Backbenches in the South

I like to watch 'Backbenches'. The pub of the same name, which sits over the road from the Beehive in Wellington is the scene of an on-going candidates meeting, where MP's and prospective parliamentarians front-up to the questions and provocations of a couple of MC's and an often 'lively' audience. There's good natured barracking, cat-calling, humorous interjections and stunts of all sorts from an audience that comes to the pub to be both entertained and informed. I've always wished that Southland's candidate meetings, generally dour and sedate events, lacking in drama and colour, could be more like those meetings at the Backbencher. So at Tuesday's meeting at Riverton, I did what I could to liven-up what would otherwise have been the 'same old thing' - a polite, somewhat dull, meet the candidates event. I was not alone. There were about 12 Green supporters in the audience of around 30. We were noisy. We had placards and balloons. We had young people amongst our number. None of these things are usual for candidate meetings in the South. There's a first time for everything, they say. There have been criticisms of our approach. Those conservative members of the community who usually dominate our candidate meetings, were unprepared for our liveliness. They were clearly frustrated by our merry-making and the influence that had on the candidates. The Green and Labour candidates had a very good time of it, for a change. The usual criticisms they get from the audience were barely noticed against the positive support they received by way of cheers and applause. Eric Roy was not so lucky, being challenged again and again to address issues that he'd probably like to have avoided. The Backbencher model was something of an ill fit in conservative Riverton, but change comes eventually to the south and it arrived on Tuesday and made a splash. Even the presence of young people upset some of the older folk in the audience, who had neglected to organise any of their own. The students who came to experience their first-ever political meeting should be congratulated for their initiative and their genuine enthusiasm. They were very well behaved, dressed well and were polite to a fault. They greeted people at the door with a smile and the played with the green balloons during the half-time break, in a charming manner. Suggestions that I arranged their presence there are wrong. They came as a result of their involvement with a group called 'Greenagers'  that operates at their highschool. There is much talk around the country about the apathy of our youth, especially around politics. Those young people were and are a credit to themselves. My own daughter, 17 years old and well able to make sensible choices for herself, came to the meeting also. She was the only person from that age group at the meeting. Others of that age seem disinterested in making the effort to get out of the house and attend a political meeting, but not Hollie. She went armed with a good deal of knowledge about New Zealand politics, and some very strong opinions of her own about environmental issues, especially around lignite mining and deep sea drilling for oil, about which she had delivered papers at school.
I think the 'Backbenches' style of candidates meeting brings a much needed vigour to the southern candidates meetings and expect next year, the conservative supporters will have upped their game to match. In the meantime, any criticism of the Riverton meeting smells to me like sour grapes.