Hard News: Morning in Auckland
494 Responses
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Just to give you an idea of the relevance of online polls, the Dom Post had one on the Wellington mayoral election giving:
Brian Pepperell achieving 40.3% of the votes, Celia Wade Brown was second with 26.9% and Kerry Prendergast was on 4.0%Actual figures were roughly:
Pepperell 9%, Yan 12%, Wade Brown & Prendergast 38%.A random number generator gives:
Pepperell 32%, Yan 25%, Wade Brown 17%, Prendergast 25%I think the random numbers beat the online poll.
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Sadness... :(
These are some comments from Paul Henry's fans, at his TVNZ affiliated Facebook page:"October the 29th is international run down a rag head day all Indians killed or maimed will be eligible for points 1 point per male 2 points for females and 3 points for kids.”
"Lets go beat up indian students"
"Sheila Dikshit for anal whore."
In chasing ratings and the advertising dollar they have bought into, and nurtured, the culture of hate. Hate is the new black, it seems. Bigotry, the hot new fashion accessory. Wear it anywhere. "Express Yourself" :( -
Paul Henry's ramblings have unleashed our local online teabaggers and man it's pretty ugly , some of it is just unbelievable.
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Hearing some ignorant, uncontextualised blather about "freedom of speech" - even from some surprising quarters like Wallace Chapman.
The principle of free speech is very simple: we either defend opinions that we find hateful, or we do not defend them at all. Public broadcasting or private.
...cos the world is sooo black or white, and NZ is just like the United States, eh.
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My god, I had to outside and have a cigarette and fight back the tears.
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Hearing some ignorant, uncontextualised blather about "freedom of speech" - even from some surprising quarters like Wallace Chapman.
Yes. Surprising but well argued, I thought.
I'm flabbergasted by the support for Henry; so far I've seen pro-Henry comments on fb from people I know. This is shaping up to be a 2nd Springbok Tour issue??? Splitting us?
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I think it is most unfair that the short, otherwise normal sized Governor General is not allowed to answer back in his own defence, to all these public insults. I am a great fan of his, having met him a couple of times and heard him speak several times; he always starts his speeches with a greeting in the three official New Zealand languages including NZ Sign Language. In 2008 he went to the United Nations with a delegation of disabled people to help collect the the International Roosevelt Disability award. Before he was GG he sat on the restorative justice based panel the 'Confidential Forum' which heard stories of abuse of patients, including disabled people, who had been incarcerated in our mental and psychopaedic institutions. That process helped so many people.
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I feel your pain, Petra.
My rose-tinted view of my adopted country and my fellow Kiwis has taken a hell of a battering these past couple of weeks.
I'm pretty ashamed to be associated with them as fellow citizens right now.
And as for FB - well, I have a dilemma. Do I unfriend those of my "friends" who are fans of Paul Henry on his FB page? I certainly feel like doing it. I'm not comfortable being "friends" with people who think that way - even FB "friends"....
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Dear webweaver- it is my firm conviction that ANZers are, in the majority, open & reasonable-minded people, with a strong sense of social justice and fairplay.
BUT - there is - and always has been since the second wave of settlers happened- a truly venomous undercurrent of racial & class hatred - based on where you came from, the colour of your skin & how you spoke. O - and in CHCH - which school you went to...
One of my mother's brothers was brown-skinned, blackhaired, and spoke with his mother's Orkney accent, and his father's Kai Tahu lilt. Faultless English, but-
whenever I recollect my uncle Bill's endeavours to get a room in Dunedin boarding houses, for his mother & himself, while his father was being treated there for cancer of the oesophagus, I get very very angry. The phonecalls he made were sympathetic, Yes Mr M, we look forward to you calling - until Mr M showed up at the door.
Then, the room was suddenly no longer available.The worst instance was with an English female creature who took one look and said "We dont have darkies here."
This was in 1951...I'd've hoped that that toxic attitude would've vanished. Clearly, not so - but it has been vastly improved.
Many Kai Tahu have similar stories...
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Hang in there Ali and continue the broader conversation about respecting other cultures with those Facebook folk you're connected with (if you can).
As a nation, we seriously need an informed discussion about this as part of our growing up.
I posted links to both a downloadable Word doc and a Public Address thread of Pat Snedden's wise thoughts in the wake of Don Brash's filthy Orewa dogwhistling.
More like that please.
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Race relations got stirred by a man on the television. That's all I know, and many of us were saying , "dude, STFU", a long time ago.
And I live in a very multi-cultural city, diverse and wide, one which also includes the mythical census race , "The New Zealander", a chosen people so special they have no need of a past (or a future).
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I love how "New Zealanders" used to mean Maori
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I think it is most unfair that the short, otherwise normal sized Governor General is not allowed to answer back in his own defence, to all these public insults.
I think it says a lot about Anand Satyanand's character that he has no interest in doing so. As far as I'm concerned, make Satyanand Governor-General for life. Anyone who drives the pond scum that crazy is a national treasure.
The principle of free speech is very simple: we either defend opinions that we find hateful, or we do not defend them at all. Public broadcasting or private.
I agree -- but as I've Tweeted (and was pleasantly surprised to have quoted by Peter 'Not PC' Cresswell) "freedom OF speech" does not come with "freedom FROM criticism or consequence". I'd also note that the free speech rights of Messers Henry, Laws and their ilk do not come with an obligation on anyone to give them a platform.
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Danyl posts on the "free speech" response.
