It’s hopeless trying to reason with a rhyming viewer
When you park yourself on TV and radio most days, it’s fair to say people either like or loathe you.
And on The AM Show we get feedback by the second. I’ve been banned from looking at it in case I decide to engage, but some comes via the snail mail trail and they can’t restrict my access to that.
Yesterday I got a letter from an 88-year-old lady, Marie. It started like this:
Theme: Bigots
Dear Duncan
To the AM a.k.a National Party . . .
I read on. Someone had some time to spare and was getting creative.
Basically, Marie was furious with an attack we had made on Labour’s record in office. I had said they’re the least effective government in 30 years; Mark Richardson probably went further.
Anyway, I have found over the years that attacks like this come from people who are genuinely
foaming at the mouth because you aren’t in their biased camp. In other words, we don’t agree, we think differently.
How that makes me a bigot she never does explain, but you can assume she pays for a Labour Party membership by handing over a fiver, so she’s a lifer.
If I’d said the Nats were the most tone-deaf mutes ever to walk the planet when it came to housing and they deserve to stay in oblivion for some time, I bet I would never have heard from her.
Then she listed 11 reasons why Labour has been more successful than National, and I thought I’d give them an airing.
After all, Marie had gone to the effort to write to me to tell me I was a plonker and a bigot, and who makes the effort to put pen to paper these days and stamp it and send it? So, impressed, I thought she deserved a bigger audience than just me.
Here goes, her list not mine. Although I pass comment with the words in brackets.
1. Opening up Pike River mine. Nats would have protected big business with a huge concrete pour. (True)
2. Dealing with the cow disease that National ignored. (True)
3. Building more houses and you can’t deny it. (Very selective and creative, Marie)
4. Sorting out mouldy hospitals, tut tut Nats. (Ummm, OK)
5. New cancer drugs and radiotherapy. (Tick tock, tick tock, how long does it take?)
6. New rail links. (True)
7. Dealing with mental health and nurses in schools. (True)
8. Lunches in schools. (Sadly true)
9. No more living in cars. (False)
10. Lifting minimum wage. (Go further)
11. The handling of the massacre and Mark’s lot would not have done so well. (Subjective)
She concludes: ‘‘I’m 88 and have seen many Govts, I trust this one. AM, National Party in drag. I wonder if a day may come when the negative trio are not so dumb.’’
She then ends on a rhyme, which is very kind.
Good news disliked and soon will be Followed by a corollary of misery Sports news is sparse, it’s a cover For a toxic, bigoted National lover.
Marie, thanks for making my day. I thought it an excellent letter, and the poem. Actually, let me show Mark: he will have a different view, but he’s fond of the arts, so he might give you a few seconds.
From me, though, watch the name calling: bigot is a bit far-fetched. I know middle-aged white guys are dreadful beasts, but you never know people’s background and, with new record suicide numbers across NZ, you have to be careful what you say and call people.
Now let me give you a fuller picture of your Government.
Overall, you make some reasonable points. Not balanced points, but I didn’t expect that.
I hope your Government gets on with fixing the mental health system – though don’t you think it’s all a bit slow?
Well done on more cops, too. I note you listed housing as a success. And it’s true this Government built 258 more KiwiBuild houses than National ever did and ever will.
But Marie, you forgot a big one: the record teacher pay settlement. How could you forget? They had three strike days, and we parents had to organise cover at home.
You also forgot that private property rights no longer matter either, as Fletcher’s got no support for its construction project at Ihuma¯ tao. Instead it got a Government privately negotiating with Tainui to buy it. Unprecedented.
You forgot how Jacinda put a knife through the oil and gas industry in Taranaki, only to back another energy source that makes her decision look sadly worse for the environment.
And surely you didn’t miss the latest news, where 8000 more food parcels were handed out this year compared with last year at the Auckland City Mission?
What happened to the billions of extra payments made over the past year through the families package? I thought Labour was all about closing gaps.
Perhaps, Marie, your Government is the most deluded of all time and, just because they have good intentions, it doesn’t mean the billions being spent is having the desired reaction. Why don’t you increase benefit levels meaningfully if you want a credit?
You also missed the water report, which might mean we all bathe in clean holy water, but no farms exist any longer and we have no income and no food.
Oh, and now economists are predicting we are heading for a really dire patch. We’re probably likely to hit a recession. Shame really, given Labour inherited books that showed surpluses for the years ahead, record GDP growth and a solid outlook.
But don’t you think you’ve been just a little biased and a little selective with your facts? Especially on housing.
Not that I’d ever call you a bigot. Just biased. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Glad to see your passion for discourse hasn’t faded. Kia kaha.