What can you possibly say bout ‘Chelle after the worst week of her professional life?
A) She could teach Vietnamese Monks a thing about self immolation
B) she is to racial harmony what Trump is to feminism
C) Coffee coloured tans are so 1980s?
D) All of the above.
How she managed to keep fuelling this story for 3 days longer than it should have been in the headlines is a feat of true beauty caused by someone with enough sophistry and misplaced privilege for the entire Island of Waiheke.
She made three comments that were far more racist than anything Peter is alleged to have said in the first place.
The debate should never have deviated from what was said at the time. The offence was taken because Peter is alleged to have said ‘Waiheke is a white man’s Island’ – now that’s racist, no ifs or buts about it, did Leitch appreciate how racist he was being and did he mean it?
Well those are big questions, but the PROBLEM is that Leitch says his reply was “Waiheke is a white man’s Island, too”. Now that’s light years away from malicious racist intent but if you go onto Twitter you will be lectured that this meaning is ALSO racist because, (now I’m paraphrasing here, but the shrill note of middle class righteousness is pitched correctly)
‘Peter said “Waiheke is a white man’s Island, too” because he felt intimidated by the answer of ‘I’m Tangata Whenua and he was responding in a racist passive aggressive manner’
Which seems like an enormous amount of stage 2 psychology, which is great, but again, none of us were there and destroying someones reputation in the form of an online modern day witch trial based on Twitter reckons that inside Peter’s head was a culturally challenged old male who racially lashed out in a passive aggressive manner seems like a very low evidential threshold.
That’s a best friends threshold, as in your best friend will believe that because they’re your best friend. It’s barely enough to charge someone let alone convict them.
But how did Michelle manage this? She said incredibly racist things and then ended up being schooled on ‘casual racism’ when in fact the things she was saying were so formally racist the comments were appearing in tuxedos.
All. She.Had.To.Say.Was. Peter, Is. Incredibly. Sorry. That. Offence. Was. Taken. And. He. Apologised. Immediately. At. The. Time. When. He. Was. Informed. Insult. Had. Been. Taken. He. Says. It’s. A. Terrible. Misunderstanding. And. That. He. Said. Waiheke is a white man’s Island, too”. He. Apologises. For. Any. Offence. And. Wishes. The. Family. A. Very. Merry. Christmas. And. Happy. New. Year.
That’s all she had to say. 57 bloody words, how the Christ did she manage to spew out a mangled version of Tolstoy’s War and Fucking Peace?
So, please God, oh please God, make Michelle Boag the National Party Campaign Manager for 2017. Her flat footed response, her cultural disconnection with anything past 1989 and her tin ear promises much hilarity during an election campaign.
Last years Auckland Mayoralty campaign was a fight between Boag and Lusk/Slater to win the role of 2017 election campaign but because both failed so spectacularly no one has been given the formal nod. Slater will be licking his lips at Boag’s latest meltdown and in any other free market she would have zero clients, but political cronyism trumps results, even on the Right so Boag is likely to lead Bill English to a humiliating defeat or an undignified one.
Agree with Martyn’s sentiments here. However I think its likely Steven “minister of Natz propaganda and just about everything else” Joyce will continue to be Natz campaign manager for the next election.
But it would be great if the old Boag(y) woman jumped on board the campaign bandwagon as Natz PR mouthpiece and started flapping her gob off, in similar vein to what she has been doing of late, during the build up to the election. That would be about the most positive thing she could do for the country!
ACT stands for individual freedom and choice, personal responsibility and the protection of the life, liberty and property of each and every citizen.
I think you are being rather unkind to Ms Boag, Martyn. She is a woman of intellect and charm and she would be a great campaign manager.
ACT has had the privilege of having had very competent campaign managers, such as Eric Crampton, Rodney Hide, John Spencer Boscawen, Richard Prebble. If Michelle wanted to run ACT’s campaign, she would be welcomed with open arms. She is even competent enough to run ACT and National’s campaigns simultaneously.
After all, Stephen Joyce has hardly been a raging success in the likes of Northland, Mt Roskill, or in absentia, in Mt Albert.
I am one of Michelle’s biggest fans and have sung her praises in this blog many times.
Being intelligent does not absolve you from bad behaviour, whether it’s racism or something else. You being a big “fan” shouldn’t excuse it either.
Thanks Martyn.
It is good to continue to shine the light on BLOWHARDS and ego maniacs.
We in NZ deserve so much better and she distracts the truths and the real issues with her clear and obvious bias and lack of depth between the ears.
Mumbo gumbo right wing rhetoric and emotional immaturity ==>> boring boring boring.
This ill informed; pseudo intellectual has spewed enough nonsense on the Paul Henry show and other shows to last several lifetimes.
Time to retire ==>> Michelle before you do more damage and allow others with more sense and integrity to shine who have much less bias.
We need honesty and integrity and open mindedness in politics and journalism.
Many feel you are not a great asset to this country and surely not to
good quality politics or journalism.
OUT TO PASTURE ! ! Put your feet up and drink some relaxing teas to stop the over-reacting.
