upton-on-line
Final Edition from the Motherland
15 December 2000
A hectic round of loose end tying brings upton-on-line to the end of
2000 and the last edition from the motherland. 42 years on the same
farm (that's all of them by the way), 17 years in the same house and
19 years of political detritus accumulating in box files and folders
in Parliament is a lot of dead weight to throw overboard. And upton-on-line
is an inveterate hoarder. But the 6th arrondissement beckons.
What the obituaries said
Upton-on-line has been amused to read a succession of political obituaries
from the experts in the Press Gallery. Unlike real life, in political
life you get to read about your own passing - sometimes before you thought
you were finished, and then again when you do actually go. Indeed, some
politicians have made a career out of encouraging the political obituary
writers to sharpen their pencils only to undergo a further incarnation.
Mr Alec Neill who will replace upton-on-line will be eligible
for his third obituary when he returns to Parliament on January
12th. You also get to deliver the sermon at your own funeral (known
as a valedictory). (Mr Neill has yet to deliver one since you
don't get to give one unless you die of natural causes - i.e. you're
not assassinated in a General Election).
The fascinating thing about reading your own obituary is the extent
to which cherished myths are lovingly embalmed along with the corpse.
Take John Armstrong of The New Zealand Herald for instance.
Having labelled upton-on-line a paradox, he divined that he arrived
in Parliament in 1981 "promis[ing] much" but leaves "having
delivered less". Upton-on-line respectfully disagrees - particularly
with the first assertion. He arrived far too young to have any impact.
The only 'promise' was the sort of hypothetical promise unopened scratch
kiwi tickets have. Certainly, Armstrong's predecessors in the Herald
didn't get too excited when there were people like Ruth Richardson
to ruffle feathers and the patrician Philip Burdon to smooth
them down again.
And delivered less? Well I suppose that's axiomatic if you've first
gone along with the great promise myth. Upton-on-line's heresy was to
resign from the Health portfolio. Real political men don't do these
things - they blunder on oblivious to the rising anxiety of their colleagues
who quite reasonably just want to get elected. Upton-on-line has made
it repeatedly clear that the health reforms were poorly executed - but
he is not sure that putting the whole process in neutral for a couple
of years was so smart either.
"His failure to handle a really big job forever consigned him
to backwater portfolios like Environment and Science". Well, upton-on-line
can't argue that this is truly the way all parties seem to regard these
portfolios, but if that's the case he just loves backwaters. Asked in
1990 on election night what portfolio he expected, upton-on-line replied
(to the incredulity of the journalist in question), "science".
That's what he had done his homework for. But then that was probably
being paradoxical! Or, in Armstrong's kind verdict, "just too nice"
(on the basis that only nice people take an interest in boffins and
butterflies).
The Gallery's stylish stylist, Victoria Main, was less judgemental.
Main shared a seventh form geography classroom with upton-on-line back
in 1975 when she and some others from the Waikato Diocesan School for
Gels came over to St Paul's Collegiate School for Boys to sharpen up
her elementary spatial development and map reading skills! Victoria
has pursued a brilliant and international career since then while upton-on-line
has, until now, been rooted in Ngaruawahia. And her formidable French
language skills have left upton-on-line in a state of nervous disarray
every time he has passed her in the corridor.
But her obituary was in English and she had apparently jettisoned any
previous verdicts (having written several embryonic obituaries for upton-on-line
in the late 'nineties). He was, she opined, Parliament's "most
difficult [MP] to encapsulate in a news story". There followed
a nicely crafted set of verbatim lift-outs. But her magpie eye spied
the best line (though upton-on-line says it himself) in the valedictory
- the bit about the "sheath-knife toting farmers" in the National
caucus. Main leaves Enzed on the same day as upton-on-line to further
her brilliant international career working as a francophone antipodean
for Agence France Press in London.
As usual, Brent Edwards from the Evening Post was the
most forensic, not taking the valedictory on trust but seeking judgements
from Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley. Both felt upton-on-line's
author would be missed from Parliament but they had (predictably) different
motives for that conclusion.
The only 'commentator' (if he can be called that) who was long enough
in the tooth to offer a then-and-now obit was cartoonist Tom Scott
who simply reproduced (with a few amendments) the cartoon he did for
The Listener when upton-on-line first arrived in the House 19
years ago. (It can be viewed at www.stuff.co.nz).
It provides an unflattering account of upton-on-line's new walk-out-of-the-shower
hair style and includes a bust of Gretel (alias Ruth Richardson).
