30 LISTENER FEBRUARY 29 2020
to learn it, learn it – I make no judgment
about that. I just say don’t compel us to. Or
Latin, or French or anything else.
DS: So you see no implications in your
description of learning te reo as ill-consid-
ered romanticism?
RJ: I think it is. I think it’s an accurate
description.
DS: And your expectation is most Māori
would also consider learning any te reo to
be ill-considered romanticism?
RJ: In my view, yes. I think they would
be very silly to waste good learning time,
time being the keyword, not capacity. If they
want to, they should do it.
DS: That’s what you think. Do you think
they will agree with that?
RJ: I have no idea, but I imagine they
probably would. It’s pretty logical, but do it
if you wish to do it, don’t force it on people
... There’s a qualification, that it is compul-
sory. You keep dodging that. I lambasted the
Welsh for this stuff ... a ridiculous language
and the only thing it’s ever contributed is
lovely Christian names for women: Bron-
wyn and the like.”
Jones refused to concede his columns
were designed to provoke readers. If that
was true, he said, Maihi’s petition to revoke
his knighthood would have had five mil-
lion signatures rather than the 65,000 she
originally claimed.
“It went down to 59,000. It seemed to go
backwards, notwithstanding the efforts of
200 women [assisting her].
DS: I’m not talking about ...
RJ: Why aren’t there five million signa-
tures? So, no, I don’t agree. The statistical
evidence is you’re wrong.
DS: You don’t agree that you have been
seen, by some people, as a controversial
voice on issues Treaty and Māori?
RJ: Some people object to everything.
Jones rejected Salmon’s suggestion that
he wrote columns “for a bit of a joust”. He
wrote for his own pleasure, he said.
DS: In any event ... you talk about
introducing Māori Gratitude Day. Now,
every body understands, and you don’t need
to say this again, that you weren’t genuinely
suggesting that Parliament legislates a new
holiday.
RJ: No, I can name one who kept insisting
that I was. [Maihi said] she couldn’t sleep
all night.
DS: Well, that’s your view of what she
said.
RJ: I’m sorry, she did say that. She’s onSTrecord. Not only couldn’t she sleep all
UF
F
JONES v MAIHI
night ...
DS: Let’s park that ...
RJ: Well, you asked if I
knew anybody [who took Māori Gratitude
Day seriously]. Yes, I do. Your client. She
couldn’t sleep at night and she spent two
years saying I advocated servitude, to use
her word.
DS: Do you want to hear my question,
Sir Robert?
RJ: I thought you’d asked it.DS: You then go on to say in place of a
“much-disdained Waitangi Day”, and it’s
those words I want to focus on. Would
you agree that your sentiments, included
implicitly here about Waitangi Day and
about the Treaty of Waitangi, are somewhat
controversial?
RJ: No.
DS: You don’t?
RJ: No.
DS: You consider that your view that the
Treaty of Waitangi is irrelevant and has had
no negative impact on Māori by its breach,
you say that’s not a controversial view?
RJ: No, I don’t think its controversial. I’ve
already pointed out that article recently
in the Economist about the average life oftreaties [being six years]
... I don’t know what eve-
rybody agrees with, but I
don’t think it’s controversial to say that a
180-year-old treaty is now redundant.
DS: You are not just saying it is redun-
dant, you are clear in what you’ve written
and what you’ve said to me today that the
breach caused no harm to modern Māori
... do you regard that as just a potentially
controversial view?
RJ: A lot of these people we’re talking
about – like with socio-economic [implica-
tions] – would never have heard of it. How
do I know that? I had a home at Tūrangi
when I was in my fishing obsession and I
knew a couple of prison guards and they
used to tell me about Māori youths coming
into prison who had never seen or held a
knife and fork and they had to teach them.
I doubt very much if those kids knew about
the Treaty of Waitangi.
DS: Sir Robert, I’m just asking if you know
it to be a somewhat controversial view?
RJ: No, I don’t believe it’s controversial
at all.TREATY BREACHES
Jones said he accepted that there had been
breaches of the treaty “and they can be dealt
with, but now we see the extrapolation of
the Treaty. These are the dangers. This is
what irritates me. To cite one: airwaves. They
weren’t even known about until 45 years
later and so on and so on.”
DS: Can we stick on topic, Sir Robert. You
said the breaches caused no social or eco-
nomic harm to Māori.
RJ: Not 200 years later. You’re makingSalmon said Maihi did
not accept that she
had damaged Jones’reputation, “because his
reputation was generallybad in the aspect to which
the proceedings relate”.Jones said in a statement that
he was “deeply offended” by
Maihi, right, and accepted
that she, too, took genuine
offence at his column.