Chapter Eight of the Beehive Bit** memoirs
CHAPTER EIGHT
The caucus room is full, that wasn’t a lie. They’re all desperately wanting to get their hands on the Tui dossier but Alix is guarding the papers with a growl. I told her to dress smart and she didn’t do too badly. The nose ring is making the older gentlemen squirm. She’s also guarding a bucket which I made them put their phones into. That’s making them twitchy as fuck.
The PM is reminding everyone she is far more important and busier than all of them by being too busy to arrive on time. I’m checking her ETA on my phone. I still have my phone. That’s really pissing them off. Not long now children.
When she does walk in she doesn’t stand next to me. She throws an icepick glance at the Minister for Health, then takes his chair in the front row. Power move. If this goes tits up then it’s on me not her. But it’s not going tits up. I very much have this under control.
I let a hush descend upon the room.
Thank you all for your extraordinary patience while we prepared the details of Project Tui. A critical component was securing an appropriate spokesperson with the requisite experience to deliver public confidence in this game-changing, and I really mean game-changing, endeavour.
They’re still twitchy as fuck, waiting for me to get to the actual point.
I draw it out a bit more.
Some of you have been getting to know your newest colleague, Norbert Holt. We are extremely privileged to have someone of his exceptional calibre joining the esteemed halls of the Beehive.
If I’m going to overegg it I might as well go full throttle with the embellishments.
It was an astonishing feat for Norbert to win the by-election that everyone said we could not win.
Nobby looks like a dog who’s having his tummy rubbed while being promised he can lick the dog next door’s balls. The PM does a not particularly subtle look at her watch. Okay okay, time to get rolling.
To this end we are going to train a citizen army that will allow the New Zealand Defence Force to be ready to stand strong in the face of any events that are threatening our democracy.
You may recall that I stood in front of you at the beginning of the year with a quote from Churchill.
Impeccable timing from Alix as it appears on the screen.
In 1934, Churchill bravely told Great Britain to urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On the contrary, if war were imminent preparations for defence would be too late.
Today, war is not imminent but there is danger ahead and it is lurking behind two different corners. The geopolitics of the last decade are more precarious than we have seen since 1939. We can no longer rely on being the last stop before Antarctica to keep us out of harm’s way. On the domestic front, there is a downward spiral of poverty, unemployment and crime. Without dramatic action, New Zealand as we know it will be unrecognisable.
It is time my friends… why the fuck did I call them my friends? Not a single one of them would be coming to my aid if I were remanded.
It’s time for a new approach. One that will solve both these problems. A new citizen army. A national reserves force drawn from beneficiaries who have been receiving government benefits for a period of six months or more, so long as they are no more than 60 years of age.
Instead of perpetuating the take take take attitude in this country, we will be providing responsibility and accountability. For beneficiaries to continue receiving the gifts that the state provides, they will participate in reserve exercises for a minimum of 40 hours per month and at least one weekend per quarter.
Instead of perpetuating the idea that beneficiaries cannot be productive members of society, we will be giving them real work skills that are flexible and adaptable to serving their future career needs. And they will experience the fulfilment of knowing they are ready to give back if the worst happens and their country needs them to form the backbone of our defence against the dark clouds of war and conflict.
Ta da. Project fucking Tui.
EVERYONE is trying to read the PM even though her back is to them. Does this have her approval? Do they simper in behind her? Is this a trick? Is the Chief of Staff at the door ready to take names of anyone who is stupid enough to applaud Dr Howard’s ambition?
The PM giggles. What the fuck is that?
- Well done Rebecca. Well done.
The simpering begins in earnest.
But there are some doubters.
- Where does Norbert come in?
Show some discipline. Put your hand up rather than shout from the floor like you are heckling in the house.
- Norbert Holt is going to be announced as the new Minister for Defence when we introduce New Zealand to Project Tui, says the PM with the calm or a person who wishes we could bring back the guillotine for dissent.
