Must we catch politicians when they fall?

It seems our MPs are in need of some professional help. Pass the tissues.

AT FIRST it seemed a hoax.

MPs who get tossed out of Parliament on September 20, and those who resign, are entitled to four taxpayer-funded counselling sessions.

According to the ex-politicians’ guide, they may be struggling to cope with their ‘‘loss’’ so a 24-hour help number is provided.

I’m not making this up. After three years’ minimum at the top of the food chain – yes sir, no sir, will madam be needing more taxi chits? – taxpayers cushion these dumped politicians when their baubles are surgically removed.

I’m not knocking counselling per se, but speaking as an ex-MP, couldn’t they be expected to purchase something out of their own pocket? They do get three months’ salary after they quit.

Literature therapy for for Mr Gibson please

Diddums, as Helen Clark might say. Scrutinise the current candidates, however, and I’m thinking this counselling comes at the wrong end of the Parliamentary term. Some are behaving so preciously they should be taken aside now and tough talked into reality.

Conservative leader Colin Craig is the most obvious example. Presently he uses litigation, or the threat of it, if he reads or hears of any perceived personal slight, or is not invited to join a debate. On that basis he won’t last one minute in the chamber – is he going to have his barrister on speed dial when Trevor Mallard starts teasing him in general debate? Sue the Press Gallery when they don’t give equal coverage to his anodyne media releases?

Craig’s Epsom candidate Christine Rankin needs counselling about the rules. Running a campaign promising to use Parliamentary privilege to name ‘‘New Zealand’s Rolf Harris’’ is one thing, but breaching Standing Order 112(i) is another. And like her leader, she has litigation baggage.

Act’s leader Jamie Whyte seemed near tears on TV3’s The Nation when mocked. He might want Whyte Law For All, but fires off letters to the Race Relations Commissioner when someone injures his philosophies.

Labour’s Steven Gibson’s on final notice from leader David Cunliffe for the Shylock comments he made about John Key, so he probably needs work. But Cunliffe should have sacked Gibson when he claimed ignorance over The Merchant of Venice, Shylock, Portia, a pound of flesh; the moral of one of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays. How do these people make the cut? Literature therapy for Mr Gibson please.

But save the best counselling for Laila Harre, a retread who’s forgotten how to handle the sledging that goes with the territory. Normally quite robust, she pulled the sexist card when John Key called her funder, Kim Dotcom, who has no political philosophy, a Sugar Daddy. While Harre admitted she’d never have allowed him into New Zealand, she happily takes a backbencher salary from him while campaigning. Helen Clark called me a rich man’s plaything when I was a backbencher and nobody cared, least of all me. Rodney Hide frequently told a joke involving Gerry Brownlee, about my student days dating Lockwood Smith – very funny, but too sexist and raunchy to repeat here. Laila needs to woman up.

As do these drama queens gasping over Nicky Hager’s book with the tautologous title, Dirty Politics. Politics by its nature is dirty. It has been that way for centuries – in palaces and parliaments, on the right and on the left, by the reds, the blues and the greens. When I was there they snooped into locked drawers, cars and computers.

Key’s staffers and ministers used emails to feed information to bloggers, and TVNZ’s political reporter, for one, is outraged.

Taxpayers already fund press gallery offices; perhaps we should treat selected journalists to history lessons.

We might be better served.