On The Couch With Transport Minister Simeon Brown

Just lie back and relax Mr Brown. You seem tense.

I couldn’t get a park right outside, that’s all. And I had to stop for a train. But it’s nothing.

Your colleagues seem concerned.

Well I don’t know what that’s about.

Is it about the roads of national significance?

I have no idea what you mean.

I understand that you got quite vociferous in a Cabinet subcommittee meeting about the seventeen roads of national significance.

There’s nothing wrong with being vociferous.

Is it true that you were standing on a table shouting ‘Every road is a road of national significance!’ and ‘No road left behind!’?

I was just expressing a point of view.

And that you were arguing for no speed limit at all, and leading a chant of ‘Free the cars! Free the cars!’?

Blue-sky thinking, that’s all. Look, I think you’ve gravely underestimating the importance of roads in this country. They keep the hot wheels of the economy turning.

Sorry what was that?

I said roads keep the wheels of the economy turning.

You said ‘hot wheels’.

Did I? I mis-spoke.

Simeon, when you were a boy did you have a Hot Wheels car?

What business of that is yours?

Well if you don’t want to tell me about it –

It was a 1965 Chevrolet Impala lowrider. Hot Wheels 1998 classic edition. Metalflake dark purple paint, yellow and orange trim, ten-spoke gold wheels, tan interior.

And did you play with it much?

All the time. I would roll it across the kitchen floor. It would go and go.

And what did that feel like, Simeon?

It felt like freedom.

I imagine you became quite attached to it.

No, not really.

It didn’t mean a lot to you, this little Cadillac?

Chevrolet. And no, not all.

What happened to it?

I can’t remember. I don’t know. Toys, little things, you lose track of them.

Search your feelings, Simeon. I think we’re close to a breakthrough here. What happened to the car?

There… there was a hill.

Go on.

We lived at the top of a big hill. One day I took my car - my Hot Wheels 1965 Chevrolet Impala lowrider with metalflake dark purple paint, yellow and orange trim, ten-spoke gold wheels and tan interior - out the gate. And I put it on the footpath, and I pointed it down the hill and I pushed it. I wanted to see how fast it could go.