Politicians offer little confidence in this local body lottery

After the political goings-on this past week, it should have been comforting to see the envelope proudly declaring "Voting document enclosed" nestling in my letter box.

I can blithely make judgements about those people who appear within the apricot-tinged pages of the booklet whose paths have crossed mine. But, since I wasn't brought up in Otago, I know little about many other local contenders.

If some candidates pushed kids in the sandpit at kindergarten or playcentre, cheated at marbles at primary school, were high school bullies, had a petty crime spree later on, possibly combined with dangerous and unwise sexual liaisons, I am none the wiser.

I am not sure whether that makes my impending decision-making more or less sensible.

There have not been many role models for sensible decision-making in the last week or so.

Rodney Hide has shown lack of judgement by not delving into the background of David Garrett before the last election. Perhaps there is some sort of brotherly bond between former oil rig workers which says that being blasé about anything that matters is de rigueur.

If Rodders did know about both the Tongan assault conviction and the fake passport, why did he ever think it was a good idea to have Mr Garrett pushing the three strikes policy?

It seems it is only during earthquakes and their aftermath that we want to believe our politicians are saints or waiting for beatification.

The rest of the time we mostly tolerate them, although the one quality we are not particularly keen on is hypocrisy.

We hate that stuff so much we cannot usually recognise it in ourselves.

Mr Garrett may try to dismiss the passport business as something he naively saw as a childish prank, but such pranks are usually much less well-planned and creepy and mostly carried out by, well, children.

Presumably, there were many moments in the process when he could have spent a bit of time thinking that this jolly jape was not all fun - while waiting for his hair dye to take, for instance. We women have been known to do some of our best thinking during such times.

It is hard to be distracted by frippery when you know you look like something from outer space and that if you come within cooee of ordinary folk you will scar them psychologically or leave them covered in unsightly stains.