COMMENT
It's the flight that has got more attention than it ever should have, and it touches down today in Nauru.
Is it a scandal? Not really. Is it the end of the world? No.
In many respects it's the sort of thing small countries with not a lot on
Mike Hosking: The PM, the baby and the plane
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Opinion by Mike Hosking
Mike Hosking has hosted his number one Breakfast show on Newstalk ZB since 2008.
Listen live each weekday from 6am on Newstalk ZB.
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So Jacinda Ardern to Nauru is small beer.
But what has made the exercise interesting is why it ever came up in the first place, and that's where it gets a bit awkward.
Because we tiptoe around so many things these days. We have to couch everything in difficult or delicate terms.
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We say, but don't say, what we want to say. We sort of say it without being outright about it because being too outright makes it open to an avalanche from the hand-wringers and PCers.
And what makes it even more interesting is that at the centre of the story, this is all because she's a new mum who has a baby.
Beginning. Middle. End.
The Prime Minister has even fallen into this trap herself, the plane left at two this morning. If she wasn't a new mum she would have left with everyone else. If she wasn't a new mum she wouldn't have needed the plane to turn around and come back especially for her.
And what makes that awkward is, it's a very tangible example of a person, because of their circumstances, who needs extra help or special help or assistance.
People are going out of their way because of it. And that's awkward for two reasons.
One, the image we have created and fostered whereby women can do anything and there is nothing to see here. And two, the tangibility of the cost and size of the extra help she needs.
There is no question that if anyone else without a baby whistled up a plane for them, all hell would break loose.
So here we are stuck between a rock and a politically correct place, not quite knowing what to say.
And to fill the gap of awkwardness the government has gone into overdrive.
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The plane was already budgeted for. That's a poor excuse.
We looked at all the options over and over. That means nothing.
I tried to hitch a ride with the Australians. That's someone running out of genuine excuses, given this got tossed up at the last minute.
The fact she was pondering this on her maternity leave shows you it's a major. She is hyper-aware of her circumstances and how they look. It's the optics as they say.
As much as we might like to be all modern and cool about this stuff, it's not normal, and we don't treat it as normal.
And here's the really weird thing, yet again she's over thought it and turned it into something it didn't need to be.
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The Pacific Island Forum is a joke. Nothing ever happens. If she never went there wouldn't be a single headline. The same way there isn't a single headline in Australia over Scott Morrison not being there.
She's taken a molehill, added a plane, and made a mountain.
