Jones bites back — in court
Knight didn’t expect his te reo comments to be ‘provocative’
Sir Bob Jones says he never expected his comments around te reo being a dying language to be “provocative”. Jones’ defamation proceedings against film-maker Renae Maihi, set to take two weeks, began in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.
Maihi delivered a petition to Parliament demanding Jones lose his knighthood for the controversial comments, made in Jones’ column in the National Business Review in 2018.
The petition had more than 88,000 signatures yesterday, with more coming in.
Jones had written that there were no full-blooded Ma¯ori left, and if it were not for British immigration none would be alive today.
He suggested Ma¯ori should bring Pa¯keha¯ breakfast in bed, weed their gardens and wash and polish their cars out of gratitude for existing.
In court yesterday, Jones’ lawyer Fletcher Pilditch said Jones was a “prolific author” who had been writing for more than 50 years, often with a “humorous” tone.
The heading on his column said “media gaffes part 2 and flights of fancy”, which Pilditch said was a “clear indicator” of the humour used.
The subheading, “time for a troll” was another indicator of this, he said.
After the petition went public, commenters online called Jones a “turd”, “scum”, “Hitler clone” and “white supremacist”, Pilditch said.
“Some even took the opportunity to describe him as a paedophile.” Such comments and responses to the petition “went on for many months”.
Jones told the court yesterday that he was “astonished” to find out about Maihi’s complaint about his column.
He said she claimed in interviews she couldn’t sleep at night after reading it, and that Jones was advocating for servitude. He said the claims were “preposterous and infantile”.
“I do not hate Ma¯ori or any other race . . . Expressing a view on race or the problems affecting Ma¯ori does not make me a racist.”
Jones said he had “numerous Ma¯ori friends” and children from four different “racial sources”.
He said he contributed time and money to charities benefiting mainly Ma¯ori, helped iwi leaders wanting assistance with settlements, and prompted a book about Ma¯ori heroes. His article was “a harmless joke”. “I find it difficult that anyone with any intelligence could possibly take objection with what I wrote.”
His other section of the column, on making te reo compulsory in schools, was not intended to be provocative.
He spent the afternoon defending many of his other writings and positions on Ma¯ori and racism.
“It’s a very modern phenomenon, this business of racism.”
Maihi’s lawyer, Davey Salmon, said Jones was “quick to decide who’s intelligent and who’s not”.
“You’ve measured it without even meeting Ms Maihi,” Salmon said.
Jones’ lawyer said the petition implied he was a racist and an author of hate speech, and those implications were false and defamatory.
Maihi’s petition read in part: “In signing this petition we urge you, our Prime Minister [to] set a precedent for the country and a message that this will not be tolerated and hate speech of this type is not welcome here.”
Salmon said she was referring to the writing and racist and hate speech, not Jones personally.
In her statement of defence, she said Jones’ column was racist because it was “disparaging, prejudicial and/or discriminatory towards Ma¯ori”. She is relying on a defence of honest opinion, truth and absolute privilege. She earlier reaffirmed her belief that Jones’ remarks constituted “hate speech”.