
Chris Bishop's Comments During Stan Walker's Performance Have ‘No Place' At Aotearoa Music Awards
At Auckland's Viaduct Events Centre on Thursday night Bishop was captured on video declaring 'what a load of crap' during Walker's performance, which prominently featured Toitū Te Tiriti banners.
Some people in front of him were on their feet dancing and waving tino rangatiratanga flags.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the producers said they were committed to creating a 'safe, respectful and inclusive environment' and that these 'expectations were clearly communicated to all who attended the event'.
'The inappropriate comments made by Hon. Chris Bishop during Stan Walker's performance have no place at the Aotearoa Music Awards,' the statement read.
'The Awards respect and honour te ao Māori and we were proud to support Stan with his vision for his powerful rendition of Māori Ki Te Ao.'
In a statement to RNZ, Bishop admitted he said 'what a lot of crap' and something about performative acclaim. He said it referred to what he called the overtly political branding on display.
Renowned musician Don McGlashan was seen on the video confronting Bishop, but McGlashan said he did not realise at first that it was the minister.
'I could hear an enormous amount of ranting, kind of against the whole thing. I didn't get the full gist of it, but it was basically – 'the hīkoi is ages ago, sit down everybody' – so this geezer was just ranting away and telling everybody to sit down,' McGlashan said.
'After a while, I turned to him and said 'Ah, shut up you dickhead' and I looked at him and I thought, 'Oh, I know that face'. Then he said, 'What did you say to me?''.
McGlashan said that he again told Bishop to ''shut up you dickhead', and he said, 'I could say the same to you,' and I said, 'Well, I wasn't talking and you were.' And then I realised I was talking to the leader of the House'.
Another witness said the minister appeared to them to be drunk.
'For him to take an instant dis-gratification towards Toitū Te Tiriti and that movement and to say that it's a load of crap is actually highly offensive. I'm very worried for somebody of high power in this country to be making those sorts of remarks in public,' they said.
Bishop has since acknowledged his comments were poorly judged, telling RNZ: 'On reflection, I should have kept my thoughts to myself.'
However, he has denied making specific remarks about the hīkoi – the protest marches that have taken place across Aotearoa in support of upholding the Treaty of Waitangi – and has suggested the backlash amounts to a 'political smear job'.
'Chris is a long-time supporter of New Zealand music and went to the Awards to celebrate successful Kiwi artists,' a spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has declined to comment further, with his office saying the PM had nothing to add to Bishop's statement.
David Seymour defended Bishop shortly after he was sworn in as deputy prime minister on Saturday.
'Just because you become a senior minister, it doesn't mean you should stop having opinions,' Seymour said.
'It might well be that, based on what Chris saw in that moment, he was correct. It may be that people will agree with him.'
Seymour said he believed New Zealanders would draw their own conclusions.
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Newsroom
2 hours ago
- Newsroom
Attorney-General rules her own Govt's voting crackdown breaches human rights
Electoral law restrictions announced last week are in breach of the Bill of Rights Act, Attorney-General Judith Collins KC says in a report belatedly disclosed to Parliament. She indicates more than 100,000 people may be directly or indirectly disenfranchised by rules banning enrolment in the final 13 days before an elections. Young people, and areas with larger Māori, Asian and Pasifika communities, are likely to be worst affected. Denying voters the political franchise is a heavy price to pay, she says, when there are alternative, less restrictive measures that could have addressed the same problem of speeding up the vote count. But Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has hit back. 'Allowing late enrolments, however well intentioned, has placed too much strain on the system,' he tells Newsroom. 'I don't accept that we are disenfranchising people by requiring that they are first enrolled. Many countries do this, such as Australia.' Professor Andrew Geddis, at the University of Otago, says the Bill of Rights notice ought to have been attached to the bill when it was presented, according to the wording of section 7 of the Bill of Rights Act. This would have allowed ministers to be asked about it, when the proposal first came out. 'However, it doesn't seem to have been,' he says. 'Instead, it quietly went up on the Ministry of Justice website just in time for the weekend.' 'Heavy price' for administrative convenience In its Regulatory Impact Statement, the Ministry of Justice did not recommend the option of closing enrolment earlier. 'Its impact on reducing special votes is uncertain, while its impact on democratic participation could be significant,' officials said. The Attorney-General's Bill of Rights inconsistency notice goes further, concluding the proposal for a 13-day registration deadline appears to constitute an unjustified limit on section 12 of the Bill of Rights Act, which says every New Zealand citizen aged 18-plus has the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. 'The accepted starting-point is the fundamental importance of the right to vote within a liberal democracy,' she says. 