My partner has ambitions of a political nature and, although I don’t support the same party, I naturally support those ambitions.
We shall see what eventuates as the 2026 election draws closer but, with certain ambitions in mind, my partner has been urging me to tidy up one or two matters, lest anybody finds out about them, so I had the most hilarious morning in ages.
It will shock everybody to learn I have gone through life doing whatever I please. One of those things has been parking my car wherever is most convenient, another is to drive at whatever speed I feel like and a third is never paying any taxes: speed limits, taxation and parking meters being simply old-fashioned communism and consequently ignored. It has always been a source of great amusement for me to actually speed up when approaching a speed camera and then waving. The result has been a substantial amount of money in fines going back to 1990 – also ignored and never paid. Until now, alas.
I wandered into the local court house to settle up and inadvertently caused quite a kerfuffle. The justice ministry people are used to dealing with silly losers who always get caught and always plead guilty – a revolving door. They are unused to people such as myself who have managed to ignore them for several decades and it did not compute that such a thing was possible. The main problem they were scratching their heads about was a record I apparently hold of somehow avoiding an arrest warrant for 30 years. Did the registrar have the authority to cancel it, or was a judge required?
Eventually a judge was found and did the honours whilst spluttering, “But this warrant to arrest for unpaid fines was issued in 1993 – how have you...?” It was tempting to say ‘Oh, please! I have outwitted dozens of people a lot smarter than you, sunshine,’ but I felt it wasn’t the time or place for smart-Alec comments. Then when I handed over my passport as ID there was even more shock, horror and astonishment, as I’ve regularly travelled in and out of the country. “How did you manage to...?”
The atmosphere was lightened, the judge couldn’t stop laughing and he told the registrar to make me a cup of tea. When it came time to ‘update your address details on our system’, I confessed that the various addresses they’ve had for me over the years – and where bailiffs have indeed turned up – have been of Labour and Green MPs.
On the drive home I was feeling somewhat crestfallen. Have I ‘sold out’ and become a good citizen? Apparently I still hold the record for the longest time evading an arrest warrant in New Zealand history (by several decades), but still feel I’ve let the side down. And – no – I am not about to start paying taxes: only stupid people do that sort of thing.
