Very Nasty
So people are in no illusions about how creepish certain MPs are, this exchange comes from Hansard yesterday as National was questioning the Government over the Electoral Finance Bill.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Are there fundamental principles in this bill such as a ban on political policy being bought by outsiders, or political promotion being facilitated by outsiders, or, worse still, unhealthy—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Have you paid the money back yet?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Listen, loony tune, take control of yourself. Take your pills before you come down to the House, not halfway through question time.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Have you paid up?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am serious. I am not a medical doctor but I have seen those symptoms before, and far too frequently in your case.
As Whale Oil points out, this sort of behaviour is disgusting. Mocking people who have had a mental illness, about it, is vile. And it is not just Peters who does this, but many other Ministers also.
A huge proportion of the population have mental health issues at least once in their lifetime. Mocking people for it is about as funny as if an MP publicly mocked someone for having cancer.
What galls me is that not all parties descend into the swamp. I recall in the 1990s a high flying Labour MP had a mental health episode. Some sort of incident actually occurred in the House itself I am told. I was only a Young Nat then, but I remember being told that any reference to the episode publicly was considered taboo and heartless. And this was the case for the best part of a decade. The episode has been mentioned once (I think) in recent times, but only in the context of a National MP (unwisely) hitting back at taunting
like the above.
There’s nothing that can be done to stop some MPs behaving like this. But next time the Government announces funding for mental health, just remember which Ministers make a habit of doing mental health taunts at the same target. A quick search of Hansard finds:
- Michael Cullen, 21 June 2005, 6 December 2005 x 2
- David Benson-Pope, 4 March 2004
- Annette King, 5 September 2006
- Trevor Mallard, 21 March 2006
And they are just the ones which make Hansard. Incidentially I don’t have a problem with yelling out “take your pills” as a general retort to someone interjecting. Hell I’ve had Winston say it to me in the 1996 Leader’s Debate when I heckled from the audience. All good fun.
But when it is deliberately and repeatedly targeted at an MP who had publicly been known to have had a mental health episode, it is very different. Just as one might have a general retort of “Don’t have a heart attack” to someone doing a huge rant, you wouldn’t say that if you knew the person opposite had (for example) almost died from a heart attack a few months ago. All humour is situational.
What Peters said, with explicit labeling as a “loony tune” is a new low.