When silence is golden

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 12

When silence is golden

The most difficult art for politicians to cultivate, or so it would seem, is the ability to keep their own counsel when prudence or courtesy require a seemly silence. Running off at the mouth is an affliction by no means restricted to politicians; it is just that their lapses are more widely broadcast — and the consequences correspondingly more embarrassing, damaging, or divisive — than the logorrhoea of lesser mortals. Reticence might not come easily when journalists try to goad politicians into revealing all; but there are times when those politicians would do well to keep mum. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, has had troubles with his tongue during his year in office. The latest of his gaffes was his smug announcement, the day before the police arrested two people for the Rainbow Warrior bombing, that he knew who had done it and why. Like his off-the-cuff speculation — which was well astray — about inflation figures, and the throwaway lines about his wife when he was on tour in Africa, this latest remark was pointless and unnecessary. Mr Lange had no reason to make any comment at all. His predecessor, Sir Robert Muldoon, rarely

spoke without thinking, but was ever ready to enter verbal skirmishes whenever he perceived some advantage to himself, his party, or his Government, whatever the other subsidiary consequences. There were occasions when he won the skirmish but lost the battle. Even now, Sir Robert does not seem to be aware — or care — that although he is winning the ratings skirmish with the man who replaced him as National’s leader, Mr McLay, he is harming the National Party’s sense of unity with statements, comments, and opinions that would be best left unsaid. For his part, Mr McLay has shown an aptitude to blunder in on occasions. His attack on the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, for a supposed leak of devaluation information before the event was a particularly unfortunate example. Nor is this garrulousness the special domain of the front benches in Parliament. Last week, the Solicitor-General, Mr D. P. Neazor, found it necessary to caution a back-bencher, in a barely-veiled general statement, about talking out of turn. Talk is the stock in trade of politicians, but most of New Zealand’s present crop seem not to have learned yet that there are times when silence is golden.