Apologies and repentance

By Ken Russell in Articles

Public apologies are fashionable, but do they always go with repentance?

Phil Heatley may be currently licking his wounds on the back benches, but he has one distinction that may afford him consolation. It is being said he is the first cabinet minister in the MMP era to have resigned in the face of his prime minister's insistence he need not do so. Mr Heatley committed no sackable offence. His was, in the eyes of his peers, no more than a misdemeanour, a naivety, a minor error of judgment. John Key went so far as to call his attempt to charge the cost of a family holiday and a couple of bottles of wine to the taxpayer a "stupid" act by a Minister who should have known better. Yes, indeed.

But the Whangarei MP was inconsolable, his grief palpable in a public apology that left nothing and nobody out - to the Prime Minister, to his party, to his constituents and to the people of New Zealand. Totally, totally sorry!

It is, of course, a fashionable thing to do. The list of celebrities and VIP's saying sorry is growing exponentially. Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd and our own John Key have all said SORRY in a big and representative way for the sins and errors of the past - the export of thousands of unwanted children, the appalling oppression and exploitation of the aborigine people, and breaching the Treaty of Waitangi in its dealing with the 24,000 Te Arawa tribe. The big apology is in vogue, and leaders in the big democracies, irked by the frequency with which the sins of the fathers continue to haunt the business of contemporary government, may well continue to find a tad of public sorrow and regret carries with it electoral benefits.

But sadly, among the chorus of high profile apologies filling our screens these days, few can claim the same moral high ground. Let's not start with Tiger Woods. There was Rodney perks-buster Hide, Bill not-a-good-look English, Hone I'm-entitled Harawira, Tony I-lashed-out Veitch, just a few who have riveted our attention with shame-faced apologies tendered with lashings of humble pie. And that was last year, or was it the year before? Already 2010 is shaping up as a record year for big-time apologies, none bigger than the world head of Toyota, bowing and grovelling before the US Congressional Committee, imploring forgiveness for making millions of potentially lethal unstoppable missiles - an unthinkable admission, it might once have been said, on behalf o the world's most reliable car-maker. Just as big on the NZ scene was Telecom's 7-million dollar CEO Paul Reynolds, pleading for understanding of his firm's XT network failings, and pleading for customers to stay loyal. For weeks Reynolds had spurned the S word - now its slips out easy. And then of course, when it comes to public humiliation has there ever been a more sorry spectacle than former All Black Robin Brooke apology for his gratuitous groping beside the pool in Fiji? Inevitably, public apologies under duress have a hard struggle for integrity.

I was fascinated by the comment of columnist-mayor Michael Laws in last weekend's Sunday Star Times. The normally acerbic Laws might have been expected to feast on the pickings of the Heatley resignation, but instead he rose to praise him. From an environment where politicians, of all people, are appallingly bad at accepting responsibility for mistakes, blaming departments, systems, and any other mitigating circumstances they can find, Laws says Heatley stands out from the pack. He "accepted he had done wrong. No equivocation. No justification. That took an inner moral compass... Phil Heatley has restored his honour."

Yes, and at some considerable cost. Half his lucrative salary, his place in cabinet, demotion to the back benches, and more than a little derision from hard-boiled colleagues, all of which is bad medicine for any politician with an eye to his future.

What Laws wouldn't say, and didn't, is that Heatley makes no secret of his Baptist affiliation, and the hard decision, one that has puzzled John Key and all the political media no end, would have been taken in a lonely, brutally honest confrontation with his God.

As it happens Judy and I have been enjoying DVD episodes of John Mortimer's "Paradise Postponed", the quirks and quarrels of the family of left-wing liberal Anglican rector Simeon Simcox. In a move that confounds the family, Simcox names Leslie Titmuss as the sole beneficiary in his will. Titmuss was born into a working class family, but what he lacked in breeding in class conscious England he made up for in huge ambition, a compelling desire to "make something of himself."

Ruthless, heartless and driven, Titmuss takes every advantage of the Simcox inheritance, becomes wealthy, successful, and a minister in Maggie Thatcher's cabinet. In an unforgettable scene, having driven his wife to an early death, Titmuss sits at breakfast with his young son home from his exclusive boarding school, each at opposite ends of a long banqueting table. It is time for some well-chosen fatherly advice. "Son," he says "never apologise, never, ever."

True to his own advice, Titmuss faces the greatest crisis of his political career with lies built on lies, and survives. But by then he is a repulsive character who has alienated family and friends by his insatiable ambition, a hardened shell of a man determined never, ever, to apologise.

On this 3rd Sunday in Lent it is timely to note the difference between apology and repentance. I don't know the man but I have singled out MP Phil Heatley who appears to understand the difference. It is a difference of fundamental importance. Apologies can be so shallow, so stage managed, artificially emotional and tearful. Repentance takes longer. It is a turning around. It gives rise to faith. And from even one act of genuine repentance, so it is written, there is joy in heaven.

-- Ken Russell.

Originally published as a Connections article in the Parish weekly bulletin, 7 March, 2010.