A POLITICAL PARABLE

My mokopuna brought me a fistful of freesia plants this morning from his mum’s garden. No. Not freesia flowers. Whole plants, with bunches of flowers attached.

I didn’t have the heart to growl him, but I showed him how, in future, he must use two hands to pick these particular flowers – one to anchor their stem at the bottom, the other to break it. Then we went home and planted the sweet-smelling remains in pots.

If ever there was an object lesson in how hope works, it’s a child planting spring bulbs when they should have been in the ground months before. Hei aha. My mokopuna had no time for that, or any other, inconvenient fact – like, those bulbs had already well and truly sprung. Unlike the fragile freesias he’d so easily uprooted, his hope sprang deep and tough – just like him.

I think there’s more than a little of that same strong feeling in the hearts of most people who allow their name to go forward for elections to public office.

Even allowing for whakahihi (overweening pride) and muru (vengeance), is it not hope that motivates the candidate who, having spent yonks trashing a Council or Board, now wants to lead or be part of it?

And what stronger urge than hope impels the incumbent who, all but invisible for their entire time in office, now comes courting our votes again?

Consider the candidate who has crashed and burned in past elections. While ego or eccentricity might be the vehicle, hope is the fuel that allows them to throw their hat in the ring again.

And what induces the candidate with no experience, or the single issue candidate, to stand? Sure, passion and self-belief are probably a large part of their motivational mix. But hope gives them the guts to take the chance.

Hika! Even the solid performing shoo-in, who couldn’t lose if they tried, has hopes for things like less friction, more gratitude, or higher voter turnout.

I’ve made hopeful investments in what turned out to be hopeless causes, and I’ve seen success stories that started as little more than jokers in the pack. I’ve planted seeds in stony ground and even stood for public office. So to all those hopefuls in this year’s local body elections – ratbag or radical, saint or sinner – I salute the lot, and point them to the parable of the freesia.

The scent of this flower, planted as a hope and harbinger of spring, is fantastic. But, sadly, like a lot of exotics, it’s too, too easy to pull out.

Perhaps I should have written about thistles or ragwort instead.

Maybe there’s more to be learnt from a manuka stump. Hei konei. Hei kona.