Political history written all over broadcasters’ faces
Minutes before NZ First leader Winston Peters made his Labour Party-anointing speech where he said capitalism needed to regain its human face, something was happening to Newshub journalist Paddy Gower’s face.
The stakeouts by political journalists during coalition talks came to be as much a part of the story as the talks were. Bored journalists on wait-watch were sent various amuse-bouche by political parties to keep them going during the drawn-out negotiations. All that was missing from the care packages were empty water bottles for the stranded stakeout scribblers to urinate into as they kept up their long vigils.
When it came down to the wire, on the deadline of Thursday, Newshub had all its physical bases covered. Political journalist Lloyd Burr was positioned outside the Beehive lift doors doing his best to deliver a thin soup of small talk. Lift doors opened and shut, ferrying their insignificant cargo, as waiting photographers leapt forward expectantly to snap the elusive Winston.
Poised for Peters, Burr resorted to rapper parlance, saying that when Peters did choose to make his appearance, lift doors would finally part and it would be ‘‘boom shake the room!’’
Alas, the man of the hour failed to materialise and Burr, on hearing that Peters was about to emerge in another part of the parliamentary compound, reappeared in that precinct, puffing.
Burr, who has the chunky physical bearing of the television actor Raymond Burr, aka Perry Mason, apologised for his damp appearance, the points man wiping the sweat from his brow brought about by his unseemly sprint.
Horses sweat, men perspire and, in another corridor, celebrity Newshub journalist Paddy Gower merely glowed. Gower too was in filler mode as he endeavoured to explain to viewers the architectural chicanery of Parliament.
Near to where Gower was standing, there was apparently an underground travellator where politicians can secretly travel unheeded by pesky reporters.
With every expectation that Peters would break his news just in time for the 6pm news, that time came and went, bringing with it the fear of yet another delay.
Perhaps it was the cumulative stress of political reporters heard hysterically laughing in the conference room, or it may have been the bad reception in the corridors of power, but suddenly, before the viewers’ eyes, Gower seemed to be experiencing ectoplasmic interference.
Exhausted from predicting which portal Peters was going to pop up in, even the receptors of the network appeared to have given up the ghost on Gower. His dial mutated into blobs, lending him the appearance of a Francis Bacon painting, till normal transmission suddenly resumed and Peters, with the speed expected of a former Minister of Racing, rushed past Gower on his way to the podium.
Left in the leader’s wake, Gower trailed behind him, asking which way the Great Decider was going to go. Even the most politically uninterested viewer would have appreciated the lameness of the question. But it had to be put.
In his former lifetimes as kingmaker, Peters had waffled on and on before the big reveal, but this time he was mercifully brief. There was the surprise of some capitalist-bashing rhetoric that would have had Morrinsville protesting farmers calling him an un-"pretty communist’’ and conspiracy theorists confirming their suspicions that Peters had always been a deep sleeper pinko.
If that speech had been made on the night by Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern, or by Green Party leader James Shaw, the Kiwi dollar would have plummeted even further. But because it came from that eldest of elder statesman and a two-time Tory, the prick of ears was acute and people listened.
Out there in the wastelands, the let-go electorate living in a Kafkaesque reality of a booming economy while falling further into debt with low wages, expensive housing and homelessness, were finally being addressed. Perhaps with a bit of hope, even the homeless could sleep well in their beds that night.
Two days out from Labour Weekend, an old experienced midwife, with the swagger of Bernie Sanders, helped give birth to a change coalition with a new set of co-ordinates.
The old guard didn’t know what hit them. Back at TVNZ base camp, mouthpiece of the right Mike Hosking was having difficulty arranging his face. For just over an hour after Peters departed the podium, Hosking did his journalistic duty and reported what he could gather about the new state of affairs.
Then, true to form, The Hosk turned to his co-host to voice his dyspeptic impatience to see the Prime Ministerelect, Jacinda Ardern, put in an appearance. Eventually emerging swathed in Christmas red, Ardern was duly given television time to address the nation.
This meant that mother-of-the-nation, Our Rach, in her relentless pursuit of narcissism, had Rachel Hunter’s
cut into for the new Prime Minister-elect to make her speech.
But there was no allowance made for passed-over former Prime Minister Bill English, who neither the state broadcaster nor Newshub could give the time of day or night to. Only Sky News saw fit to televise his passing, with TVNZ getting its priorities wrong broadcasting the old hat:
Bored journalists on wait-watch were sent various amusebouche by political parties to keep them going during the drawn-out negotiations.