The current Minister of Defence emits a noise like he's going to choke sucking off his own cock. The Chief of Staff is desperate for a piece of paper because he can't do the mental gymnastics on what this means for the fantasy football cabinet rankings he sleeps with under his pillow at night.
There are aporetic grumbles from the old codgers at the back who would happily stab the Minister of Defence in the rear end but agree it is outrageous that a brand new MP can be Minister of Defence when the closest they have ever come to the front bench is licking it in their wet dreams.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may be wondering about this prophetic rise of the Honourable Norbert Holt so let me provide some further insight. The success of Project Tui rests on integrity and authenticity. The Minister of Defence, for as long as Tui is in operation, will be a member of the Army Reserve Force, demonstrating an in the trenches commitment to our armed forces.
The current Minister of Defence's balls tighten. He does NOT want to give up the defence portfolio but he absolutely CANNOT drag his sad sack through the mud one weekend a month.
Nobby's balls also tightened when I told him last night. Something something something about his weak knees. But Caroline was there and when she saw the glimmer of being a Minister's wife she screwed the nuts until he acquiesced.
- Do we have focus group...
That's enough questions for now. Debrief is over. You can ask Alix if you have any more questions. She studiously ignores any requests that aren't from a journalist.
PM gives me the barest of a nod.
Yeah bitch. You know I've got this.
FLASHBACK
Yes, that's right. We're doing a flashback to fill in a bit of background.
Six months prior. Maybe seven. Memory is fucked from holding too much important stuff ALL the time.
Six months prior at a fancy Sydney hotel doing a little bit of drinksies after a day of contract consultation on a fancy fucking yacht. It's a defence bid. New tech. Ra ra ra. I don't need to know how it works. Just the right combination of iambic pentameter syllables and roll off the tongue alliterations to sell it into the souls of the people bringing the big bucks.
The Major Generals, who were showing gruff determination on the deck of the yacht, are now tits up giving it yaldi. Which, because they are going into their seventies, means three whiskeys down and they are baying over the top of each other to chime loudest about the problems with young people today.
- The defence force is collapsing because they are TOO WOKE to fight.
- The slightest snifter of blood and they drop like dandies.
- Enlistment is so bad that they are thinking of taking on the boat people.
The boat people? They want to transfer people from the navy?
- NOOOO. The refuGEES.
Well, can’t be having that my old racist friends.
- We are so jealous of New Zealand Rebecca. You have a proper hunting culture. Young people who know the right end of a shotgun.
I happen to look incredible with a 20 gauge and some Hunter boots but that’s because I learnt grouse shooting in Scotland.
- Seeeriously Rebecca. If we don't do something about the recruitment problem, the whole defence force will have collapsed within a decade.
- One of the young tech munchers showed me a chart. If we don't do something the squadrons and platoons fizzle into thin air. A defenceless nation. Waiting like sitting fucking emus to be invaded.
- All the defence funding in the world doesn't change the fact that without recruits we don't have a defence force.
Are you looking for me to package up a consultancy on a new national recruitment drive? For the right Dr. Rebecca Howard-jewel-encrusted-price I could have something to get you hard by the end of the month?
- When I was in Tel Aviv last summer they showed me their personnel flows. Enlistment at its peak. Fine young men and women who would otherwise be lost to god knows what in that god forsaken place. Into the system and back out as strapping, muscular, committed citizens.
Wait a second. The yaldiness has rapidly dried up and this all seems a bit like lines learnt.
- If we could have some kind of direct pipeline.
Conscription. You're talking about fucking conscription?
- It would take a lot of selling to get it implemented here. But a successful roll out in one of our regional partners could lay the foundations.
I have the feeling you are not about to pitch Fiji to me.
- A country that sees pride in picking up an arm for the right cause...
This is THE STUPIDEST FUCKING IDEA.
- Your Lieutenant General has already spoken to her and she’s extremely interested.
You’ve spoken to our Prime Minister?
- Not directly of course. We wouldn’t dare to impose on the domestic autonomy of New Zealand. Her only concern is it might be too hard.
