There’s an old proverb ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire’. It first became popular in the English language in 1546, meaning that rumours or signs of trouble usually point to some kind of underlying truth. This appears to be very much the case with the current situation Willie Jackson is in. Here we have another classic case of a member of the ‘Māori elite class’ thinking they can exert power in any way they see fit and get away with it.
We’ve seen it over time with the likes of Tuku Morgan, Nanaia Mahuta, John Tamihere, Rawiri Waititi, Debbie Ngawera-Packer and the subject of this article, Willie Jackson. These types have an exalted opinion of their place in society, sometimes to the point of believing they are above the law. One could be forgiven for thinking that, with so little action taken against them for their transgressions, maybe they are.
There’s another well-known saying – ‘You know who your friends are’ meaning true friendships are revealed during times of adversity or difficulty. Matt McCarten thought Willie to be a true friend of his for 40 years. Not so. Willie, it seems, has decided to ditch his old union mate out of self-interest, namely protecting his wife. At this point another truism comes into play, namely ‘Blood is thicker than water’.
All of these sayings are applicable to the self-inflicted fiasco Willie has managed to engineer. I am not going into all the details, as plenty has been written already about Willie’s questionable behaviour, except strangely (maybe not) you won’t find one word in the legacy media. Like Willie, they have some explaining to do. Why the silence? Is it a form of deafening bias? The sanctimonious John Campbell doesn’t think bias exists in the media. Are we looking at a media coverup? Surely not...
Nineteen workers from the Manukau Urban Maori Authority have taken a personal grievance to the Employment Court alleging bullying behaviour by the CEO. Is that not news? The CEO just happens to be Willie’s wife. The story goes that Willie leaps upon his steed and (he may not like my description) races like a white knight to her aid. The problem is that Willie has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of MUMA. He is obviously running interference to protect his patch and his unelected wife who controls it. But, that is not news, apparently.
An approach is made by the second-in-charge at MUMA, on behalf of the workers, to Matt McCarten, Willie’s old mate, to help sort the situation out. The next chapter in the story is that, when Willie finds out, he promptly trespasses his old mate off the property. Willie invokes some gobbledygook about Māori culture to justify his actions. Is that not news? Evidently not. This is such a hot potato for the legacy media that McCarten is forced to go to platforms like The Good Oil, the Platform and Duncan Garner to get the story out.
On Duncan’s podcast, McCarten said he wrote to Hipkins to alert him to the behaviour of his senior MP. No reply. Duncan wonders if Jackson is the one really running the Labour Party and this begs the question of whether he is running the legacy media, too. If we had a decent unbiased mainstream news outlet in this country, like Sky News in Australia, this story would be blown apart. Here, if it involved a figure on the right, it would be the lead item on the six o’clock left-wing propaganda hour for weeks…
Willie controls Radio Waatea, part of his taxpayer-funded empire, and they are covering the story from his side, obviously, saying it’s all lies. Waatea has a cumulative audience of 2.0 above nothing. How much is this abomination of a racist media outlet costing the taxpayer? How much money is being wasted on a station that practically nobody listens to? Hey Christopher, here’s a saving! Not on your Nicola. Sacrosanct.
Here’s the thing. If everything is all hunky dory and above board, then why doesn’t Willie run to his buddies in the legacy media and get them to run copious items of information to clear the matter up. He could get an interview with each of them at the drop of a hat. They’d be queuing at his door. But he hasn’t. Why hasn’t he? One can only deduce and come back to the old proverb – ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire’.
