Nothing worse than pillow talk from our politicians
He’s got a lot on his plate of course – if he can remember where his plate might be or who paid for it and in how many anonymous instalments – but I for one was hoping that he might have a word with his friend Mr Dotcom.
What the issue really needs is one of Kim’s patented – or rather Youtubed – songs. Can you imagine The Contraceptive Rap, a back beat heavy sampling of the choicer quotes that have been doing the rounds?
Mr Dotcom could revive some of the tricks from that seminal Paul Hardcastle single of the 80s, 19. I can hear Mrs Bennett now, stuttering her statistical pronouncements: ‘‘29-29, 29 per cent have babies on benefits.’’
Mr Dotcom himself is something of a example to all that if you keep your legs crossed while on the DPB you can end up running the show.
Ms Bradford’s critics would likewise see her manifold blessings as an example in the negative, one of undisciplined procreation. Ms Bradford has a brood of five and she’s never hit any of them. However, that’s still one shy of Mr English’s six offspring and well short of the record set by his finance minster predecessor, Bill Birch.
If there’s anything to be learnt from these statistics, it’s that intimate expression is indifferent to party lines.
Whatever their ideological stripe, along with the birds, the bees and the educated fleas, our MPS are all doing it. Whether this is anyone’s business but theirs is another matter.
I tend to think that the family planning decisions of New Zealanders are private affairs. It is a nanny state which seeks entry into the national bedroom. Oh, the irony then that a government whose members grew hoarse shouting such epithets at the Helen Clark administration is the one to introduce these measures.
This said, Ms Bradford’s response is an overreaction. Even if National’s agenda to curb the breeding patterns of New Zealand’s underclass is open and openly offensive there are still more positives in having contraceptives available to the impoverished than in having them denied. The policy should, in fact, go further and be extended beyond beneficiaries. Why should anyone’s income level be a factor in the most important decision of their and their potential offspring’s lives?
Everybody from Mr Banks and Mr Dotcom down should enjoy inconsequential coitus. In this day and age not having children is as much a right as having them.