New Zealand's demi-official poet laureate Victor Billot composes an ode for National leader Judith Collins
All together now
You might be a solo mum in Mangere.
Leo Molloy or Taika Waititi.
You could be Ron Brierley in the dock.
Or that lady in her Karen Walker frock.
A fat cat on floor nine of the Hilton.
A mobster doing time in Milton.
That sleeping guy I just stepped over
getting to my late model Rover.
The Governor General and Sir John Key.
Six60, Mike Pero, or little old me.
Uncle Dipak in Berhampore.
Or King Kapisi when he held the floor.
A kuia of ninety-six summers up Tolaga Bay.
A boy racer doing burnouts down Hoon Hay way.
Whether you might be Dick Frizzell
or the guy behind the sausage sizzle,
that Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon,
or wokester blokester ol’ Meng Foon,
in this family picture frame,
this big family’s all the same.
See, I’ve brought along Dr Reti.
And he very much agrees with me.
There will be no separatism in New Zealand:
we can all stay perfectly calm.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write odes for such New Zealand luminaries as Mike Hosking, Christopher Luxon, and Garrick Tremain.
