In New Zealand today

■ It was drearily predictable that young, female commentators online and in print would unquestioningly accept Meghan Markle’s account of the affronts and injustices supposedly heaped upon her. So it was refreshing to see the New Zealand actress Teuila Blakely suggest that perhaps the “racist” comment about the colour of young Archie’s skin – supposedly made by a member of the royal family who remains unidentified (if indeed it was made at all) – might not have been so racist after all.

In these situations, as Blakely (who is of mixed race) points out, context can be everything. “At a time where [sic] racism is at the forefront of our world in terms of creating awareness around it, I think [those comments] can be damning,” the New Zealand Herald reported her as saying. “[But] I think what’s really important to remember [is] we didn’t understand the context of that conversation or how those those concerns were presented.

“For the royal family, who have never had a person of colour come into their ranks before, the possibility that their first great-grandchild could be coloured would be a conversation you would have.” She said similar conversations had happened in her own extended family when her Samoan mother entered the picture.

The Herald reported the former Shortland Street star as saying the context of the situation dictated whether the comment was the product of racism or something more innocent.

Precisely. Until we know in what context the supposedly racist comment was made – and specifically what was said, by whom and in what tone – we can’t judge whether it was malignant or harmless. But that hasn’t stopped Markle’s enraged supporters automatically concluding that she has been grievously wronged and that the Windsors are a family of contemptible white supremacists.

And here’s another thing. It’s Markle who insists on making an issue of her race and therefore presenting herself as a victim. Is it possible that the fact she and Archie have African-American blood actually doesn’t matter to most people, including the royal family?

■ So Wellington City Council has voted 12-3 to establish a Maori ward. “Maori voices must be at the table; it can’t be left to chance,” said Cr Jill Day, who is of Ngati Tuwharetoa lineage.

Spot something odd in that statement? That’s right – Maori voices are already at the table. Day is one of two councillors who identify as Maori, the other being Tamatha Paul.

They were elected without the benefit of a Maori ward and there’s nothing to stop other Maori candidates from being similarly elected, provided they put themselves forward for office and persuade voters to support them, just as Day and Paul did. I could also mention Paul Eagle, who was seven years a councillor and would almost certainly now be mayor of Wellington if he hadn’t been elected MP for Rongotai (a general electorate where in the last election he won 57 percent of the votes competing on equal terms with every other candidate).

Oh, and we shouldn’t forget Ray Ahipene-Mercer, who served on the council for 16 years and is quoted in the Dominion Post today as questioning whether a Maori ward is necessary. “I would only ever stand on the same basis as any other person, irrespective of ethnicity,” Ahipene-Mercer said. Good on him.

“It can’t be left to chance” is an absurd statement. The only element of chance in winning election to the council is the one faced by all candidates. They have to convince voters to support them. That’s how democracy works.

Or at least it did, until now. But the legislation that was shamefully rushed through Parliament last month under urgency – the legislation Labour was careful to keep quiet about during last year’s election campaign – fundamentally changes the dynamics of local democracy by introducing race-based wards, thereby bestowing on Maori a privilege not enjoyed by other sectors of the community (and one they clearly don’t need, as the election of Eagle, Ahipene-Mercer, Day and Paul, not to mention  the many Maori councillors in other districts, shows).

Already there are signs that this may turn pear-shaped. Liz Mellish, speaking for an iwi grouping that regards Wellington as its rohe, or territory, is quoted today as saying she wants to know who would be eligible to vote in the Maori ward and how the new arrangement would affect her organisation's relationship with the council. “In a city like Wellington, we as mana whenua are outnumbered by other Maori. We need to ensure that mana whenua relationship continues.”

This sounds like an assumption of prior rights based on iwi affiliation, regardless of numbers or voter support, and seems to bear out warnings that tribalism and democracy are fundamentally incompatible.

The last thing Wellington needs now, on top of all its existing torments, is the prospect of an iwi power struggle over who has the right to represent the new Maori ward. But perhaps the city should start bracing itself for more convulsions.

■ A New Zealand Herald story today – I won’t embarrass the reporter by naming him – quotes Chris Hipkins as saying, in relation to criminal deportees from Australia: “To all intensive purposes many have lived the vast bulk of their lives in Australia.”

Good grief. I imagine that Hipkins actually said "to all intents and purposes" - a phrase perhaps unfamiliar to the reporter. The current generation of journalists, at least on paper, is probably the most educated in history. So why do so many write as if English is their second language?

Why I almost feel sorry for Sterling and Clarkson

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, May 21.)

You will have heard of Donald Sterling. He’s the owner – though probably not for much longer – of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

Sterling sounds a thoroughly unpleasant man. Last month, sports website TMZ released a leaked recording of a private conversation in which the multimillionaire team owner rebuked a close female friend (I’m being delicate in my terminology here) for associating with black sports stars.

The “friend”, V Stiviano, had posted a picture of herself with basketball legend Magic Johnson on the social media site Instagram. Sterling told her it bothered him that she wanted to broadcast the fact that she was associating with black people.

