Tuesday 9 January 2018

Stephen Franks lost for words twice in one hour; Stopped in his tracks during anti-Māori rant (Oct. 9, 2013)

9 October 2013 at 6:41 pm
Stephen Franks lost for words twice in one hour;
Stopped in his tracks during anti-Māori rant 
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Wednesday 9 October 2013
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Chris Wikaira
Extreme right wing Hastings journalist Mike Butler is a crony of the notoriously racist National Party activist John Ansell. This disreputable pair has been active on the fringes for a long time, publishing virulent anti-Treaty, anti-Māori diatribes in some of the scruffier provincial papers. Occasionally Ansell, being a National Party heavyweight, manages to get his ugly mug onto television; earlier this year he enjoyed several uninterrupted minutes on TV1’s Breakfast show to inform viewers why he has no respect for Māori tradition, Māori haka or Māori language. Butler, on the other hand, has largely remained under a rock, but for some reason his latest diatribe was been featured in today’s edition of the Otago Daily Times.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/276231/opinion-ngai-tahu-should-pay-crown
Butler and Ansell are shunned by serious and moral people and their views are not respected or taken seriously by anyone with a lick of common sense. But that didn’t stop Jim Mora’s producers from hauling their foulness on to Radio New Zealand National’s Panel this afternoon. With the guests being the right wing ACT/Sensible Sentencing activist Stephen Franks and the National Party-aligned Chris Wikaira, the producers must have figured it would be another easy demolition job. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the quality of the discussion, they evidently failed to consider two complicating factors about Chris Wikaira: although he might be a member of the National Party, he (a) is Māori and (b) has a brain….
JIM MORA: I’ll be interested to get your thoughts on THIS story: Hastings journalist Mike Butler claims the Crown should receive a refund from Ngai Tahu rather than having to pay out more and more. This is a story that is gaining more attention, particularly in the southern papers—-
CHRIS WIKAIRA: [sardonically] Now THERE’s a surprise!
MORA: [nervously] Ha ha ha! Yeah but he has a point, surely. Whatever happened to this idea of “full and final settlements”?
STEPHEN FRANKS: Well this is what happens with these things. It never ends. The Tainui claim was settled by an emotional minister—
MORA: Doug Graham.
FRANKS: Yes, an emotional minister who didn’t give them something meaningful like land, but instead gave them “co-ownership” of the rivers and lakes, so that now the only way they can make their presence felt is to irritate people and make a NUISANCE of themselves whenever you want to do anything.
[As usual, Mora sits blankly and says nothing during this wandery and spurious rant. Then again, he was the one who encouraged the rant by citing the ridiculous Mike Butler article in the first place. Chris Wikaira, on the other hand, is not prepared to put up with such truculent ignorance any longer….]
CHRIS WIKAIRA: The facts are completely contrary to what you are saying. Ngai Tahu land was taken under false pretences by the government and sold to settlers without permission of the Ngai Tahu owners. Ngai Tahu were coerced into signing agreements.
……[Extended awkward silence]….
MORA: Okay, so it wasn’t all fair and above board and not everybody was happy—
CHRIS WIKAIRA: And you do know, don’t you, that all of the Treaty settlements put together amount to less than one point four billion dollars, which is a fraction of one per cent of the government’s expenditure for one year.
Mora begins to say something light-hearted then thinks better of it. Franks, chastened into silence, says nothing more. Interestingly, earlier in the program, Franks was unable to counter Duncan Webb’s forceful but polite demolition of some derogatory comments he (Franks) had made about the New Zealand decision to dispense with Privy Council appeals.
By politely and firmly speaking the truth in the face of one flippant and one obstinate enemy of the truth, Duncan Webb and Chris Wikaira showed us all an important truth: we should always challenge and stand up to bullies, including self-important and pompous lawyers who speak in soft voices; their outward show of power and authority is usually a flimsy covering for nothing more than pure wind.
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Have a look at this site to get an idea of the mischief Butler and Ansell get up to….
http://treatygate.wordpress.com/category/politics/treaty-of-waitangi/
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