The hypocrisy of the Free Speech Champions of the NZ Right
Matthew Hooton, Don Brash and the defamation drama behind a deleted podcast
An astonishing monologue from the centre right commentator electrified audiences – then Don Brash called in the lawyers. Now updated with the text of Hooton’s apology at the foot.
The video lasts a little over four minutes, part of an episode of The Working Group politics podcast, which invites those with polarised views to debate them live. Matthew Hooton, the former National Party staffer turned lobbyist and commentator, sits casually, one arm draped across the back of a black office chair. He shifts and straightens in his seat, and commences a political tirade for the ages, targeted squarely at former National Party leader Don Brash, and his advocacy group Hobson’s Pledge.
“Hobson stuttered somehow to the Māoris when he was signing [Te Tiriti],” says Hooton, referencing the “pledge” Brash’s group is named for. “He said in te reo, ‘we are all one people’, apparently. Now I don’t know whether Hobson said that or not, but it’s not in the text, and so it seems quite pathetic.”
Hooton is clearly wound up, gesticulating with force as he delivers a monologue railing against his former colleague. It goes on, and on, rising in fury, a trickle becoming a torrent which will not be tamed or diverted. At one point co-host Damien Grant attempts to intervene, and gets called a “dickhead” for his troubles.
Hooton claims that he, in his former role within the party, installed Brash as leader of National, and refers to Brash’s infamous Ōrewa speech as “despicably racist”, before rounding into the core of his thesis. “He is a fundamentally bad person,” Hooton says of Brash. “He’s divided this country for no apparent reason, despite being certainly intelligent enough to know the things that he says are not true.”
Hooton goes on to say that “all it has ever been about is for a group of people to try and position [Māori] people as radicals and the ‘other’, and somehow dangerous to the mainstream. And that has always been a lie.” He concludes by suggesting Brash has knowingly lied about his own views – a very serious allegation. That’s what made the video so powerful. And where the trouble started.
Thousands have viewed the clip, and it has been widely circulated on social media in the month since its publication, with many who might not usually be fans of Hooton’s perspectives, celebrating its sentiment. However after racking up almost 10,000 views on YouTube in 48 hours, it vanished from The Working Group podcast’s official channels and social feeds.
This is because Brash considered the implication that he was insincere in his beliefs highly defamatory, and has “retained specialist counsel”, according to his lawyer, former Act MP Stephen Franks. A letter laying out Brash’s position was sent to Hooton and The Working Group.
When contacted by The Spinoff, Brash made it clear that his defamation claim concerned only one aspect of Hooton’s comments. “I mean calling someone a racist these days is almost fashionable. It’s become so common. I do resent that, and deeply resent that, but when he claims that I was promoting a view which I simply don’t agree with, don’t believe in myself – I mean, that is quite preposterous.”
A podcast comfortable causing offence
It’s not surprising that the incident happened on The Working Group. The podcast is the lovechild of staunch old school leftist and Daily Blog editor Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury and the libertarian liquidator and Stuff columnist Damien Grant. It has become popular in recent years due to its bombastic style and embrace of a combative argument across the political aisle, with a broad cross-section of views represented in guests ranging from Chris Hipkins and Simon Wilson to Jordan Williams and Leo Molloy. Its intro jokes about “avoiding defamation” – something it may not have lived up to in the episode from late August.
Along with pulling the recording, the letter seems to have already prompted some level of retreat from Hooton, according to sources familiar with the situation. That may not be enough to mollify Brash. “Notwithstanding an apology being suggested by Matthew Hooton,” wrote Franks, “proceedings are likely to ensue.” When approached, Hooton said via text “it’s best not to inflame or aggravate matters, I think” and refused to comment further. Sources familiar with the situation suggest he intends to apologise for the comments during this evening’s recording of The Working Group.
Brash told The Spinoff in a pair of interviews that his legal issue was solely with Hooton’s persistent attacks on his integrity. “He didn’t suggest I was wrong. He suggested I was lying, and knew I was lying.” Despite his persistent positioning as a champion of free speech and opponent of cancel culture, Brash considered that aspect of the podcast a bridge too far.
“I’m in favour of freedom of speech, but it’s one thing to believe in freedom of speech, another thing to accuse someone of flat out lying. That’s what Hooton has done… I don’t think that’s inconsistent with a belief in freedom of speech.”
