Jay Kuten: NZ politics is no joke, sadly

Jay Kuten

SALVE, vale, John Key, et Bonum cursum. In a continuing effort to slow the decline of my brain, I'm attempting to resurrect my old Latin. Hello, goodbye, Mr Key, have a nice trip ... presumably to Maui, though I hear that Tokyo is on the itinerary. The truth is that I won't miss him.

Not that I don't like him. "Like" has nothing to do with "missing" where any politician is concerned, and John Key is likeable enough. I suppose. I have no urge as my fellow Americans sometimes do to measure their electoral choice on whether they'd want to have a beer with that pollie. Instead I've always gone with the minimalist standard borrowed from Hippocrates: the politician who does the least harm.

I miss Rodney Hide despite his awful politics, because of his stunning hypocrisies, the busting of the perks buster, those warm nuts at 12,000 metres, those great dance moves, that ugly yellow car. Pork Pie people, it's another sequel in waiting.

I miss Winston Peters ... when he's out of office. Then his critiques of government and its venalities are spot on. Until he's elected and quickly guilty of the same self-serving acts.

But Bill English will miss John Key. He's already missed the Teflon PM's election memo and its precepts for winning.

Rule One: Follow the 1960s Arpege ads. Promise them anything but give 'em ... In 2008, Key promised not to raise the GST or the debt to pay for the tax cuts on the top earners. Once elected, he increased the GST 25 per cent, increased the debt to offset tax cuts and sprayed himself with Arpege-coated Teflon to offset both. BTW, Bill, you can still buy an original Arpege ad on eBay for 10 bucks or you could use $10 to buy a couple of "keylos" of healthy veges, inclusive of GST, of course.

English, who didn't get the Arpege memo, has signalled both tax cuts from a healthy economy and a rise in the age of retirement.

I'm pretty sure his Maori Party coalition partners won't mind, even though the present age of 65 already disfavours their constituents who live five years less than Pakeha.

The whole National team will miss John Key, because no matter how silly his mincing on the runway, how awkward his handshakes, how embarrassing his ponytail pulling, how politically disastrous his tea-towel flag campaign, John Key could look straight into the camera and tell a big one with a smiling face.

The rest of them, well ... not so much. Trade Minister Todd McClay was a deer in headlights while touting the non-existent virtues of TPP, claiming it would bring us $2.7 billion in GDP and cost us only $90 million. Imagine that. Because it was imaginary. We were saved the $4 billion Pharmac blowout by Donald Trump.

Nick Smith definitely needs a sunhat. Only an overheated brain pan would invent his claims of our rivers' cleanliness, by lowering of standards, doubling the faecal bacteria count. Smith claims that's international standards, yeah right. Maybe Kolkata. He'd have us keep the foul water and give away the clean.

The list of embarrassments goes on ... Nikki Kaye's going Trump on Jacinda Ardern ... Paula Bennett on a good day.

Labour, though, ought not to become complacent. Its desperation is showing, cuddling up to Willie Jackson, a guy who doesn't know who to aim his racism at now he's found his Jewish roots. Being National Lite ain't gonna cut it with the voters.

Unless Little plus Greens and Co. address the real issues of our country -- global warming, widening economic and social inequality, the 25 per cent child poverty rate, the disproportionate resources of two major cities, the balance between agriculture and environmental impact -- and come up with credible policies to address them, the September elections could be the change that wasn't.

Labour and Greens could still end up neglecting the needs and the dignity of average working Kiwis.

Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.