 If Reality Check Radio enriches your day and life, support us to keep bringing you the content, voices, perspectives and dose of reality you won't get anywhere else. Visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate. Simon O'Connor lost his seat at the election, so hopefully he'll be free to speak his mind. As I said before, I'm planning on challenging him about the way MPs refuse to speak to the protesters at Wellington, amongst other things, and we're going to talk about free speech and a few other topics. Simon's on the line now, so let's get chatting. Welcome to the crunch. Cam, it's lovely to join you, thanks for the opportunity. Well, look, I've been reading a few of your posts on your sub-stack on Point, and I'm sitting there nodding sagely thinking, you know, have we lost something from our parliament by Simon not being in parliament anymore? And I have to say, I think we have lost something from parliament for you not being there, because your writing is really, really good, and it's on point, you know, just to take your headline. Do you feel a lot freer now that you're no longer in parliament? Do you feel like a weight has come off your shoulders? Look, I do. I mean, you miss elements of parliament to start on that side. I certainly miss engaging with my colleagues, picking my year group. You know, I miss helping constituents, but on the other side, life is so much freer when you don't have to be worried every day about what the next role, job, scandal is, but also paradoxically, you are freer to speak and think in a way outside of parliament, which in many ways, Cam is quite sad. Parliament's meant to be the place where people are the most free protected, if you will, to speak, and yet, ironically, not. And we can get into that a bit more, if you like, as well. So no, I'm enjoying writing again. I've been taking a bit of a break somewhat, but it's nice to be writing and thinking about things again. Well, maybe you'll, you know, I see you've got a couple of podcasts up. Maybe you want to start talking to Reality Check Radio and become a host. Look, you never know, I've never been shy of an opinion. It wouldn't matter if you're talking to my parents, my wife, my friends, or my now former political colleagues. Yeah, it was never shy of an opinion on things. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I think that politics, particularly over the last, let's say, 10 years, maybe let's go back to the Clark years. I think that politics became highly polarized in New Zealand, particularly with Helen Clark. And then when we changed to the John Key government and then back again, of course, to the Ardern regime, I believe New Zealand politics is poorer for that period of time where there was increased polarization, where there wasn't a contest of ideas, which, of course, is fostered by free speech. You know, if you had the wrong think, you were shouted down. You know, we even saw, you know, ostensibly, someone who claims to be a journalist trying to silence voices on the other side, you know, with the dirty politics scandal. And let's make no bones about it. That's what it was about. It was about being polarized and about silencing voices that were effective against the government, that, you know, the opposition parties as they were back then. Yeah, look, sadly, I think we are seeing a more polarized New Zealand. That's been evident certainly in recent years, but I think you're right to say it's been going for quite a while. And the thing about polarizing, it's a bit like a metronome or a pendulum, if you will, but it swings one way, then it swings a bit harder the other, and it gets worse and worse. Look, I would argue and have suggested even when I've given lectures at universities over the years, MMP actually has a lot to do with this. So I think you can look back to the mid 90s where all of a sudden, instead of having, if you will, 100, 120 MPs, if you will, with their own power base and electorate, it was replaced by MMP, which puts the party first. And then who's first in the party? It's the leader of the day. And what they want, she or he, becomes very dominant. And so everyone has to kick in behind that narrative. So you don't, I think, see as much discussion and debate in the public realm. And I'm sad to say, I don't think you see as much, and well, I can speak to it because I was there, you don't have as much discussion and debate even within the parliament or caucuses itself. Again, imagine, and I'm sorry, I'm probably not going to articulate this as well as I should, but the pyramid of influence has become very steep. So has it been very broad? Lots of MPs and theorists discussing things. It's become very, very narrow, that triangle, and it's led by the top. What the party leader wants is generally where the party is going. Yeah, I mean, it's an inside joke in parliament or in the Beltway of Wellington that there's a cabinet, but there's actually a kitchen cabinet, which is three or four or maybe five people at the most that are the real power brokers and they're literally creatures of the leader or the party. And we've seen this both with Helen Clark, with the John Key and English government. And we saw, of course, that with the Ardern-Hipkins government. And I'm not sure we're seeing it just quite yet with the government of Luxon, because there's three parties in there that have got some very mercurial and strong-willed people that won't take well to direction that we all need to party vote national or wear a blue suit or all that sort of stuff. Yeah, I think, again, it's, for me, not particularly partisan and so far as it's manifested itself and said this centralising of influence or power in the MP environment is not unique to the left or the right. I think you're correct that the current coalition deal, sort of this three-headed dynamic will create tensions, but for the sake of our camp, there's still going to be three leaders who have strong controls of their party. But I probably would just want to stress to listeners, it's not that New Zealand's only run by one, two or three people, but that the influence of individual MPs, ministers, even ministries, heads of ministries is, I think, being constrained within the MP environment. I don't keep coming back to it, but whoever the leaders are at the time, hold enormous sway and unity is such a key element. Media will exploit any disunity in a political party and so it's a very brave, perhaps stupid member of parliament who steps away from that. So unity keeps a lot of people quiet, if