Every year, Readers Digest runs a survey on how much trust New Zealanders place in various professions, and every year politicians come out on the bottom, behind even used-car salesmen and lawyers. This year, they also added individuals to the survey, asking the public to rank a list of 50 prominent kiwis by trustworthyness. Unsurprisingly, Sir Ed topped the poll, reflecting our overwhelming esteem for a man who not only climbed a mountain and drove a tractor across Antarctica, but worked selflessly for the people of Nepal. But political junkies may be more interested in what's buried at the bottom of the story:
Politicians, who have ranked bottom of the profession category every year, took the lowest two places in the individual category, with Dr Brash narrowly beating New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to the unenviable least-trusted award. Prime Minister Helen Clark fared slightly better, coming in 43rd.
That's really quite an achievement. I'd have thought Winston was a shoe-in for the bottom placing, but I guess Don has been working pretty hard at it, and deserves to be rewarded for his efforts.
We may not trust the pair of them, yet we're going to let them run the country in a few weeks. We're a weird bunch.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before over on my own blog, but it's because us humans are a strange bunch.
ReplyDeleteWe LIKE being lied to, especially when we know it's a lie.
When people in authority lie to us, we like it. It makes us feel better. And if we know it's a lie, we like it even more because we can then feel all betrayed and justifiably angry when the lie becomes public.