Now where were we when we were so rudely interrupted by all that commotion about the little folk?
The ones with the hairy feet, who live in holes under the ground in a place called Middle Earth which more than ever resembles God's Own - thanks to a superb bit of top-level grovelling and greasing of the palms of those moneychangers from the shining temples and dream factories of La La Land.
I'll tell you where we were.
For those who were bothering to listen, before all that blew up, we were in the middle of a piece of mind-boggling parliamentary posturing, struck dumb by the second reading of a Bill of exquisite stupidity.
Not to mention a scandalous trumping of common sense, sound evidence and domestic and international law - by a dim-witted ideological frippery.
We expect politicians to fight their corner, to take a partisan approach on occasion, but we also expect them to do so with something that at least approaches reason.
But Hansard - which records verbatim the contributions of members - shows what a desultory affair this was, and how not one of the Bill's supporters, apart from its prime mover, could muster either argument or enthusiasm beyond the briefest and most bland assertions in its favour.
Talk about the silence of the lambs.
The piece of legislation I refer to is the Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill, the brain-dead child of National MP Paul Quinn.
And when Mr Quinn rose in the House to commend his Bill, it seems it was primarily to apportion blame for its deeply flawed drafting on others, and to disparage the Attorney-general's office, the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, the United Nations, and "the boffins who hide away in ivory towers, paid for by the Government, and ... the mandarin chardonnay socialists who masquerade as independent advisers" - almost all of whom, it seems, submitted against this law.
The best that Mr Quinn can do in its support is to invoke the supposed zeal of the ordinary people on the streets and "50 people at an assembly of Grey Power".
Mr Quinn's Bill removes the right to vote from anyone in prison at the time of the general election. (At present the law disqualifies anyone who is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three years or more.)
Other than some vague notion of further "punishing" the increasing numbers of people we are determined to lock up, there doesn't seem to be any logic to it.
It is hardly likely to be a deterrent: can't you just see riotous uprisings instigated by the burgeoning prison populations of this land at hearing the news; how outraged the drunks, the druggies, the patched gang members, the wife beaters, the common assaulters and burglars, the car thieves and serial drink-drivers, the petty thugs and home chemists, the perverts and pornographers will be at the realisation they will no longer be able to vote while "inside".
I wonder if Mr Quinn truly imagines that our prisons are full of model citizens who invariably inform the electoral authorities every time they move house, re-register and make it their unfailing civic duty to exercise their democratic voting rights at each election.
Traditionally, about 80% of the eligible voters turn out at each election.
It's a safe bet that the missing 20% includes a large portion of the country's prison population.
People usually end up in prison because their respect for, or engagement with, society is limited.
What Mr Quinn, and ideologues like him, don't get is that if a person - especially one with a rocky past - comes to the realisation that he or she has sufficient stake in society to want to participate by voting in elections, the removal of that right will simply further marginalise them.
It won't help to reform or rehabilitate them and it certainly won't, except in a minuscule number of cases, be regarded as punishment.
The Bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it breaches United Nations covenants on human rights, and it is regarded by the New Zealand Law Society as "irrational" and "retrograde".
There was a time when the conscience of politicians, of whatever hue, would call the bluff on legislation like this.
They would toss it out.
The National-led Government can point to precedents set by the previous mob in pushing through ill-considered law.
It is not alone at fault.
Nonetheless, the Quinn Bill exemplifies a depressing tendency to partisan law making which further diminishes the quality of our democracy.
Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor at the Otago Daily Times.
