Karl du Fresne posted the other day, pointing out the mischief that the Race Relations Commissioner was up to.
Ostensibly, the certificates recognised the “dignity” with which the girls behaved during their confrontation with Mr Laws. This seemed a contrived justification for a blatant political stunt.
Not content with wading in to the row uninvited (or so we must assume) and in a highly partisan fashion, Mr de Bres seemed to go out of his way to antagonise Mr Laws, commending the girls for putting up with “rubbish” from the mayor.
The commissioner’s behaviour doesn’t exactly square with the stated objectives of the Human Rights Commission of which he is a member, which include the encouragement of “harmonious relations between individuals and among the diverse groups in New Zealand”. Here he is winding things up when his job is to keep things calm.
Mr de Bres, a Labour appointee and former Public Service Association official with impeccably PC credentials, seems trapped in some sort of time warp. He needs to be reminded that the previous government, which might have smiled indulgently on his antics, was tossed out by a public tired of suffocating political correctness and official busybodies.
I think Karl misses the worst point about the affair – that the schoolgirls were actually the complete opposite of “dignified”.
But today de Bres says he’s not going to investigate the disgusting and virulently racist email written by Hone Harawira.
I’m sure many Liberterian people would agree that the email comes under freedom of speech, but I would join them in pointing out that the Comissioner has no trouble commenting on a great many items where far more subtle messages are conveyed by other means.
Harawira’s email is probably the most racially divisive action in recent years by a public figure. The fact that de Bres only seems to be interested in excusing it means that he has vitally undermined his office in a way that will never be recovered until the day he resigns.
