MP David Bennett asked the Naked Attraction question that had many wondering

Dr Richard Swainson runs Hamilton’s last DVD rental store and is a weekly contributor to the Waikato Times history page.

OPINION: I’ve always had a soft spot for David Bennett. For 15 years the Member of Parliament for Hamilton East and currently in his last few months as a National Party List MP, his political achievements rather pale next to his hail-fellow-well-met, general joie de vivre. No-one knocked upon doors more diligently than David come election time. Few have squired such a bevy of blonde beauties about town, or to the theatre, setting the romantic bar impossibly high for the fellow follicly challenged. For so long New Zealand politics’ most eligible bachelor, I can but congratulate David on his comparatively recent achievement in the fatherhood and betrothal stakes and his decision, akin to that of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, to walk away from a career of longstanding for the sake of domestic duty. Like the traitorous Thane of Cawdor at the outset of the Scottish play, nothing in David’s political life has become him so much as the leaving of it.

In terms of legacy, David is mightily proud of giving Hamilton more roads. In an era where reliance on fossil fuels is increasingly thought counterproductive and the global warming chickens have so spectacularly come home to roost, some might question his commitment to the Waikato Expressway and its long-cherished Hamilton bypass but it’s well in keeping with an agenda that puts commerce ahead of the environment and doubtlessly needed given the huge influx of people allowed into the country during the John Key glory years. I didn’t vote for Hamilton to become the next Auckland but I guess a lot of those impressed by Davy’s door-step manner did. It’s democracy in action.

Seeing roads as an answer to all social ills could be thought a rather limited philosophy. In fairness to David, he also enjoyed some ministerial success in the Bill English administration, appointed to the coveted racing portfolio in 2017. Unfortunately, those of rugby and beer were already taken. At the time of this elevation to Cabinet, David pointed out that he was the first Hamilton MP to achieve the honour since 1984, a statistical fact that surely said as much about the general indifference if not outright prejudice felt toward our fair city by generations of politicians than his capacity to find his way around a betting slip or assess the impact of the scratchings from Te Rapa.

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In the field of political oratory, 2017 was equally a banner year for our man. In a much lauded parliamentary tirade, David uttered the word “socialism” 26 times. It was a breathless throw back to the rhetoric of the Cold War, complete with references to the evils of Karl Marx and a none-too-subtle death threat at climax.

You might think that such stylised theatricality could not easily be topped and you would be right. That said, the other day, in his 18th year representing the unjustly maligned city of Hamilton in the New Zealand Parliament, David made his most meaningful contribution to the nation to date. The irony is that he didn’t know it at the time.

I should set the scene. Caroline Flora, the chief film censor, stood tall before Parliament’s Governance and Administration Select Committee, engaged in her annual defence of the indefensible. As proceedings were winding down, David, a committee member, prefaced his closing remarks with an apology. “This is not going to be a sensible question” he said, with almost unheard of modesty.

I suspect the little Catholic schoolboy inside Hamilton East’s finest was feeling guilty. You can take the boy out of St John’s but not St John’s out of the boy. David was going to have to confess to have watched something that was a little bit naughty. In fact – and this was his very point – it was a lot naughty.

The Bennett line of inquiry concerned a British television show that has re-written the rules on small screen titillation. “How”, he gently asked Flora, “did you approve Naked Attraction?”

As a representative of his constituents, this was an excellent question, if only because so many New Zealanders had asked it before him. How on earth had the culture sunk so low to create and exhibit a spectacle premised on the fantasies of 12-year-old schoolboys? The literal logic of Naked Attraction is this: if only we could see our prospective sexual partners ahead of time, sans clothing and examine their bits up close, it would save an awful lot of disappointment when the action gets hot and heavy. The show also comes with commentary, as the nudie players are grilled as to their genitalic choices. We learn how Miss Banal of Slough prefers girth over length or Mr Shallow of Lowestoft is turned on by asymmetrical breasts and singular piercings.

As he continued, for once David toyed with understatement, stating “it’s just bizarre that it goes on at 9:30pm”. We might better observe how bizarre that Naked Attraction was thought up, pitched, developed, made and distributed. Neither dating show nor pornography, rather some kind of bastard child of both, it would be a catastrophe whatever the hour of broadcast.

Flora’s answers proved instructive, as much for what she said as what this response revealed. Permitted the opportunity to school the committee on the difference between her office, which is charged with classifying/editing/banning film and physical media and that of the Broadcast Standard’s Authority, which handles complaints concerning material already broadcast on television or radio, she surprised both the politicians and the media alike. Only when Naked Attraction: The Boxset is released in its deluxe blu-ray edition will it attract her attention.

To someone who runs Hamilton’s last DVD rental store, long frustrated at the antiquated laws which allow broadcast and streamed material every leeway yet continue to cling to inconsistent and subjective ratings where his stock is concerned, Flora’s explanation was nothing new. However, for shining a light on the issue – and confirming the ignorance of MPs in the matter – Mr Bennett is to be applauded.