Who Keeps Letting All These Politicians Out?
If you want to get a bunch of people upset about anything, there are two sure fire ways to do it. The first is to mention a ludicrous amount of tax money going into a new piece of public art. people hate it when pot hole money gets turned into an abstract cement swirl representing community spirit.
The other way to ruffle some feathers is to mention that a public servant has skived off to enjoy themselves in another country. Not on our watch, they don’t! If Jacinda isn’t at her desk at all times, how can we be sure she does anything? We need bums in seats at the Beehive at all times, none of this remote work business. You never know what they might be getting up to.
National Party leader Chris Luxon was one of the latest examples of a traitor to the country after it came to light that a video published on the party’s Facebook page said that he was somewhere where he wasn’t. This was what passes for a massive “gotcha” for the media, who no longer goes outside. With much fanfare, it was revealed that he was no longer in the place he filmed, Te Puke, but in fact was in Hawaii. Obviously, it’s a neferious cover up. Since these reports, he has since returned to New Zealand, retroactively making liars of everyone who reported that he was in Hawaii. This story says more about the media than Luxon, and that is that they are deathly afraid of not knowing where he is at all times. Can’t have him sneaking up on you to serenade you with a tune playing out of his phone.
Politicians leaving their prison country isn’t just a problem for New Zealand either. Even America, a country only dimly aware there are other countries, has its fair share of escapees. Let’s take a look at just a few.
Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi has been on a very successful campaign of making herself unliked by literally everybody. At home in the States, many came to know her as some sort of institutional Trump-hater, losing an entire base just like that. She lost the other half of the country after seemingly defending the ability of Congress to do insider trading. Now she’s taking the tour on the road, and the tour led her straight to Taiwan where she was instantly hated by 1.4 billion people in mainland China.
Scott Morrison
If you live in the upper North Island, you might remember when Covid was heralded by the sky going orange with incinerated koalas. The Australian bush fires blew their aftermath a long way, but still not far enough to disturb Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison while he kicked back in Hawaii. Perhaps the worst ecological disaster of our lifetime only brought ScoMo back to the country begrudgingly, but not before his office was caught fibbing to people that he totally was in Australia. They stopped saying that after someone took a photo of ScoMo by the pool with a cocktail clutched in his hand
Ted Cruz
In 2021, Texas Senator Ted Cruz took an emergency vacation out of state in the middle of a weather emergency which left many people without water, supplies or heating in the middle of Winter. As is customary in the US, he used his kids as a human shield stating that he left because he was “wanting to be a good dad”.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa
Perhaps the most understandable vacation is the one Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took shortly after finding out millions of people were bearing down on his estate to show him exactly how they felt about him running the country’s economy into the ground. He was supposed to formerly stand down the next day, but decided the prudent thing to do would be to go to the Maldives ASAP. He is now in Thailand somewhere while everyday Sri Lankans enjoy his pool.
