This morning Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill interviewed a fellow radio personality – Radio Pacific’s “Banksie”, retiring National MP for Whangarei and former Police Minister Hon. John Banks. As usual Kim did not take too long to cut to the chase.

Banks, an otherwise almost likeable caricature of yob, has been a talk back host pretty much full time for several years now. He however has one blind spot in particular which many in Wellington find grating – especially in light of his loud exclamations on the strength of his Christianity.

Kim Hill: So what your views about homosexuality. Are you a bigot? (this is not the precise phrasing but roughly what was said albeit a little more delicately.)

John Banks: It is legal now. I do not support it. I am glad it is not compulsory. But while I do not support it, I do not condemn homosexuals.

Hill: : That’s a little bit like saying individual Jews are okay?

Banks: No I wouldn’t say that. I now respect people with different views to me. I couldn’t and didn’t when I first became a member of Parliament but now I can?

Hill : Why have you changed. Fatherhood?

Banks: Could be.

Could this perhaps mean a new softer Banksie?

Kim let him off relatively lightly Scoop is inclined to think.

Scoop readers’ and “Banksie” listeners’ views on Banksie are invited and should be sent to editor@scoop.co,.nz.

Should Radio Pacific keep him on now he is leaving Parliament? Has he lost any cachet now he is no longer in the house on the hill?

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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