you will, but I should also add there still can be robust discussions in caucus and so forth, but again, it is a narrow group of people, the senior people who often set the direction of things. Yeah, I've seen it happen inside the national party, obviously with my family connections and things that I see these things up close and personal, and I've never been comfortable with this culture personality that started really with Helen Clark. You know, when they contrived to always state that Helen Clark was the first elected prime minister, because of course, Jenny Shipley was the first woman prime minister, Helen Clark was bent how to shape with that and when she eventually ended up prime minister went about making sure that there was even plaques being erected. This is opened by Helen Clark, the first woman elected prime minister, which of course is a fantasy. We don't elect our prime ministers, they're chosen by the caucus to be the leader, but that was the start of that culture personality where you saw Helen Clark on every billboard, even though it was heavily photoshopped or whatever. We saw with John Key with national party sicker fans running around with blue t-shirts on saying, I'm a key person. We saw that with Jacinda Ardern especially, not so much with Christopher Hipkins, and we're seeing it again with Christopher Luxon, but at a different sort of a level, because Luxon isn't a John Key. John Banks I was talking to earlier and he said the same thing, Christopher Luxon needs to be Christopher Luxon, not try and be John Key. But this culture personality kind of adds to that polarization where the leader says what goes and if someone like you who has very strong moral views particularly on things like abortion, you get slapped around and told, I've had a word with Mr O'Connor and he's modified his stance or whatever. Now, I know you pretty well from afar, but I know you're upbringing and I know you haven't modified your stance at all on some of those moral issues. No, that's true. Look, I've been very outspoken on life issues, issues to do with China amongst other things and I hold my views carefully and well considered. I would add always interested in the debate and the discussion with people. Everything can change, but I remember during particularly the Roe versus Wade situation a journalist sort of questioned me about it and I sort of stressed to them, I said, look, I didn't wake up this morning having never thought about these things. Quite a deep, in my own perception, can. Quite a deep thinking. Again, it doesn't mean I'm right, but I don't tend to come to an opinion lightly. But you're willing to listen as well. You're willing to listen and have a debate, you know? Oh, I love it. And look, it's one of the, again, it's one of the sad, look, I didn't go into parliament naively by any means, you know, I've been around the party and so forth, but especially in Tamaki electorate, I mean, they're the most political of animals, you know? Oh, I never went to bed wondering what my electorate thought on issues, and that was great. It sometimes drove me and my wife a little mad and so far as you'd be trying to go out for a walk and people would be stopping us, left, right, and centre to chat. And at one level, that's great. Occasionally it would have been nice just to have spent, you know, 10 minutes with Rachel, but it's, I don't know, I sort of hope that parliament would have had more time to think and consider things. And please don't get the idea that we're sitting in there, the couches, smoking pipes, drinking whiskey. Oh, no, they got rid of all of that. They did. They got rid of the smoke filled rooms. I think that's a tragedy and needs to be brought back, personally, being a cigar smoker myself. Well, I've always joked better to smoke in this world than the next, but that's not an encouragement to start smoking. But no, I suppose what I'm trying to get at is we didn't have as much time in parliament as I'd hoped to sit back and consider things. As I say, you don't want to have the big reading rooms where you spend hours pondering, but at the same time, so much is a rush, so little is done on the fly. And you'll know yourself having been a deep follower of politics. So much policy happens in reaction to something else at the time. It's just pushed and rushed through. So I have been disappointed that we don't discuss things more. I am concerned, be it through media or leadership, that ideas are often quickly crushed because they don't suit the narrative. Oh, you're the wrong person. It's the view not to be aired. So the ideas aren't teased out. And so the final part I'd make is it's no surprise we're constantly, or the parliament's constantly having to make amendments and changes because they're making mistakes and they're not anticipating the problems down the line because, again, that hasn't been well thought out. I mean, take your tweet about Roe versus Wade. It was fairly innocuous, really. The argument was had by the media largely because for New Zealanders, it's an academic argument. We have probably pretty liberal abortion laws in New Zealand. They're in no danger of being replaced anytime soon or even remotely changed. And what happens in the United States where there's a highly technical argument over whether the federal government has autonomy over the states? And let's face it, that was what the argument of Roe versus Wade was about. It wasn't about that argument in the Supreme Court wasn't about abortion. It was about whether the federal government has the right to tell states how they can operate their own country, which people seem to forget that the United States is a collection of countries. That's why it's called the United States. But that argument was missed in the gay abandoned, for want of a better term, of the media wanting to get a conservative MP for daring to have an opinion that was different to their liberal worldview. Yeah, that seemed to be the driving part. It was that you were not allowed to have any opinion other than one, which was to be completely, in this case, pro-abortion. And to support New Zealand's rather extreme abortion laws. So your first point's correct. This was an American situation. Your second point's incredibly important for listeners to understand. The whole thing of Roe versus Wade, regardless of one's view on abortion itself, was really about states' rights. And at the end of the day, it's the United States of America. And each state wants to run its own health system, education system in its own