Joel Maxwell on ‘loser’ Don Brash

Somebody tell the Pledgers you don’t bring a former Reserve Bank governor to a fist fight.

They are like the worst deadbeat dad – the one who turns up in the middle of the night and drops a toy on your bed. They slur a few words of fatherly claptrap in a cloud of bourbon and cola, kiss you on the cheek, vanish downstairs to raid the pantry. They burn the hell out of your family’s only frypan, help themselves to mum’s purse, vanish for another month or two.

They give and steal, give and steal. Broken gifts chained to ever more outrageous thefts. They give hamburgers and steal forests. They give God and steal land. They give Facebook and steal facts. They give antibiotics, medicine, long life – steal ice caps, drown the world.

They give Tiny Dancer then – for God’s sakes – give Crocodile Rock.

Pa¯ keha¯ s, man. They are a dizzying mess, and those on their ideological Right, in particular, always ignore the thieving and see only the gifts.

To be honest, I’ve always thought the Right isn’t an ideology at all. It’s a neurosis in a tuxedo. Nowadays, it’s not even the tux.

The latest pa¯ keha¯ to step naked into the world is Don Brash. Back when Brash was National’s leader, I utterly disagreed with him but believed he spoke in good faith at that Rotary club in Orewa. It wasn’t just politics for Brash. When he spoke about nationhood and the dangers of racial separatism to gathered Rotarians, he believed what he said.

Maybe I like Don Brash because he is an idealist. I feel a kinship to this man.

Idealists? On one hand, we don’t feel the unpleasant double-tap of confusion and uncertainty. On the other hand, we’re almost always losers.

Brash is a loser. Sure, he didn’t look good on camera during the campaign. (He was a man of intellect, conviction, but looked like a breathing meme. I recall him clambering into some roll-caged speedway vehicle, all spider-monkey-does-Nascar.)

Ultimately, his problem was that he was an idealist. So Brash lost his election, and departed with those sad-owl eyes and that pinched grimace.

The dust had barely settled into his frown when he joined a new mission: Hobson’s Pledge. Brash is a voice for Hobson’s Pledge, a lobby group dedicated to arresting our ‘‘decline into irreversible separatism’’. Persisting after snuggling into his parliamentary coffin is a vindication. It was never just calculated political manoeuvring; he really believes this crap.

I mention the Pledgers because they support referendums around the country against Ma¯ ori wards on councils. For instance, there’s a referendum running in Manawatu¯ district, in the lower North Island. The new Manawatu¯ ward, approved last year, would allow people on the Ma¯ ori electoral roll to vote for someone to represent Ma¯ ori in the district.

However, after that decision, enough community signatures got hoovered up, like a spider’s nest in the attic, to trigger a referendum.

Yep, people have the privilege of directly challenging Ma¯ ori wards, under law, while other separatist wards are kiddy-proofed. Take rural wards. We can’t get rid of rural wards with referendums, even though farms are as heritable as skin colour, hair colour, myopia.

The problem, as these Pledgers see it, is that Ma¯ ori are winning in some crablike scramble to the top of the democracy bucket. Now, I’m just a half-caste re-entering my culture, but I have to say, Ma¯ ori are indeed winners.

In my mind’s eye I see a waka in an ocean; not just an ocean, the ocean, the Pacific: a vast, endless sea under a maddening blue canopy. (It’s a vivid image, but not of the Brash pie-in-the-face memory kind.) The waka found this land, and the people took root and settled and prospered and grew. Such winning makes me gasp.

Then these people faced the arrival of pa¯ keha. Through cunning, bravery, sheer willpower, we kept our ways alive. (This despite the fact you can climb to the top of any hill in this beautiful country and see streets, homes – rural wards – atop what used to be ours.)

That Pledgers are waiting outside in the alley to rough us up is hilarious. Somebody tell them you don’t bring a former Reserve Bank governor to a fist fight.

But Pledgers were losers as soon as they decided it was a fight, not a long-overdue partnership. Even if they win referendums, they lose.

We all found our way here. Ma¯ ori came first, arrived together. Pa¯ keha¯ arrived in ships teeming with individuals. No wonder some pa¯ keha¯ still feel alone now.

I know I joked about deadbeat dads, but the love of our parents is the first irreplaceable gift of emotional life. It sparks love of ourselves, and love for our own children.

Some despairing part of me wonders if you can fix the absence of parental love. Is the damage reversible, including when it comes to a culture? I’m not sure, but Ma¯ ori are always willing to help our partner.

So: you’re not alone, I love you Donald.