What we can and can’t say
Reporting on defamation is complicated within New Zealand, as the law can consider reporting on claims to be repeating them, and therefore engaging in defamation too. In an email to The Spinoff, Franks said “it would be inadvisable for the Spinoff to repeat the defamatory comments”. However, The Spinoff specifically asked Brash for permission to repeat the claims in the context of our reporting, and he agreed, on the basis that we underline the fact that Brash forcefully rejects Hooton’s statements about the sincerity of his beliefs.
Brash is not the only object of Hooton’s derision in the fateful episode – he expands the scope to include the Act Party, a former client of Hooton’s, and its Treaty Principles Bill. “David Seymour cannot possibly believe that his racist Treaty Principles Bill reflects in any way whatsoever either the texts or the case law over the Treaty of Waitangi. He isn’t that stupid,” Hooton says on the podcast. “He’s doing it to inflame hatred in New Zealand.”
When contacted by The Spinoff, Seymour said he had not heard Hooton’s comment, but after it was relayed to him, confirmed he had no interest in joining Brash in any defamation proceeding (and, indeed, Seymour intends to appear on The Working Group again soon). “I always take Matthew with a large grain of salt. On his best day, he’s scintillatingly brilliant. And then there’s the days when he’s getting sued by Steven Joyce, or is adamant Todd Muller will be the best prime minister New Zealand has ever had. The trick with Matthew is to take the gems for their considerable worth, and be able to tell when he’s having one of his off days.”
As Seymour said, this incident is not Hooton’s first time testing the limits of defamation law. In 2018 he wrote a column for the National Business Review concerning former National finance minister Steven Joyce, before ultimately apologising for it as part of a settlement in which he agreed to pay Joyce’s legal fees. The NBR did not concede, and the saga dragged on for years, ultimately leading to a judgement in the publication’s favour.
The divide there ran deep, but so does the ill feeling between Brash and Hooton. Based on Franks’ statements, there’s nothing to suggest this episode is likely to end with an apology. It reveals a vast rift between two major figures within rightwing politics, and suggests that there is no consensus about the persistent campaign against the treaty and other gains for te ao Māori within some parts of the right. These two one-time collaborators are now bitterly divided, and while the podcast is gone, the enmity lingers.
Update, 3.30m: an apology, read by Martyn Bradbury on The Working Group and livestreamed on its YouTube channel:
Four weeks ago on The Working Group, Matthew made certain comments about Dr Brash. These comments were made in discussions with Damien and others about the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, the foreshore and seabed issue, and the advocacy group Hobson’s Pledge. In his comments, Matthew accused Dr Brash of dishonesty and of advocating his views solely to drive racial division in New Zealand.
Matthew accepts that in fact Dr Brash holds those views sincerely and not for the reasons Matthew gave.
Matthew does not agree with Dr Brash’s position on the Treaty and related matters. His remarks came as part of a vigorous debate on a subject that he is particularly passionate about – as are many New Zealanders, including Dr Brash. But Matthew accepts he was not justified in making – and sincerely apologises for – those particular statements, which he unreservedly retracts.
The hypocrisy of the Free Speech Right is an intellectual obscenity.
The Free Speech Champions of the Right have weaponised Free Speech and astroturf groups gatekeep what is and what isn’t Free Speech not on any philosophical grounds, but to further their interests while masquerading as a civil rights crusaders.
The Free Speech Champions of the Right quote Voltaire right up until you say something they don’t like, and then suddenly it’s the use of their power and their money to gag you.
What fucking hypocrites.
Here is why I think Don Brash is the worst Politician in NZ History and why I am forever disgusted by him.
I read The Hollow Men.
The expose by Nicky Hager using leaked emails from Don Brash’s Office while he put together the infamous Orewa Speech.
Brash’s Orewa Speech changed politics in New Zealand. His articulation of Māori Privilege, that they had a grievance culture and his one law for all rhetoric forever caused a Trump orange shit stain on New Zealand’s race relations.
His Speech was the greatest insult since the betrayed promise of the Treaty itself.
Hager’s magnificent coverage of what was really driving the Orewa Speech that Brash gave has been utterly ignored by the mainstream media and as such is never front and centre whenever Brash returns from the grave with his latest attempt at legitimacy.
