GUEST BLOG: Gerard Otto – The racism of Barry Soper
Racism is a term flung around a great deal and it get’s on the wick of some older white folk like Don Brash who deny they are any bit racist at all.
Apparently they are all saints and all accusations of racism are just hyper sensitive far left radical lunatics out of their minds with social justice fever and political correctness.
But even a fully fledged KKK member would agree that today’s article by Barry Soper is poking the racist stick at Maori.
The first clue is when Soper suggests that all Maori Land that is currently unable to gain development capital from the Banks must be riddled with weed.
“Well the self-proclaimed First Citizen of the Provinces Shane Jones admitted as much when the fund earlier this month agreed to cough up $100 million to improve long forgotten, weed infested Māori land.” – wrote Soper.
The land is not necessarily forgotten, nor is it weed infested but Soper found it necessary to state that this Maori land was anyway.
Why did Barry feel that way?
Why has Barry never described undeveloped Pakeha land as weed infested?
It’s possible Barry is just a wanker from Gore who is not very bright but it is also possible he’s drenched in anti Maori prejudice that shows up every now and then in his sweeping negative generalisations and stereotyping.
The next evidence of this racism is when Soper suggests it’s just Maori laziness and apathy and not the limitations of raising development capital that is the problem :
“Trouble is there are so many owners, hundreds of them, owning relatively small blocks and they can’t be bothered getting together and improving them.”
“Can’t be bothered” is a figment of Barry’s racist Maori bashing imagination – when it is clear that the fractured ownership of some Maori land and inalienable rights to the land – hit a conflict with the way Banks like to secure the risk of loaning money for development projects and businesses.
Seems Barry is not interested in being objective about this and more interested in bashing Maori unfairly.
Further evidence of this lies in what Barry decides to focus upon and what he decides to leave out.
As everyone knows there is a success rate for projects regardless of the racial mix of it’s team members which is not 100% anywhere in the world.
In the USA Calleam reported that 49 percent of 840 federally funded projects were found to be poorly planned, poorly performing, or both.
In December 2018 Gartner published that Projects with budgets over $1 million have a 50 percent higher failure rate than projects with budgets under $350,000.
And we all know that by the end of their fifth year, roughly 50 percent of small businesses fail. After 10 years, the survival rate drops to approximately 35 percent.
If you can get a large project success rate of over 86% you are doing great things according to Harvard Business School and Gartner – and if you can keep a business growing for a decade you are a bloody legend.
Which brings us to the Provincial Growth fund and what we as New Zealanders should reasonably expect in terms of a success rate from any programme of work involving multiple projects.
Barry thinks the Provincial Growth Fund “project success” should be 100% which is ridiculous and unheard of anywhere.
Any hiccup or even a shadow of a hiccup is bashed into headlines by Barry.
Barry reckons this just goes to prove that Shane Jones is a cowboy and feeding his mates up North with pork barrel money that Jacinda was screwed into handing over.
Barry religiously refuses to report on successful projects up North or anywhere to do with the Provincial Growth Fund.
When did you last read Barry saying we have a growing $50 Billion Maori economy?
That’s right – you never ever read anything positive about that from Barry.
When did Barry last report on how much undeveloped Maori land has been successfully developed over the past decade by hard working Maori with skills and business nouse?
He does not have a single good word for Maori at all.
It makes my blood boil.
Seriously.
What the fuck is wrong with NZME and it’s Executive that it continues to give a platform to this racist shit?
It was bad enough when Barry’s wife said Pacific Islanders are leeches and then doubled down on that racism.
We should call it what it actually is – and it is.
Who in NZME is accountable?
Gerard Otto is an activist and a writer.
This is just the latest assault on maori to hit the headlines. In my view opposition to Barry Supers brand of selling news papers is the most advance form of political thought that draws from the enlightened and Barry draws out the best ideals from his opponents who then carry it forward.
So I think a resurgent Māori renascence which would be the peak of New Zealand’s intellectual civilisation, should join with the indigenous societies of the world so that Māori don’t have the burden to save society from its own craziness.
Every where you have privilege and opportunity and choices, you’ll have responsibility. Māori have responsibility and they have the right to take the lead to prevent the disasters that our own institutions are creating.
It’s outrageous of Barry Super to demand the poorest of New Zealanders take the lead in trying to save all the other enumerable species but that’s the role and we should all join in.
Well bloody said.
It’s easy for Soper and his faux-journo wife to bash Maori. They make for easy headlines.
While Soper bashes “failed” Maori businesses, it’s reported today that another construction company, Arrow, has gone into liquidation. Before that, it was Mainzeal, Ebert, Corbel, etc. But you never here about that from the racist twat.
God, please, NZME, put that bigot behind a paywall.
Firstly just because Barry comes from Gore does not
Ran everyone from Gore is exactly like Barry does it? No and I never suggested that notion did I? No. But what I do detect is you attempting to shut down dissent against racism by suggesting it is ranting and counter productive. Being silent and accepting of racism is more comfortable for some and they want everyone to shut up and let it be. Not me – I am going to speak my mind freely because that is a freedom we have and if I can use that to shift thinking about what we casually accept – I will do so.
I would suggest that the notion of the Maori gorse farmers is one that goes back well before Barry Soper wore his first bow tie in public.
Back around 45 year ago, Matt Rata (Kirk/Rowling Labour govt) introduced laws with the objective of protecting the minority owners of Maori land, and part of those protections included a new category of land “Maori Land” upon which banks could not enforce their mortgages if the loans were in default. The protections also included requirements that any land interests sold needed to first be offered to other Maori folk, rather than on the general market.
The net result of these laws was that Banks shut up shop and stopped offering mortgages over “Maori Land” and therefore the owners were hamstrung for finance. Which not unexpectedly meant that the land could not be worked and some did get taken over by gorse.
Now in my not at all humble opinion, the Kirk/Rowling government was either negligent or impossibly naive, and having protected the Maori land owners from the Banks, they then left them high and dry with no access to finance.
Why the “Maori Land” folk couldnt access Government owned financiers the likes of the old “Marginal Lands Board” funds (late 70s), or DFC (late 80s) or even Kiwibank (this century) is beyond me.
But no government in the past 45 years has bothered to address this.
There’s a little bit of white..in everyone,
There’s a touch..of redneck to,
There’s a little bit of white in everyone,
But for Barry gee it does shine through.
[Chorus]
Bazza let the good shine,
Bazza have a good whine,
Heather don’t drink that wine,
I’m saving it for ’22
There’s a little bit of green..in everyone,
There’s the climate and water to,
There’s a little bit of green in everyone,
And Tava’s trying to make that blue.
[Chorus]
Vernon can you do it,
Have you got the numbers,
Vernon are you desperate,
Surely this is nothing new.
etc. (that’s all I have)