way, not being directed by federal government. And that's been one of the key drivers. But look, the way that was being handled, certainly, was that two or three years ago? Yeah, couple of three years ago. Yeah, probably two or three years ago. Yeah, all that media in particular and others were trying to do is say, there is to be no discussion. There is to be no debate on these topics. And New Zealanders should actually be quite concerned, again, regardless of their ethical views. We have a number of topics now. Doesn't matter if it's life issues, gender issues, to do with the Treaty of Waitangi. For example, these are verboten. You're not meant to discuss them. Climate change. Climate change, yeah, sorry, around COVID of course. There's only one. Mass immigration's another one. You dare not say we're full. Let's put a sign up and tell everyone we're full. You're not allowed to do that. We've got to welcome all comers, even if they're ratbags. Yeah, well, you've got a whole notion of multiculturalism as a, you know, I studied this at university. It's one of the degrees behind me. These are fascinating topics that are fraught, but unfortunately in modern New Zealand, the more fraught the topic, the less you're allowed to talk about or supposedly to talk about it. And two things that might happen, Cam, either you get attacked for having a counter-opinion and what we just talked around, Roe versus Waitangi, a good example of that. But I can think of other colleagues who spoke up to do with the Treaty, climate change, and so forth, who were also forced to apologize. The second, and I think really important, if I might, is effective people get censored. You just don't get published. You don't, so you mentioned my substack. One of the reasons I'm writing there is that it's very infrequent that people like myself get published in mainstream media. We submit articles that just don't get published, and you'll know of a lot of people in that space, they just don't get heard. So really to stress again to people, there are a lot of good people out there thinking, writing, speaking. It just doesn't often break into mainstream media because the editors won't allow it. Well, I mean, one of your substack posts is not exactly what we've just been talking about. This, it's really a government and governmental organization in large corporates that are pushing this diversity, equity, and inclusion type thing, which is, it's actually an oxymoron because their roles are about creating division and about creating inequity and about excluding people because while they're being inclusive of, I don't know, Maori or trans people or whatever, then they're not actually looking for the best person for a job. They're looking for someone who fits, you know, text boxes. And so you might be missing out on the best person for a job because you wanted to be diverse and equal and inclusive and actual fact you're being the opposite. But there's this insane amount of money that's being spent on doing all of this stuff. And in New Zealand, it's getting worse. I mean, we're behind the rest of the world in this, but we can look at the UK and the United States and see where it ends up and it doesn't end up anywhere nice. No, no, it doesn't because actually a lot of this identity politics, progressivism, wokeism, whatever you want to term it is actually built on division. You've nailed it right at the start and division doesn't lead to people coming together harmoniously. It leads to more division, which is why you've got this constant fight in the intersectionality area. Who is the greater victim? And it just spirals. And actually ultimately, without being too heavy, it ends violently. And you saw hints of that last year with the protests at Albert Park. For example, the attempts so far to cancel different events, it actually gets violent, be it in word or physically. So we're on a bad trajectory. But yeah, like that latest sub-stack, I was frustrated or more frustrated that, yeah, how much money has been spent on either divisive entities, such as the Christchurch call, because at its heart, it is about dividing people, believe it or not. And then, yes. We'll come back to the Christchurch call because there's an interesting thing that I'll tell you about that you probably don't know, but carry on. Sorry, I don't know. No, no, that's good. I'm happy to come back to it. But yeah, all these DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion roles, put it this way, even if you want to take the politics out of it or your viewpoints on it, at the end of the day, would you prefer we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on some band around talking to us about what diversity looks like or higher paid police officers or nurses or people who are running our trade policy? I know that I prefer the latter. And we know the government's cutting back on the civil service. I suppose part of my argument is I bet you a lot of these DEI roles won't go. It'll be the hard workers on the front line that will. And I think that's very sad. Well, the funny thing is, I've heard a bit of a rumor from the inside that actually DEI people in those types of roles are in the firing line of the government. This is good if that's the case. But we're not the civil service and listens to the ministers, you know, it's another matter, but yeah, it is good. But just touching on that Christchurch call. Now, I happen to know that one country applied to join the Christchurch call. And if you have a look at the list of countries, there's quite a few, you know, United States and Canada and Great Britain and France, obviously in New Zealand. But one country applied to join the Christchurch call and the people of that country and indeed the diaspora across the world are among the most victimized people on the planet. And they were quietly told to go away. And that country was Israel. And I know that's true. I know people that were involved in the application and couldn't, they were gobsmacked. But being Israelis, they just sort of shrieked and we know, well, if that's what they want to do, that's what they want to do. I'd say the call. Yeah, I can completely confirm it because it was something I raised. Oh, it came across my desk a couple of years ago as an issue. And I remember raising it into the likes of MFAT and DPMC to say, well, you know, was there an application? Why was it turned down? So you're absolutely correct. But I think it is also very much the Israeli approach not to make too much of a song and dance about it. But I