Mountain Scene - An election serve of my humble pie

Despite the plethora of tacky campaign adverts, stock standard election-year bickering and vote buying, it’s refreshingly easy to be distracted from the election hype, living in this unique part of the world. 

You only have to take a glance out the window at snow-dusted mountains – in November?! – to realise the insignificance of anything a government can do compared with the real forces that shape our world. 

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If this isn’t distracting enough my gaze is drawn away from election hoardings by the annual Pinewood Lodge-bound November migration of wave after wave of usually aesthetically-pleasing, predominantly female, Danish students for what I believe is an English language course. Despite this fierce contest for my attention I do consider the duty to vote an important one and would like to think I have a decent handle on the issues. 

It can all get a bit complicated so I’ll simplify things by using pie analogies; pies being something most Kiwis can relate to – and probably a little too well. 

The red bakery wants to make sure our pie is divided relatively evenly between the family so while most won’t be full, no one starves. It’ll be apportioned with precision cuts so that even naughty little Phil gets a decent feed, despite being late to the table because he was out the back perusing through his shiny new Hustler collection purchased by extending the limit on the family credit card. 

The blue bakery is more ambitious and wants to bake a larger pie and throw it out on the lawn for everyone to have a crack at. They are also happy to contract out part of the baking process to save money. Cunning young John set everyone’s clocks back an hour and had first crack at the pie – and he is now cast like a pregnant ewe on the lawn after over-indulging yet has still managed to book himself a Hawaiian holiday with his new iPad, purchased from selling some of his excess pie to the Chinese. 

I’m an honest bloke so I’m going to put my hand up for as much pie as possible even if it means I risk going hungry but as anyone with siblings knows: if mum puts more pie on one kid’s plate than the other, all hell will break loose, so those dishing it out should know it can be a dangerous game. 

You can travel to bakeries across the ditch where they serve consistently bigger pies,  amongst great outdoor dining and usually with a better looking waitress. 

So let’s hope everyone feels they can get a big enough share of the pie this election and we don’t all end up eating kangaroo and dingo pies in Bondi come the new electoral term. 

Mark writes a regular column for the Mountain Scene - View HERE