We know from the emails that were leaked to Hager that Brash and the people around Brash who wrote the Orewa Speech KNEW that what they were claiming when it came to Māori privilege and special treatment and the so called grievance industry were all bullshit myths that they couldn’t prove.
They had a media plan to throw journalists off the scent when the media came demanding examples of all this Māori privilege because they knew they couldn’t prove any of the hateful things they were claiming.
They knew they were creating a false fabrication but went ahead with it anyway.
They manipulated us by playing to the worst angels of our nature, and they knew that. The Orewa Speech wasn’t the tell it like it is musings of a polite Gentleman who was prepared to challenge the PC thought Police, this was a carefully stitched together lie that everyone of them knew they couldn’t prove!
That’s not Free Speech, that’s not intellectually courageous, that’s spitefully Machiavellian.
Māori have been horrifically impacted by our brutally passive racism. Māori are 380% more likely to be convicted of a crime and 200% more likely to die from heart disease and suicide. Māori are paid 18% less and 34% leave school without a qualification. Māori die earlier and suffer more. Māori had 95% of their land taken from them in less than a century and were almost wiped out at the turn of the 1900s.
Couple all of that with a pittance in terms of reparations for stolen land, and to have that legacy defined by Don Brash as ‘privilege’, when he knew it they couldn’t prove it is unforgivable.
To repeat a lie you believe is true is ignorance. To repeat a lie you know to be untrue is disgusting.
Free Speech in a Democracy is not about your right to stand up and mouth off any old bullshit opinion you have. You get that protection by extension and the narcissistic culture we wallow in makes us believe Free Speech is all about ME, but the truth is it’s not a ‘right’ for you as an individual for your own selfish purposes, it’s an obligation as a citizen’s only weapon to strike out against the hegemonic structures of economy, culture and society to be able to speak truth to powers that don’t want to hear it.
Brash and his enablers knew that what they said in the Orewa Speech wasn’t provable, free speech is the power to stand up to Brash and point out to the rest of those listening how he manipulated them and made them fools.
The power of free speech is when you hear a part of the argument you didn’t know existed, and that on hearing it, changes every preconceived certitude you previously had.
The Woke need to stop the cowardly attempts of stripping people of free speech, and instead use that free speech to show the Right up for the selfishness they embody.
I suspect the more NZers who really understood how contrived and calculating the Orewa Speech really was, the more infuriated they would be at how they had been fooled and deceived.
Go and read The Hollow Men now!
We beat the hard right by engaging with them and wiping the floor with them, we only empower them by crushing their free speech, even when they seek to gag ours.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
Free speech can and does have consequences whether it be a dildo in the face or threat of litigation. The only problem here is that Hooton folded because he went on a rant not like he couldnt afford to defend himself.
That said David Seymours response to Hootons missive was far better.
Yes if Hooten is going to say the words then he can defend them, not have some apology delivered at the end of the last TWG. He likes to open his mouth, he should stand by his words or keep it closed.
Yeah but he’s said the words everyone now knows his view on Brashs views and motives. Who needs a time consuming, stressful, expensive court process. Lifes short. Clayton’s post truth apology.
Sure “Oh I know I said it but I didn’t mean it (I really did)”.
I’ll be curious if Brash accepts that. It’s not as if this is out of character for Hooten to be disparaging about people.
And for the record I’m not defending Brash’s views, I just have little time for Hooten either.
Brash needs to remember HOBSON also told Maori they would “retain their perfect independance “but he chooses to leave that part out of his bull shit mantra .Has he not learnt from his cock up from his Orewa speech which saw his party go down the drain and him self with it .Then he waka jumped to ACT because they suited his racist opinion better and were accepting of it and now doubt he is Seymoures biggest sponsor of race hate .As for MAORI privilege ,that is another lie because if they are so privileged why are so many living in abject poverty and as we are reminded daily over represented in jails .If they are so privileged surely they would all be living in multi million dollar homes and the kids would all be at boarding school and the jails would be closed as the high powered judges would be paid off to turn a blind eye as would the police .
Brash is backed by white privilege, not mum and dad investors.
yes Brash is not what I would call a real kiwi he is clearly a racist entitled prick .I feel sorry for his lovely Asian wife ,what sort of life is she living with that old prick .