“You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want,” Sterling said. “The little I ask you is ... not to bring them to my games.”

The subsequent uproar reached as far as the White House. Within three days, Adam Silver, the commissar who runs the National Basketball Association (his official title is commissioner, but I think commissar is more appropriate in this context), announced he had banned Sterling from the sport for life, fined him $2.5 million and ordered him to sell the team.

Silver seems to be a man with unlimited powers. I’m surprised Sterling escaped the death penalty, given that it still applies in California.

Okay, you might say; the man is a grotesque old racist. No argument about that. Then why do I feel he’s been wronged?

The reason is that we have crossed an alarming new threshold.

Freedom of speech is already under sustained attack throughout the Western world. In many countries, governments and judges are on a mission to outlaw something called hate speech, which can broadly be defined as the expression of opinions that somebody – usually a member of a supposedly oppressed minority – finds objectionable and wants prohibited.

But to the best of my knowledge, the proponents of hate speech laws have limited their attention – so far, anyway – to statements made or opinions expressed in public. What’s different about the Sterling case is that it concerns something said in private, and to someone he presumably trusted not to repeat it.

This takes things to a new level. There is probably not a person on earth who would want to be held publicly accountable for statements that have been made in private, in the reasonable expectation that their privacy will be respected. But this is what happened to Sterling.

Where will this lead? Does it mean, I wonder, that any high-profile figure is now fair game? Is there no escape from the speech and thought police? Will all prominent people now fret that their private reflections will be surreptitiously recorded on a smartphone and released to the media? Whatever happened to notions of privacy?

As it happens, Sterling’s private beliefs are of little consequence. If he were a politician or public servant with influence over public policy, they might be a matter of legitimate concern. But they are simply the private mutterings of a bigoted old man. To put it bluntly, they are none of the public’s business. 

Seen in this light, the furore was grotesquely disproportionate.

The Sterling affair raises other important questions. What about Stiviano’s role, for example? Assuming it was she who leaked the recording, she committed a flagrant breach of trust and privacy.

On the face of it, her moral compass is every bit as defective as Sterling’s. Yet Stiviano has largely escaped public scrutiny. Presumably an octogenarian real estate tycoon presented a much more satisfying target.

Consider this, too. Even the most loathsome criminals – mass murderers, serial rapists, terrorists – are entitled to a defence. But not Sterling. Commissar Silver effectively tried and sentenced him ex parte, to use a legal term – in other words, without Sterling being given a chance to speak for himself.

That Silver was able unilaterally to fine Sterling $2.5 million, ban him from the sport for life and force him to sell his team, all without any hearing or opportunity for Sterling to speak for himself, is a shocking denial of natural justice.

I’m astonished there wasn’t an outcry. If I were an American, this abuse of power would bother me far more than Sterling’s private thoughts about whether it was right for Stiviano to be photographed with black men.

There are parallels here with the confected outrage that erupted over Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson’s alleged use of the forbidden N-word in the old “eeny, meeny, miney, moe” children’s rhyme.

Like Sterling, Clarkson is not an easy man to feel sorry for. He’s a blowhard who uses humour - admittedly with some skill - to mock and denigrate.  But the uproar over his supposed verbal indiscretion was grossly inflated by tabloid media that love nothing more than to bring down a celebrity.

The alleged offending word was so mumbled as to be indistinct. Clarkson himself denied using it. In any case the footage was never broadcast, which should have been the end of the story. Nonetheless, the tape was leaked – by whom, and for what reason, isn’t clear – and in the ensuing firestorm, Clarkson was condemned as a racist.

Even if he did use the word, does that make him racist? Insensitive, perhaps, and possibly mischievous, given Clarkson’s fondness for juvenile naughty-boy antics – but racist? We all used that rhyme innocently as children. It didn’t make racists out of us.

Clarkson may be a loudmouth, but racism is a far darker thing. As with the Sterling affair, all sense of proportion was lost. We are all too busy taking offence.  

And then there’s Teuila Blakely – another victim of instant moral outrage, although one more deserving of our sympathy than either of the aforementioned men.

A video showing the Shortland Street actress engaging in a sex act with rugby league player Konrad Hurrell was leaked, apparently without Blakeley’s knowledge, on social media.

What Blakely and Hurrell did was a private act by consenting adults. No offence was committed and no one was harmed. But that didn’t prevent a wave of vicious abuse directed at Blakeley, including death threats and exhortations to kill herself. You can always rely on social media to bring out the lynch mob.

Even more bizarrely, a $5000 fine was imposed on Hurrell by his rugby league club for supposedly bringing the game into disrepute.

You’ve got to laugh at that last bit. Driving an opposing player into the ground head first and breaking his neck – now that’s what I call bringing rugby league into disrepute. But the player who did that recently got off with a seven-week ban. It’s good to know the rugby league authorities have got their priorities right.