Thought for the day, 10 August 2022

I've been wondering: with a past like his, why was he silly enough to run for public office? Then I realised, it wasn't silly at all. It was entirely rational.

He's been doing this stuff his whole life, I would guess. And until now, it's all gone fine. I don't just mean there were no repercussions: it's more than that. I’d speculate, this stuff is how guys like him get ahead. Build their lives. And others help them.

Sure, he got kicked out of a prestigious school, but he went to another - and he still ended up better off, better educated, with better prospects, than the kid who went to school in South Auckland, maybe without lunch or coat, and followed the rules every damn day.

After each of his 'incidents', someone - or some organisation or institution run by blokes who look like him - must have simply swept the consequences away. If you're on to a good thing, a winning life tactic like this one, why change course? Like they say, if it ain’t broke, don't fix it. Or if it is broke, phone up twenty years later, read your script, and expect to be absolved.

Because absolution can be bought. If you can't afford that sort of thing, perhaps you need to have a word with yourself. Find some motivation, get a better job, improve your budgeting skills. Take responsibility. Maybe Work and Income has a course that can help you.

He’s simply operating the way his world taught him to. And to be fair, we all do that. It's just that the world judges us differently for living what it teaches us. Some people get prizes while some get pummelled.

We tell ourselves we’re an equal society - and in a sense, that’s true. We’ll give second chances to almost anyone who can pay for them.

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