Jim Hopkins: Worrier Norman needs to be a warrior

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman needs to learn it can't all be rights and frights in Parliament. Photo / Northern Advocate

Some days it seems there just isn't time to worry about all the things we're supposed to worry about.

Because we're supposed to worry about everything - global warming, human rights, human wrongs, cows in the river, cows on the land, foreign farm buyers, emissions, the protection of flags, uranium in our harbours and, most important of all, whether we should have a holiday today if the All Whites beat Paraguay.

Well, of course we should. Plus tickets to John Key's corporate box so we can watch the next match with him.

And a free Air New Zealand flight (executive economy class) over there. Heck, there's no point owning an airline if you can't get a perk.

Thus rewarded, we can vuvuzela to our heart's content right through the game, knowing that when we come home, dear old Doctor Doom, the Green Leader of the Joint Party, Russel Norman, will be waiting like an apocalyptic cleric, waving his flag and crying "Shame! Woe! Pestilence and boils," before insisting we can't clear Customs till we've washed our filthy carbon footprints off the face of the earth "because we don't have a second Planet B" (as one of his addled associates said in Parliament this week).

Well, maybe we don't. And maybe global warming and uranium and cow turds in the water and all those other gloomy things are terribly important.

But a Green world shouldn't be that bleak. It can't all be rights and frights and slick oils in Parliament.

Somebody should tell Doctor Doom that only abnormal Normans worry about everything from Armageddon to Tibet. The rest of us have bills to pay, Tests to watch, lawns to mow, kids to smack.

We've got GST, the ETS, the SFO and Hone Harawira all breathing down our necks. And that's before we find out who Sonny Bill's signed with. (Please don't tell Andy Haden if it is the Crusaders.)

Enough's enough for us normal Normans, Russel. We don't have time to get our knickers in a knot about how the world's doomed and we're all going to hell in a handcart, although we haven't yet but will next week.

We can't afford to worry as you do about BP and bovines and China and mining and how we should never have Free Trade Agreements with anybody emitting the merest whiff of malfeasance.

We're too busy earning the dosh to pay the taxes to support all those lovely list MPs like yourself, Russel. Basically, we work from January 1 till the middle of May doing that.

It's pretty much a full-time job for us. So we're not like you. You get paid to worry. That's probably why you do it so well. You get free flights everywhere so you can tell everyone what they should be worried about.

You get an office and researchers and a credit card and, for all we know, you may watch something racy, like Trackside.

You're a one-man sack cloth and ashes factory, Russel. Gloom is your mojo. And you shake it well. You're the Ricki Herbert of angst, whipping your All Greens into a morbid frenzy.

But even if you do see yourself as the canary in the coal mine, never forget Russ - it's still the cushiest pit on the planet.

Only 7 per cent of us voted for you, mate, but 100 per cent of us pick up your tab.

And the 93 per cent who didn't vote for you would be grateful if you'd stop sticking your fingers down your throat and vomiting all over that flash red carpet only MPs can tread.

Squealing "Give me back my flag" like some petulant brat in a day care centre isn't your job, Doc. We've got hairy loonies for that.

Hairy loonies (and we've all been one some time or other) are the folk who wave flags and jostle security guards.

If that's your bag, man, do it with the loonies. Do it on the street, but not on the red carpet - even if it does score you headlines and win you votes.

Maybe you weren't in New Zealand when Jerry Collins had a widdle in the middle just before kick-off in a test match. But when he did, people said, "No way! All Blacks don't do that! They don't piddle on the paddock. On the opposition, yes, on the green sward, no!"

It's the same with MPs, Doc. You wear the jersey, you play the game. No farting at state dinners. No hitting on Mrs Obama, or someone else's Vice-President. No tacky stunts to get your 15 seconds, even when you are saving the planet.

It can't be all perks and no responsibilities, Doc. If you want to call yourself a leader, act like one. "Noblesse oblige" as the old geezers used to say, in the good old days before all the worries drove us mad.