globe by more than 40 international news outlets. No less august a journal than the New York Times referred to Nigel No Mates in a headline as “the World’s Loneliest Seabird”.
We in the media love cute animal stories. Editors everywhere adore them, as do readers and viewers, many of whom in this case tweeted they wept at the sad romantic tale.
I hate to mention it, but Nigel was a bird, and not even a member of an endangered species. I live beside Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay, where there are many thousands of little Nigels happily mating with real partners.
Still, we love stories like this. I noticed last Waitangi weekend that Bill English, a little like Nigel No Mates, was in Bluff, about as far away as you can get from the Bay of Islands, where the rest of the political flock were attending a Jacinda-fest. There were photos of the Prime Minister smiling with Māori leaders, smiling with Labour MPs, and smiling holding a baby. That last, it should be pointed out, was not her baby, of course. There will be several more months of baby-bump pictures before we get to see the real child.
Labour seems to be repairing its broken marriage with Māori, and the demise of the Mana Movement at the last election gives the party the chance to kiss and make up with tangata whenua after the debacle over the foreshore and seabed legislation.
Successive governments and politicians have had their problems at Waitangi. Poor Helen Clark, you may recall, was brought to tears by the bile she encountered on Te Tii Marae. John Key boycotted Waitangi after a brouhaha, Don Brash was splattered with mud, Steven Joyce came under a dildo attack.
The sudden outbreak of peace, love and harmony at Waitangi seems to take the interest out of the event. In my experience as a journalist the only thing that made standing in the sun for hours listening to endless droning speeches and innumerable powhiri bearable was the hope of a bit of biffo breaking out at some point. If everything remains peaceful at Waitangi over the next few years, it will get little if any media coverage.
Having a quiet Waitangi Day is a bit like having a gannet that goes to Mana Island and finds a nice plump female gannet he promptly marries, has chicks with and lives happily ever after. There would be no interest in that story at all.
The sudden outbreak of peace, love and harmony seems to take the interest out of Waitangi.