‘Old Baldy' falls foul of the ominous gender gap
"'Booed who?"
Hannah, the bar manager, couldn't help overhearing the banter of her two favourite Boomers, right-wing Laurie and left-wing Les.
She paused in her rounding-up of empty glasses and dirty plates to listen.
"Luxon, Laurie, the prime minister turned up to the netball final, and the crowd booed him. Since when did New Zealanders start booing their prime ministers at sporting fixtures?"
"Oh, come on, Les, your memory's not that bad. Jacinda Ardern wasn't our prime minister that long ago."
"And if I recall rightly, Laurie, she received more abuse than any other New Zealand prime minister. But, it was only a certain sort of Kiwi who came after her. And, the hate they had for her was out of all proportion to her actual conduct as their prime minister. There was something quite deranged about Ardern's enemies' animosity. Looking back, I reckon she wasn't vilified on account of who, or what, she actually was, but on account of the huge event she was conflated with — the Covid-19 pandemic."
"Spoken like a true Labour man, Les. But, you try running that line on those who were kept from the bedside of a dying parent. Or, the people who lost their jobs because they refused to be injected. Tell it to the retailers who watched their life's work sicken and die. Tell it to the schoolkids fretting alone at home. Truthfully, Les, I think Jacinda's 'actual conduct' merited quite a lot of animosity."
"I think you've just proved my point, mate."
"Touche Les. But Ardern still isn't the only New Zealand prime minister to have been monstered by her fellow citizens. Have you forgotten the 1984 incident when David Lange was set upon by a mob of Otago cockies? His driver and protection officers had to throw him into the back of the prime-ministerial limousine and power away before the furious farmers could tear the nation's new leader limb-from-limb."
"Hell's bells, Laurie, I'd forgotten all about that. It was just after Roger Douglas had announced the abolition of all agricultural subsidies. Some cockies faced economic ruin."
"Not happy chappies, Les, that's for sure."
"And it reminds me of an even earlier incident — 1977, I think it was — when Rob Muldoon's limousine was dented all to hell by the boots of a dozen or so sturdy Dunedin cops trying to hold back an angry throng of Otago students and trade unionists calling themselves 'The July Front'. The constables had turned their backs to the crowd, linked arms, and, bracing themselves on the prime minister's car, expedited his entry to the Dunedin Town Hall — where the National Party was holding its annual conference."
"Let me guess, Les, you were there."
"Might have been, Laurie. It was a long time ago. As you say, my memory's not what it was."
"Proves my point though, doesn't it? Luxon's very far from the first prime minister to be poorly received by the voting public."
"OK, but it also proves my point, Laurie. Ardern, Lange, Muldoon: they all came under fire from aggrieved minorities. Victims of the Covid regulations. Farmers stripped of their state support. Students and unionists venting their left-wing spleens at Rob's Mob. But, being booed by the audience at a netball game? That's a bit different, isn't it? I mean, these were just ordinary Kiwis out for a night of sport. They hadn't come to protest, they'd come to cheer. But, when they saw Old Baldy they just saw red — or, in his case, blue — and started booing. That's got to mean something, surely?
"Could mean a lot of things, Les. It could mean the fans were just pissed off at Luxon trying to muscle-in on a sporting fixture which, were he not the prime minister, he'd never dream of attending. Maybe they were annoyed at being used, quite cynically, as the backdrop for yet another National party photo-op."
"Yeah, well, when you put it like that."
"And, I'll offer you another explanation, Les. It was a netball final."
"So?"
"So, who follows netball — mostly?"
"Women and girls."
"Exactly. And who, by a scarily wide margin, favour Labour over National?"
"Women and girls!"
"Old Baldy, as you call him, was booed by the Gender Gap."
"Go it in one, mate", muttered Hannah.
■Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
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