A corker of an outburst
Judith Collins may have only herself to blame for a blotted legacy. When the revolution comes, all of us will end up with unsuitable jobs.
THE WILD-EYED Hollywood star in leather trousers sat down for his latest interview, still baffled by the last.
‘‘Did she used to be an MP?’’ British comedian Russell Brand asks me. ‘‘She’s f...ing mad!’’ The former Mr Katy Perry makes this judgment before going on to suggest that the material world is just an illusion. In his opinion, the contrivance of the chat could be dispensed with and replaced by us both undressing, kissing and smashing the place up. Yet, he still thinks the last person to interview him was odd. That person was Pam Corkery. Of course, Pam is a great broadcaster. The audience loves her. The imperfections that others would smooth over or hide, she revels in, and for that she is beloved yet more. Name anyone else who has conquered the wireless with a voice that sounds like a seagull getting a pedicure from a wood chipper. You can’t, because there is only one.
Last week, she took the warts and all, aka the love-it-or-lump-it approach to her new role as Internet Party’s chief press secretary, informing a reporter he was a ‘‘puffed up little shit’’. It was a masterstroke, verging on savantlike performance art. Her complaint that reporters were allowing Kim Dotcom’s computerhacker past to overshadow policy didn’t just overshadow policy but also the party’s launch and, for good measure, stole National’s thunder.
For some reason, Corkery offered her resignation to party leader Laila Harre after the tour de force, perhaps sensing she had peaked. It was not accepted, as Internet Mana supporters care about feeding the poor and getting youth to vote, not being pleasant to the corporate lackeys of the lame-stream media.
When the revolution comes, all of us will no doubt end up with unsuitable jobs. Like China’s last emperor ending up a humble gardener, John Key will run a Jim’s Mowing franchise. A galactically wealthy internet mogul living in a Coatesville palace will retain his position as chief inspiration for the people’s party. Pam Corkery will be in PR.
In all, and for many of us, it’s hard to know what the appropriate response is to Internet Mana. On
The one thing we can probably all agree on is that Kim Dotcom remains a fascinating creature. I once nominated him for New Zealander of the Year.
the one hand, the party is the local expression of a global movement opposed to the serious and concerning issues of increasing social inequality and mass surveillance. On the other, the narrator of their opening statement on TV was a levitating cat.
The one thing we can probably all agree on is that Kim Dotcom remains a fascinating creature. I once nominated him for New Zealander of the Year. It had nothing to do with virtue but the colour he adds to a country that at times threatens to be submerged under twin currents of dullness and smugness. He responded through his lawyer, suggesting that modesty prevented him from accepting. For a man who once owned a black Rolls Royce with the licence plate ‘‘GOD’’, it was a rare burst of humility.
Dotcom is a pirate. Not in the sense of mysteriously having the latest series of Game of Thrones before anyone else. But one in the traditional sense; a buccaneer who has taken advantage of commerce being conducted in channels beyond governments’ control.
No wonder he is a wanted man. But his use of Te Tai Tokerau as a sort of modem by which he downloads his group’s party vote is quite ingenious. And, let’s be honest, more effective than previous mavericks have managed in their first political forays.
COLIN CRAIG is on his second go, and has yet (at time of writing) to crack the 5 per cent barrier – although some polls show he is close. It is possible, in fact, that an exodus of disgusted Right-wing voters abandoning the National Party over Dirty Politics may throw their vote to the endearingly geeky Christian businessman. And what a poke in the eye that would surely be for Nicky Hager, who, while not officially ‘‘party-aligned’’, is unlikely to be jangling a tambourine and singing hosannas at an old-time revival meeting any time soon.
Strangely enough, back in 2002, another spiritually-inclined independent was also swept into power on the back of a Nicky Hager work, in a roundabout way. Then it was the Labour government’s turn to be rocked by Seeds of Distrust. At that time, National’s party vote was imploding as the Opposition is finding now. The moral minority was vibrating. So it was that a loose confederation of hunters, fishers, smokers and Christians allowed one Peter Dunne to ride to glory on his timely repetition of the words ‘‘common sense’’ and ‘‘sensible’’.
I was there at the Backbencher pub on election night when seven unsuspecting United Future candidates walked in off the street and left as MPs. So unprepared were they, that one of them wasn’t even a New Zealand citizen and couldn’t take the job. Never before, and never since, have journalists fought so hard for an interview with Peter Dunne. A coin was tossed to see which of the main networks the kingmaker would talk to first. I won, I was ecstatic – I still don’t know why.
My point is that it’s possible, if not probable, that a Hager book diminishes the trust that the public holds for politicians across the board. Voters make tracks to mavericks like Winston Peters who is just as able a poacher as he is a gamekeeper; while some will find themselves in the chaste embrace of the small and ever dwindling number of politicians who take the moral high ground and make an issue of their lily-white purity.