This NZ govt. in charge now , that you hold in such esteem, has failed this country and to continue to defend them just quickens the ruining of your reputation.
Many of us are far more awake than you imagine and have seen right through the BS for a long time.
Ah, but it wouldn’t pay to under estimate the pulling power of the old traction engine. She heralded in yankee doodle psycho jonky-stien and has a degree in political science. I.e. Has a degree in head fuckery that can only be assuaged by ‘ us’ chasing her with torches and pitchforks while she’s running and screaming. The only way to shut her up would be to tie her to a chair and wrap her boiled cabbage head in duct tape. She’s the kind of person who’ll never shut up until she gets more than she needs, so beware.
If she led Nationals 2017 campaign? She’d win for them, hands down, considering the fucking morons who already vote for the pricks.
And perhaps more chilling, who’s an opposition? Blinky Little? Or one of the other lonesome, 2nd rate Sideshow Bobs playing politician on our $-six figures plus entitlements?
We really need to understand that we’re in a metaphorically political bomb laden pilotless one winged passenger jet, co-manufactured by the Italians and the French heading over the Himalayas in a terrible storm while running low on fuel.
Yes. That’s right. We’re fucked if we continue to think we can rely on any of the damp willed money spenders. There has to be a whole new thing made by us, for us, or we really are in deep shit and somebody has better come up with something fucking quick or we will be the New State of Israel. I’m not shitting you. ( Kidding. )
Having never needed PR before I am a little unclear on how these things work.
Can Leitch get his money back?
This seems worse than not wearing your uniform to work…and the ambo’s are getting a 10% pay cut for that, so I’m thinking a good 65% pay cut for too much fake tan is in order.
Or could she charge extra for sacrificing her own ‘reputation’ by selflessly spewing out enough good old fashioned racism to help make Sir Peters seem like a fairly mild brain fart??
I don’t see why he couldn’t demand some sort of refund. I mean, if you hired a builder to construct your dream home, and he instead excavated a massive crater on your land, and then filled it with toxic effluent, you’d be entitled to some form of recompense. Boag’s essentially done the PR equivalent of exactly that. If I were Peter Leitch, I’d be a tad upset.
She might be a neighbour, seeing as she has a place on Waiheke too. She might have offered her services for free, in which case, he got what he paid for. He should have paid the full $$$$ for a top PR to dig him out of this mess.
I’m sick to death of the way that Aotearoa has become the land of the ‘long white crowd’ and nothing is more divisive in this country than the likes of Michelle Boag and her racist Hollow Men and Women rants.
It’s the same white privilege comments that lay behind Don Brash’s “Kiwi-Iwi” advertising campaign and his Orewa racism.
Real Estate companies now advertise in Chinese and as far as I know, this is not one one of New Zealand’s “official languages”, just an unofficial blue-friendly one.
According to the HRC https://www.hrc.co.nz/enquiries-and-complaints/faqs/new-zealands-official-languages/ English; Māori and New Zealand Sign Language are our official languages.
Maybe Dame Susan Devoy should pontificate about signage on Real Estate Agencies being in English,
Maoriand Chinese, instead of muddying the waters in the Sir Peter Leitch ‘tongue-in-cheek’ racism.My advice to Michelle Boag: S.T.F.U. No translation required! “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln”
Well said Wha Left. I have not commented on the Daily Blog in months due to illness, but Michelle Boag is just a godawful excuse for a human being.
Her aroha, empathy, sympathy and regard for her fellow human beings has been put into cryogenics, with Boag’s blue blood as a natural cooling-refrigerant. The sooner that she, Hoskings, Slater, Corin Dann, Paddy Gower, Tracey Watkins and the other MSM sycophants, remora and other National Party apologists are thrown to the baying mob, the better off this country will be.
In my recuperative state, I have been heartened by the fact that there is a resurgence of common decency returning to New Zealand society, now that Key has gone.
English and Bennett beware!. Kiwis have seen what rotten-to-the-core-shit you are selling on your barrows of lies and inequality. No turd-polishers, or glitter-sprinklers, Textors, Crosbys, or Farrars will be able to mask your asset sales, state house sales, people living in cars and garages and the rampant immigration that is propping up your candy-floss, “rockstar economy”.
Tax cuts aka bullshit/bribes for the wealthy? With over $90 billion in debt (http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/newzealand), tax cuts are a National disgrace.
Kiwis are seeing past the fluff and sham and can see the neoliberal bullshit on offer.
Roll on the election in November!
Good on you Winnie. What we need now is for another million NZ’ers to think like we do and to vote accordingly. I still believe the media are our biggest obstacle.
It will certainly be a very interesting year.
Sorry but Boag is well past her use by date. She is an old dyed in the wool racist National Party political hack. A history of being vindictive, and meddling in people’s affairs and has no integrity. The less New Zealanders see and hear of her the better, she is damaging to NZ culture. As for Leitch, also a racist, to even think like that, in replying as to the racial suitability of a parochial little bit of dirt in the Hauraki Gulf. Susan Devoy is just a squash player, well out of depth and breathtakingly unqualified in Race Relations. Hopefully the National Party will not see another term under which racism, ponytail pulling, and pandering to Chinese political and economic influence has been the norm – no prosecution no penalties.
