I was talking to my brother the other day and we were discussing all manner of social and political issues, and as we were talking my brother made the comment that he thought that NZ was fast becoming a bit of a laughing stock for the rest of the world.

I didn’t really think much about his comment at the time, but when I watched the Close Up programme on TV ONE on Friday night, I was reminded of my brother’s comment.

Firstly, Mark Sainsbury interviewed Helen Clark about the whole David Benson Pope debacle – you know, the one where he lied; no, not that one with the tennis ball, or the other one with the female students, but the latest debacle where he had that lady sacked because he didn’t like her partner’s political affiliations.

Anyway, Helen Clark refused to admit – even after the fact that Benson Pope has been resigned (AKA “been sacked”) for his actions and the subsequent dishonesty – that David Benson Pope had actually lied to the media and the public of NZ.

She was even asked point blank if Benson Pope had lied and she simply kept repeating the line “he didn’t tell the whole story”.

What a farce.

Anyway, after comrade Helen’s little parrot impersonation (“he didn’t tell the whole story, he didn’t tell the whole story, he didn’t…”) I was treated to a story about the “Four Twenty” club in Dunedin.

The Four Twenty club is a small group of stoners who meet every Friday afternoon at 4:20pm to smoke electric pooha under a certain tree at Otago University.

It seems that the club is all up in arms man, because the man is trying to enforce his book of rules on everyone, like you know, because like what if we were all just giant worms floating through time and space, you know, man.

Seriously though, it seems that the Otago stoners are up in arms because the university security staff have decided to actually try and stop them from smoking illegal drugs on university property – shock horror! What next, policemen who arrest you and charge you for robbing people’s houses?!

Holy smackheads Batman!

The whole tone of the news story was truly farcical, as the TV ONE reporter (if you could call him that) wandered around and interviewed person after person who looked like they had just woken up and wandered down to the university for a spot of Maragucci and a discussion about their favourite flavoured Scooby snacks.

I mean, these guys were the cream of the Otago intelligentsia; all potential Green party voters. I say “potential” because most of them got into the polling booth at the last election and voted for the little orange election man as their MP of choice.

One guy was asked “why do you smoke marijuana?” To which he replied: “why do you go round interviewing people man?”

The interviewer then commented “I bet you’re a philosophy student”, which was greeted with the classic reply “Nah, I’ve never even been to university”. Really?! And here I was thinking that you were the vice chancellor, silly me.

I mean, not even John Cleese could have scripted such classic comedy.

The mere fact that this story even made it on to a primetime current affairs show is testament alone to the fact that NZ is fast becoming a banana republic, but things were made even more farcical by the fact that the story was reported as if there was something wrong with wanting to stop people openly gathering to smoke dangerous illegal drugs in public.

I am definitely beginning to think that my brother was onto something.