Gordon MacLauchlan getting cranky in his dotage; scorns classic sitcom but endorses shallow fringe “academic”

Gordon MacLauchlan getting cranky in his dotage;
Scorns classic sitcom, but endorses shallow fringe “academic”

The Panel, Radio NZ National, Wednesday 5 June 2013
Jim Mora, Gordon MacLauchlan, Chris Wikaira

Jim Mora’s chat show only rarely springs to life. Most of the time it consists of a small roster of “commentators”, few of them particularly well informed or even pleasant, commenting in anodyne fashion about trivial matters, or in a doggedly flippant way about serious matters. Every now and then, however, someone steps out of line and shows a bit of backbone; on such rare occasions, The Panel becomes something more than a sadly wasted opportunity.

A few examples stand out for me; significantly, they all occurred several years ago. Anyone who heard these encounters will remember them, for they sizzled with the drama of forbidden conflict, and in each case reduced a powerful and arrogant opponent to either spluttering rage or sullen silence or (in one case) a groveling backdown.

1.) Chris Trotter took the gloves off one afternoon and launched into special guest Mike Moore, challenging his vacuous neo-liberal rhetoric, and provoking Moore to ditch his nice guy mask and snarl on air, “You little [expletive deleted]!”

2.) Gordon Campbell supplies not one but TWO highlights: on one occasion confounding the bullying ex-copper Graham Bell and on another confounding the jolly back-slapper Richard Griffin. On each occasion Campbell simply pointed out that they did not have a clue what they were talking about. A humiliated Bell retreated into a glowering, resentful silence, while Griffin made a groveling apology and retraction on the spot.

3.) Bomber Bradbury one afternoon reduced National Party eminence grise Michelle Boag to teeth-gnashing fury when he rejected her assertion that we need to bribe the rich to stay in New Zealand, and then went on to dismiss her ability to pronounce on economic policy.

4.) Gordon MacLauchlan suddenly lost patience with the hard right Nevil Gibson glibly declaring that the role of city councils was merely to pick up rubbish. “That’s RIDICULOUS, Nevil,” he said, and proceeded to school the doctrinaire dunderhead about the necessity for and the complexity of council functions, carefully established over generations, of public services like libraries, parks and festivals. Nevil Gibson simply did not have a coherent response to offer, and lapsed into a silence closely resembling stupidity.

Since those halcyon days, sadly, much has changed. Gordon Campbell has never appeared again since his blocking of Graham Bell, and Bomber Bradbury was banned outright for the crime of criticizing the prime minister. Chris Trotter goes out of his way to be conciliatory and “measured”; he might as well be asleep. And Gordon MacLauchlan has, alas, never recaptured that fire which enabled him to slice, dice and fillet Nevil Gibson with such panache.

But still, when I learned that Gordon MacLauchlan was a guest on The Panel this afternoon, I hoped against hope that he would recapture some of that past form. Alas, it was not to be….

Three decades ago, Gordon MacLauchlan took it upon himself to compile and edit ‪The Acid Test‬: ‪an Anthology of New Zealand Humorous Writing‬. One would think that someone who presumed to undertake such a task would have something of value to contribute; in fact anyone who reads his acerbic little introductory essay will realize that his observations on comedy are pedestrian and obvious; like another self-styled “curmudgeon”, Tom Frewen, when it comes to criticizing comedy, MacLauchlan lacks something crucial: a sense of humor. As we will see after Chris Wikaira’s “Soapbox” contribution, MacLauchlan is also a fogeyish, fustian fellow, full of fear and loathing of Māori, or at least those Māori who don’t know their place.

First, though, let’s see him display his erudition and judgement on the subject of television comedy….

3:48 p.m.

