Stuart Nash is Napier MP, but for how long? Photo / George Heard
There’s a New Zealand flag that hangs outside Stuart Nash’s home.
It’s not quite tattered, but it’s a little frayed on one edge.
Probably how Nash felt this week.
History is littered with MPs who have got themselves into trouble, and inadvertently dobbed themselves in.
In 1995, National John Carter rang a talkback show hosted by fellow National MP John Banks.
Carter pretended to be “Hone” from the Far North, and spoke to Banks using what he perceived to be, for want of a better word, a Māori accent.
Banks has always denied knowing that “Hone” was John Carter.
Carter lost his job as senior whip. How badly did it affect his career?
A year later, he was reinstated in the whip role.
He never quite made it to a seat at the Cabinet table, but was a minister outside of Cabinet - holding the Racing, Civil Defence and associate Local Government portfolios.
He retired from central government politics in 2013 to a cushy role as High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, and returned to New Zealand.
Carter got himself elected as the Far North District Council Mayor, defeating none other than Wayne Kelvin Forrest Brown.
Carter was a colourful MP, straight up, fun - a little like Nash.
A drink-driving charge annoyed Carter immensely, not just because of the indiscretion, but because it popped up now and then like an annoying pimple that you can’t get rid of.
When Carter left Parliament, he lamented the scrutiny MPs came under from an unforgiving public, and media.
“We do need to be serious, we need to debate issues and this place [Parliament] is important to the country.
“But we also need to be able to share humour. I am more and more concerned - in fact I’m pleased I’m retiring - because the scrutiny we are coming under, particularly from the media who are trying to sanitise us and turn us into saints, is ridiculous.
“We need to have people who are real, who can laugh at themselves and be real people. I say to the people who are prone to criticise us, let us just have some space. Let us be real people. Occasionally we will make mistakes but let us be real.’’
Should the public simply forgive Stuart Nash for his mistakes and let him be real?
No.
Carter, angry at another mention of his drink-driving charge in the media, once asked me (in his own voice, by the way) when did he get to be himself, and not John Carter MP.
It’s a good question, but the answer is that when you are an MP, you are always an MP.
Whether you like it or not, it’s what you signed up for.
It’s one of the reasons Jacinda Ardern is leaving politics - the public and media expectation that you are continually “on” is an unhealthy mental drain.
Sooner or later, some MPs simply decide “I’ve had enough”.
The irony of Nash’s indiscretion, in phoning his mate the Police Commissioner about a court sentence he disagreed with, is that no one would have known if Nash had not blurted it on a right-leaning radio show.
Nash had every right to raise concerns about the sentence, but through the proper parliamentary or legal channels, and not in a way that does not put him in a position of being seen to use his influence.
Understanding that nuance is important.
Nash will now be choosing whatever he says publicly very carefully. Which history tells us is not his natural tendency.
Like Ardern, would he call time on his political career and do something else?
It’s probably too close to this year’s election for him to resign, although it didn’t stop former National leader Todd Muller from announcing this past week that he won’t be seeking re-election.
Nash’s departure - by his own hand or otherwise - would be disastrous for Labour, not just in Napier but in the wider Hawke’s Bay, given Tukituki is far from a safe Labour seat.
So while Nash hoisted himself with his own petard this week, like his flag, he survives.
But for how long? The answer is blowing in the wind.