Thought for the day, 27 February 2023

Chester Borrows died today.

I didn't know the man in person. If I had, I can't imagine I would always have agreed with him. He was party faithful through and through: a dyed-in-the-wool Nat. I would struggle to sell my soul to the political machine; and if I ever did, I would seek out a better buyer.

But not everyone can be like me, sitting on the sidelines. Someone's got to get in the ring.

Borrows had been both a lawyer and police officer. With a pedigree like that, self-righteousness would be pretty bloody easy. But he listened. He thought. He weighed evidence. He sat with his conscience, and he let his integrity guide him. That integrity led him sometimes to bipartisanship. In a polarised world, to be bipartisan only means to double the people who hate you. He did it anyway.

It was poignant that today was his last. Yesterday, the Nats released their Three Waters policy - an ugly lovechild of populism and illogic. It followed on from Labour's effort: not as bad, but so poorly argued it somehow gave rise to National's. You kind of wish they'd get together, just figure it out.

More than that, you kind of wish that in these past four decades of neglect, of a thousand reasons to starve our infrastructure of funding - because it was too expensive and the cost of living was already too high, or there were more pressing things to worry about, or it could surely wait for another day, or it was no time to look weak compared to the Opposition - someone had just said, enough. Let's reach out to the other side. Let's show common sense. Let's sort this.

Today, when you hear the same thousand reasons wheeled out against climate change action, it's hard not to feel the same way.

It is an old-fashioned thing, to be bipartisan, to be Chester Borrows. I wish we could have had his brand of old-fashionedness a little longer.

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