Kerre's unsympathetic

We blogged the other day about our lack of sympathy for Georgina Beyer. Kerre Woodham agrees, and opines:

I have absolutely no sympathy for Georgina Beyer.

The flamboyant former politician - famously the first transsexual politician in the world - announced this week that she was going on the dole.

What a downward spiral. After serving for seven years as Carterton's mayor where she was, by all accounts, very good, Beyer stood for Parliament in 1999 as the Labour candidate, famously beating Paul Henry who was in the blue corner.

Her time in Parliament was mediocre - she considered her greatest achievement as an MP was simply being elected.

Perhaps it was. No other parliament in the world can boast a boy, turned prostitute, turned drag queen, turned woman, turned mayor, turned MP among their ranks.

But, after a time, simply existing isn't enough. You have to earn your keep as an MP and Beyer wasn't doing that.

Indeed. Sadly, Beyer's attitude that being there is enough is mirrored by a number of her former colleagues on the Labour benches. But Woodham hasn't finished, and after a lecture on work ethic, she delivers her coup-de-grace:

As one of my callers said, she's like our very own Duchess of York, unwilling or unable to believe that the gravy train has been derailed.

She's still spending like she's on the public tit and that has seen her come unstuck.

I know it's shades of Ruth Richardson, but if I was a single woman living in Carterton, I would be able to manage on $500 a week. I managed on less than that when I went from working on television to working in a restaurant. My lifestyle changed radically but it had to.

Georgina should stop the spoiled princess act and pull her head in. Plenty of hard-working Kiwis manage on less and you don't hear them whining.

Maybe Georgina is tired of re-invention. She has certainly packed an extraordinary amount into a relatively young life. But reinventing herself as a dole bludger will be her least popular manifestation.

It's hard to argue with any of that. We used to be deeply suspicious of Woodham's writings, but as far Georgina Beyer goes at least, she seems to have had some sort of epiphany. There is hope for Kerre yet!