TV3 host to Parata: ‘How Maori are you?’
Journalist Rachel Smalley, the host of TV3’s political programme The Nation, has been called on to apologise to Education Minister Hekia Parata over questions she asked during an interview.
In an interview on May 25, Ms Smalley asked Ms Parata, “How Maori are you?” and, “Are you a bitch to work for?” – the latter in relation to the resignation of staff in Ms Parata’s ministerial office.
Although Ms Parata has not complained to The Nation and will not be seeking an apology, she described the questions as “unfortunate”.
However her National Party colleague, backbench MP Tau Henare, has posted a series of tweets since the interview, demanding an apology from Ms Smalley.
“This is not about batting for Hekia, it’s about batting for Maori.”
I watched the infamous interview between Rachel Smalley and Hekia Parata. I didn’t post on it at the time because, well, you know when someone you respect screws up and you want to look the other way?
That was me.
I really like Rachel Smalley. I like what her presenting and interviewing skills have done for the previously dreary The Nation and I watch Firstline over Breakfast every day of the week. The only thing Breakfast has going for it is Nadine Chalmers Ross, but even her intelligence and hard questions aren’t enough to neutralize the lobotomizing influence of those two other awful hosts. So it’s Rachel for breakfast before 9 to noon on Radio NZ (although the current lease of life Kim Hill has given to breakfast on RNZ is certainly a challenge to that).
So I like Rachel. All of that said, what an abomination of an interview. I’ve read what Brian Edwards has posted, but with all due respect to the great man – it’s bullshit. There is no justification for asking a Maori woman a) How ‘Maori’ she is and b) if she is a ‘bitch’ to work for.
Both are slaps in the face and grossly offensive. This is an interview on a current affairs show on a reputable network, Rachel isn’t a talkback host she’s a broadcaster and journalist. I tune in and watch her because she is professional and those two questions were just so utterly unncessary that it was embarrassing seeing someone of Rachel’s mana stooping to the sort of thing you would read on Whaleoil.
Yuck.
How a person identifies culturally is their own journey to testify to, being forced to justify ‘how Maori’ a person is by a pakeha woman has the extra hang ups of almost two centuries of Maori having to justify their heritage to an alien culture that was foisted upon them. Metiria Turei righteously points this out on Frog Blog. To ignore that history for a cheap jab is Seven Sharp-esk, it ain’t The Nation.
Actually I take that back, not even Seven Sharp would have done that.
The ‘Are you a bitch’ question was also well below the belt. As a woman herself, Rachel will be well aware of the double standards of gender. A strong personality male will be described as willful and full of positive character traits, a strong personality female is a ‘bitch’.
I hate to agree with anything Tau bloody Henare has to say (whom I still can not believe won’t vote for the Feed the Kids Bill because MANA didn’t back him for speaker – I mean seriously Tau, that’s so pathetic*), but he’s 1000% right here, Rachel should have apologized for such grossly offensive questions.
To her credit, Rachel is on record saying she should have listened to her gut in hindsight and not asked the questions and we can be grateful for that. Rachel, no matter what the dickhead producers have to say, you have built your reputation on being respectful and asking bloody hard questions, don’t drag it into Whaleoil or Kiwiblog territory. You are a great broadcaster and journalist, you ain’t a blogger, keep the punches above the belt.
You are way better than this.
*Tau now says on twitter that he was referring to the Maori Party not backing him and not Hone (who apparently greenlighted him for Speaker) and that he isn’t voting for it because they are doing something on that front now. Be that as it may Tau, ‘let them eat weetbix’ ain’t enough to tackle child poverty and you know it!
Interesting, didn’t realise it was the producers that came up with the questions but of course that makes sense. Maybe an apology should be demanded from them as well?
I’m glad your being consistent Martyn. It wins the race.
“Both are slaps in the face.” It is likely that those slaps in the face will be the worst fate that befall Hekia Parata.
For all their unseemliness and lack of class, when I ponder the slaps in the face she has delivered to kids, learning, teachers and the very essence of creative, innovative, intellectual driven education in New Zealand, I think she has got off lightly. Very, very lightly.
I like Rachel too, and Im surprised she made the call to utter them but Im not surprised by the frame of the question itself.
if she meant to tease something out that was less shock jock/more compelling she could have simply said ‘what do you say to people who think you aren’t Maori enough’ and throw light on the perception of how ones ethnicity is validated not by their own self identification but by the hegemonies benevolent ‘allowance’ for you to be that thing. The question ‘how Maori are you’ also confronts the silent audience asking the question in the back of their heads, it outs the racist undertones of our own nation by saying it out loud but I don’t know that we are smart enough for that kind of reverse psychology yet. the second question is also pretty base.
Difficult situation.
While I didn’t like the How Maori are you? question, the hoopla over the Bitch one is a bit rich. Suggesting a woman is a bitch is as offensive as suggesting a man is a prick, just as Susan Wood did on Q+A recently, asking David Shearer if he’s “a rich prick” Where was the outrage over that?!
tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/transcript-david-shearer-interview-5397270
Off topic but I agree with you about Kim Hill on Morning Report. She gave Hekia a good grilling this morning. I can’t shake the description someone wrote of being interviewed by Simon and Geoff as like being mauled by labradors.
Rachel Smalley is so stupid. Is she qualified in any way?
I consider the two questions unprofessional. At least they’re directed at a well-to-do contemptible individual and not at an impoverished downtrodden section of society like the Nisbet cartoons.
With the Nisbet cartoons I can imagine some innocent Maori/Pasifika kids being taunted at school by ignorant kids subscribing to the prejudiced view in the cartoons. If Nisbet won’t apologise why should Smalley?
For those in power, forget questioning their ethnicity – question their humanity. Parata demonstrated her lack of it very well like many others.
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