think it just symbolically shows a problem within the very structure of the Christchurch call. Why would this lively democracy not be allowed to be part of this organization? And doubly so, as you pointed out, with anti-Semitism as the canary in the coal mine, all and pretty much every act of intolerance. So no, it just shows that the call is broken from the outset. Yeah, that'd be a saving that we could get immediately. Just acting that is just not needed. We've even seen surveys being conducted by so-called disinformation experts that are saying now that they were surprised at how little disinformation there is actually around. These are the so-called experts. And they were shocked that their survey, their study of disinformation showed that it was a very, very tiny amount of disinformation and misinformation that was being spread that was then changing people's views or whatever. There's almost under 1% or something like that. It was ridiculously small. So I don't think we really need it. Oh, look, I don't mind civil organizations wanting to discuss these topics. I'm always very nervous when governments get involved. And we always remember the single source of truth statement. And for me, it's slightly symbolic of obviously that situation, but the wider ones. You just don't want need government bodies in any shape or form trying to determine what does right think or right speak and what they deem as disinformation versus not. It's a very, very fraught area. And so the fact that the Christchurch calls mandate has widened almost from day one from obviously the tragedy with the mosque shootings into now a whole array, again, of progressive causes is something that should be bringing alarm bells in people's minds. You end up with a situation like the Human Rights Commission who are decidedly absent on actual human rights. We saw during the pandemic the utter silence at some of the most appalling breaches of our Bill of Rights that occurred. People were being forced and mandated to have medical procedures completely against the Bill of Rights. We had our freedoms trampled on. We had healthy people locked up in their homes. We had citizens in New Zealand unable to even come into the country. And because you were in parliament at this time and which manifested itself in a very large protest for a very long period of time. And there hasn't been a protest like that actually in New Zealand, except for maybe perhaps Bastion Point or Motua Gardens in terms of an occupation of an area for a lengthy amount of time. And we saw the end result of that, which was the power of the state trampling over people's right to protest. But at the same time, we also saw the media in lockstep with what the government said, standing there up there on the balcony at parliament, protected by armies of police and cheering on the government. And we also saw the bizarre situation. And I'm interested in your insights on this where every political party that was in the parliament at the time agreed that they wouldn't go and actually meet or talk to the protesters. You're a free speech person. Did that really great with you? I mean, no, I'm not sure anybody's ever asked you that, but I'm going to. Yeah, no, it's a good question. No, it did great. I think I can't speak for all MPs by any means. But I think it was a real conundrum, a real question for a lot of people. Our natural inclination, certainly mine, is to go and talk to people. And certainly in the early days of the protests. So to me personally, the protests dynamic did begin to change, which doesn't invalidate it. But there was a change. But actually, our job is to listen to people. And there was many a time as I was out and about on the street. So this is down in Wellington that would bump into my constituents going, well, where are you? Well, it's tricky I'm here right now. But in terms of engaging in the protests. So yeah, I think, unfortunately, that group think that we've been touching on across a number of topics sort of kicked in. And the early decisions partly, and to be fair, on the leadership at the time, across the parties and the parliament, there was sort of an uncertainty of what was happening. The advice they were getting, the decision was made. Look, let's not engage. And then once that made that decision, comes back to what we're talking around unity earlier. It's very hard to change course. And the longer that went on, then it becomes a real high risk situation for any MP or MPs to go against that. In other words, had an MP gone out, well, they would have been able to go out. No one's going to crash tackle them. But politically, I think they would have been eviscerated from their parties, leadership, media, and otherwise and become effectively impotent for the rest of their career. So a lot of MPs, they're self included, were making those calculations. But fundamentally, I think so much would have changed had people talked and listened. As in politicians, I mean, that's what we're there to do. You represent not just the good. Exactly right. You're there to take all sorts of conversations from all sorts of people. And it's my personal view that I think the two things that I might can, one, where the protests ended would have been different. But secondly, I think we wouldn't have the same level of resentment we have today in New Zealand. And that's not just around the way the parliament handled the protests, but the way COVID was managed, I think, has left deep, well, not think I know, has left deep scars and hurt and resentment. And a lot of people want to paper over that, particularly those with a lockstep with Jacinda. But as I go about friends, family, acquaintances, and just people I know, there's deep, deep hurt. And it's going to take a while to heal. And one of the things is it's got this, what happened has to be discussed very openly and frankly. And you don't see any desire for that, in certain segments of society, sadly. No, there is no desire for that. And I knew various leaders of particular groups speaking to them during that protest. They just wanted to be heard. And if Trevor Mallard and Cinder Ardern and Chris Hipkins had got together with Christopher Luxon and David Seymour and erected a tent out there on the front of the forecourt with some chairs around it in front of everybody and actually sat down for an afternoon and talked very early on, that protest would have dissipated. People would have felt that they were listened to. People would have felt they were heard. And you wouldn't have had the lengthy