Heather du Plessis-Allan: You don't have to applaud a politician

Judging by the list of the most popular reads on any particular website, it seems quite a few of us have now read the account of how rude the audience at the Ockham Book Awards were to the Prime Minister.

According to Steve Braunias, when Luxon was welcomed onto the stage, the "applause basically sounded like one hand clapping" - and after his speech was done, the applause was even less than before. And he was apparently gently mocked in comments by the MC, our very own Jack Tame,  and two authors thereafter. 

I'm predicting that there are going to be split opinions on this, and that the opinions will probably largely be split along voting lines. But I'm going to come to the defence of that audience, because I think it is perfectly acceptable for an audience not to applaud a politician.

You don’t have to. You don't have to give a round of applause to a politician if you do not agree with what they stand for.

Jacinda Ardern had to live with that kind of treatment, and I'm sure many of us thought it was completely deserved. She got yelled at by farmers at Fieldays, she and a bunch of Labour politicians were bugged by protestors at pre-arranged events after the lockdowns. And that’s not even to mention the stuff that apparently used to get said to her just on the street.

It is bad manners, you’ll have no argument from me on that one. But as long as it’s not going too far, like that kid who spat at David Seymour, and it's just words or deliberate silence - I can accept some bad manners in politics.

Because the decisions that are made by these people in power are actually material - they affect our lives. Sometimes really badly, think of what Jacinda's Government was doing to farmers. You could hardly expect farmers to give her a round of applause.

It's the same with the Ockham's audience. The kind of people who go to book awards evenings are generally going to be the kind of people who go to dinner parties in Grey Lynn, and while drinking a bottle of $200 pinot noir, they moan about child poverty - and they can't even see the irony in that.

They're hardly going to love Luxon, and they don’t have to love Luxon. And they don’t have to pretend to, just like you don't have to pretend to like your least favourite politician either.

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