Daily Telegraph NZ: Ditching Paul Hunt a good start, but not enough to fix the HRC – Act

“The Justice Minister’s decision not to reappoint Paul Hunt is a good start, but doesn’t go far enough to acknowledge the Human Rights Commission’s rot,” says Act MP Todd Stephenson.

Mike Butler: Blaming racism for incarceration

Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell is still alleging police, courts, and Corrections racism for the high rate of incarceration of Maori and has got a visiting United Nations delegation to go along with his story. Flavell raised the issue about a year ago when told parliament that “for the 3495 theft apprehensions recorded as Caucasian there were 588 prosecutions; and for Maori, for the 5660 apprehensions recorded, 1173 resulted in prosecution—in other words, prosecution rates of 16.8 percent versus 20.7 percent”.

Flavell went on to claim that “if a Maori teen and a pakeha teen are apprehended for the same crime, the young Maori is more likely to be prosecuted while the Pakeha youth is more likely to get off. Does this not raise questions of fairness and of discrimination in those people who would be sceptical of institutional racism?”