Mail order bride?
Poor thing.
I don’t particularly like Hooten but this time I think he hit the nail on the head IMHO.
The Orewa speech didn’t see his party go down the drain – it saw a sudden jump in support and Labour barely hung on for their third term. Brash knows this stuff works and he has now corrected the mistake he made last time and is using “facts” that can neither be proven or disproven.
if they cant be proven or disproven then they are I reckons not fact
A fact is a fact, it can’t be unproven.
Brash continues his white privileged ways. How many Maori agree with him?
They were not elected even though they were polling well after his rant .Hence the reason he was dumped soon after the election because voters were unable to vote for a disgusting individual .
Gw agree +100%
Still have a copy of Hollow Men on the book shelf, read it once upon release, and it is not the type of book you read for pleasure. Well done Nicky for exposing those shits–with the assistance of Natzo insiders. Mr Hager is very good at not revealing his sources.
Free speech is an interesting spectacle, an ANZ Bank Exec supports CGT and Luxon is into her, 400 religious leaders criticise Act’s racism and Seymour is into them…
Yep it’s only free speech if the right allows it to be.
Add that the NZ Bill of Rights is ” FREE EXPRESSION” . Substantial impact with more modes including ‘ free speech’ to uphold rights eg. RIGHTS to autonomy; so across the spectrum these NATSIs seek to destroy the means and resources to upholding all those rights. Subversive but calculated legislation changes means the TOW is the paramount document that is in the way across the board ???
The UNDRIP under attack for another example is a more clearly explained iteration of ALL of our Human Rights ie. ALL inclusively benefit but hey the Nats didn’t mean to sign that one either.
“staunch old school leftist” – I could live with that
Brash aka Mr McGoo needs to pull his head in, he has got his colostomy bag in a tangle when Hooten exposes his true colours. Brash and Seymore are both closet racists.
Agree 100%
Well said Martyn.
I dont often agree with Hooten ,but I have noticed he has taken National and Luxon to task on their racist policy .
Hooten is pissed off at Brash and Seymore as he knows that their BS racist plan is a step too far and threatens to unite the left in what may possibly be the last ever chance.
Hooten plays the long game to acquire all assets through privatising gains and socialising losses, and not just a blatant asset grab of everything not already protected by private property rights.
What is new? The irony. Still the white man Brash, Hooten whoever… telling the ‘ others’ how to appease the Colonial lords and then the ‘ others’ still having to seek the white man’s permission on how to exist since forever.
THE MOTIVES FOR ANNIHILATING A RACE OF PEOPLE – A DELUSIONAL BELIEF IN WHITE SUPERIORITY IN ALL THINGS AND FOR UNBRIDLED POWER TO PROFIT THE FEW FEUDAL LORDS.
17TH Century the Irish language, education and expressions of Irish culture, such as its music, were banned under the Penal Laws of 1695. The Protestant ruling class brought in laws to stop Irish natives from owning or buying land. They were forbidden from entering professions, holding public office, receiving education, renting land of over a certain value, renting or inheriting from Protestants, owning horses of a value of more than five pounds or trading.
THE BANNING OF MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS BECAUSE IT ORALLY CONVEYED HISTORY DOWN THROUGH THE CENTURIES !!!
And if you ‘ others ‘ do not submit across the British Empire the Colonial powers will make it illegal to exist other than the WHITE way.
.The Native Exemption Ordinance 1844.
. The New Zealand Constitution Act 1846
.The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852
.The Resident Magistrates’ Act 1867.
.Tohunga Suppression Act 1907.
.Land Claims Ordinance 184.
. Native Land Purchase Ordinance 1846.
. New Zealand Settlements Act 1863.
. Native Lands Acts 1862.
. Native Lands Acts 1865
. The ‘10-owner rule’.
AND THE WHITE MAN RECORDED EVIDENCE OF HIS OWN CRIMES…
” MP Robert Bruce declared that ‘we could not devise a more ingenious method of destroying the whole of the Maori race than by these land courts. The natives come from the villages in the interior, and have to hang about for months in our centres of population … They are brought into contact with the lowest classes of society, and are exposed to temptation, the result is that a great number contract our diseases and die.”
