I really should be sleeping or even working, but there is such a lot going on in the world that begs to be talked about.
Tonight I heard Helen Clark talking to Larry Williams on NewstalkZB about her State of the Nation speech today. At the moment the audio is here:
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/audio2/14182517.wma
It had been widely reported that the Government members treated Don Brash with utter disrespect during his reply speech. Williams quite reasonably asked for an explanation:
Larry Williams: I get the feeling that Mr Brash is being treated as some sort of joke. Why is that?Helen Clark: I just don’t think he has any standing in the Parliament. He has come to politics from a career outside and I think it shows and you need some debating skills to survive in the parliamentary arena and that’s something he’s had very little experience of and that’s why when he stands up in the house his speeches really do tend to invite derision.
I really wonder whether Helen Clark grasps the remarkable contempt that this remark demonstrates for the NZ public. Evidentally, she is saying that people who are not part of the parliamentary culture, even if they have had a significant (and in his case distinguished) career outside parliament and legitimately represent the views of a large part of the NZ electorate, are not entitled to be treated with basic courtesy if they do not conform to the expectations of the political game’s elite. It would be perfectly reasonable for her to criticise his policies on their own merits, but here she is demeaning him purely on the basis of some supposed deficiency in his style of speaking in Parliament.