Note: I wrote this on December 23 but given the Christmas holiday period was upon us I thought it was not appropriate to have it posted then. Therefore it is posted now.
Now that David Farrar is holidaying in South Africa and sending us pictures showing how big the turtles are there and how Hyenas are eating dead baby elephants. I wish to take his holiday spirit and send him this letter as my Christmas present.
His Kiwiblog is powerful and I hope this letter plays a small role in helping make his blog a bit fairer on some issues.
While on a roller-coaster over the past three weeks of being in and out of Parliament, I was told that Mr Farrar, rather indirectly, blogged on me by saying more than once that to the effect that: “It will hurt Labour. While not a huge contributor to Labour within Parliament, I understand he is a relatively large fundraiser for Labour”.
It is unfortunate that David Farrar made this sweeping comment without delving deeper into the subject.
The Chinese community, along with wider communities, is a rather large constituency. They come to MPs for help or for an answer with all sorts of different issues: immigration, corrections, law and order, resource consent, leaky building remediation work, national standards and constantly, how to grow the economy.
To be an MP serving such a large constituency with many members virtually being unable to communicate effectively (both in a linguistic and political sense) is a difficult task. Therefore the selection criteria must be harsh – if not harsher – than the process to select a ‘mainstream’ candidate. It requires skills, knowledge about both NZ and the migrant’s country of origin, and above all, integrity to provide service that reflects the quality and name of our House of Representatives.
Dr Jian Yang offered a recent example. For me, if two law degrees, one BA in linguistics and one MLitt in political communication won’t mean anything to David Farrar, then my experience as Asian Affairs Reporter for the NZ Herald followed by a stint as a successful lawyer won’t mean anything either.
Of course, my 6th book, just released, which according to critics has “influenced so many people” perhaps will not mean anything to David Farrar at all. In short, what we have achieved and what we have been doing are largely invisible to him, which perhaps encouraged him to belittle who we are and what we are.
Of course Mr Farrar would argue that he adopted a narrow definition for ‘within parliament’. But if Asian MPs across board could be assessed using each other as a bench mark it would draw a more fair and convincing conclusion.
I have no reason to believe that he has a grudge towards me. I‘m not that important, at least in his political sense. Nor do National’s ethnic MPs need his assistance given National has been riding high for the past three years.
I did organise public meetings and fundraising dinners quite successfully over the past few years, as acknowledged by David Farrar. For an opposition back-bencher I don’t have an ever-popular Prime Minister to offer smiles and photo opportunities which must have enriched National’s support as reported in the NZ Herald. This only proves the point that I am popular and have done a good job.
When the time was not with us and the trend was against us, this kind of response is regarded as a form of approval and endorsement by the constituency.
It is unfortunate that he seemed to imply that we Asian MPs are ATM machines for political parties and are token inclusions in Parliament. I hope the National Party does not have this same expectation of its Asian MPs. It is certainly not the case in Labour, where the vision of inclusive and strong communities has inspired many, including myself, to enter into politics.
New Zealand is a multi-racial country now. We need to remind ourselves of the need to make a departure from ignorance and patrionising.
Way to blow something out of proportion Ray! Maybe if you wrote a longer blog post it would help you emotionally.
I like how you’re trying to overcome stereotypes though. Most people think all Asians are hard-working, good at business and don’t want high-levels of government intervention into our everyday lives.
You’re an example where this is not the case.
You are banned. I don’t believe you are what you say you are. Have concluded you are a troll. Beware others purporting to be what you aren’t. Clare
“This only proves the point that I am popular and have done a good job.”
Then why were you given such a low list ranking?
Jesus wept. The way some of the authors on this site go on about David Farrar, you’d think he was the PM, and not just some blogger.
The post title is accurate at least: it sure is a belated Christmas gift for David Farrar.
Of course, my 6th book, just released, which according to critics has “influenced so many people” perhaps will not mean anything to David Farrar at all.
“Huo’s latest book, The New Zealand Quartet, detailing his life and career in New Zealand is slated for release in late 2011.” (Source: Wikipedia)
Is this the influential book, Raymond?
Google couldn’t find your bibliography.
