MP with the Hide of a rhinoceros

By JOHN ARMSTRONG political editor

The measure of a democracy may be the freedom it gives MPs to make embarrassments of themselves in their search for the truth.

Then again, some MPs are simply embarrassment-proof - as the rhinoceros-skinned Rodney Hide fearlessly demonstrated in Parliament yesterday.

He seemed to be on to a good one. He confidently claimed that Defence Minister Mark Burton had breached the Defence Act by ordering a fully fuelled Air Force Hercules laden with a cargo of 500lb (227kg) bombs to change course and fly back to Samoa to pick up a civilian at a cost of a cool $20,000, even though a commercial flight to New Zealand was leaving a few hours later.

But his question prompted a tear-jerker of a tale from Mr Burton about a father rushing to the hospital bedside of his 7-year-old daughter, who had been run over at a pedestrian crossing in Dunedin and was thought to have just hours to live.

Answering a plea from a Dunedin-based National MP, Mr Burton had asked Defence chiefs to send the Hercules - which was on its way home from the United States after refuelling in Samoa - back to Apia.

He had acted on humanitarian grounds as it appeared to be the only flight that would get the father, who was working on contract in Samoa, back to Dunedin while his daughter was still alive.

"I absolutely stand by that decision," declared Mr Burton, whose parish-priest disposition makes him come across as a pillar of rectitude and parsimony.

The girl has since survived an operation, although doctors are unsure about the degree of brain damage.

As Mr Burton sat down, MPs applauded him while reaching for their hankies.

Not Mr Hide. He pressed his case relentlessly, suggesting that the father had not arrived home any earlier and that the Air Force had initially declined the request, only to be overruled by Mr Burton and the Prime Minister's Office.

The House groaned. But Mr Hide was the man who could not be shamed.

Minutes later, he was piggybacking on an unrelated parliamentary question to ask the Prime Minister if she still had confidence in Mr Burton for ordering the Hercules to return to Apia - "a highly dangerous manoeuvre" that had put the air crew and airport civilians at risk.

Mr Burton's office and the Air Force later confirmed that the plane had been carrying bombs and munitions for Skyhawks. But it was the pilot's decision to go ahead with the landing and he opted not to dump fuel. Apart from losing half-an-hour's flight time, the pick-up was cost-free.

An Air Force spokesman said the exercise carried an element of risk but had been performed within operational capabilities.

But a former Hercules squadron leader, Mick Dillon, last night described the procedure as "highly dangerous" and one that had put people at risk.

Back in the House, Helen Clark could afford to laugh at Mr Hide. Her Labour colleagues had only just averted making spectacles of themselves after Labour Minister Margaret Wilson offered to give the House a rousing rendition by the cabinet of the workers' anthem, Solidarity Forever.

Margaret Wilson had rounded on National's Max Bradford, saying he was obviously feeling left out after not being invited to a union-organised bash on Monday night in Parliament's Grand Hall celebrating the Employment Relations Act and well-attended by cabinet ministers in full song.

Mr Bradford called her bluff, figuring he was onto a win-win situation.

The sight of cabinet ministers singing the anthem in front of the television cameras in Parliament would get right up employers' noses. Not singing it would reveal a shocking lack of solidarity with the working classes - or worse, an embarrassing ignorance of the dirge's lyrics.

But solidarity goes only so far in Labour ranks - and ministers decided parliamentary decorum required that they not repeat the singalong. Margaret Wilson's offer was one they just had to refuse.