Rodney may have misunderstood that gay advice

POLITICS RINGSIDE - BOB JONES

In his autobiography Rodney Hide described his arrival in Parliament as a new MP.

No one greeted him with any new chum instructions, indeed nobody even spoke to him. Allocated an office, he idled in his doorway watching defeated MPs wheelie-binning their files past him, all muttering the same lie, namely how relieved they were to be rid of the place.

Finally Graeme Lee, a man I once accurately described in this newspaper as a condom on the penis of progress and who represented the wowser end of the electorate, paused and addressed Rodney. "A word of advice," he barked. Grateful, Rodney was all ears. "Watch out for the homosexuals," Lee hissed and then was gone.

The question arises whether Rodney misunderstood this instruction? After all, first went the wife. Then came ballroom dancing, followed by the gymnasium and now the yellow jacket.

Under well-deserved fire by Hide in the House, Winston Peters insinuated as much. Rodney was unmoved.

"I do not see how my being gay constitutes an answer to my question," he protested to the Speaker, who, even though she is packing it in soon, given what she has endured, still has to be excellent odds to pull a machine gun from her robes and rake the House.

I can see it now. Lying dying and bullet-riddled Winston will gasp through blood-flecked lips, "Point of order Madam Speaker. The reality is I'm fit and well."

Nevertheless, Winston's diversion certainly succeeded with the Press Gallery who promptly abandoned the alleged corruption issue for the more titivating possibility of Rodney's gaydom.

"Are you gay Mr Hide?" they pressed. "Not so far," Rodney happily retorted.

We shall watch for the possible advent of a pencil moustache to resolve this question, not that it matters as Labour has an iron-clad grip on the homosexual vote by virtually making it a qualification for candidacy.

Rodney shares more than philosophy with his mentor Roger Douglas.

No two MPs in our modern Parliamentary history are so utterly impervious to personal insults. Once after Douglas was subject to a particularly spiteful attack from David Lange I urged him to lash back.

"Oh well," he sighed. "David's not very well. It's not his fault," and he meant it.

According to the polls we will have a landslide election driven as much as anything by a desire for fresh faces, which is why I thought Rodney's resurrection of Douglas to be a tactical error.

I also felt Rodney could lose Epsom, swept aside in a National landslide, but no longer.

His persistence with Winston Peters while Labour demonstrated hypocrisy and National cowardice, will have lifted his mana immensely and I now see the possibility of him back with three or four MPs. If so then he deserves it.

Mike Moore made an interesting observation about Hide producing an autobiography, specifically that no matter how self- serving, it indicated a genuinely passionate politician.

It's too late now for those facing defeat to pick up the pen so Parekura Horomia, trailing the Maori Party in his electorate's polls, can forget any thoughts about publishing I Fought Anorexia and Won, which given his spectacular success with this battle, might otherwise have been a best-seller.

This election will mark a full circle in Rodney's tempestuous political career.

I suspect that on the Monday after election weekend he too will neglect to greet his new MPs and instead will be found on Bowen House's New Zealand First's floor, joyfully watching the wheelie-bins passing and the music-to-his-ears muttering of "I'm secretly pleased". In this case, however, most of them may well be telling the truth.