You’ve been Robbed: No free lunches
Even during a comparably lacklustre week at Parliament – for me, at least – the everyday business of a democracy grinds on.
Hundreds of passionate youth hit the streets and assembled on Parliament's forecourt for another School Strike 4 Climate Change protest, late last week.
Then on Tuesday, the Myanmar community and its supporters angrily protested at the front of Parliament, loudly calling on the Government to deny entry to Myanmar junta officials invited to attend an Asean meeting in Wellington this coming week. As of yesterday, Immigration NZ was yet to decide whether it would grant a visa to one official who had applied to come.
And on Wednesday, in a heart-melting moment, about two dozen children presented a petition to MPs to save their school lunches.
The speeches the kids addressed to the Government gave a sense of real desperation. The Government did not send a representative to meet the group, but Opposition parties did.
I thought these kids were brave, delivering their argument in front of television cameras and a room full of adults.
Sometimes it feels like the Government has to be brutal in its decisions: trade-offs must be made between the climate and economic activity, distaste for a military regime must be put aside for diplomacy, and money needs to be found for tax relief.
The tough calls and the calls of Opposition in return: that’s all part of the democratic process.
But sometimes I wish the decision-makers would make a little more effort to front up and look the people they are affecting in the eye.
I have covered more of these protests and petitions than I can remember, but each I do recall has been for an entirely worthy cause.