Little wonder
The PM’s new arrival is happy news, but not to the curmudgeons among us.
The prime miniature, as some social-media genius christened her, may be only a few days old, but she has already demonstrated a certain disruptive power. Even before she arrived, Newstalk ZB radio host Mike Hosking, writing in a newspaper column, was stamping his foot – “… just a woman having a baby”; “boring”; “embarrassed” – like Rumpelstiltskin in a scary jacket. Meanwhile, the rest of the world had little trouble recognising a happy event, a moment in history. Jacinda Ardern is the second world leader, after the late Benazir Bhutto, to have a baby while in office. It’s news. Get over it.
Oddly, Hosking never seemed so exercised when our first real celebrity Prime Minister, John Key, relentlessly courted media attention by planking, modelling in fashion shows and putting in an excruciating appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Key was gracious about the baby madness. “John’s a nice name,” he said brightly, when asked by Three’s The Project to suggest one.
There was the usual palaver: reporters shivering in the cold outside Auckland Hospital or pestering passing punters for predictions. One Mt Albert resident guessed the right sex, but “Bubbles Gaylord” was never really going to fly.
Finally, some news. “There was a ripple and people went bananas!” reported Newshub’s Tova O’Brien on Three. It was hard to tell if she was reporting the birth of the baby or hallucinating about dessert.
The coverage was reasonably restrained when you consider how doolally the nation goes when the All Blacks win a World Cup or something. And that’s just men playing with a ball. The baby was born at 4.45pm. This could have led the news if publicity was a priority. The announcement wasn’t made until nearly 6.30pm. Ardern was low-key and proactive, posting a picture of the new family, parents looking happy and a bit stunned, as you do. The announcement of the name – Neve Te Aroha – sent reporters scrambling to Te Aroha. No one, so far, has been dispatched to Ireland.
There were gaffes. O’Brien demanded that National Party leader Simon Bridges apologise for “loutish, transphobic rubbish” after an interview on Radio Hauraki had him blurting ill-advisedly. Show co-host Jeremy Wells asked if he hated the baby. “I don’t hate it,” mused Bridges. “Hate is a strong word.” The two joked about the “pinko” parenting she might endure. “She should be going to school in, like, boy’s clothing, right?” chortled Bridges. Oh dear. He might have recalled Key’s appearance on that show. Key ended up admitting to weeing in the shower. Sometimes, following in your former leader’s footsteps will see you tripped up by your own clown shoes.
Mostly the tone was good-natured and affectionate. The Project team beamed in a message from the show’s Australian counterparts: “We can’t wait to mock the baby’s accent and then claim it as our own.”
All of this made for cheering viewing in a week when the news from Gilead – I mean Trump’s America – involved babies and children being taken from parents at the US/Mexico border to be kept in cages. Attorney General Jeff Sessions justified the policy by quoting Romans 13. Margaret Atwood couldn’t make it up.
So, I’ll take happy baby news. Though The AM Show’s Mark Richardson has clearly had enough. “Now we’ve all gone googoo ga-ga,” he fumed. He went on to outline various possible Labour Government failings. “If Winnie and Shane ‘Tonto’ Jones go rogue … If this current coalition continues to look more like Modern Family than the modern way, well, you get the picture.”
What? It will be the baby’s fault? Amanda Gillies looked as if she was getting a migraine. “Yawn,” tweeted one viewer. “More pics of our Prime Miniature, please!”
You do have to wonder, listening to the anguish of people such as Hosking and Richardson. If this is just a woman having a baby, why are they so threatened by it?
“We can’t wait to mock the baby’s accent and then claim it as our own.”