All in all, very drole.
The funeral oration
Upton-on-line does not intend to weary readers with the entire text
(it can be found here.
But he does reproduce the bit about the Treaty since is starts with
a family tale that has some pretty deep resonance for him. Here it is:
"The hill country from which the PM comes is very much where
my own roots lie.
It's a beautiful, not specially well known part of New Zealand that
guards three magical harbours and some of the wildest and most exhilarating
West Coast seascapes in the land. It's where my father's mother's
family settled in the very earliest days of European settlement and
I'd like, today, to relate a little piece of family history that has
been in the back of my mind over the last few years.
If you open the old, 1940 Dictionary of New Zealand Biography you
will find this laconic entry under the name of Wilson, Thomas:
"(1814-86), born at Burton-on-Trent, came to Taranaki in the
Berkshire (1849) and spent some years in business in New Plymouth
and farming. In 1856 he moved to Raglan in the Zillah and took up
a farm at Okete, where he remained throughout the Maori wars, running
many risks and alarms from hostile natives. He represented Raglan
in the Auckland Provincial Council (1873) and was chairman of the
Whaingaroa road board and a member of the county council. Wilson
died on 8th September 1886."
Behind that description of my great great grandfather, lies a fascinating
tale. Like all early settlers who purchased their land from local
Maori, survival depended on getting on with your neighbours. Trade
between settlers and Maori developed very quickly.
I grew up in the 1960s listening to my great Uncle - Harold Wilson
- reminiscing about life in the Raglan hill country in the second
half of the nineteenth century. He knew Tawhiao and Te Puea and, like
all members of the first three generations of the family, spoke fluent
Maori.
Maori and Pakeha alike were cattle traders. He would talk of how
they swam mobs of cattle over the harbour mouths using horses, dogs
and Maori canoes, judging it so the turning tide carried the stock
to right landing place.
Relations must have been good. Maori used to sharpen their axes on
the Wilson grindstones. And when local Maori expressed concern that
a tomos in which they'd placed valuable items might be raided, the
family obtained iron gates to close off the entrance.
As tensions rose with the approach of the land wars, some Maori advocated
the speedy despatch of the Pakeha. My great grandfather - a young
man at the time - found himself on the receiving end of this sentiment
one day as he squatted on the floor of a whare in Okete. A fierce
Maori warrior from the Taranaki had come up the coast to call people
to arms and was addressing the locals.
There was a single, white tallow candle burning in the whare and
to demonstrate what should happen to the settlers, the speaker raised
his taiaha and swung it violently through the candle, decapitating
it. "And", he said, "we should clean up the Wilsons
first."
My great grandfather said he'd never been so terrified in his whole
life. But the local elder, one Wiremu Te Naana, intervened. "We
have no quarrel with the Wilsons", he said. "They're our
friends". And he took off his feathered cloak - his korowai -
and placed it around my great grandfather's shoulders and effectively
placed a tapu on the family. It remains in the family to this day.
No-one was harmed. And so my great grandfather, his father and the
rest of the family carried on farming without running any "risks
and alarms from hostile natives". And all of us, to this day,
know that we owe our existence in New Zealand to that act of magnanimity.
Now there is no particular moral to be drawn from this tale other
than that my forbears - and their Maori contemporaries - had to work
out, face to face, how to live together. And so must we today. We
have to be honest about our history, but there is no need to be trapped
by it."
So that's it for now
Whether Upton surfaces on-line again is in the balance. A newsletter
from the diaspora is an option some time in the New Year. (Everyone
except Victoria Main will have to purchase a French dictionary). But
in the meantime we can all depart for our summer diet of re-tread movies,
front page animal stories, mosquito bites and over-priced Pinot Noir…
Thank you
To upton-on-line readers, one and all, for the feedback, brickbats
and occasional floral offerings that came our way. Adrienne Frew
has, as a result, almost become a household name and special thanks
go to her for her patient administration of each edition. Adrienne makes
a dizzying career move in the New Year as she goes to work for a real
academic, Dr Wayne Mapp, who lends National most of the gravitas
it possesses. Thanks also to Markus Eschmann who usually got
it up on the website on time (well almost usually) and finally Bernard
Cadogan - the prestidigiateur from whose crepuscular lair
(yes, you read that in the funeral oration) most of the intellectual
skyrockets emerged, and the odd thunderbolt. We've all had fun and,
I hope, injected some useful raw material into a debate that has seemed
pretty anaemic at times.
Thanks again and happy holidays.
Simon Upton
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