Trotter on Bennett

Chris Trotter applauds Paula Bennett:

When Paula Bennett waded, alone, into an ugly West Auckland brawl physically separating the teenage combatants she defined herself in a way the public will long remember.

The minister’s actions demonstrated not only her considerable personal courage, but a rare willingness to act decisively when confronted with a critical set of circumstances.

Indeed. You could spend ages thinking about what happens if I try to intervene, can I call for help, is this unseemly. But Paula went off instinct – and in this case good instinct.

What makes this incident even more of a “good news story” is that Ms Bennett is a politician (a Cabinet minister, no less) and a National Party member to boot. We are accustomed to depicting our political leaders as all talk and no action: moral cowards who will consent to “do something” only after exhaustive polling and focus-group research has reassured them that more than half the electorate will approve.

But this 39-year-old woman acted without political calculation, wading in to prevent a bunch of teenage girls from doing themselves harm, acting in loco parentis in the way we like to think our parents and grandparents used to do back in the good old days.

Not that they were that grateful. Did you see one of the teens the next day on the news boasting about the swear words she used at Paula? I hope her parents saw that, and care enough to ground her for a week.

Grabbing these young miscreants by the scruff of their necks, and calling them to order with a few ripe phrases, will not only commend Ms Bennett to conservative, elderly New Zealanders, but it will also deeply impress her no-nonsense Waitakere constituents confirming her forever as a true Westie.

After all, breaking up a catfight is just the sort of thing Cheryl West, the tough-as-nails yet strangely principled heroine of the TV series Outrageous Fortune, would have done: direct, strong, commonsensical action; and not a single family-group conference required.

If I may get all theoretical for a moment, I’d describe Ms Bennett’s actions as displaying a high degree of “emotional congruence” with her political constituency.

I think most Kiwis like what Paula did, but there is no doubt her direct approach was very much true Westie behaviour.

Fifty years ago, when most working-class people still went to church and subscribed to the rigid ethical code of conservative Christianity, being moralistic wasn’t a problem. And 30 years ago, when it still meant opposing the Vietnam War, apartheid sport and nuclear weapons, political correctness was actually electorally sexy. Today, however, many in Labour resemble the Protestant Political Association, that censorious and illiberal body of bigoted wowsers who struggled to restrict the electoral success of the unsuitable elements of New Zealand society (i.e. Catholics) in the years immediately following World War I.

Labour needs to loosen up and lighten up, becoming a whole lot less judgmental and a whole lot more spontaneous. In fact, until Labour starts selecting candidates a whole lot more like the people it wants to represent – rough, tough and unashamedly aspirational types like Paula Bennett – the Opposition will struggle to win another election.

One can only hope 🙂