Feral inbreds

On Breakfast this morning, Phil Goff said that Helen Clark never called Coasters feral inbreds, after Paul Henry referred to not all Coasters being feral inbreds, as your predecessor called them. Goff said:

I think that was unfair to Helen, I don’t think she ever used those words.

If you go back and check your records, you will find that’s wrong.  People put those words into her mouth.

Now this happened in 2000. I can’t find an original story, but I did find a 2002 NZPA story that provides some quotes:

Prime Minister Helen Clark made her first return to the West Coast today since she described some pro-logging West Coasters as “feral” and compared them to lynch mobs.

Her comments in early 2000 came as the Government ban on the logging of all native trees had emotions running high in the area.

Miss Clark said at the time she had been in a room where someone had talked about shooting conservationists up trees like possums caught in car headlights.

“It’s a bit (like a) Kentucky area (in the southern United States),” she said, adding she did not like “lynch mob mentalities”.

Attitudes of some on the West Coast could be “fairly feral“, she said.

So she definitely said feral, but maybe said they were a southern lynch mob rather than inbred? Not sure that is much better!

Does anyone have the original West Coast Times story?