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Speaker 1: It's hard listening to all the tributes for Jim Bolger

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Speaker 1: and to not feel like a little bit like we're

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Speaker 1: being ripped off or short changed by our current crop

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Speaker 1: of leaders. A few short generations ago, this country was

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Speaker 1: a completely different place, completely different place, before the internet,

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Speaker 1: before the phones, before all the anxiety, before career politicians.

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Speaker 1: Politicians now come straight out of school into Uni, into

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Speaker 1: the debating club, into the student union, then straight into parliament.

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Speaker 1: Jim Bolger was in parliament a very long time, sure,

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Speaker 1: but he had a productive life before it, leaving school

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Speaker 1: at fifteen and into work, hard work, manual work on

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Speaker 1: the farm in Taranaki and then later in Tequiti. Now

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Speaker 1: it's straight from school into parliament. Have you watched Parliament

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Speaker 1: TV lately? This is something I do and my grandma

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Speaker 1: do very regularly. We've always done it, and we always

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Speaker 1: compare notes. We are both so unimpressed. You've got MPs

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Speaker 1: who literally don't know how to ask a question. It's

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Speaker 1: like watching a video buffering no idea about standing orders,

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Speaker 1: no idea about the rules that govern the place, and

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Speaker 1: no real apparent care to learn either. Just walk in,

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Speaker 1: full of entitlement, sit down and start yelling. One of

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Speaker 1: the most important tools in the modern MP's toolbox is

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Speaker 1: the unwavering ability to take offense at anything and everything

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Speaker 1: in tolerance for another's point of view. The antithesis, by

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Speaker 1: the way of Jim Bolger, is now commonplace. Where once

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Speaker 1: there was decency, there is mistrust, wisdom's being usurped by incompetence,

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Speaker 1: and decorums being biffed out the window and replaced with petulance.

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Speaker 1: People aren't recognized for their standing in the community and

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Speaker 1: voted into parliament, which is what used to happen. They're

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Speaker 1: there because politics is now an industry, and more importantly,

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Speaker 1: nobody else would hire them and pay what we do

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Speaker 1: for more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talk set be from five am weekdays, or

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Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio