Dr David Lillis: On the Quality of Opinion Pieces in Our Media

State Your Case but Leave Out the Ad Hominem

Many of us read with interest a piece by Sir Ian Taylor, published in Stuff of 10 June (Taylor, 2025). This particular article is about Mr. David Seymour, leader of the Act Party and current Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand. Clearly, Sir Ian disagrees with Mr. Seymour on various political and social issues and he is quite at liberty to do so. However, this piece generated a degree of negative reaction amongst many within my own circle of friends and associates, even among those who do not necessarily support the Act Party.

Surely, in order to engage in constructive dialogue, we should confine our published opinions to stating our case, outlining the objective reasons as to why we hold particular views, and explaining the bases on which we disagree with others on critical issues. Unfortunately, all too often opinion pieces in our mainstream media appear to be calculated to undermine those with whom we disagree or else to ascribe to them unkind intentions that are actually not real. And this is quite apart from the very strong left wing media bias that surely must be evident to almost everyone in this country.

Sir Ian is to be congratulated most sincerely for his undoubtedly well-deserved success as founder and managing director of Animation Research. By any standard, his career represents a spectacular achievement that reflects very positively on his business acumen and his undoubted commitment, perseverance and determination. Perhaps, partly on the basis of his business success, over recent years Sir Ian has become something of an advocate and commentator for social justice, especially in relation to Māori. Again, he is to be lauded on taking the initiative on what he believes in most strongly.

However, was it strictly necessary to write the following?

Like many, I was distracted by the sequins. The man who tangoed into our living rooms on Dancing with the Stars. More jester than artist. A novelty act in lycra. But back then we kept him in the game long after the judges had given up on him. And we’ve done it again. We’ve allowed Seymour to dance his way into the second most powerful position in the country...

Innocuous perhaps, and some people will find all of this quite funny, but it takes neither intellect nor courage to write ill-mannered or condescending prose that diminishes others. Unfortunately, New Zealand’s left wing media is most happy to publish such pieces and there is a ready audience for such material. But, to many of us, such text constitutes yet more argumentum ad hominem; once again intending to undermine the credibility of another person, rather than engaging in rational exchange of perspectives. To quote one of our recent Prime Ministers – this is not who we are! Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Argumentum Ad Hominem

Argumentum ad hominem is Latin for "argument to the person”, whereby an opinion or argument is dismissed on the basis of the character or subjective qualities of the person holding the opinion or making the argument, rather than on the content of the argument itself.

Further . . .

This was classic Seymour. Sharp, certain, self-congratulatory, and completely at odds with the world we see unravelling around us.

OK. Mr. Seymour is a public figure and every such individual learns to accept criticism, vilification and becoming the object of sometimes pernicious satire. Undoubtedly, Mr. Seymour is quite capable of defending himself. But I see nothing self-congratulatory about Mr. Seymour. Many of us happen to believe that New Zealand needs Mr. Seymour, just as we need others on the opposite side of the parliamentary floor to articulate equal and opposite perspectives. Out of such disparate views may sometimes emerge a positive way forward.

In any case New Zealand is a nation that up to the last few years has supported free speech – though today free speech is under genuine threat. Thus we accept Sir Ian’s right to parody a public figure, provided that he does not stray beyond certain limits that include defamation, incitement to violence or hate speech. Indeed, Sir Ian has very prudently constrained his words to lie within those bounds. However, in that same context of freedom of expression and the right to hold personal and sometimes unpopular views, many people agree with Mr. Seymour on many things, but especially on the Treaty Principles Bill (Lillis, 2024) – a Bill that clearly worried Sir Ian and many others.

The Treaty Principles Bill

However, any claim that the Treaty Principles Bill would have undermined particular populations in New Zealand does not stack up to scrutiny. Those of us who supported that Bill did not intend to undermine anyone. Rather it was the exact opposite. We were and still are concerned about overreach. We worry about what seems like unceasing demands for privilege that are based on ancestry, but for one ethnic and cultural group almost exclusively.

We worry about . . .

Demands for political and economic powers that are grossly in excess of the relative presence of one ethnic and cultural group in New Zealand’s total population.

Demands for parts of the conservation estate and ownership of much of water, including reticulated water and the foreshore and seabed.

Demands that one cultural world view was to sit centrally to each and every subject within the national curricula at every level; curricula that were indeed to be forced on each and every child, regardless of ethnicity, religion or country of origin, and on each and every school.

Demands that our universities should be indigenized in accordance with one minority world view only.

Demands that our universities deliver compulsory courses that are based on one interpretation of a certain historic document and one particular minority world view.

Demands for special treatment in education and health, and an extremely dominant presence in our Health Act – the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022.

Demands that one historic document and one ethnic and cultural group should have prominence in the mission statements and constitutions of our regulatory bodies.

Demands that one form of folk medicine should exist outside relevant health legislation.

Demands that one traditional world view only should sit within the wider ambit of New Zealand law.

Demands for special treatment in research funding and a further demand for equal funding for one form of traditional knowledge and modern science - but not for other knowledge systems.

Demands for equality of status between one form of traditional knowledge and modern global science.

Demands that appointees to many positions of influence within our universities and public service should have particular ancestry or, at least, should demonstrate adherence to a particular interpretation of one historic document.

A media that willingly publishes traditional knowledge claims that have no scientific basis, but that refuses to publish the countermanding responses of scientists.

Expectations that one ethnic and cultural group only can behave with arrogance, rudeness and belligerence, demonstrating genuine contempt for our Parliament.

The above list is incomplete but sometimes seems almost endless.

Sir Ian should read the Healthy Futures Act and see for himself. There, the word “Māori” appears 473 times across 84 sections – though some of these mentions do relate to the disestablishing of the Māori Health Authority. By comparison, Pacific people, whose health indices are actually worse than those of Māori (Lillis, 2023), appear only 18 times. We see no mention at all of either our Asian people or our New Zealand European people or other populations, for that matter. This is the kind of overreach that bothers many New Zealanders, and such overreach explains partly why we supported the Treaty Principles Bill in the first place.

Sir Ian asserts that, beneath its bland title, the Bill can be used to strike out laws that honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, protect the environment, or support collective wellbeing. Apart from questions on what it means to honour a document of two centuries into the past, and when and where it may or may not be appropriate to do so, surely we could make equivalent claims about almost any possible legislation or other social or political initiative.

Addressing Disparity and Poverty

I fully endorse Sir Ian’s commitment to social justice and we should listen when he speaks of failures that see thousands of children in New Zealand living below the poverty line; children going to school hungry, or not going at all. Children sleeping in cars, or with grandparents. Reports of some as young as eleven, living homeless in the streets.

These things are real but successive governments, both right and left, have struggled over many decades to address poverty and disparity. Nevertheless what Mr. Seymour tell us is also true – that, as a general rule, people have never lived this long, been this happy, this healthy, this free from violence, this prosperous and well nourished. Surely Mr. Seymour is correct when he says that liberalism has won and that the task ahead is to keep expanding those spheres of liberty. Much work is yet to be done to close the existing gaps and improve the quality of life for all New Zealanders, and surely everyone who comments on political or social issues, including Sir Ian and most of New Zealand’s political parties, are attempting in their own way to achieve equality of opportunity and social justice.

A Sense of Humour or Something Else?

Perhaps Sir Ian elicited laughs around the country from the following:

Seymour must have known his Treaty Principles Bill was going nowhere. His dancing partners in the coalition had made that clear. But this is where Seymour performs best. I believe the Bill was his lycra outfit, costing taxpayers millions, but meant to distract us from the real prize: the Regulatory Standards Bill.

An innocent, tongue-in-cheek, jibe at a public figure?! Perhaps so. It is not exactly nasty, nor defamatory, and possibly Mr. Seymour himself sees the joke. But it seems to many of us that this sort of journalism is inherently negative. It offers nothing constructive and seeks to undermine rather than to persuade.

And, on the day his colleagues clashed in the chamber over the Te Pāti Māori haka ruling, Seymour, the man who lit this particular fire, had left the tent. He was on a new dance floor at Oxford University, in the land of Queen Victoria, the Crown’s signatory to Te Tiriti, dancing his Treaty Tango.

OK. More humour! Indeed, free speech of a kind! And maybe is it naïve to think that in politics we must always be gentle and kind. Perhaps in the real world of the public square kindness and civility are often a weakness. However, does this sort of discourse help us to repair old wounds, heal fractures or address inequality?

Here we recall an old adage, attributed originally to Oscar Wilde – that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence. However, it takes no intellect at all, nor courage, to deride or caricature other human beings, especially when we are fully confident of a receptive audience.

Sir Ian poses a rhetorical question - when the music stops, who will be left to face the consequences? Surely, we are already facing the consequences of several years of Treaty overreach. A more polarised society than at any time in living memory. A Public Service that appears almost to have forgotten the quarter of our population that is neither Māori nor European. An education system that up to now has been in long term decline. These things and much more.

Those who articulate cynical opinions about other people, and indeed those who publish such material, should take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves whether what they do is truly for the betterment of this country.

Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics.

References

Lillis, David (2023). Our Prioritised Health System and Pacific People 
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/01/david-lillis-our-prioritised-health.html

Lillis, David (2024). A View on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill 
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2024/12/david-lillis-view-on-principles-of.html

Taylor, Ian (2025). Seymour’s rise to the second seat with power far beyond his mandate
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360716927/ian-taylor-seymours-rise-second-seat-power-far-beyond-his-mandate?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email