protest that you had. But the intransigence of, first of all, the regime and then all the other political parties led to, as you say, some deep scars and some hurts. That, hey, the people we elect don't want to listen to us. Well, if they don't want to listen to us, then we need to get rid of them. And that's where you get the mischief starting to come in, when actually people just, they were hurting. They had lost jobs, careers, things that devoted their life, and particularly if there's nurses or police or military, they don't do it for the money. They do it for a desire to help and serve. And they were treated appallingly for making a choice that is actually protected in the Bill of Rights. Yeah, well, I think at the higher level, I've often said our rights exist for the bad times. And I raised that in Parliament several times as well. I remember. Because human rights, we don't need them when times are good. They're there for the bad times. If you looked at New Zealand's scorecard around the management of COVID, we failed the Freedom of Speech Association, the privacy around your health care, freedom of religion, and so forth. I don't think there was any that we would have got a pass on. We broke them all. We did, yeah, pretty much, like the whole set. So that's exceptionally sad. I think it's also why we've seen, and it's not just the issues of COVID. I'd say over the years, as again, people are being railroaded into a particular way of thinking or acting. I think it's causing that resentment, frustration, and anger in New Zealanders. And it's why you are seeing more, if you will, partisan politics, why you're seeing more frustrations, and why there's in some ways less debate and discussion and more outbursts of frustration. And it's only going to get worse. Because the more people try to lock things down, so hate speech laws, limiting inquiries, telling people you can only have this opinion, it's going to be like squeezing a balloon. It's going to manifest or pop out in other spaces, and often not in a very constructive way. Mm, I agree with you on that. If you tell someone like me, you can't say that. I say, well, who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can't say? And then I say it anyway. And that's exactly why Reality Check Radio was born and exists because of that frustration that there were no media outlets out there that would allow people to have free and frank discussions without wanting to cut each other's throats. I mean, you and I probably agree on probably maybe 65, 70% of something, the 30%. They're not life and death situations, that we're going to cease to talk to each other because we disagree with us on, I don't know, it could be something as anodyne as cannabis use. You might say no, and I might say, well, you know, mellow out, bro. That's right, chill out. But that's the most fascinating area. I mean, you know it, and you must just know it. When you sit down with friends, colleagues, whoever, the 60% or 70% of whatever you agree on is interesting to talk about, but actually it's that 40% or 30% that you don't. Yeah. And as adults in a properly functioning democracy, you can actually sit about and chat and debate and learn and sometimes change, or you learn a bit more about why you believe what you do. But we do seem to be, as a society, stomping that out. And again, it doesn't, the topics where you're only allowed to have one view seems to be increasing. And I suppose again, it's sort of a bit of a theme of where we're going today that it's not gonna end in a good place because people just get frustrated and frustration always looks for a way to manifest itself. And sometimes constructively, so that there's no more media like reality check and others is a good thing, actually. I see it as actually a healthy sign to our democracy that people, yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. And that's what we're trying to do here at RCR is get all types on the radio. Let's talk to them without interrupting them or trying to push our point of view across in a hostile competitive dog eat dog style 10-minute interview. That's why we talk to people for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or even an hour or so, because, A, we can, because we haven't got broadcasting schedules like other places have. And B, it's far more fascinating to understand what makes people tick, where they've come from. I mean, we kind of share a little bit of a Fiji inheritance, which most people don't know about, right? You served as a missionary in Fiji. I was born in Fiji, you know? So it's the things that, those are the things that don't come out in the normal combative political type discussions, but they're the kinds of things that come out when we sit here and try and understand where each person is coming from. Absolutely, and I referenced earlier how Parliament doesn't have as much time to reflect on issues. And actually, an element of that, too, is a lot of times MPs don't get a chance to interact deeply with one another. So there will be elements, and I'm as much within this or was, there are MPs in that parliament, or the parliament I was involved with. I have no idea on their background. I mean, I know that they're green or Labour, but I have no idea about their life story and all them about mine. And in a strange way, that's a bit sad, because actually when you get to know people, you understand a little bit more about how they think, and ultimately you can have, I think, a more fulsome discussion. But the other thing, and I think you touched on it with mainstream media, they do, to be fair, operate under an enormous amount of pressures, be it financial or time schedules, but you do see they very quickly pick and choose MPs they like and MPs they don't like. And the same with commentators. I'll always go back to certain commentators, not others. And I think that's unfortunate, because I look across the parliament's I was involved with, there were really good MPs in Labour or Greens, National, wherever, that basically got no airtime at all. And it was really sad, I think, because they have a lot to contribute. And the same in this parliament, you'll be certainly MPs, you know, Chloe Srawbuck will be on the front page of the Herald most weeks, but I tell you, there's piles of people within, say, the National Party and Labour, who also deserve to be heard with their views, but they won't, sadly. Yeah, I mean, I got to see this myself, you know, nearly six years ago now, when I had a stroke and I was in hospital, you know, and