JIM MORA: What else is the world talking about?
SUSAN BALDACCI: We have another survey today, Jim!
JIM MORA: Another highly important survey! Ha ha ha ha ha!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Well, actually, this one’s a list! They’ve asked people which are the ten best-written television shows in the whole history of television.
MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
SUSAN BALDACCI: Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, it turns out the top two are The Sopranos andSeinfeld.
GORDON MacLAUCHLAN: [fervently] Oh yes!
MORA: Oh yes, The Sopranos and Seinfeld! Yes, yes, they’re brilliant!
SUSAN BALDACCI: And in third place was The Twilight Zone.
MORA: Oh! The Twilight Zone was third, was it?
SUSAN BALDACCI: [with barely concealed irritation] Y-y-yes.
GORDON MacLAUCHLAN: Are there any British shows on the list?
SUSAN BALDACCI: Yes, but it’s a long way down the list—Upstairs, Downstairs.
MORA: Oh, Upstairs, Downstairs is on the list, is it?
SUSAN BALDACCI: [through clenched teeth] Yes it is on the list.
GORDON MacLAUCHLAN: There are a LOT of brilliant British shows! Monty Python, for instance.
MORA: Monty Python? Surely it’s a bit too anarchic and crazy for mainstream tastes, isn’t it?
GORDON MacLAUCHLAN: [with deep reverence] Actually, Python is just BRILLIANT writing! It’s complex and well written. It is writing of the highest order! Python is brilliant! It leaves Cheers for dead.

That foolish declaration was the first indication this afternoon that MacLauchlan’s judgement is in serious decline. But there was even worse to come….

<i>The Soapbox</i> (4:35 p.m.)….

JIM MORA: Time to find out what have our Panelists have been thinking. Chris Wikaira, what’s been on your mind?
CHRIS WIKAIRA: I was astonished and perturbed to see Canterbury Law School academic David Round working himself up into a lather the other day about ideas like Māori “co-governance” with Pakeha. I get fed up with this alarmist hand-wringing, that always comes to nowt.
MORA: [slowly, to indicate serious thought] But that’s not the core of objection to co-governance is it?
CHRIS WIKAIRA: Is it not?
MORA: [quietly, to indicate sincere concern] People are worried that it is undemocratic.

In publicly contesting the utterances of the odious David Round, Wikaira was calling out one of the most virulent racists in not only academia, but in the whole country. As a Māori, and in particular as a Māori in the National Party, Wikaira will, sadly, be accustomed to being the target of glib, ill-informed and hostile rhetoric. But even Chris Wikaira would not have been prepared for Mora’s display of bloody-minded mischievousness and deliberate obtuseness. As Mora ground on with his reiteration of David Round’s fantasy, insinuating without any evidence that there are many “people” who think the very notion of Māori rights is “undemocratic”, Wikaira became more and more exasperated. There was a palpable sense of helplessness as well as anger; what CAN you do when the host is pouring forth such nonsense? What Chris Wikaira SHOULD have done, of course, was pin Mora down at the moment he started to repeat Round’s nonsense, and asked him to name the “people” who “worry” like that. But Wikaira was clearly not expecting a nominally liberal and ostensibly pleasant radio broadcaster to actually REPEAT the extremist rhetoric, he (Wikaira) was refuting.

And then to compound things, silly old Gordon MacLauchlan weighed in on the side of David Round as well. He announced that what Round had said might actually have something going for it. It turns out that MacLauchlan has come across something that has confirmed his deep and principled and long-held suspicions about all this Maori rights stuff. What he had discovered was an article written by an Auckland University “Critical Theory” professor called Elizabeth Rata.

An obscure and unrecognized denizen of the flakiest, least respected of all university departments, Elizabeth Rata has for years labored away under a rock, presumably vaporing on about absurdly recondite Lacanian theory or something else that nobody, including her, either understands or cares about. Late last year, Rata figured that it was time to venture forth from the Crit. Theory common-room and write something that would strike a chord with people—especially people too stupid or too old to know they were being conned by a “Critical Theorist” who had never written anything that had ever made a lick of sense. Stupid people, in other words, like ACT party theoreticians, Epsom voters and old Pākehā “liberals” like Gordon MacLauchlan. The gist of her article was this: the “politicization of grievances” by Māori has “set New Zealand back.” If ONLY they would sit down and be QUIET! And, …. well, that’s it.

