Lila Smith wrote:
> I would like you to read the following..this is a New Zealand
> Politican that was voted out, now loves his life and has written quite
> frankly about our political system..I think you will enjoy this .....
> **
> /Former Napier MP Russell Fairbrother Happier now
> he's out of Parliament
> /
> By Neill Gordon *of HB Country Scene*
> *(page 12 of pdf at **http://www.napiermail.co.nz/HBCS_book.pdf**)*
> Parliament was like a prison for former Napier MP Russell
> Fairbrother.
> Napier people did him a favour voting him out last year,
> ending six "wasted years" in politics, he says.
> Initially seduced by appointments to influential committees
> and his anointing as a future Attorney General, he ended up
> feeling trapped in a system that prioritised patch protection
> and power instead of what politics is truly about: "improving
> the life of individuals."
> "I just couldn't click into the thought pro- cess. I could never
> get my head round it. I'd get on that plane [to Wellington] on
> Tuesday morning and my heart would sink.
> I'd think 'I just hate this' ".
> The conditions at Parliament were tougher than at Mangaroa
> Prison, he says.
> He'd arrive at seven in the morning, couldn't leave till 10 at
> night, and couldn't leave the premises without permission
> from a party whip.
> "So you're trapped in this building 15 hours a day, three days
> a week... I felt imprisoned."
> Parliament's stupidly long hours manufacture poor decisions,
> the 65-year-old says.
> "You've got middle-aged people who are on the go from at
> least seven in the morning till at least 10 at night and you
> point me to 45, 55, 65-year-olds who can make good
> rational decisions when they've been awake and
> concentrating at their place of business for 15 or 17 hours a
> day.
> "Some of the most important decisions are made under these
> punishing conditions.
> "Often meetings go till midnight or later and often they're
> late because they're crisis meetings.
> "So you're supposed to make contributions which require
> quick thinking and accurate thinking, which is quite stupid."
> Politics demands MPs become salesmen for party policy and
> fosters "bully personalities", he says.
> Russell couldn't and wouldn't play the game. He'd built a
> successful legal career as an articulate, charismatic
> persuader, but as a politician he came across as dull and
> humourless.
> "I withdrew. I lost my sense of humour; I lost my voice. I
> couldn't even give a good speech as a politician.
> "I was resistant to the skills you have to acquire, which are
> skills of making yourself seem more important than you
> really are and of suppressing other people's importance. It
> just didn't wash with me."
> Despite his disillusionment with Parliament he maintains he
> is "really glad" he had the experience.
> "It's a rare opportunity to have and, being near the apex of
> power, you do see how people work and you do see what's
> wrong back on the streets and so I have been pleased to
> come back and work at a low level at the bar.
> "I don't take too much work on and I turn away a lot more
> than I take on. I do a lot of work for free. I do a lot of work
> where I get paid with some gift, a bottle of wine, some-
> times just a hug and it's quite rewarding.
> "It takes me right back to what politics is all about - trying to
> improve the life of individuals; not trying to strengthen the
> position of people with power.
> "In all the debate over the Auckland super city or the debate
> beginning on Hawke's Bay local body amalgamation, no-
> one is saying someone living on $30,000 somewhere is
> going to measurably better off; the lives of individuals don't
> come into it."
> The contrast between the "good honest argument" of the
> courtroom and vote- blinkered MPs was a huge frustration
> for him.
> Russell tried to set up a committee to try and get a New
> Zealand definition of justice, but MPs "weren't interested in
> big picture stuff, it was what would garner them votes next
> week in their electorate".
> Whereas a barrister operates under one rule - you don't
> knowingly mislead the court - MPs "mislead the public all
> the time".
> "You're effectively a salesperson and you're delivering a
> version of the facts. Like we'd trot out unemployment stats,
> trot out this and that.
> "Working for Families is a classic. That was a key plank of
> the Labour Party, a very good part. But it took the Child
> Poverty Action Group to take a case to the Human Rights
> Commission to prove that it was in fact discriminatory.
> "Because if you were a child of a family on a benefit you
> didn't get the largesse that Working for Families offered the
> child of a parent earning the same money who was in
> employment. The theory being, of course, to get people off
> the benefit into employment but you couldn't go out and say
> this policy is disenfranchising kids of beneficiaries because
> that wasn't politically correct. You had to say Working for
> Families is the best thing since sliced bread.
> "You sell them. It's policy rather than principle.
> "Most backbench MPs could not put hand on heart and say
> they've done a productive day's work and many cabinet
> ministers couldn't do that either, because the work's done by
> five or six people.
> "The normal currency on the street is money, you work for a
> dollar. In politics the currency is power and power comes
> from information so that - you see this happening in the
> National Party, it's not just a Labour Party thing - the few
> people who run the country - there's about five - they have
> the information and they don't share it, they feed it out to
> you. It's like when you sell an insurance policy - this is the
> policy you're going to sell. You don't have planning sessions
> you have sales sessions in politics.
> "John Key - and I'm not being party political, it was no
> different with us - with the Maori seats and smacking bill, he
> didn't say 'I'll take it to my caucus', he says, 'I've got some
> ideas, I'll take it to Cabinet on Monday' and then he
> announced what the outcome was.
> "His caucus meets on Tuesday so the majority of his MPs
> had no idea what Cabi- net endorsed of his idea until they
> read the paper on Tuesday morning."
> Russell says his recent suggestion that the number of MPs
> should be reduced from 121 to 60 or 70 was made seriously.
> Some MPs leave Parliament each week having "done
> nothing for three days, glad to get home and play golf".
> "MPs from some of the minor parties, they have nothing to
> do, they don't know what their idiosyncratic leaders are
> doing until they hear them stand up and say something and
> you saw that the way the Alliance broke up," he says.
> "With modern technology you don't need to be face to face.
> You don't need 121 MPs.
> We used to have 90 MPs with electorates of 15,000 people
> and I think that was too many. I think we could get by with
> 60 or 70 MPs. It would save the country a lot of money.
> Russell says he is far healthier now he is out of politics.
> "I don't snore like I used to, my health's better and my
> judgement's far better. I have time to let my head work
> through issues and think about things."
> Lila Smith
> www.windwand.co.nz <http://www.windwand.co.nz>
> Taranaki Tourism Website
> www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
> <http://www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm>
> Organic Kitchen Gardening
> Mob 021230 7962
> 06 7512942
> 122 Ngamotu Road
> New Plymouth
> New Zealand
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