it was astonishing the politicians that I've interacted with over the years who were completely silent about it and those who came and visited me or inquired. Now, I can tell you that there was just one National MP that bothered, right? And so I'll dine a ditch for that MP because they showed compassion when I was hurting. There was also a number of Labour MPs that contacted me. And one in particular sent me a lovely set of text messages just out of the blue. And I thought, you know, you didn't have to do that, but you saw someone hurting and you reached out and I'll never attack that person either. Now, I'll never, I'll have a more kindly view on any foibles that they may have or any issues that... Now, I don't think they're ever gonna set the world on fire, right, as an MP, but I have a huge amount of respect for them that they defied their party directives, not to speak to Cameron Slater and actually reached out to a human being. And that's the thing that I get to see a lot of in my interactions with MPs and politicians and people like yourself, and which is what I try and get out of talking to those people so I can share that same interaction that I've had with those people so they can understand why I think like I do about particular politicians. Which all makes sense. I mean, I was struck when I finished up in Parliament and lost last year. So not as dramatic, of course, of having a medical stroke, but the number of MPs from the other side who actually messaged me took me aback. I mean, it was absolutely lovely, but I was quite taken aback. I mean, personally, and you know, they'd have to speak to themselves. I've tried not to be a jackass to the other side. I've tried not to. I probably failed at different points, but always tried to keep up good relationships. But I was quite touched actually, the messages that came through. The second point if I could is actually, I think being a good MP, shouldn't be judged simply on the ranking they get to or the office that they hop. Or a tweet. No, I think there are so many good MPs that I've met over time that will never be ministers, but actually they are hardworking. They represent their community. And that's what it's actually about. The parliament's there to represent. So actually, the quieter MP who doesn't make a huge noise that, yep, isn't an undersecretary or a minister, isn't any less effective. In fact, often they're very effective and they're doing their job well. And maybe you're going to add this, often with very little praise. And we all like to be told we're doing a great job, but actually they just carry on doing their job for their constituents, or whatever group they represent. And I think that's to be, it's really to be admired. And it's something we're potentially losing. You talked about the, I'm going to talk about the celebrity culture. We seem to be putting on to leadership and that's certainly an issue here. But it's also happening to MPs in general. It's sort of the ones that get again the coverage. And then all these others are, what do they do? Why should they do their job? They do it really well. They've been considered. And then select committees are asking sensible questions because they've done their reading. They're not out glory seeking. My old grandfather used to say when our kids were hearing around his place, he'd sit down and go, empty vessels make the most noise. We were little kids. We go, grandpa, what does that mean? Empty vessels make the most, think about it. Empty vessels make the most noise. And then when I became a salesman, one of my mentors said to me, he says, Cam, you've got two ears and one mouth. And that's the ratio that you use them in. And that's the same advice I give to politicians when they come to me for advice. What advice can you give me? Two ears, one mouth, use them in that ratio. And that's the thing that I see with Christopher Lux. And he's very quick to start talking and keep talking when actually silence or a more considered answer would be a better result. That's trainable. You can train your way out of that, but you've got to have a willingness to actually sit down and listen. And you've alluded to it, I've alluded to it. Politicians seem to have lost the ability to listen and consider. The listening doesn't mean you agree. The listening just means you listen. It's like, well, I like having a wine with Chris Trotter, for example. Because I want to hear what he's got to say. I might not agree with it, but he might influence me and I might influence him. And so that's why we have that discourse and polarization and segmentation and all of those things prevent discourse. And we need to get back to that, that strongly need to get back to that, to avoid calamity. Because New Zealand's about five years, New Zealand's about five years behind the rest of the world, right? All this DEI stuff has happened in the UK and the US, turned into a disaster. The trans rights movement has turned into a disaster, but we're still pushing ahead with it because the rest of the world's done and the rest of the world's come to a grinding halt and gone, whoa, hang on a second here. Particularly with women in sport. Yeah, well, unfortunately, New Zealand sort of falls into this exceptionalism mindset at times. What I mean by that is we think we're different. Well, we're not. I mean, we're an amazing country. Let's take all of that as red, but actually a lot of things which happen in the rest of the world do happen here as well. And it would be great if New Zealand at times would look overseas and go, hey, if we continue down the path we're headed, we're gonna do exactly what's happened in the UK or Australia or the States or wherever. So we need to at times, I think, step away from that exceptionalism. I think the second, yeah, more discourse. It's why, as you know, a great believer in free speech. I have no problem with people having very different views to mine. In fact, it was a little known fact, but when we had these, went through major ethical discussions when I was in parliament, didn't go in for them, but they seemed to follow me. So abortion, euthanasia, there was conversion therapy, cannabis use, I mean, they're all there. But I would spend most of my time actually listening to the alternative side. So, you know, in my electorate office, people who wanted to come and tell me that they agreed with me wouldn't get an interview or wouldn't get a slot, because I don't need to be told that. Time was made for opponents or people who shared it, sorry, who had a different