Denis Welch criticises Red Alert for not commenting on Phil’s speech. After a bit of praise for our blog he says.
The site’s shortcomings have been cruelly exposed in recent days, however: not one comment has been published about Phil Goff’s infamous ‘nationhood’ speech.
It is a pity he didn’t take the time to look at the older postings eg Grants post of 27 November – Phil Goff’s speech which got lots of attention or Clare’s post of later that day – Talking about it. Two posts – over sixty comments and plenty of opportunity.
I thought Denis had got beyond his old approach where he spent his life trying to put the boot into Labour and into a more balanced phase. Maybe he has and is just lazy.
Update Phil’s speech for those that don’t want to look at other posts.
It’s pretty bad, the only reason I know the truth about Goff’s speech is because I made the effort to go and watch it. You’d think there was something bad about it from the reporting.
Oh Spud. It’s a dogwhistle to the racists. Some can see it, some can’t, but it’s not about the words in the speech. It’s about the fact it was named after Brash’s speech, was targeted at a conservative white provincial audience and weaved together a whole bunch of disparate gripes against Maori into one thread. The point of the speech was to appeal to what Labour sees as Pakeha blue collar racism.
Sorry man I don’t agree with you because he was talking about Maori having all these good things and all of us being side by side like soldiers. He also said that ordinary Maoris were being sold out and that the ETS was only going to help an elite. It was really an attack on National and not on Maori people.
I have to admit the title was a stupid move. But not all white provincial people are racist or conservative.
I don’t think you’ll agree with me, but that’s cool.
Tom have you actually viewed the speech.
It would take a very unusual person to regard it as dog whistle. Very carefully not.
But it is about time you worked out that issues relating to Maori have to be discussed. Just because a policy is promoted by a small Maori elite doesn’t make it right.
Left comment on Denis’ blog refering him to the posts but no reply as yet.
I’m all for criticising the Maori Party. But why use Brash’s title? Why give the speech to a conservative white audience? Why make your artwork for the speech a picture of a beach? Why the flip-flop on the foreshore and seabed? Why string together Hone, the foreshore and the iwi deals on the ETS into one speech? Why the attempt to play on fears of Treaty grievances?
Each element on its own may not be a problem. But all put together like that it looks a lot like an attempt to appeal to deep-seated Pakeha racism. I’m no PC limp-wristed leftie, but I can’t believe there was no attempt to play on race here.
Tom, from my experiences in the UK, and having lived in very racially diverse (and sometimes jarring) areas, I can tell you that the only way for diverse cultures to become more tolerant and accepting of each other is through gaining understanding via honest dialogue. Sometimes that dialogue is hard to hear and stomach, but it doesn’t make it any less necessary (RSA’s truth and reconciliation process is a prime example). If all the races within NZ are to come together under a banner of “One New Zealand, many cultures” (credit to Scottish Executive of yore for this and have a look at http://www.scotlandagainstracism.com/onescotland/CCC_FirstPage.jsp for more – I particularly like the message of the flash banner graphic), then you have to examine why there is racism in New Zealand.
You hit the nail right on the head when you allude to the fact that all those topics covered in Goff’s speech frequently get trotted out by the “deep-seated Pakeha racists” as you stereotypically term them. What better way to disarm these issues of their racial potency than to highlight and examine them in an open an honest debate? That debate is not yet occurring in NZ, maybe this was a good start, and if the result of that debate is a stronger sense of ‘Nationhood’, well, you know, maybe that’s not too bad a title for the speech?
“I’m all for criticising the Maori Party.”
Just a quick point on this comment, Goff was not criticising the Maori party because they are Maori, he was criticising them because they do little if anything for average Maori families living in poverty in New Zealand and for Maoridom in general. If the Maori party were working hard for Maori families, bringing them out of both financial and educational poverty, I’m sure Goff would applaud them, but then I suspect that they wouldn’t be in a confidence and supply agreement with the Nats. What the Maori party have done is a betrayal of Maori (and even I, as a white mofo immigrant can see that) and more importantly, it is these convenient (to some/few) actions that add fuel to the deep-seated Pakeha racist’s fires, not Goff’s speech!
Brash claimed it was just about opening up “honest debate” too. If you want honest debate then debate honestly, don’t resort to dogwhistles.
I have o agree with Chris R mostly. But I have to say, out of all the titles he could have picked he picked Nationhood. I reckon that Goff should stop trying to please everybody with these sorts of speeches and he should focus on shoring up the left and centre left voters. He needs to be clear, concise and connect with the audience. Right now people don’t know what he stands for (F&S for example). I don’t think that labour should chase Winston’s votes because splitting votes between Nats and NZF is better than losing votes from the left. Key has shot himself in the foot by saying that he won’t work with Peters, so when the time comes Labour will have to take the plunge and make Peters the minister of some obscure department….
Brash claimed that Maori were getting some sort of special treatment and that he was going to stop it, these claims were unfounded and stupid. That’s not what goff is saying, you’ve been pulled in by the lazy media…. i’m sure trevor will put up a link to the speech when he has time, read it and you will see what I mean… If Goff was saying what Brash was saying he would “be gone by lunchtime”…..
That’s right he wants Maori to do well. The Harawira comments and then the ETS deal just made him bring those problems out to the public arena.
Phil’s speech now there as an update. Agree title wasn’t good.
you’ve been pulled in by the lazy media
I came to my view basically straight away, and nothing else has made me change it. Goff and his advisers would have known how the speech would be received given all the factors I mentioned above. But they chose to go ahead anyway. You can make of that whatever you like but I see it as an attempt to win over the NZ First demographic.
The actual words in the speech don’t change that, that’s not how a dogwhistle works.
you’ve been pulled in by the lazy media
I came to my view basically straight away, and nothing else has made me change it. Goff and his advisers would have known how the speech would be received given all the factors I mentioned above. But they chose to go ahead anyway. You can make of that whatever you like but I see it as an attempt to win over the NZ First demographic.
The actual words in the speech don’t change that, that’s not how a dogwhistle works.
So reading the speech wasn’t needed. Real depth Tom.
Oh I read the speech. My point is a dogwhistle is about the context, about what the audience is supposed to take from it, not about each individual component.
I’m not against Goff and I strongly support Labour. I even agree with a lot of what he said in the speech. I’m just explaining why a lot of solid lefties were seriously put out by it.
The media reaction was to be expected, in fact it was embarrassingly predictable. If it wasn’t a deliberate and intended as a dogwhistle then it was incredibly poor political mismanagement.
I don’t want to go on about this, I wish we could put the whole sorry episode behind us. I just don’t like being framed by the speech’s supporters as some kind of crazy traitor who’s been suckered by the media.
Trevor, you’re half-right. See my blog at
oppthumb.blogspot.com/2009/12/here-be-wagons.html
More than half right – further opportunity for comment taken up on 4 December :- http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/12/04/white-mofos-not-racist/
Wow, Welch showed up!
On Denis there’s plenty and plenty of comments being made, use your Noggin.
So I read Welchy’s pitiful blog, that wasted 20 seconds of my life, apparently Labour MPs should be spending all there attention on Phil Goff’s speech, and nothing on the ETS, education issues and the 2025 report, those issues are mere side issues according to Welch.
Well they are defiantly side issues for the National that’s for sure.
I see that Goff used as many umlauts as Brash , so that makes it the same of course.
Huh?