False advertising
It’s deviously intelligent and intelligently devious. It also pollutes New Zealand’s political discourse. It’s National’s Iwi/Kiwi billboard, which suggests Labour has given beaches to iwi, and National would restore them to Kiwi ownership. Quite apart from the fact that this suggests, as Steve Maharey points out, that members of iwi aren’t Kiwis, the billboard is quite simply false advertising. It’s a bald-faced lie.
Which is what lead Richard Green (oh, what an appropriate name), a treaty educator and the Green Party’s candidate for the Auckland electorate of New Lynn to lay a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority. As Richard says:
National is trying to imply that Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Legislation ‘gave’ Iwi the beaches, when the opposite is actually true. Labour in fact vested full ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, confiscating Iwi customary rights.
These billboards are misleading and continue the Maori bashing Don Brash seems so fond of. As a Kiwi I find it despicable that he is doing it in my name.
He’s also laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, alleging that the billboard:
- incites racial tension through misinformation;
- isolates by race a group for political gain;
- creates and encourages racial division
The complaints are an attempt to call a lie a lie, because it’s very seldom that the media are willing to do that. As Nandor says in this NZPA story:
Politicians have to be held to account when they say things that simply aren’t true.
July 2nd, 2005 at 4:44 pm
I can’t see anywhere that the billboard talks about ownership. And it is indisputable that Labour have legislated to give Iwi special rights in relations to many beaches.
July 2nd, 2005 at 5:53 pm
yeah fwwogs in whats way iwi nots kiwi .. even the jester splicing the gene see that maori mainstream nz .. you seeings visions agains .. the bad oils in the swamps in yo eyes fwwogs .. we gostta help yo quick .. the tryrants say you just deads carbon
July 2nd, 2005 at 6:04 pm
David
It is true that the perception is that labour has done this. We know differently though, because it is the treaty ITSELF that provides the basis for their having “special rights in relation to the beaches”… and a lot of other things.
The sooner we face the music the better. The Treaty divides us by race. It does this even as it unites us under the crown. It does ALL of what it does in the most maddeningly ambiguous language that any lawyer ever had wet-dreams about. It is a triumph built on a disaastrous foundation and it needs to be turned into a legitimate basis for government.
As it stands the treaty makes Pakeha and Maori adversaries in a courtroom. To make us partners in self-government will take profound changes. I might suggest some, but this isn’t the right place to do it. A Constitutional Convention might be an appropriate venue (hint hint).
The point of the billboard is easily taken by any Pakeha. Don’t pick nits. The divisive nature of the thing is obvious and we all know the issue of ownership of the beaches was the topic.
I have to say this leaves a bad taste after the election in the USA during which the right drove similar wedges into the heart of the nation and divided us so completely. Perhaps national thinks to emulate that tactic. Kiwis are smarter than Americans (I hope). Making that comparison might wake a few of them up, and I believe, if done well, we can make the purveyors of that simplistic billboard message regret the day they created it.
respectfully
BJ
July 2nd, 2005 at 9:38 pm
Firstly, in no way dopes it suggest that members of Iwi are not also Kiwis. Say someone were to say the government had been hijacked by ’special interests’, then to maintain that logic you should criticise that person for saying ’special interests are not kiwis’. That’s not what’s it’s saying. It’s a classic example of a equals b but b does not necessarily equal a. Iwi members are kiwis, but all kiwis are not members of an iwi.
Secondly, Farrar point out it does not mention ownership… and he is correct. The billboard is simply pointing out that Labour favours iwi by providing them the means to control to beaches more than National would, which is correct. As opposed to criticising the advertising, the Greens should criticise National’s policy, which usurps the rule of law and is reactionary beyond belief.
July 2nd, 2005 at 9:38 pm
Note: They should also criticise Labour’s policy for the same reason.
July 2nd, 2005 at 11:10 pm
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November 12th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Thanks for the insights. Very good read even though it’s been a few years since the incident…
November 12th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The Advertising Standards Authority will most likely look at how the general public perceived the message, not the splitting of hairs.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Pretty interesting. The laws probably aren’t the same as they are here in the States, but it seems the reaction is quite serious.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
So what was the result of these two complaints?