He can say whatever he wants to and he won’t be arrested or imprisoned. That’s free speech. But it means everyone else gets to speak too – the version of free speech that Paul Henry’s defenders advocate is one in which he gets to say whatever he wants and the rest of us keep our mouths shut and take it.
But the version of free speech we have in reality is that he gets to say what he wants and we get to say we don’t like it, and if enough people object and Henry’s speech starts to threaten the reputation and commercial profits of his employer then they’ll make a business decision about whether to keep him on. Which they have – and nobody’s right to free speech got violated.
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The principle of free speech is very simple: we either defend opinions that we find hateful, or we do not defend them at all. Public broadcasting or private.
Bollocks. This is conflating Freedom of speech with Obligation to provide a platform. It was tvNZ, rather than Radio Live or running down the street giggling like a loon (in the latter two cases, no one would have cared). TVNZ is after all the state broadcaster (and this is perceived to mean something nebulous about its representing the country).
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anth,
In the "Statement from Rick Ellis, TVNZ CEO":
I would like to acknowledge the thousands of Paul’s supporters who have contacted us and who will be disappointed at this outcome. I have a stack of emails on my desk fully 20cms high.
Does he really print out every email, or have his PA do so for him?
Or perhaps Paul Henry's lawyer brought that stack in as a bargaining tool. Not that I'm implying he was pushed rather than choosing to jump.
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Lhaws gets some attention from the BBC. He must be so proud.
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...and we, as a country, get a good slapping from Grace Dent in the Guardian (scroll down to the end of the article)
...I'm sure, like most media bores, he thinks he's only saying what the country is thinking. So if that's the case, New Zealand, I'm sure your spring scenery is most jocund, but I've decided to stay at home.
Ouch.
Feeling even more ashamed now.
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Does he really print out every email, or have his PA do so for him?
Or perhaps Paul Henry's lawyer brought that stack in as a bargaining tool. Not that I'm implying he was pushed rather than choosing to jump.No mention of what may be a complaints pile twice that high...
My guess is that it's a tool being used to engineer Henry's eventual return, and/or designed to keep the rightwingers/anti-PC crowd believing that those who decry Paul Henry's odious antics as being nasty humourless party poopers.
I checked in to the show for a short while this morning, and the 20cm high pile was strategically placed on the set's 'coffee table' in front of Pippa. She mooned over them, and mourned the loss of her co-host - and was probably given a bonus for doing so.
Here's some insight into Rick Ellis:
http://www.3news.co.nz/TVNZ-Chief-Executives-comments-obscene/tabid/421/articleID/27612/Default.aspx
Rick Ellis told the Maori affairs select committee that crime show ‘Police 10-7’ and prison show ‘Lockdown’ are examples of TVNZ's commitment to Maori.
Nice, eh.
TVNZ is a political organisation. It is the propaganda arm of the National Party.
Have any of you guys watched the excellent BBC doco called "Century of the Self"? It's available online for free viewing. It's a four hour doco broken down into four one hour parts, and primarily covers the influence of Freud's nephew Edward Bernay's, and his daughter Anna, on the 20th Century. And that influence was HUGE. And it still is today.
Here's an 8 minute snippet from part one:
I personally think this documentary should be shown in all high schools, followed by robust student discussion. To me, this knowledge is as important as reading, writing, an 'rithmatic.
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Forgot to give you links to the four parts in their entirety - just in case anyone here has the inclination to watch them sometime:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=6718420906413643126
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-7139259509177310748
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-6111922724894802811
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=1122532358497501036
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...I'm sure, like most media bores, he thinks he's only saying what the country is thinking. So if that's the case, New Zealand, I'm sure your spring scenery is most jocund, but I've decided to stay at home.
Ouch, alright.
But weirdly placed...which is probably a good thing.
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3410,
Have any of you guys watched the excellent BBC doco called "Century of the Self"? It's available online for free viewing.
That and other Adam Curtis films downloadable from archive.org.
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Thanks for the link, 3410. Bookmarked. :)
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...cos the world is sooo black or white, and NZ is just like the United States, eh.
I don’t see how that’s got much to do with it. Chapman’s mistake wasn’t in missing ‘shades of gray’, but in misunderstanding how the principle he advocated works. Also, in the US, people sometimes lose their jobs due to public pressure/advertiser pressure. This seems consistent with what you’re defending.
it says a lot about Anand Satyanand's character...
Yep. Ben Gracewood’s not the only one who has impressed me in this sorry affair. Satyanand has been all class.
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From Danyl's blog:
The Nobel Peace prize was just awarded to the Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, one of the authors of the Charter 08 manifesto who was sentenced to eleven years imprisonment and ‘two years deprivation of political rights’ by the Chinese Government as punishment for publishing a text that called for China to abandon authoritarianism and ‘recognize universal values, assimilate into the mainstream civilization, and build a democratic political system’. So just to recap:
- Throwing someone in prison for eleven years for publishing a political manifesto: violating freedom of speech.
- Calling for a talk-show host to be sacked after they made racist comments: not violating freedom of speech, but rather exercising it.
Well said.
...and we, as a country, get a good slapping from Grace Dent in the Guardian (scroll down to the end of the article) ...
Feeling even more ashamed now.
You’re a sucker for punishment, web. I think her criticism is more aimed at the sort of person who defends Henry with the “he says what we’re all thinking” line, rather than actually at NZ. “I'm sure, like most media bores, he thinks he's only saying what the country is thinking. So if that's the case,..."
Note the “if that’s the case” caveat.
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yeah, maybe so Steve, although.....
I think it was the shock of seeing my beloved country slapped down by my beloved Grauniad as much as anything. CRASH! Ouch!
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