And in between the superior Colonial powers will prevail by a ‘ whack a mole ‘ system of changing of legislation as it arises if skirmishes of rebellion or non submission arise ( sometimes by killing too).
. West Coast Reserves Settlement Act 1881.
. The Native Lands Rating Act 1882 (Māori land was rated at up to 300% of equivalent European land).
.Public Works Lands Act 1864.Maori Land Amendment Act 1952
.Native Rights Bill 1894.
. Maori Lands Administration Act 1900
. Maori Land Amendment Act 1952.
. The Maori Affairs Act 1953 ( more than 90% of Māori land had been alienated by 1952 )
. 1950s a series of laws overruled Māori inheritance customs.
. The Status of Children Act 1969.
.Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995.
. Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998.
. Some of the ones Seymour is hunting down now with the Regulations SS crew and his Screw the Treaty Bill because they hold the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi
• State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986, section 9, the Conservation Act 1987, section 4, the Resource Management Act 1991, section 8, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act 2000, section 6.
. Te Ture Whenua Māori 1993
. the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011
. The Care of Children – Chourr 2024
…….
AND TODAY JUST LIKE THOSE FECKIN INFERIOR NATIVE IRISH SAVAGES
ERICA ANNOUNCED THE END OF FUNDING FOR …… ( NO not Japanese, Mandarin, German, French , Spanish ..)
the end of funding for Maori language learning by teachers in order to fund the private interests of the authors of a back to the 50s maths book.
Seymore and Brash are a couple of evil little sh*ts IMHO ????
They’re not alone…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350429999/shocked-and-outraged-dunedin-mayors-reaction-hospital-update
Money wasted on tax cuts and Landlords yet nothing to protect the health of ordinary kiwis. This government is the most dangerous in history.
Voltaire and his often quoted saying about defending freedom to the death etc appears to be an error. It seems that a devotee, a woman following a line of impassioned belief, voiced a simplified version which has registered and stayed in people’s minds. We have all fallen into this fault.
[The] line attributed to Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That most excellent maxim is best described as a paraphrase (rather than a translation) of the French philosopher’s views as rendered by English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/origins-warning-from-voltaire#
Voltaire published some things that are particularly important to us right now and he’s not a waste of time to read!
Voltaire recast historiography in both factual and analytical terms. Not only did he reject traditional biographies and accounts that claim the work of supernatural forces, but he went so far as to suggest that earlier historiography was rife with falsified evidence and required new investigations at the source. Such an outlook was not unique in the scientific spirit that 18th-century intellectuals perceived themselves as invested with. A rationalistic approach was key to rewriting history.
[Within] Voltaire’s best-known histories is…his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in the arts and sciences.
The Essay on Customs traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Influenced by Bossuet’s Discourse on Universal History (1682), he was the first scholar to attempt seriously a history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks, and emphasizing economics, culture and political history. He treated Europe as a whole rather than a collection of nations. He was the first to emphasize the debt of medieval culture to Middle Eastern civilization.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
Also on Voltaire’s fractious life – https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/voltaire/
…In 1733 he published in England Letters Concerning the English Nation. The work appeared in France in 1734 in an unauthorized edition, Philosophical Letters. The letters praised English institutions, thereby constituting an indirect criticism of their French counterparts. French authorities condemned the book, and Voltaire fled from Paris to the independent duchy of Lorraine. In 1750 Voltaire journeyed to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia, with whom he had corresponded for years. Voltaire condoned enlightened despotism in the belief that a strong but just prince would prevent factions from destroying each other…
Voltaire’s histories were not impartial; they were propagandistic and debunking, depicting the progressive victory of enlightenment and fraternity over ignorance, fanaticism, and evil. He contributed to the French Encyclopedie and wrote treatises, pamphlets, and tracts condemning abuse, injustice, greed, and arbitrary power. He advocated the principle that the punishment should fit the crime and criticized capital punishment and recourse to torture. Voltaire favored judges of integrity, chosen on the basis of merit and not by reason of their social origins.
Voltaire died in Paris at the age of 83 (1778). Stung by his ongoing criticism, the Roman Catholic Church refused to allow his burial in church ground. However, in 1791 his remains were transferred to the Pantheon in Paris.
Where the argue, socialism. The only bus.