view. That was much more use to me. And so we need more of that. But to be fair, Cam on the MPs themselves, I think they do want to listen. We, if I could, even though I was a former MP, we do want to listen. It's just that the job has become so intense, so full-on. You are chasing your tail. So that's a reason, not an excuse, but it's just so busy that those deep conversations don't happen. And I'm sure many people who turned up to select committee, you know, they get their little five minutes to discuss a major issue and then we're on to the next and the next and the next. So it's the system isn't working as well as it could. Even though they had their five minutes, they often go away feeling they weren't heard, you know? Oh, exactly. Which is sad. And look, having said on those select committees at times, you try to listen, picking when you're doing like all-day hearings. You imagine literally starting from eight in the morning until six at night, five minute after five minute. I mean, eventually just all swirling. But I have no doubt that people would have sat with me across the table doing my best to listen. But at times I would have zoned out and they would have picked up on that. And that's unfortunate. But that's probably the structural problems we have in the system. But on the flip side, if I might, I won't mention the MPs or the particular bills or discussions, but you know, there were times both in government and opposition where in picking my Labour colleagues would say something really profound. They would have seen something and happened on the, you know, my national colleagues as well. But I do remember a couple of times where you're debating a topic in private insight committee and they had a really profound insight and it makes everyone stop. So there's still great dynamics that happen, but MPs are just overwhelmed and it's maybe that's a discussion for another day of how we fix that. Yeah, I mean, just on the select committee thing, often you see contentious bills before the house and you look at the submissions and there'll be thousands of submissions against the proposals of the bill. And very few in support of the bill, yet somehow the select committee comes to the conclusion that this is what the people want and so we're gonna press on regardless. And a classic example of that is the firearms legislation. You know, the people who were most affected by that were effectively ignored. There was thousands of submissions against it. There was plenty of submissions that proposed a better way to do things. The government pressed on with the draconian laws around that that haven't been effective. We've seen a proliferation of gun crime because the only people were affected by the gun laws were law abiding citizens and criminals aren't law abiding so that weren't affected. So we had a proliferation of gun crime. We've got hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to put in place a register which has never worked anywhere in the world. Canada tried it and spent nearly a billion dollars before they decided to destroy it. The Australian one doesn't work at all. We're already seeing now with the register in place just astonishing anomalies because of a lack of experience in the register, the people who are in the register and we're seeing guns that are being registered with model numbers as serial numbers and all sorts of nonsense like that. I mean, I can remember at Antique Arms getting Mike McElrace to come along and speak to the 200 members of Antique Arms and somebody said, well, what if a firearm doesn't have a serial number? And he said, well, that we must do. Well, sorry, Mike, but serial numbers didn't come in into force until about 1899 with industrialization, almost all guns before that were handmade. In ones that weren't handmade, I might say Martini Henry's or something like that. There was no need for serialization, so they didn't do it. And he said, well, all you need to do then is put the largest number that's on the gun and use that. And we all laughed. We just all laughed at them because I've got 10 Martini Henry's of various different models. I collect them. And the largest number on the side of all of those is the data manufacturer. So I might have five Martini Henry rifles with 1887 on them. And they're in the register as a Martini Henry of this caliber with this serial number with 1887. And if I've got five, there's another 200 out there that have got 1887 on the side of them as well. But that's the ludicrous nature of this tunnel vision thinking that occurs with the formation of legislation for ideological purposes. Yeah, well, I mean, first and foremost, someone who loves history, the Martini Henry is a very famous, it's infantry weapon for the British, of course, very famous in the movie Zulu amongst other things. But no, you're right. I mean, it's a good example of how a government's of the day. And again, it goes across the political spectrum, make a policy decision and they just push on through. Sometimes a select committee or rather the submissions into a select committee itself can change the trajectory of a law, but it's very, very rare. And a lot of that for you listeners to understand comes back to what we discussed at the start, which is the notion of unity. So if minister X puts forward an idea or a policy, the select committee, which by and large is dominated by the governing power. If the select committee puts out a contrary opinion, that's sort of seen as scandalous. And all of a sudden the government of the day is caught up in a media firestorm about why the minister said this, but the select committee did that. And so it doesn't tend to happen as much as it probably should. And it's unfortunate because by and large what you see, and it's a deeper problem in our democracy, that so I'm not hesitating for any other reason trying to articulate it quickly and simply that basically a government decides its policy very little changes. It just goes through the system. There's a psychological term for it called concrete thinking. Once they've made a decision on something, they press on full steam ahead. We're not willing to entertain any changes whatsoever. Even though the actual subject experts are saying, if you do this, it's gonna cause this problem. And we're seeing that now, particularly on firearms law, particularly on some other aspects of law, euthanasia is another one, where people were warned what the unintended consequences of this legislation was gonna be, but they did it anyway. And now you're starting