Or a review for that matter (search string: “the new zealand quartet” + book review + Raymond Huo)
@ James: In hindsight this post does look out of proportion. But I decided to take the lead to share what’s on my mind on issues big or small. Otherwise there is no way to understand sterotypes – let alone overcome them.
@ Scott: Thanks Scott, I have been subserviant in the past and that hasn’t worked!
Note to commenters, this post is being moderated carefully.
Clare I think this post should have been edited more carefully.
What is it with Labour MPs promoting and, now, kowtowing to, David Farrar? Have some pride for your party’s sake!
You’re MPs representing over half a million New Zealanders. Farrar’s a fat little loser who makes his money on the public teat. Get some damn perspective and write some useful posts.
And no more self-pitying haiku. God damn. No-one’s going to elect a bunch of whiners and self-effacers to government.
I’m with Deano.
Gregor W: Your comment has further proved my point. Do you read Chinese Gregor W, or anything other than you know can be ignored or belittled? New Zealand is a multi-racial society. We need to remind ourselves of the need to make a departure from ignorance and patrionising.
Ban next time Trevor
Improve your manners Trevor
You inferred all that from what Farrar said? I think you’re looking for slurs that aren’t there. An obvious attempt to deflect the recent xenophobia criticisms back onto your critics by trying to spin an innocuous comment into some kind of racial slur.
All I have seen over the last few years points to NZ being a bicultural society, not multicultural. i.e. everything back to the Treaty. Every other culture that’s not maori or ‘kiwi’ doesn’t get a look in. Chinese get a polite nod at Chinese new year, but the rest of the time its out of sight out of mind.
It depends where you live, Jack, in East and central Auckland Chinese people are a very important and large part of the community.
Gah! Has nobody at Red Alert been paying attention over the holiday break?
Raymond’s post could be a continuation of Imperator Fish’s prescient satire of Red Alert…
http://www.imperatorfish.com/2012/01/red-alert-best-is-yet-to-david-farrar.html
Raymond – To you. Farrar said you were a good fundraiser for Labour. You say that you are a good fundraiser for Labour (”I did organise public meetings and fundraising dinners quite successfully over the past few years, as acknowledged by David Farrar.”)
Then you accuse him of implying “that we Asian MPs are ATM machines for political parties and are token inclusions in Parliament.”
Firstly, he doesn’t say anything of the sort about you.
Secondly, he doesn’t say anything at all about other Asian MP’s.
It is hard to take you seriously as a lawyer, reporter, blogger or MP when you write this sort of rubbish. Seriously, give yourself an uppercut.
Focusing on the issues that matter…
You couldn’t have given DPF a better christmas Raymond. How thoughtful of you to serve up a whole platter of free hits at almost exactly the same time a Race / Cultural row is brewing between national and the maori party. Seriously, does the red alert posting timetable mean you put stuff like this out in the public domain at times when silence will help Labour the most? or do you wait till the headless chicken lies down on the “attack” circle on your twister board and you then misread who the tea leaves are speaking about?
Raymond – your book sounds fascinating. Where can I find a copy? Hopefully an influential book by a popular MP who does a good job will also influence me.
Well done Raymond, you have the usual suspects rushing to the defence of Farragoblog.
But you seem to nice for this sort push back to his lies.
I for instance make Scarface seem like Justin Bieber and would let rip about his time he got arrested for spreading political lies and his current dodgy telephone polling company.
I think what David Farrar is referring to is the fact that your public profile is lower than a lot of your colleagues – rather than trying to belittle the work that you may do with your constituents.
I agree with Deano’s post – minus the nasty personal abuse (since when was it such a crime to have an opinion?)
Ghostwhalks, do you include The Standard in the group of ‘usual suspects’, where Eddie has renewed calls for Red Alert to be shut down over posts like this?
Another depressing post which provides more evidence of Labour MPs who just don’t get new media, and appear to be jerks when blogging. Also more evidence that Labour either doesn’t work collegially (didn’t the author ask a colleague’s opinion before posting?) or an unwillingness to have the hard conversations (or didn’t they tell him just how bad it is?).
