Most of the time a quick-witted comment will be harmless, and you will get away with not having thought about it before uttering it. But occasionally, there are nuances or double meanings that turn a flippant, and seemingly innocuous, comment into a hot potato with awful consequences.
Sometimes, people who like to gabble a lot will constantly drip such blunders from their mouths. This is the commonly known condition called putting your foot in your mouth, or, in extreme circumstances, opening your mouth to change feet.
Politicians love talking — a lot. After all, it is a big part of what they do. And they especially love the sound of their own voices. They also often have difficulty moderating their volume — a "quiet" chat with a few people can still be strident and sound like they are making a well-projected speech.
Parliament’s debating chamber is of course home to a lot of rough and tumble humour, witty interjections and cutting asides. Sometimes it is like an extremely badly behaved classroom.
Not all the quotable quotes are intended. Take National deputy leader Nicola Willis’s ill-phrased question of Finance Minister Grant Robertson a week or so ago.
Ms Willis seemed convinced the Government’s policies were going to leave a large, gaping void in the national accounts and asked Mr Robertson how big his hole was.
Cue schoolboy giggles around the House and Ms Willis looking embarrassed and later apologising. Mr Robertson batted the comment away in style, saying he didn’t think it was in the public interest for him to comment on that.
Moving from the ridiculous to the dangerous this week, Act New Zealand leader David Seymour has really gone too far with a remark he made on Newstalk ZB on Thursday.
Mr Seymour told listeners that if Act has any sway after the October election, he would stick to his promise to abolish the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, which has recently been criticised for spending almost $40,000 on a farewell for its chief executive.
Stupidly, Mr Seymour opened his mouth even wider and said "we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over".
If it was meant to be a joke, then Mr Seymour definitely shouldn’t give up his day job. It was, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, a highly inflammatory remark made in a day and age when some people don’t need extra encouragement to take the wrong path and resort to violence.
Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni was quick to call him out, saying it was typical behaviour from someone "constantly race-baiting". She defended the ministry and all government agencies working for minority groups as important because inequities still exist.
With such smart-alecky, Donald Trumpesque rhetoric, Mr Seymour seems determined to ramp up the racial divisions in the country, which is just irresponsible and pandering to the worst people in our already fragmented communities.
We certainly do not wish to support government departments which may be spending taxpayer money as if it is going out of fashion. Politicians, and journalists, have a duty to call out such behaviour.
But joking about violence and bombing is quite another thing. Mr Seymour needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.
And another thing
Surprise, surprise. None of the projects in the Government’s $20 billion transport plan are in Otago or Southland. And only four of the 14 classified as critical are in the South Island, two in the Nelson region and two in Canterbury.
The South can again rightly feel overlooked. Are our roads and bridges so pristine that we don’t rate on anyone’s Excel spreadsheet?
The one bit of good news is that the dodgy State Highway 1 bridge in Ashburton is on the list.
This is a critical crossing to keep the South Island running, as we have seen in recent years when floodwaters have threatened to wash it away