Michelle Boag looks a wee bit like Titewhai Harawira…are you sure she is not her cuzzie?…Michelle Boag looks Tangata Whenua?
If you met her on a dark night you would die of fright , Countryboy is right, she needs duct tape and what’s with the eyebrows. Why do the media continue to put her on – its embarrassing to have to watch and listen to her, she is not a good advertisement for a BA in Pol.Stud.
Do you realise that the “dark night” comment is equivalent to a racist comment.
Could you please apologise and hire a PR person to school you in correct language towards women.
I think Boag is more like this, at least after the event anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BADDeIQWVQ
It must be so hard for Michelle Boag to say anything intelligent nowadays. Goodness knows why Peter Leitch required her services as a spokesperson on his behalf?!
You look at the woman and all I can think about is one of those clowns you see at the Easter show that has a gaping mouth and a head that swings from side to side.
Still if this woman is the best that the National Party and even Peter Leitch can wheel out to speak on their behalf then ‘go to town’ is all I can say in return. We all need a good laugh and no-one is better at making herself look like an idiot than Michelle Boag.
And to Michelle. I used to work with a woman who is blonde haired, blue-eyed and white. But she has Maori blood in her. You(Boag)is behaving most hypocritically by saying that a person is ‘hardly coffee coloured’.
Still if this is the sentiment of Michelle Boag then what the Hell is the Maori Party doing or saying in support of the young Maori woman whom Peter Leitch offended? If they are saying nothing then they are being conspicious by their absence of voice in support of a Maori. Because I have noticed not one MP in the Maori Party has stood up in support of the young woman Peter Leitch offended. And why? Is it because they are on their Christmas break and cannot be bothered to support those that a white man offended? Oh right… That proves it… Peter Leitch is a National man. Michelle Boag is National. Peter Leitch can say whatever and get away with it. If Peter Leitch was a Labour man then the Maori Party will be yelling from the parapets of how racist he is being towards ALL Maori.
And by the way I am Pakeha.
+100…and btw I am both Pakeha and Maori
Agree 100% and I am 100% pakeha.
Be a bit careful. The tons of rocks and hellfire falling on P Leitch’s head may push some out there into a Trump-like response.
I’ve heard her on Radio NZ a few times during Jim Mora’s segment. She’s a nasty mix of casual racism, white privilege, agist bigotry (against millenials), and born-to-rule arrogance.
She epitomises the true soul of the National Party
Careful what you wish for. We on the left can mock and decry what we observe from the white and wealthy of NZ but the unfortunate reality is that most NZers will agree with Leitch and Boag. Most NZers loved the fudgy non-commital approach of John Key and it has been the lefts mistake to under-estimate this and the ‘beg ignorance’ attitudes of the middle class when it comes to racism. We have lost 2 elections and we are going to need some real magic and smart thinking to win the next one. Cyclical and repetitive attacks on individuals within in the political bubble will not win votes.
Look at Trump – the liberal US media which I follow became hysterical and flooded with articles about Trump to the exclusion of all else. Why?
Where were the discussions about real issues like taxation, healthcare, jobs, trade, welfare. There weren’t any.
Why isn’t the left in NZ jumping up and down about taxation. I want to pay more tax I want other middle class NZ to want to pay more tax. I want to see greater wealth redistribution and more investment in public services.
How are we going to make that happen. The NZ Labour party is like a mute donkey in it’s incomprehensible and stubborn silence on any issue of substance.
This is not to underplay racism in NZ but sometimes I get frustrated at how much energy is focused on personalities. Want to make a real difference to Maori in NZ then introduce a minimum basic income and get the poor out of the hands of WINZ, build government subsidized housing and community resources for those who struggle with employment and private sector housing, decriminalize drug use and reform the justice and prison system to focus on mental health not punishment.
Spending hours of news cycle discussing whether or not some wealthy old white guy is racist or not is kind of part of the system that stops us doing real stuff.
Dear News Journalists
If you are wondering what to do for a new years resolution how about stopping trawling social media and do some bloody journalism instead!
It is said that pictures speak a thousand words and in michelle’s case she should STFU and take up photography, I believe she’s pretty handy with a camcorder taken from within confined spaces.
Nailed it Martyn. One does not enhance the case that a remark was not pejorative by issuing a bunch of pejoratives.
Another ladder climbing; elitist woman, like wantabe Bennett, both with TIGHT jaws and PURSED lips. Image consultant ? — what kind of a twisted and cold image are they promoting and working on.
Where are ( ? ? ) the likeable ; intelligent and ethical woman on the Natz side who do not have so much to hide with concrete eyes and faces that scare most ?
Coffee Lovers Guide.
Boag: a flat white with an offensive aroma. Leaves a bitter aftertaste.
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