28Oct2004

You may have read that police officers can no longer hide in bushes or camouflage themselves in order to catch speeding drivers. This has come as a real disappointment to Kevin who for the last two years has been working undercover as a traffic policeman. Last week he told me his sad story.

“When I left Police College in 2002 because of my abnormal height (I am 1.9m or 6’ 9½” in your old measurement). I was told that because of my height I’d probably be assigned to special duties. Well I could understand this. Just imagine me on the beat in Queen Street in Auckland or Manners Mall in Wellington the whole 1.9 metres of me. Even in uniform I would stand out like Herman Munster. Not because I look like him but because of my height. So I was assigned to special duties – traffic section – undercover speed camera branch. They sent me to Weta Studios in Miramar – that’s Peter Jackson’s place where they made “Lord of the Rings” now they’re making “King Kong”. Amazing people. It took special effects department there almost a week but I came out looking like a gnarled willow tree. It was an amazing makeover.

My first assignment was in the North Island on the Himitangi straight about 10 kilometres south of Foxton. They planted me in a plantation of pines. Hand held radar and radio. In the pines dressed as a willow I felt like the odd tree out. But speeding motorists failed to detect the anomaly. I suppose I looked just like a wilding willow. But last autumn my cover was blown. Literally. Whilst everything around me apart from the pines was turning golden in the autumnal glow my artificial foliage remained green. Speeding motorists immediately became suspicious. As they approached me they always went past at the regulation 100 kph. My quota of tickets slumped. It was decided to give me a new cover. Back to Weta Studios where I was re-made as a Rimu. Rimus are generally green all year round. I was then shifted to the West Coast. I had a roving commission on the road between Hokitika and Franz Josef. I liked the Coast but I had to take a considerable amount of stick each morning as I climbed into my Rimu outfit for the day’s assignment. As I zipped up my trunk and stepped out into the watch house one or two of my fellow officers couldn’t resist calling out “I bet that we shall never see a poem and sight so lovely as a tree”. I don’t know where they got that from. Didn’t sound all that original to me. But I was big enough to take it. Disguised as a Rimu I collected a bag of tickets. Well that was until one day two guys in a ute pulled up. They got out their chainsaws, fired them up and began approaching me. I sensed immediately that they were Rimu poachers looking to illegally log a bit of native timber. There was no way I was going to end up as a bookcase or a coffin for that matter. “Hold on chaps” I shouted over the buzz of their smoking chainsaws. “I’m not a Rimu. I’m an undercover cop.” You should have seen the look on their faces as I dropped my outstretched branches and unzipped my bark. They took off like startled wekas. That was the beginning of the end. I believe that as a result of this incident National Police Headquarters have been forced to rethink this camouflage thing. I know that in the new policy there is no room for hidden or camouflaged deployment to be used. Some of my mates from Police College who had graduated at the same time as me had gone up north and were operating undercover as mangrove swamps and cabbage trees. They were devasted. The sad thing is that all the creative work that Weka Studios undertook with us is to no avail. With my height disadvantage I wondered if I still had a future in the force. But every cloud has a silver lining. I got a letter from Peter Jackson last week. I’ll read it to you.

“Dear Kevin, we were impressed with your impersonations as a Willow and subsequently as a Rimu. With your impressive height we think we might be able to use you. We’re filming “King Kong” at the moment. We’re looking for a stand-in for the Empire State Building. Are you available?”

21Oct2004

You must have seen the scene in Fawlty Towers where Basil Fawlty was about to go into the dining room to wait on two German tourists. “Now Basil” exhorts his wife Sybil “whatever you do don’t mention the war.” “I must not mention the war” replies Basil as he goes high goose stepping, Nazi saluting through the door and into the dining room. “Good evening. I am here to take your order. And by the way I’m not to mention the war.”

It’s a bit like that for me this week. I was exhorted by many not to mention the election. Not the election in Afghanistan. Not John Howard’s victory in Australia. A victory not celebrated by all. As one commentator, Alan Ramsay, in the Sydney Morning Herald remarked “how on earth could we have put this scheming mendacious little man and his miserable claque back in office for another three years?” And certainly not the Local Body elections here. You don’t have to worry about the District Health Board elections. It appears they didn’t take place. Well have you seen any results? Like Basil Fawlty I won’t mention the elections except to make just a few points.

Some how they seem to have got it right in Afghanistan. This was the country along with a couple of its old neighbours who not only invented the Abacus but apparently still use it. Who remembers the Abacus? Well I do. I had one at the end of my cot. I was too young at the time to know its official title. But as an infant I spent many a languid day standing by my Abacus as I aimlessly pushed the top row of blue beads along to a row of red beads. Sometimes I even branched out into the second and third rows where the beads were green, yellow and black. I found this early Abacal cot training stood me in great stead in later life. So have the Afghans. They hadn’t voted for years. They turned out in their millions. Dipped their thumbs in some indelible ink to prevent cheating and double voting. And in this war racked country before you could say “camels dung” they checked everyone’s thumbs. Counted all the votes. Proclaimed a President. In about 48 hours.

So what happened to us? To begin with only 45% of all eligible voters throughout New Zealand decided to exercise what we loftily call “our democratic right to vote”. And when you see what’s happened in the counting process you really can’t blame the other 55% of voters who stayed at home. Or didn’t bother to lick and post off the envelope containing the ballot papers. Chris Carter the Minister of Internal Affairs is promising a full ministerial enquiry into the debacle. Well that’s the sort of comment you’d expect. Mayors in areas where a number of votes cast are still uncertain are righteously fulminating with remarks like “disgusting”, “distressing”, “disgraceful” and “deplorable”. It reminds me of an old Cole Porter song “Delightful, delicious, delovely.” Much as the Minister would like it, as with all ministerial enquiries it will achieve nothing. All it will find in the end is that there is really no substitute for the Abacus. Every returning officer should have one along with a bottle of indelible ink. You might have thought those Afghans living in those caves for centuries oppressed by the Taliban, sheltering Al Quaeda had a lot to learn. Not so. They had a lot to teach us. They’ve shown us up. I bet that in the far flung provinces of Afghanistan there’s not a member of a District Health Board sitting in a cave waiting to be put out his electoral misery. But they not only gave us the Abacus. When they put a walnut on top of a chocolate brownie and called it an Afghan they really took the biscuit.