It’s not too hard. It’s just fucking stupid.
- Rebecca, if we don’t fix this we’re going to be speaking Chinese within a decade.
I’m fluent in Mandarin so I do not see that as a problem.
- Our country’s children will be saluting the chairman in the playground every morning.
Yes, yes, I see the severely lacking in imagination apocalypse you are trying to paint.
- If it’s too hard…
It is NOT too HARD. You would just need to set the right parameters. Who would be enlisted, what conditions? You would need a messaging approach that is both domestic and internationally focused. And you would need to get the mandate through the election campaign, not any fucking around with public consultation and select committees. Oh wait a fucking second. Now you’ve got my brain grinding into gear I’m mapping out the whole project strategy for this stupid fucking idea.
The PM mentioned me?
- She did.
Back in from the wilderness on a stupid fucking idea.
My fee will be extortionate.
- That won’t be a problem.
BACK TO THE TIMELINE
Nobby grabs my hand as we're leaving the Caucus room. NOT okay Nobby. Never okay.
- Sorry. Can we have a word in my office?
You mean the gleaming spacious ministerial office. Thank me very much for getting you out of the broom cupboard.
- Can we do it without Alix? Please.
This better be because there's some tea and not because you want to have a whiney plead with me to fix an interpersonal work relationship that you can't handle.
- I'm worried we're over egging the military experience a bit.
You were chosen precisely because you are the only person in parliament who has served in the armed forces. We are reclaiming the term lived experience from the snowflakes to represent actual life insights. You are just one cog in a magnificent realignment.
- But I don't really have much of it. And I looked at Alix's notes for the press. It makes it sound like I was in combat in the Middle East. It was just a training exercise. And she's put a filter on the photo of the training exercise in Timaru so it looks like we were in the desert.
Nobby. We are not presenting the world as it merely might be. We are selling a vision of the world as we want it to be. Strong courageous, dashing men with good hair. A can-do spirit. DO NOT make me send Alix to your house each morning to stand on your balls until you have done enough stomach crunches to gain a modicum of virility.
- Caroline thinks...
Caroline should be planning high teas for the Rotary club and supporting your electorate office to understand the haemorrhoid problems of the local geriatrics.
- Maybe we just roll it back a bit. I'll do the time in the reserves but if we could spread some of the load by getting other MPs involved. Sparky's got quite good hair.
Who the fuck is Sparky?
- Minister Blake.
Why the fuck do they call him Sparky?
- Because of the...
Oh for fucks' sake. This is why I should not be stuck in an office outside the Beehive. Blake is absolutely not getting anywhere near Tui.
You, Nobby, need to lick it up, suck some bootstraps and do some more fucking stomach crunches before the launch.
Time to get out of here. Already late for important things.
JESUS wept. Is that Minister Knight trying to wave at me from the end of the corridor. Of all the people I do not have time for. Get the good old eye divert on. Have absolutely not fucking seen him. And here's the escape chute, into the women's toilet. The one person who definitely won't follow me in there better be him.
While I'm in here let me just take down the PSA union poster.
Check in the mirror. Need to set a Botox appointment to deal with the new wrinkles that Nobby is carving into my face. Possibly a Fiji spa once we have hit the other side of the election TRIUMPHANT.
But what the fuck is this waiting for me when I leave the toilets? Knight fidgeting in the corridor and an old crow at his side.
- Rebecca.
Dr. Howard.
- This is Mrs C---.
Oh god, she's one of the biddies from SUFW. We meet the fucking-liability stakeholders on the outside of the Beehive not the inside you fucktit. How quick can I extract myself from this?
- She's a big fan of yours.
NOBODY is a big fan of me. Carefully cultivated fear and distain on all sides.
- She's got a very exciting policy proposal. We thought you might be able to give some strategy advice for getting it into the election selection.
How has she got you by the nutsack Knight? You look absolutely terrified to be saying those words out loud.
Well what is it?