BULLY FOR THEM

On facebook recently someone called Henk posted a tongue-in-cheek theory that overweight National Party Ministers really, really hate people on benefits.  As examples Henk cites Jenny Shipley who ruthlessly slashed benefits when she held the Social Welfare portfolio in 1990, and Paula Bennett, the current heavy in what is now known as the Social Development portfolio who has been hooking into beneficiaries like only a reformed beneficiary could.  As a reason for their theoretical hatred, Henk reckons that the big lasses are jealous of skinny beneficiaries.  Henk is definitely a fattist, but he isn’t as sexist as he sounds.  “Imagine,” he invites, “what Gerry Brownlee would do!”  Then, after an elliptical pause, he suggests “Probably firing squads.”

Actually I think Henk is on to something here, not about fat people who are no more or less hateful than any other group in my experience, but about how some people in power use their authority to bully those beneath them.

In a classic case of pulling the ladder up behind her, once she became Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett cancelled a training benefit which she herself had used while on the DPB.  She then later released the private details of a beneficiary who criticised her for doing that.  How did Bennett manage to get access to those details?  What pressure was brought to bear on some underling to open the file, access the information, than pass it on up to her?

Apparently the resultant public backlash against her critic has shocked poor Ms Bennett. But now that Human Rights Commissioner, Rob Hesketh, has investigated the subsequent complaint and found she breached the privacy of that beneficiary, is she repentant?  No she is not.  “I do not believe that I breached privacy,” she said last week before going on to say she might release more details in the future.  Dear me.

Similarly Wayne Brown has been pinged by the Auditor-General for being unwise in blurring the lines between his personal business interests and his Mayoral role.  He used Far North District Council Mayoral letterhead to write to the Far North District Council CEO about his outstanding rates bill with that same council, and got other staff to follow up on the same bill.  I hate to think what it’s been like for those staff, but apparently the Mayor is the victim here.  "I don't get the same crack of the whip as an average man," he complained. "They haven't treated me like a developer - they've treated me like a mayor."  Good grief.

The word to describe these behaviours is bullying, and politicians in and out of parliament seem highly prone to doing it, regardless of their body measurements, gender, race, colour or creed.

Personally, I’m grateful to the Human Rights Commissioner and the Auditor-General for bringing these and other cases to light.  Bully for them, I say.