Interview with Helen

There is an interesting interview with Helen Clark and the Herald. Apart from one moment of stupidity when she implied voting National would lead to Redfern style race riots, the interview overall was actually quite a good one. Of course it was a wee bit of a patsy with questions like “Has the Brash speech made racism respectable?” which is equivalent to asking Dr Brash “Has the Prime Minister got out of touch?”.

I think in time people will look back and realise NZ owes Don Brash a huge vote of thanks for making it respectable to challenge the politiically correct nonsense that had become the status qup in NZ. Never before that speech would you have the Prime Minister:

* agree we should have asked in 1987 why we need the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation
* state the principle of partnership does not give Maori co-management rights
* saying it is fair to question why New Zealand pays for Maori elders to lift the tapu on Government buildings such as embassies when New Zealand is a secular state
* agreeing Marlborough Grils College is being ridiculous allowing girls to display greenstone pendants but not crucifixes

Not that I expect Labour will do much more than have Mallard blunder about trying to stamp out some of the worse stuff, but as I said it is a huge step forward that one can even talk about it now.