Laws unto themselves, these mayors

It's often said we get the politicians we deserve. And by and large, it seems that we do.

Southlanders needed an affable court jester to help them feel better about their lot (and spend all of those licensing trust profits on their behalf), and appear more than satisfied with their seemingly perpetual banquet of bulls... and jellybeans laid on by Mayor Tim Shadbolt.

Auckland? Well, perhaps some natural imperative for balance is behind the world's largest Polynesian city being blessed with Banksie, whose neck gets redder by the day as he savours the super-city elections now just 12 months away. Heaven help us all if Aucklanders are super-silly enough to tap his shoulder for one of the most powerful jobs in the land.

And speaking of conservative megalomaniacs, whatever has Whanganui done to deserve Michael Laws? Surely 150 years of misspelling the town's name cannot have built up that much bad karma? Even Rob Muldoon had his human side, and Winston Peters displayed a sense of humour once or twice in his too-long political career, but Laws is divisive, manipulative and seems to get his kicks solely by winding up the army of bigots among us.

In his latest outburst, he proposed paying at least some among the "underclass" to sterilise themselves in order to negate this country's appalling problem with child abuse.

His comments were reported in Fairfax and picked up elsewhere, and he eventually claimed to Fairfax rival the New Zealand Herald that he'd been misquoted. Yeah right.

"Most beneficiaries regard the benefit as a temporary arrangement. But there are some who regard it as a lifestyle, who abuse it and their children. They were the target of my comments yesterday," he was reported as saying in the Herald. So, he did make the comments then; just not targeting "all" beneficiaries. Whatever.

It staggers me that public figures like Laws and former MP and talkback host John Banks are given platforms to promote their political ambitions and boost their irrepressible egos. For some unfathomable reason, Fairfax pays for Laws' weekly ranting in the Sunday Star-Times, or at least I assume it does; perhaps he should be charged standard advertising rates. He also graces the less rarefied dead air of talkback radio, a much more natural fit. Though I'm all for freedom of speech, there ought to be some rules ringfencing politicians and news columns. It's hard enough for contenders to get media traction against sitting mayors, let alone ones that happen to be media-hussies.

I used to think Laws was simply in it for the attention and the sheer love of combat. He reminds me of a rooster we used to have called Clarence, who ruled the backyard and would leap into the air, claws and beak slashing whenever anyone dared to venture near.

I might add that Clarence, one day, went too far, and soon thereafter went no more. Drop him – Laws that is, not the chook – on Mt Arthur, naked, in July and tell him that snow is cold, and with his last breath he'd still be arguing that it was actually hot.

But then a couple of years back Mayor Michael got stuck in over peanut allergy, of all things. Schools looking to protect their kids became the target of a typical anti-PC diatribe.

I was at home the afternoon my daughter burst through our front door en route to A and E with her three-year-old: barely conscious or breathing, her face ripe-tomato red and bloated, her neck swollen. The cause? Her father had had a peanut butter sandwich, wiped the knife clean and then innocently buttered a slice of bread for his daughter. It was her first of several episodes of anaphylactic shock in response to the merest hint of peanut exposure.

She can be in a large room and know with certainty that someone has just bitten into a peanut butter sandwich, and it is enough to cause her panic ... and this is a fit, strong, active, intelligent, rural-living child – certainly no shrinking violet. By belittling a potentially life-threatening condition that I have seen firsthand the impact of – and continuing to attack and rebuke those experts in the field who tried, gently, to correct him – Laws was exposed as a buffoon and a bully. They are traits he has continued to polish and reinforce.

Clearly, he comes out with such stuff to appease his addiction to profile and self-aggrandisement. Even halfwits' votes are worth as much as the more discerning, and in the mayor of Whanganui's world, the first Law of politics – of life! – is to Be Noticed. But narcissist and nasty make a mean combination.

Back I digress. Nelson, as an interesting blend of provincial plodders, low-waged conservatives, creative dreamers and spendthrift plotters, needed an experienced hand on the wheel – and that's what it got two years ago.

It will be interesting to see how Mayor Kerry Marshall and his team handle the last third of the first Hands Up council term. Will personal ambition disrupt team unity in the run-up to the mayoralty race next November? Will Aldo Micro's petition ever get the numbers? If it was the first move towards a tilt for the top job next year, it does seem to have run out of puff.

Has Mr Marshall's bold and controversial choice of deputy, Rachel Reese, been up to the job? I think she has – especially in the way she's been prepared to buck the party line more than once, but has her profile been high enough? Who else, independent or otherwise, might emerge from the pack in the next year?

And Tasman, with its sometimes awkward rural-urban blend, could hardly have done better than Richard Kempthorne.

I don't always agree with his politics – especially his refusal to even countenance a look at the facts and figures of potential amalgamation, and the way the council has treated its community boards, but there are few more decent, considerate, honourable blokes in his position anywhere. He, too, has an equally capable deputy in Tim King, along with others, waiting in the wings.

Michael Laws might sneer, but there is much he could learn from our local body politicians, if only he could see through the bright shiny glare of his own egomania.