to see those consequences start to raise their head and everyone going, why didn't they see that? Well, they were told. And so I don't know how we fix that. There's this rapid fire legislative vigor that they want to pass as many laws as they can and actually we should be saying, well, no, for every law we pass, let's try and get rid of two others. And actually have less laws. Wouldn't it be better if we had less laws? I think so. I mean, all the grammarians at the moment are screaming, by the way, Cam. They'll be going, fewer laws, fewer laws. Probably, I don't care. No, I don't. They might be saying that, but I bet you they didn't get 95% in their school exams for English, because I did. Yeah, I always have to be careful when I do my writing, you know, we'll always get one or two people methods through and point out all my grammatical mistakes. Yeah, that's all they've got to complain about. Then there's really not much wrong in the world, is there? That's right. Look, I think we are over-legislated in New Zealand. It is one of the reasons why MPs are incredibly stretched. You know, it's easy to say, but it's quite true that MPs are overworked and the amount of legislation going through is part of it and it's hard to consider all of it. Exactly how you change it, that's going to be really, really difficult. I mean, part of it is, I think, looking at the way we structured the electoral system. But again, that's a whole big topic for another day. It's a whole other topic. But it does need to change, because otherwise we're just going to have, as I mentioned about halfway through this, we just have amendment bill after amendment bill and we should always remember that an amendment bill is there because something has gone wrong, by and large. Something wasn't done right the first time. Something wasn't thought through properly. Exactly right. And look, there's always going to be situations where it doesn't matter who submits or what MPs think, we miss things, but it's just happening more and more frequently. And again, a big part of it comes down, government of the day, be it red or blue, decides this is the trajectory and it's very difficult to shift that. And media plays its own part, because again, it attacks aggressively if there's any change. Where we should allow fault. Governments shouldn't be absolutely pilloried for going, you know what, we thought about this a bit more and we decided we didn't have it quite right. Almost impossible for a minister to admit any fault. I can't remember a single case where a bill has gone through the select committee and the select committee has said, yeah, now we don't need to do this. I cannot remember a single case. Okay, on individual members' bills, that may be the case, but when a government is putting up a bill, it invariably goes through all of the stages and as smooth the way as possible, depending on how important that bill is to the government. Look, absolutely. There are though a couple of, and I won't remember the specifics, but I'm pretty sure on the last parliament, one committee didn't actually write a report. So the select committee just returned the bill as it was to the government with no commentary. So that was quite a bold statement. And again, I apologize to you and your listeners. There was another example, I think it might have been in foreign affairs where they did push back quite hard. I think it was on the mass arrivals bill actually that Michael Woods was pushing through that both the Labor and National MPs united unusually to say this is just not good at all. But again, it just keeps being pushed on through. And the sad thing came for me is that the focus, often through media, becomes on the supposed scandal, not the substance of why. In other words, the focus was not saying, well, why are the MPs pushing back? The story was, oh, the MPs are pushing against their minister or is this showing disillusionment? It's like, that's a sideshow. What's the substance? What's the real, why are the MPs concerned? Yeah. Yeah, we're pushing up against time now, Simon. And it's been a real pleasure having this chat with you. What many listeners don't understand is that my sister actually tried to challenge you. She did. I wasn't going to mention it. Oh, I'm happy to mention. What I'm trying, why I'm mentioning it is you've got every reason to not talk to me because of something my sister did. But yet we're here, we are having a discussion for almost an hour, which has been convivial and pleasant and an exercise in learning for the both of us. And that's just to show them, the listeners, that we actually can, even though we may have differences of opinions, you know, familial connections or all those sorts of things, that we can actually sit down and talk with each other and that's the important thing. And I guess that's the thrust of the whole discussion that you and I have had today is the need to continue to discuss things. It's the absolute critical part of it, actually. I mean, as humans, we can find a myriad of reasons to be disgruntled and want to silence people. We need to pretty much ignore those, actually, and make sure we sit down, and I would always make the argument, you sit down more with the people you disagree with. I want to be clear that's not the basis of our discussion today, it's quite convivial. But, you know, when we get pushed on issues that are really deeply important to us, that's the real time to sit down and have more conversations. So, Cam, thanks for the chance to check regards to your sister as well. Yeah, I'll pass those on, and it's been great chatting with you and I think our listeners are gonna learn a thing or two about Simon O'Connor and that's a great thing. Thanks so much. So now we know. You see, when politicians cease being politicians, you get the unvarnished truth. The MPs were muzzled by the leaders of the parties during the protest and told not to go and speak to the protesters. It's good to know. I found this interview, however, absolutely fascinating and I think Parliament is poorer than not having Simon O'Connor in the house. What do you think? Let me know your thoughts by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. Thank you for tuning into RCR Reality Check Radio. If you like what you're listening to, just like what you're listening to, either way, we wanna hear from you. Get in touch with us now. You can text us with your message to 2057. That's 2057. Or email us at inbox at realitycheck.radio. We would love to hear from you. So connect with us today.