Holocaust remark sets Race Relations Office's phones ringing

By AUDREY YOUNG

Race relations conciliator Dr Rajen Prasad has received five complaints about Tariana Turia's "holocaust" speech.

Dr Prasad says he is not sure if the speech damaged race relations "but it certainly doesn't help."

He is concerned at the heat being generated in discussions relating to Maori-Pakeha relationships.

He may decide to seek a meeting with the associate Minister of Maori Affairs, as he did in 1996 when he received complaints about the Waitangi Tribunal's use of "holocaust" in its Taranaki report, and sought a formal meeting with the tribunal.

He found then that, on its own, the term did not reach the threshold of inciting racial disharmony.

But he told the tribunal: "Those people who are in positions of power and influence ought to use language that doesn't exacerbate the relationship among Maori and Pakeha of today."

Dr Prasad said he would weigh the right of free speech against the extent to which the speech possibly incited racial disharmony.

Mrs Turia on Tuesday described the experience of Maori under colonisation as a "holocaust."

She told a psychologists' conference that Maori violence was a result of "post colonial traumatic stress disorder" - self-hatred caused by negative images Maori had of themselves, which were a consequence of the images that colonial oppressors held of them.

Dr Prasad expressed concern at the use of some terms.

"The way in which the discussion is now being raised in terms of colonisation and holocaust triggers guilt in Pakeha New Zealanders. That's unhelpful. Guilt is unhelpful."

Mrs Turia's speech was quite reasonable on one level, he said. She was saying in order to understand her, you needed to understand her past, and that some of that past had been quite damaging.

"However, there certainly has been a predictable response when it is likened to the [Jewish] holocaust."

Debate had to be handled carefully.

"We must anticipate the reaction and we must gauge whether or not it is going to be productive or counter-productive."

Discussions relating to the relationship between Maori and Pakeha "need to be discussed far more carefully and the ground needs to be prepared far more comprehensively for us to enter those discussions positively."

New Zealanders believed in "the decent society and elimination of inequalities."

"Any reasonable efforts by the state to do this generally receive widespread public support."

But, at present, the manner in which New Zealand was discussing the experience of Maori or the attempts to address the inequalities "seems to be raising the heat when you expect much more of a calming, positive influence."

He believes the reason is that the ground had not been properly prepared.

"We haven't provided high quality data.

"We haven't posed it in a manner that's inclusive, that enables people to think about it positively, in a manner that makes whatever solutions we are coming up with self-evident."

That was a task for those stating the problem or solutions, including the Government, policy providers, commentators and the news media.

Mrs Turia is attending a family tangi and has declined all comment since giving the speech, but she is to meet Prime Minister Helen Clark on Monday.