'A compelling justification is required to limit that right.' Citing Electoral Commission and Ministry of Justice data, she says about 3400 people would have their eligibility to vote directly affected by the law change. These include people returning from overseas after being away for an extended time, and people who become New Zealand residents or are released from prison during the registration period. But many more will have their right to vote indirectly affected, by being in effect excluded from the franchise by the practicalities of the operation of a 13-day pre-election registration deadline. There has been an expectation, since 1993, that electors can register as late as the day before polling day, or more recently, on polling day. Indeed, the trend (with accompanying publicity campaigns) has been towards greater flexibility as to when people may register to vote. In the 2023 general election, the special votes included more than 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. 'This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected, and the farther out the registration deadline from polling day, the greater the disenfranchising impact is likely to be.' There were other options the Government could have embraced, Collins says, that would impose 'less onerous limits on the right to vote'. For instance, it could have reverted to a deadline of the day before election day (which was the rule from 1993 to 2020) or a deadline of three, five or seven days before polling day. The notice to Parliament also finds the announced law changes breach the rights of sentenced prisoners, by reinstating a ban on them voting. For most of New Zealand's history, sentenced prisoners have been denied the right to vote. In 1975, the Rowling Labour government gave them the vote but that enfranchisement was brief – the National government repealed it two years later. The Electoral Act 1993 allowed for a limited prisoner franchise, though those serving a a sentence of three or more years were excluded. That was repealed in 2010. Then in 2020, the Ardern Labour Government restored prisoners' ability to vote, after jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor took a successful case to the Supreme Court. Like the Attorney-General, the court said the ban was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. Goldsmith has now announced it will (again) be repealed. And he isn't wavering, in the face of the Attorney-General's notice. 'Citizenship brings rights and responsibilities,' he says. He rejects the inclusion of prisoners' rights in the Bill of Rights Act. 'People who breach those responsibilities to the extent that they are sentenced to jail temporarily lose some of their rights, including the right to vote.' Speeding up the vote count On the wider matter of when people are allowed to enrol, the law says an eligible voter can enrol right up to and including election day, at any voting place in New Zealand. According to public advice from the Electoral Commission, if people enrol early, then voting will be faster. The commission says that those who enrol before Writ Day (about a month before election day) will have their names on the printed electoral roll at the voting place. They'll also be mailed an EasyVote card, making it faster for the person issuing voting papers to find them on the roll. 'You can still enrol after Writ Day – but you may need to fill in an extra form when you go to vote.' Goldsmith justifies barring people from voting if they don't enrol more than 13 days out from election day, saying it should enable votes to be counted faster. 'The final vote count used to take two weeks – last election it took three,' he says. 'If we leave things as they are, it could likely take even longer. 'If you want to vote, you need to be enrolled. People have a whole year to get organised. I have every confidence New Zealanders can manage.' Ockers and 'drop kicks' Goldsmith says many countries require people to be enrolled before voting. Australia required people to be enrolled 26 days before the last election, and before 2020, New Zealanders were not able to enrol on election day. 'Those people were not disenfranchised, they were simply required to be enrolled. It is not difficult.' However, the Attorney-General points out the High Court of Australia has ruled on a voter registration deadline that departed from previous settings. She endorses that court's comments, that restricting the impact on the franchise of restricting the voter registration period is a 'heavy price'. Delivering a 2010 judgment on behalf of a seven-member panel of the High Court, Chief Justice Robert French had said the heavy price imposed on the constitutional mandate was disproportionate to the benefits of a smoother and more efficient electoral system, to which the amendments were directed. Last week, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said only 'drop kicks' enrolled late to vote. Goldsmith reiterates his unhappiness with the Act leader's comment. 'I said last week, Mr Seymour's comment was unhelpful. The purpose of the change, and a large number of other changes, is to take pressure off the system, so that the Electoral Commission can do its job effectively and efficiently.'


NZ Herald
5 hours ago
- NZ Herald
L.A.B., Stan Walker team up for outdoor summer gigs in NZ and Gold Coast
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Otago Daily Times
6 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Luxon defends voting changes
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