> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Racist Dinosaurs Call for One Person, One Vote – – Stuff
- URL: https://goodoil.news/racist-dinosaurs-call-for-one-person-one-vote-stuff/
- Published: 2021-06-08T20:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2021-06-08T05:52:41.000Z
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: Media, NZ, NZ Politics, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 01:54

**Rodney Hide**  
[bassettbrashandhide.com](https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/racist-dinosaurs-call-for-one-person-one-vote-stuff?ref=goodoil.news)

*Rodney Hide is former ACT Party leader, and Minister in the National-ACT Government from 2008 to 2011*

Stuff’s National Correspondent Tony Wall [takes a swing ](https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/125346602/racist-incidents-are-giving-tauranga-a-bad-name?ref=goodoil.news)at Tauranga: it *“seems to have been taken over by an army of white, privileged rednecks who have no tolerance at all for anyone or anything that doesn’t look like them.”*

He complains, *“are we living in Jim Crow America, or 21st Century Aotearoa?”*

It’s not all bad though. *“\[T\]hese racists are a dying breed of dinosaur”* and in the meantime, *“it’s for Pakeha like me to call these clowns out for the losers they are”.*

His claims are serious. What’s his evidence?

Item One: the reaction to Ms Kim Williams doing a mihi at a meeting of 300 odd. *“People shouted at her to ‘speak English’ and ‘get off the stage’, according to reports of the meeting”.*

Kim Williams herself [explains](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/05/tauranga-speaker-says-she-wasn-t-shouted-down-for-speaking-te-reo-m-ori.html?ref=goodoil.news), “Much of the noise was the audience objecting to the two or three abusers I was looking directly at.”

“The room supported me. Dozens from the meeting approached me after to offer love, support and apology.”

Item Two: *“As if that incident wasn’t alarming enough, the next news item to bring Tauranga into disrepute involved the arrest of a 44-year-old man in relation to a video posted on YouTube that incited violence, hate speech and looming death threats towards Maori people and culture.”*

And Item Three:

*“Just this morning I picked up the local paper to see a story about a petition by a former Western Bay councillor to ‘return democracy’ to New Zealanders who don’t identify as Maori, following recent government initiatives such as Maori Wards and the Maori Health Authority”.*

As Tony Wall sees it, *“The petition is basically saying give the power back to whites.”*

So his *“army of white, privileged rednecks”* is two or three hecklers at a meeting of 300, one person arrested for threatening to kill Maori, and citizens signing a petition in favour of one person, one vote.

The evidence against Tauranga is vanishingly slim. The problem is Mr Wall who conflates citizens signing a petition with a fellow threatening to kill and sees two or three hecklers in a crowd of 300 as an army taking over the city.

**That’s the state of news today: hyperbolic and overblown.**

But spare a thought for Mr Wall. It can’t be easy for him working at *Stuff*. He distracts from his own white privilege by yelling racist at his town.

I doubt it works.

He should accept he’s old, white and male. And start apologising. I am sure there’s a course that could help him.

**Update:** The 44-year-old has been [charged](https://www.teaomaori.news/man-arrested-over-online-video-threatening-kill-maori?ref=goodoil.news) with making an objectionable publication, not threatening to kill. I thank RedbaiterNZ for alerting me to my error. I apologise for my mistake.

**Please share this article so that others can discover *The BFD***.