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27 August 2006

A column published in the "Sunday Star-Times"

FREEBIES

One of the weird things about public life – be it political or accidental – is that people insist upon giving you things.

Free things. Things that you don’t need but make you feel privileged nonetheless. When I was a parliamentarian, for example, breweries could be relied upon to deliver festive packages for one’s especial enjoyment. Ditto, the Apple and Pear board would give pallets of fruit juice and Sanitarium donate kilos of Weetbix to one’s favourite charity.

Similarly I can record corporate gifts of cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos, electric shavers, umbrellas, tickets to rugby tests and, curiously, enough supplies of free condoms to shag half the South Island. Fortunately, none of it ever needed to be declared and my only attempt at gratitude failed when I mistakenly filed through the wrong lobby when liberalising the drink trade.

My one attempt at being an absolutely honest politician – that is, being bought and staying bought – failed miserably at the execution. But they still sent me a dozen blonde lagers the next Christmas. If I played my cards better, it might have been the dozen blondes.

Yeah but despite all these freebies, corporate gifts, bribes – call them what you will – New Zealand still has a long way to go in the arcane art of graft. Although backhanders are a way of life for rest of the planet, New Zealand authorities insist upon the issuing of a receipt even for the borrowing of a pen.

It’s got so bad that if some hopeful Thai migrant finishes off the roof of your holiday home … whoa, there’s a QC inquiring into the circumstances. Who, ironically, costs more taxpayer money than the entire GDP of the Pacific island nation on which the home is located.

It’s even worse at my local government level. I’ve been mayor now for almost two years and the only free stuff I’ve received is tickets to an opera, a ride in a stockcar and a pennant from some visiting Rotarian. I got him back. I offloaded the opera tickets on him. But Hell - do I look incorruptible?

I was pleased to note though that this New Zealand disease of being unable to properly influence and bribe has now affected even the maternity wards of the country. Last Friday my partner gave birth to Zoe – and returned to the ward with a ‘Bounty Gift Pack: for you and your family’.

Finally, I thought. Real freebies. A just reward for mums who labour, C-section and otherwise strain too large objects through too narrow apertures. But no – a single nappy, one solitary breast pad, two small pottles of nappy rash treatment, a decades old ‘NZ Woman’s Weekly’ and a coupon promising 50 cents off Mum’s next purchase of Colgate toothpaste.

Compare and contrast with the Auckland City Council. Where one can junket overseas, on business class no less – take in some of the great art galleries and museums of the world - and never have to go anywhere near one’s colleagues for financial approval. Then – if I’m a Vern Walsh or Penny Sefuiva– I can come home and impose a 13%-plus rates rise on my constituents. Presumably to pay for the next junket.

Indeed the Auckland City Council gives local bodies a bad name. It lathers itself up over the flashing of a few tits, commits hundreds of millions of dollars of ratepayers dosh to upgrading a dysfunctional Eden Park, chops down anything that looks remotely like a tree … and then blames Wellington and Parliament for its general predicament.

Mind you, so do I. They should have amalgamated all the metropolitan entities in the greater Auckland region long ago. That would have made most of the elected officials, and senior managers redundant – and given Auckland the chance to develop a coherent and efficient political structure.

And there’s the nub as to why most New Zealanders are getting double digit rate increases this year. It is nothing to do with central government imposition and everything to do with local government inefficiency. There are over twenty councils in New Zealand with populations of less than 20,000 people. Yet they’ll have the same administrative structure as councils two and three times their size.

And yet, as the Auckland City Council proves, size isn’t necessarily everything. You can still be big and useless. The equivalent of a 150 kilogram prop waddling around in club rugby, say.

Indeed this has not been a good week for institutions. Education took a double hit with the revelation that primary aged kids are getting worse at figures but better at religion. As a consequence the Ministry is looking to revise a maths curriculum that makes no sense to any parent who’s ever assisted their child with homework. My nine year old, for example, can plot a strategy to get to an answer but has no idea what the answer actually is.

Contrast with childhoods of forty years ago when we learned our times and division tables by rote. And, as I remember, by punitive strap. Dear God, it worked. And God is definitely someone we’ll be seeing a lot less of in the classroom. You’ll still be able to pray five times towards Mecca if you’re a Muslim kiddie but utter a simple ‘Our Father’ and suffer the consequences.

Again though, no freebies. It seems the Aotearoan way that whether its rates or religion, maths or maternity, no-one gives you something for nothing. Little wonder we created the welfare system. Simply, to restore the balance.

ENDS