Do we have to care about David Seymour?

The voices to listen to...the voices to share.

There’s a symptom of ADHD that I really struggle with, and before you click delete, I promise this post isn’t another millennial talking endlessly about their ADHD.

It’s sometimes called prioritisation executive dysfunction. It’s anxiety around what things are important and what things aren’t. I spend a lot of time trying to decide what I need to pay attention to or not, or what I need to do and what I don’t need to do. It can cause paralysis, avoidance, and procrastination.

It sucks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “you care about too many things!”

Every time I hear this I think: “Wait, are you telling me I can care less about things? HOW?!”

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about prioritisation executive dysfunction and this coalition government. It is extremely hard to work out how much bullshit we have to deal with from Luxon, Seymour, and Peters.

Usually, we would have a lot of focus on the prime minister right? But, because Luxon has the leadership skills of a half-sucked Air New Zealand lolly, the media is often going directly to Seymour and Peters for sound-bites and information about what is actually happening in Government.

When you have a charisma vacuum for a prime minister, the deputy can often be the one who fronts media. But, we have two deputies! So we constantly have to hear David Seymour simping for his racist mates and trying to make sure his white hood is covered up enough every time he speaks. AND, Winston Peters playing the angry old grandpa routine, yelling at everyone and wishing he could just watch the dogs race in peace.

Then once Seymour has said something like ‘I don’t understand the treaty but I sure understand what my constituents want and that’s to be able to desecrate some wetland and not have to ask the fucking Iwi about it,’ we have to hear Winston Peters say ‘Well, I don’t think that’s racist. In my day we didn’t have microwaves, we had to blow on the food to keep it hot’ and then we have to have Luxon respond with ‘well, I don’t know about uhh, hold on I’m ummm…Well, you seee…’ and then for no reason they’ll shove Chris Bishop in front of the press gallery and he’ll open his big trenchcoat to reveal a bunch of smokes that he hopes he will be able to tempt into the mouths of 15 year-olds.

And we, the people, have to listen to all of this shit. And nothing really happened you know? Nobody said anything of substance, nothing changed, it’s all bullshit.

The Government is getting so much time to lay out their divisive bullshit because they have three fart sniffers getting equal air time. By the time you get any alternate view, it’s too late - everyone is exhausted from the idiocy.

To make matters worse, Peters and Seymour are excellent at courting publicity. They know exactly what to say to get their spot on the news. Peters knew that starting a speech at Waitangi with ‘I don’t have much time to spend with you because I’ve got actually important people to see’ would piss off everyone there. It’s pure bait. And he also knew that the groans and eye rolls and anger would make TV.

Seymour knew that implying singing waiata is the same as being shot at would appeal to his loyal base of white men who think using moisturiser makes you gay. It’s all so predictable.

It’s no surprise so many of us are feeling paralysed by it all. It’s like a giant game of wack-a-mole. We’re all trying to fact check and correct every bullshit remark by these three bellends, and it’s impossible to keep up. And all the while, they’re sucking up all of the air in the room, leaving all of us gasping.

So what can we do? What should we do? Is it worth fact checking? Is it worth correcting them? Is it worth the campaigns for fairer coverage? Is this what we are going to have to suffer through for the next however many years?

I was thinking about all of these things as I watched the Waitangi Day coverage. I felt such shame at how our government disrespected Ngāpuhi and all of the tangata whenua, kaumātua and tamariki there with their nonsense.

Then I looked at my boys and saw them transfixed watching Tame Iti’s beautiful protest. They’re proud of their culture, of their journey from Wheteina and Rauru hapū of Hawaiki, to Rēkohu, born from Rongomaiwhenua, then to Aotearoa by Tokomaru to Urenui. They’re proud to be Māori and Moriori - Ngāti Mutunga o Wharekauri.

They turned the sound up on the TV and listened to Tame’s mokopuna Te Rangi Moaho Iti speak and they hung on his every word.

"We call it a Haki Ātea. The ātea comes from the separation of Ranginui and Papatuānuku, and when they separated there was an ātea a blank canvas, and so that is what the white flag represents a blank canvas to find new ways to move forward, to start again."

I realised that tamariki know exactly who they want to listen to.

-

When David Seymour’s face filled our television screen again the kids raced off to grab white poster paper to make flags for their own Haki Ātea.

I pressed mute and turned to face them instead.