Paula Bennett
MONDAY
Nah, I’m leaving. In fact I’m going to take it one step further and not even arrive. If little Miss Chloe Swarbrick thinks I’m going to go to the trouble of debating the cannabis referendum with her on national television, then maybe she’s being just a little bit arrogant! And there’s nothing worse in a politician than arrogance.
I’m a frightfully busy person and don’t have time to talk down to just any little Miss Muffet.
And in any case the referendum is a really important decision for the country to decide in 18 months’ time. It’s not about Chloe or me. It’s about the public being as well-informed as they can. Locking us into a “for and against” argument at this time is not the best way for the public to get the best information. She’s for, I’m against, and I’m right. That’s as far as it needs to go.
TUESDAY
Oh so little Lord Fauntleroy Jack Tame thinks he can shame me by tweeting that I refused to appear on his TV programme to debate the cannabis referendum.
Well at least he added that I was happy to be interviewed individually. Let me state for the record that I am always very, very happy to be interviewed individually. When the camera is just on me, and me alone, it picks up my best side.
But I respect Jack. I mean I really do. He’s young, and the young make mistakes. I see evidence of that every day when I get in the elevator with National’s emotional junior staffers. They’re all sobbing, and tearing out their hair. What a fuss! What a to-do. I just lift my chin, and rise above it.
WEDNESDAY
Oh and so now of course little Miss Golriz Ghahraman adds her squeaky little voice by tweeting about my refusal to debate the cannabis referendum. “It’s called forfeiting,” she wrote. Well no it isn’t. It’s about the public being as wellinformed as they can. And that’s why I choose not to say anything on the matter.
THURSDAY
Oh and so now we all have to suffer the media fawning all over little Miss Cindy, posing for all she’s worth in front of the world media in Paris. As if anyone is paying attention.
I ran into Maggie Barry and we both agreed what a spectacle Ardern is making of herself. “As for that little Miss Know-It-All from the Greens,” she chortled, and raised her eyebrows very high. I got up on a chair and raised my chin even higher than her eyebrows. How we laughed from up high!
And then she asked, “That little chit from the Greens — does she remind you of anyone?”
“Who? Swarbrick?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, and then we got back to laughing at little Miss Cindy who thinks she knows it all.
FRIDAY
I couldn’t bear another day in the elevator with all that fuss and to-do, so I took the stairs — but the stairwell was absolutely clogged with emotional junior staffers.
They actually looked quite laidback. They barely moved when I picked my way past them. They smiled, and giggled. It was as though their pain had somehow been relieved. There was a pleasant smell in the air.