It was pretty much exactly the same as the infamous race-baiting crap written for Don “Brethren Cash” Brash to read out at that Orewa Rotary dinner in early 2004. Or the vile stuff that “Sir” Paul Holmes used to phone in for his ridiculous Herald column. MacLauchlan, who in many ways is a liberal, would be horrified to think that’s what he was endorsing, but that is in fact what he was endorsing. The old curmudgeon has obviously been looking for some kind of academic validation for his basic intolerance of those noisy and unpleasant Maori radicals who make New Zealand so different from the pleasant 1950s and 60s, when MacLauchlan was in his prime. And when that validation comes in the form of an attack on Māori written by an impressively credentialed “Critical Studies” academic—one with a Māori name to boot—he fell on it like it was Holy Writ.

Chris Wikaira did manage to rally somewhat, pointing out that such dismissive views as those of Round and Rata lack not only empirical evidence but also lack intellectual rigor. He reminded McLauchlan that there was nothing new about co-governance or any of the other concepts that bigots like Round pretend to be frightened by; that Māori had operated in partnership with the Crown on projects up and down the country; and that co-governance was a sensible and inevitable result of negotiations under the Treaty of Waitangi. Of course, MacLauchlan knew that what Wikaira was saying was not just common sense, but simply the truth. But by naïvely endorsing that Elizabeth Rata excrescence, he had climbed too far out on a rotten limb to be able to climb down with any dignity. His response was sullen and ungenerous….

MacLAUCHLAN: [sniffing resentfully] Yeah, I guess, yeah.
WIKAIRA: [conciliatory, reasoning tone] I mean, co-governance is just what it’s going to evolve into.
MacLAUCHLAN: [affecting to be unmollified] Well, hrrrrumph, Elizabeth Rata wrote a thought-provoking article. It’s an interesting point of view, actually. It’s a very interesting point of view.

And then, just when you think it’s time he was turned over to the tender care of the same Home for the Terminally Bewildered that incarcerates Garth “Gaga” George, MacLauchlan comes up with something lucid and morally unimpeachable….

MORA: All right, Gordon, what’s been on YOUR mind lately?

MacLAUCHLAN: I’ve been mildly disconcerted by this Trans-Pacific partnership. It’s very, very disturbing. It’s profoundly anti-democratic, and it has people worried in the United States just as much as in New Zealand. Congress has been shut out of the process—but big business has access to the draft documents. Ron Kirk, until recently Obama’s top trade advise, says it has been kept secret because if the public understood it, it would lead to vast public anger. This is seriously anti-democratic and I am seriously disturbed by this.

MORA: [light-hearted tone] These corporate people are pretty smart, they’ve been to charter schools, Gordon!

MacLAUCHLAN: [unimpressed] Huh!

• ak1.1

  7 June 2013 at 9:17 am

  Thanks Morrissey! Saves us listening to the pretentious pomposity, and vastly more entertaining.
  • prism1.1.1

    7 June 2013 at 4:40 pm

    That’s a lot of work Morrisey to give us this report. You may get tired of it when the merry go round just keeps turning and the usual suspects bob up and down. What’s the next attraction at the circus?
    • Morrissey1.1.1.1

      7 June 2013 at 4:56 pm

      prism, my friend, just remember this: He who is tired of The Panel is tired of life.

      A few minutes ago I listened to that repulsive crank Stephen Franks lecturing his fellow guest (Sapna Samant) about the importance of language, and the danger of using words like “slavery” to describe people who feel obliged to work long hours for their corporations. Of course, Franks was implying that HE (i.e. Franks) is a rigorous and serious thinker; he’s not.

      Right now Franks is pontificating about the irresponsibility of the poor. “I can’t see how giving poor people money is going to solve the problem of eating rubbish food,” he opined.

      He has no time at all for public health programs, especially ones targeting childhood obesity. It all comes down to “personal responsibility”, which means that we’re all alone in the world, and the do-gooders are no use at all, just a bunch of busybodies. “All I see is wittering on from the social industry,” he snarls.

