Garth George: Children are our future

Those of us who haven't begun to do so already are, I fear, going to have to start rethinking very seriously some of the notions about this country we have held without thinking, many of us for nearly all our lives.

The first that comes to mind is one I have held since my youth - that politicians in New Zealand are by world standards clean, incorruptible and free from the dishonesty, self-enrichment and influence-peddling that is the hallmark of politics in so many other countries.

No politician to my knowledge in my lifetime has so enriched himself or herself at others' and/or the nation's expense that sudden and inexplicable personal wealth has been apparent.

There was, come to think of it, the time they all voted hurriedly, late at night and, if I recall, unanimously to substantially improve their superannuation benefits, but in that they were acting in concert.

Today, however, our accepted ideal of corruption-free politics has been rather brutally shattered.

Bits have been breaking off for some time now, starting with the "paintergate" affair, then the speeding to the rugby affair, then the misuse of public funds for electioneering, and now the sordid, money-grubbing dealings of former minister and Mangere MP Phillip Field.

What gives all these an extra fetid odour is the passive part played by the police in all of them. And that, of course, leads us to another uncomfortable rethink.

The political independence and trustworthiness of our police force was another cherished notion held by nearly every law-abiding citizen. That, sadly, is no longer the case, for we have seen far too often lately top policemen deferring to their political masters, and even jumping through hoops for them.

It is no wonder police morale is so low, for rot that starts at the top can only move downwards.

If any evidence were needed as to how seriously damaged police morale is, it is in the breath-testing by a highway patrol colleague of the Taranaki sole-charge policeman who turned out on his day off to a fatal accident having had a few snorts.

If that is the sort of esprit de corps our police have these days, then it seems things are even worse than I feared. Hell, even I, a civilian, have had my keys taken, been driven home in a patrol car and read the riot act - and that was the end of it.

Mind you, there weren't any quotas in those days.

Another thing we'd better start rethinking rapidly is our attitude to children, which continues to confound me.

I wonder at the sort of mentality that accepts with indifference the murder at taxpayer expense of more than 18,000 babies every year by induced abortion yet also accepts as valid the financing by ACC of surrogate-mother in vitro fertilisation for a woman who suffered complications after the birth of her first child.

Perhaps part of the answer is to be found in last Saturday's Weekend Herald, in which two stories appeared side by side: one about Horiana Patea being denied an NZ Idol place because she is pregnant; and the other about Anna Galvan, a major-league netballer who kept her pregnancy secret for four months and went on playing until her coach dropped her because she couldn't keep up.

Wouldn't it be good if the unborn child was the first consideration - rather than all the emphasis being on meeting the aspirations of the mother.

It is all very well for Anna Galvan to say that Horiana Patea should have been allowed to make her own decision and that the mother "would never do anything to harm that unborn child".

Some of us might well consider - and surely rightly so - that bungy jumps and Army assault courses, and bouncing around on a netball court risking solid, if accidental, bodily contact, could well put a defenceless unborn child at risk.

It's heartbreaking if the "me first" philosophy which pervades our society has penetrated so far into pregnant womanhood.

And when it comes to those mothers who shunt their babies off into daycare when they're only weeks or months old so she can continue to pursue her career - don't get me started on that.

Okay, call me old-fashioned or even a Neanderthal, but I cannot and will not shake the conviction that motherhood is the most sacred of all human duties and that nothing is more important for the future of any society because our children are our future.

And how we as parents nurture our children will dictate how they nurture theirs, and so on down through the ages to come.

We'd better start asking ourselves if we're doing it right, because there's every indication that we aren't, in an age when money, property and prestige are put before procreation and parenthood.

One of the things this nation desperately needs is a leader - a man or a woman with the mana, the vision, the charisma and the oratory to drag us all up by the bootlaces and make us once again proud to be Kiwis.

We know what a true leader can do - Norman Kirk and David Lange showed us that, albeit briefly - and I pray that another will arise before I go to my grave.

Then, perhaps, we could forget our self-seeking - political and personal - and cohere once again into a societal whole.

In the meantime we will have to continue to put up with mere managers - and we know all about managers, don't we?