My only, small, hope is that it was done without any discussion with colleagues, and the extent of this fail has been explained and understood, and that it won’t happen again. Maybe even this will be woven into the discussion about how Red Alert will be used, and Labour’s new media approach in general. I’m not sure that much hope is warranted tho.
As someone on the left who believes that a competent, strong Labour Party is needed by the left, this post and all it signifies is pretty damned sad.
What a remarkable blog post.
I found it odd that you saw a need to make it about race when defending your time to date as an MP given that there’s no evidence of David Farrar alluding to it when passing comment on you.
To think you had over a month to mull over this idea & still went ahead with it beggars belief.
“But if Asian MPs across board could be assessed using each other as a bench mark it would draw a more fair and convincing conclusion.”
I see that Melissa Lee is the Parliamentary Private Secretary for Ethnic Affairs, what a pity – wouldn’t Parliamentary Private Secretary for Transport be more appropriate?
Good on you on this post Raymond, Farrar has underhandedly tried to belittle you and the other ethnic MPs, he needed to be held to account and you are doing just that.
Just to be clear, freemantle Doctor. How exactly has Farrar belittled other ethnic mps?
All he said is that Raymond has not been a huge contributor to parliament. That’s a fact. He’s not the only one. Name some legistation he has been responsible for. Ever seen him contribute in a major way in the debating chamber? Representing your constituents is not a “huge” contribution. Its the bare minimum.
The problem might be that Labour is too internally divided to agree who should manage such media outlets, so MP’s have their access as they choose.
And of course many of us would disagree what were useful posts here and what were not … once what a media does is seen as important to political success, it becomes as divisive and futile as criticism of inherent bias in the MSM (once it becomes the issue the debate will never end but unless it leads to something what was the point).
In this case, my advice would have been to the MP – make the post about what you do as an ethnic MP catering to a constituency and in this way broaden perceptions beyond Farrar’s inference without mentioning it. And beyond that generalise about what others who do much the same to represent other minorities in our multi-cultural society (bi-cultural nation).
PS Appoint a range of people mentors (sounding boards) to those posting before they do so. They can choose who they see.
“The Chinese community, along with wider communities, is a rather large constituency. They come to MPs for help or for an answer with all sorts of different issues: immigration, corrections, law and order, resource consent, leaky building remediation work, national standards and constantly, how to grow the economy.
To be an MP serving such a large constituency with many members virtually being unable to communicate effectively (both in a linguistic and political sense) is a difficult task.”
It certainly would be ,and I am glad you are there to do it. I am sure you have helped to make life easier for many people and there are not many people that would be able to do what you do. Thank you so much Raymond.
I agree with The Freemantle Doc., you are quite right to hold that small minded little squirt Farrar to account for undermining you with his arrogant yet, as usual, flawed pronouncement on your ‘usefulness’. Who is he to judge and pronounce- a wormlite grub that ingratiates himself on to MSM websites and irritates the daylights out of me as he basks as a professional “journalist”. It must irk some professional journalists too.
jmex,
Huo was a strong advocate for Ethnic Representation on the new board of the Auckland Council Super City and submitted the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Asian Advisory Board) Amendment Bill to the House. Although Huo’s Bill was voted down in Parliament by 64 votes to 58 on 4 November 2009, the Government soon after announced that an Ethnic Advisory Board Panel would be established on the new council.[7]
Huo has also been vocal about the need for New Zealand to overhaul the Export Education sector which is worth over $2.3 billion to the countries economy. Huo believes that New Zealand has a reputation for “ghetto education” in Asian countries and must change this or risk losing hundreds of International students from the Asian region.
In February 2011 Huo said because of its economic importance, he will write to the Prime Minister to adopt the Education (export education by private training establishments) Amendment Bill to be included in the current Education Amendment Bill (No 4).[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Huo
To paraphrase. He submitted a bill that got voted down, he’s vocal about an issue, and he’s said he will write a letter to the PM about another issue.
You are going to have to do better than that to show a HUGE contribution.
Nobody is saying that Raymond Huo hasn’t made a contribution. He has. But it’s not huge. Line it up against Cullen, Clark, Goff. Get the point? Even Shearer hasn’t made a huge contribution. Not yet.