      Sapna Samant and Noelle McCarthy are clearly appalled by him, and are politely challenging his assumptions. Franks is not accustomed to this; he is obviously used to lording it over the underlings in his law practice—one of whom is the hopelessly lightweight Jordan Williams, another occasional Panel regular. But a couple of sharp women are beyond him; he will not engage in serious discussion.

      When I stop feeling disgusted every time I hear this canting hypocrite sound off, I’ll know it’s time to hang up my boots.
      • prism1.1.1.1.1

        7 June 2013 at 5:30 pm

        Morrissey mon ami you put things so well. It’s painful though to keep exposing the dregs of our intellectual society. It’s a dirty job but you feel you’re the one to do it. Rather you than me. It’s bad for mental health I think. Depressing.
      • ghostrider8881.1.1.1.2

        7 June 2013 at 10:47 pm

        well Mozza, I tire of ‘The Panel’, yet am not tired of life, yet. Thank Goodness for all the neat stuff one may learn from The Standard (and links) in a day is wot I say. Tally Ho!
• ianmac1.2

  7 June 2013 at 9:30 am

  An interesting perspective Morrissey. Almost a script for satire. Though they are entitled to their opinions aren’t they? We can disagree with what they say and be angered by their utterances especially that Bell fellow. The concern about TPP was well said and echoes what many here must fear.
  I guess Mr Mora is trying to play the neutral referee but like the Speaker in the House his probable bias leaks through.
  • Morrissey1.2.1

    7 June 2013 at 11:14 am

    An interesting perspective Morrissey. Almost a script for satire. Though they are entitled to their opinions aren’t they?

    They most certainly are, and it’s incumbent on the rest of us to point out when they are telling lies or just talking nonsense. That’s what Messrs Trotter, Campbell, Bradbury and MacLauchlan have done so effectively in the past; what is disturbing is the fact that two of those voices are no longer allowed onto the programme.

    We can disagree with what they say and be angered by their utterances especially that Bell fellow. The concern about TPP was well said and echoes what many here must fear.

    I agree with you. Gordon MacLauchlan is an intelligent analyst and an effective speaker. On most things.

    I guess Mr Mora is trying to play the neutral referee but like the Speaker in the House his probable bias leaks through.

    Unfortunately, he’s more Craig Joubert than he is Pierluigi Collina.
• CC1.3

  7 June 2013 at 9:55 am

  Occasionally a panelist still slips under the radar with a worthwhile contribution on Jim Mora’s programme. Michelle A’Court hit the mark at 7.15 minutes yesterday onhttp://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2557709/the-panel-with-michele-a'court-and-michael-deaker-part-2.asx when commenting about Nisbet’s cartoons and child poverty.
• ghostrider8881.3.1

  7 June 2013 at 10:06 am

  sadly, when polled by Campbell Live (or Seven Sharp) following this cartoon (and I listened to Nisbet interviewed on RNZ @ 5pm Checkpoint, so his ‘agenda’ was clearly concurrent), 77% responded “Yes, that the cartoon depicted reality”.

  now it may be just my weird psychological composition, yet I cannot listen to very much RNZ overall; Morning Report, Midday, Checkpoint and the authoratative INTERVIEWEES is enough, ‘specially seeing as Hauraki play such excellent rock and Alice In Chains released a new album, “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here”…
  • freedom1.3.1.1

    7 June 2013 at 12:14 pm

    Queens of the Stone Age have also dusted off the mixing desk 
    strongly suggest warming up the amps before cranking volume to 11
• Morrissey1.3.2

  7 June 2013 at 11:33 am

  Michelle A’Court hit the mark….when commenting about Nisbet’s cartoons and child poverty.

  She did, but in the pre-show (before 4 o’clock) she embarked on an unhinged denunciation of the Australian DJs who are being blamed by some fools for the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha.

  There are still lots of interesting and worthwhile contributions on The Panel. And, for all his faults, which I do like to lampoon, Jim Mora himself is an intelligent and witty broadcaster.
• [Originally published on thestandard.co.nz]
•