Yesterday marked the end of the political career of Trevor Mallard, Speaker of Parliament, in order to commence a diplomatic sinecure in Eire.
The 1984 intake of MPs was a curious bunch. The seven new chums in the National party all had rather long and/or successful careers in Parliament despite being mostly undistinguished; the seventeen Socialist MPs also had a surprising number of nonentities who managed to navigate the shifting sands of voting patterns and survive. Peter Dunne, Judy Keall, Jack Elder, Annette King, Jim Sutton, Trevor Mallard, Jim Anderton and Ken Shirley were all still around two – and in some cases three – decades later, despite it being difficult to ascertain what any of them managed to actually achieve.
Mallard had managed to get himself elected MP for Hamilton West by 803 votes, after convincing around 1,000 people who had previously voted Social Credit to support him. Arriving at Parliament as an obscure PPTA troublemaker – who felt no history of ‘exploitation’, 12 weeks annual holiday, inflation adjusted salaries, and being unsackable, somehow or other required a trade union to “protect” schoolmasters – he was very much overshadowed by older and more distinguished colleagues.
Commencing his career in backbench anonymity he was plonked on the Road Safety and Statutes Revision select committees. His maiden speech was highly amusing and ironic in terms of his subsequent career. It began with a show-off display of speaking Maori, before spending an extraordinary amount of time (a forerunner of things to come!) speaking about rape.
Some unintentionally hilarious quotations include –
“[…] I also believe it is not appropriate for any Prime Minister to approve interception warrants [by the SIS] against people he or she perceives as enemies..“
“[…] and funding based on the number of backsides on seats rather than the effectiveness of the work done…” (referring to tertiary education enrolments)
“[…] some people believe poor economic performance can be attributed to an overprotected, inefficient, and over regulated economy. That view has gained credibility on a very slim factual base...”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3281408&view=1up&seq=810&skin=2021&q1=trevor%20mallard Page 802
Needless to say, the electors of Hamilton West found themselves a new MP and Mallard slunk back to Lower Hutt. His three years out of Parliament were spent as Chief of Staff to Mike Moore and, in a fairly treacherous move, once back in the House in 1993, he promptly voted to have Helen Clark as Labour leader. Of all the things Mallard has done in his life, this is the one that I find unfathomable – Fredo Corleone stuff! – how does somebody do such a thing?
His subsequent career needs no recapitulation: a seemingly endless series of thuggery, bullying, incompetence, deceit, adultery, and dirty tricks; matters we should draw a veil over.
That he has managed to last 35 years and 35 days as a member of Parliament really does boggle the mind.
