Rodney Hide, Hone Harawira and this bastard really lowered the tone of the week didn’t they? The common link is not just that each of them screwed up ethically. Temptation got the better of them, as it gets many of us in different ways etc. But these three didn’t just fess up when caught. They ducked and dived, deflected and dissembled. And in so doing, they magnified the original pain and spread it around over their colleagues. Nasty.
Hide’s hypocrisy is almost Capill grade. But while it may seem a long journey from perk-buster to pork-barreller, isn’t there a common anti-social attitude underlying both? There are differences in method (publically bagging vs secretly milking), motive (political points vs private pleasure) and victim group (work colleagues vs the general public), but both show scorn for Hide’s own social groups. Perhaps consistent with that, he reacted to queries by invoking the concept of martyrdom. He thought the system was wrong, but others were exploiting it, so he was not going to be a martyr by foregoing the benefits”. Ouch. I guess the lesson is that even high-horse riders can slip off and land in the gutter.
Harawira also got caught cheating on what we all thought was the deal, slinking off to Paris instead of attending some boring meeting. Then instead of fessing up, he acted like we had some damn cheek expecting him to play by our bourgeois rules. Not a good look for a party whose main reason for being revolves around concepts of honour and commitment. Again, the reaction made everything worse and dumped on his mates.
As for the un-named entertainer, while he projects a tough and cool persona, he has now shown himself to be an utter coward. By not fessing up he has cast doubt over all his peers. Shame also that the judge screwed up so badly in agreeing to name suppression. Yes, naming would be costly to the guilty man, but this isn’t just about what’s fair for him. What about his fans the judge has helped him to deceive? What about the damage that not naming him has done to the reputations of his peers? The only bright side is that NZ is such a small place that most of us already know the name of this coward.
So there you go – a rather smelly week all round. Now, to help get rid of the stench so we can move onto nicer subjects, the final word goes to former Crusaders coach Steve Hansen: its time to flush the dunny.