Dr Muriel Newman –
The mainstream media did themselves no favours earlier this month, with their handling of the ‘he said, she said’ row between the ‘Mad Butcher’ Sir Peter Leitch and Waiheke Islander, Lara Bridger.
Their dispute over whether comments he made were ‘racist,’ dominated the news with the New Zealand Herald even running it as a front-page lead story.
What Sir Peter described as ‘light-hearted banter,’ occurred at the Stonyridge Vineyard on Waiheke Island, where he said that he had warned her group to be careful of drinking and driving because there were lots of police around.
She responded saying that she was Tangata Whenua and could do what she liked, to which he replied that Waiheke is a ‘White man’s island too.’
When he was informed that she had taken offence, he said that he apologised unreservedly.
Media indictment
The fact that the press dined out on this story for days on end is an indictment – and a sad reflection on the state of the media today.
The demise of quality journalism is one of the main reasons the industry is in decline. This incident served to reinforce the view that they are becoming – to use media commentator Brian Edwards’ description, ‘trash tabloids,’ with a focus on ‘gossip, celebrities, and sensation.’
The Herald’s decision to publish paparazzi photos of John and Bronagh Key on holiday in Hawaii, just a few days later, invading their privacy without any mitigating news interest, reinforces the view of Mr Edwards.
Sadly, for the mainstream media, they don’t seem to realise that they are now on the same slippery slope that led to the demise of the New Zealand Truth newspaper. Unless they return to the standards that were once the hallmark of their profession, they will find their readers will increasingly abandon them to find their news elsewhere.
Destructive intolerance
The Mad Butcher story also serves to remind us of a destructive intolerance to free speech that has now pervaded society. At one time, you could call a spade a spade – and if you inadvertently offended someone, then such was life.
But these days, the rise of political correctness means that if you say something that social activists consider to be wrong, you can be mercilessly hounded, ridiculed and humiliated – your career threatened and your reputation ruined.
We saw this last year when the executive chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, New Zealander Kevin Roberts, was forced to resign following a storm of criticism from feminist groups after he challenged a prevailing view about diversity. When asked by a reporter whether there was a problem with a lack of gender diversity in the advertising industry, his response, ‘not in my view,’ was not what the feminists wanted to hear, and the barrage of ugly protest led to him stepping down.
Massey University Chancellor Chris Kelly suffered the same fate just before Christmas. Discussing changes to their veterinary degree course, the former veterinarian explained that there was a high fallout rate of male students, but with female vets taking time off from their careers to raise a family, it was resulting in a shortage of vets especially in rural areas:
Feminists dived in to the attack, twisting his comments and claiming they were sexist and insulting to women. That’s not what he intended, of course, but nevertheless a week later he resigned.
Vested interest
Political Correctness is being used by vested interest groups to force new norms of thought and behaviour onto society.
Nowadays if you are not ‘sensitive’ enough in embracing values such as ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity,’ you will be aggressively attacked and stigmatised by activist critics – including in the media.
In seeking to impose a uniformity of thought and behaviour onto society, the roots of political correctness are totalitarian.
This is the thinking behind the PC attacks on the likes of Kevin Roberts, Chris Kelly, and Peter Leitch – their comments were taken out of context by activists and portrayed as prejudice in order to advance their agenda.
The reality is that unless the political left abandons identity politics – and political correctness – they risk generating a cultural backlash from Kiwis who are sick and tired of being sneered at and vilified by left wing activists whenever they speak their mind.
With a growing feeling that political correctness is out of control, it is clearly time to rein it.
Firstly, the fact that the Human Rights Act makes it illegal to ‘insult’ anyone in New Zealand is being used by social justice activists to justify their attacks on the free expression of others. Under Sections 61 and 131 of the Human Rights Act, it is unlawful to promote anything that is threatening, abusive, or ‘insulting,’ and while the Human Rights Commission claims the threshold for complaints is very high, the penalty is, nevertheless, a criminal conviction, with imprisonment for up to 3 months or a fine of up to $7000.
Soft Racism
The campaign by the Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy against ‘soft racism’ has also made the situation worse. Nowadays, it seems that if you say almost anything at all about race – including calling for ‘equal rights,’ you are accused of being a racist.
It is clearly time that the word ‘insulting’ was removed from the Human Rights Act, but in reality, to knock back the political correctness that is stultifying society, we need to go further and abolish the whole Act, since we already have a Bill of Rights to protect our freedoms.
In addition, all forms of affirmative action, whether in laws, regulations, policies, or programmes, should be hunted down and eliminated.
And all government agencies pushing political correctness and identity politics should be dismantled – including the Human Rights Commission, the Ministry for Women, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, and the Ministry for Maori Development.
The media too have a role to play by recognising when they are being manipulated by the PC brigade and rejecting their advances in favour of common sense.
It is surely time that New Zealanders took back control of the country from the social justice elites who have held a gun to our heads for far too long.
The above is the edited version of the views expressed by Dr Muriel Newman, Director of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, in her web-based free weekly Newsletter, NZCPR Weekly. For full text, visit www.nzcpr.com
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Photo Caption:
Sir Peter Leitch- Victim of harmless humour
