A Breach Of Law By de Bres?

ACT New Zealand Justice Spokesman Stephen Franks today said that Attorney General Margaret Wilson should be trying to sack Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres, for his attack on Dr Brash's Orewa speech - as reported in today's Dominion Post.

"Mr de Bres is a reverse racist. He inflames public debate, instead of promoting understanding of the Treaty with facts - but I know she wont sack him," Mr Franks said.

"Mr de Bres was her choice. He peddles her `newspeak', which calls anyone who opposes race discrimination and privilege a `racist'. Ms Wilson's Human Rights Commission has become a funnel for taxpayer-funded Labour treaty propaganda, and he's delivering it.

"I'm not complaining though - de Bres reveals Labour's intellectual dishonesty. For example, he thinks that feudal customary rights for Maori alone, over the beaches, is not separatist because not all Maori will get to exercise them. On that reasoning, a `whites only' Springbok rugby team was not separatist, because only a few young men got to play, not all whites. Men like me, and fatties and women, were just as excluded as the blacks and coloureds - so de Bres thought that was okay? I don't think so!

"Dr Brash's speech has been crying out for analysis by a dispassionate authority - just what the Race Relations Conciliator was set up to be. Dr Brash, for example, deplores the exclusive Maori privileges in the new Local Government Act. Why did de Bres not endorse ACT and National's concern that all Maori get trump rights over elected councillors? These race rights substitute for earlier council arrangements with local iwi, as descendants of the earliest residents. Only naked racism gives Ngai Tahu and Ngati Porou in Wellington, recent outsiders from far away, equal rights with local iwi, and more rights than all their pakeha neighbours.

"Nevertheless, if it wasn't for the political sleaziness of setting an activist on a government salary to attack the Opposition, Dr Brash should welcome a savaging from de Bres. I'd feel honoured by one. Mr de Bres helps ensure the Human Rights Commission has no clout. Ordinary people can dismiss it with contempt, though sadly, association tarnishes genuine human rights. There is no official body standing up for rights like free speech, paid for in the blood of heroes - but the Human Rights Commission lost that mission years ago.

"Mr de Bres appears to have tumbled in to the law trap Ms Wilson set for earlier Race Relations Conciliators. Rajan Prasad and Greg Fortuin embarrassed the Government by being too independent. Mr Prasad made the mistake of highlighting the Prime Minister's racist presumption against the Police after the Waitara shooting. So Ms Wilson's law changes in 2002 merged the offices, and put the race relations budget under the Human Rights Commission's control. Sections 15 and 16 then carefully tell the Race Relations Commissioner he must `act jointly with the Chief Commissioner' in matters of race relations, and in case that wasn't clear enough, the `act jointly' instruction is repeated in the Chief Commissioner's job description.

"The Commission as a whole has avoided getting drawn in to the debate over Brash's speech. Their website has no trace of the views now reported from de Bres. It seems that de Bres has been on a frolic on his own. Spouting unilaterally on this topic seems likely to be outside his powers. If so, Ms Wilson would have reason to act. She can try asking the Governor General to remove him for neglect of duty or misconduct. If she leaves him he will do more damage, but at least most of it is to her own cause," Mr Franks said.

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