Now will someone PLEASE show me where David Farrar ‘infers that Asian MPs are treated like ATM machines’, as Huo suggests, or is he being disingenuous?
If anything Farrar infers Huo is better at representing the community than National’s own Asian MP’s and thus would be missed by Labour – more a hope that National MP’s could (if Huo was out of parliament) then swoop in and do some fundraisers …
SPC quotes wikipedia:
This appears to be wrong.
1) I can’t see any evidence Huo’s Bill was ever drawn from the ballot and debated by the house.
2) I don’t think Parliament was actually sitting on the 4th of November.
He did attempt an amendment to the government’s Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill during the committee stages in September 2009, which failed.
I’m guessing the wikipedia entry needs fact checking.
Raymond – I didn’t realise who you were (a politician) until I read something about you in Kiwiblog and Whaleoil blog last year. I thought you were a journalist. Were you once? Maybe I am getting you confused with somone else. I enjoyed reading about David Farrar’s safari. Has made me want to do the same one day.
Freemantle Doctor where does it say Melissa Lee is a parliamentary private secretary ?
As far as I know there are zero PPS in this govt.
Raymond, did you write your own wikipedia page? It looks like a vanity page. The bulk of Raymond’s wikipedia page is written by somebody called Docco2011, who hasn’t edited any other wikipedia pages. Raymond, is this person you, or do you know the person who wrote this?
good post Raymond .. keep up the good work
j mex says:
January 31, 2012 at 11:34 pm
“You are going to have to do better than that to show a HUGE contribution. ”
Good point. Show me who is a huge contributor:
Pansy Wong, Melissa Lee, Kanwalijit Bakshi, Dr Ashraf Choudhary, Dr Rajen Prasad. Probably Pansy Wong who has made some real dent.
SPC, what absolute bollocks.
Farrar says:
1. Huo is not a huge contributor to Labour within Parliament
2. Huo is a relatively large fundraiser (I assume relative to other Labour MP’s)
Farrar makes NO comment about ethnic MP’s, asian MP’s, National asian MP’s, National MP’s, tokenism or ATM machines. It’s all in your head (and injured pride)
The reason Labour lost the last election is partly because it lacked a collective voice: want of a group of Hyenas like the ones we saw here and elsewhere. They could attack, collectively but from a different angle, whoever was on their way. Thus Key was protected morally and politically and relevant to this posting, DPF protected professionally and financially. Unless Labour can sort this out, there will be a long way to go to return itself to govt. The right wingers own pretty much all the issues and control the space.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
I’m sure David is absolutely loving your obsession with him.
Anita, and the amendment was submitted by Phil Twyford.
Jmex,
Are you adressing your comments to me, or do you just confuse the topic with the person you are debating with?
It’s pretty obvious that when Farrar says that – Huo would be missed by Labour, what he means. An opportunity for National (why else would he have mentioned it). Given he describes Huo as someone who connects well with the Asian community and raises funds from them for his party, his inference about what that opportunity is was obvious.
Farrar did not need to specifically state any more than he did to make his point about ethnic MP’s in his own and other parties. You misread his not stating the obvious.
You really don’t understand the link between fundraising and cash out of ATM’s …?
And as for “it’s all in my head and injured pride” … are you serious?
Huo’s point was that while he was being praised by Farrar for out-performing his rivals within National … he felt the Asian community was being slighted, if it was just seen as a fund raising source for political parties. He was taking offence on behalf of the Asian community in general including those who voted for other poltiical parties.
IMpact, I’d be surprised if it was Huo himself who wrote the wikipedia article, it looks like someone who doesn’t really understand misunderstood a Herald article, not the kind of deliberate mistake someone might write about themself. I do wonder why Huo hadn’t got it corrected, but he may just not get wikipedia.
SPC, ugh, such a good example of the problems with wikipedia.
Raymond Huo & Red Alert, will you sort out the accuracy of that article? If not I’ll try to find time to fact check and edit it over the long weekend if no-one else can find time before then.
Anita
P.S. Clare, I am still me and still not a troll.
Sorry, what WAS Farrar’s point again? So many here seem to know what he means when he writes?
Tracey,
There is a more recent post over on Kiwblog that replies to this here. He is on his best behaviour.