Wellington city councillor says he’s “never experienced racism until elected to council”

In response to an article published on Scoop about the Wellington City Council lodging its submission on the Treaty Principles Bill, councillor Ray Chung has sent in a comment. We think readers of Better Wellington will find his views very interesting, and somewhat comforting. (Click the link to the Scoop article to read all the comments.)

Ray’s comment is reproduced below in full, from the Scoop website.

I am a born and bred Wellingtonian. I’ve lived here all my life. My parents are Chinese but I am a proud New Zealander and Wellingtonian. I’ve had what I consider a successful career in telecommunications and technology industries, travelled the world working for American, Swedish, German and British companies, including Siemens and Hansaluftbild in Germany, Trimble, Andrew Corporation, Graseby Goring-Kerr and Ericsson, and have managed considerable budgets and sales teams.

Throughout my life, from school to university, a career, travelling the globe including Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and the Middle East, it is hard to believe – ironic, even – that I never experienced racism until I was elected to council. Even more shocking was that those slurs came from people sitting around the same table and who were also elected to represent the city.

The Wellington City Council media statement yesterday (7 January) confirms the submission it has made against the Treaty Principles Bill. It is my proposition that this submission is outside the mandate of the council. Democracy is important and I respect the rights of individual councillors to make whatever submission they wish to make on government policy. My position in no way undermines the Takai Here agreement the council signed with local iwi.

To suggest that the council must make a submission because the Resource Management Act or the Local Government Act has Treaty provisions within them is a huge obfuscation of the issue.

Such considerations aside, I never expected that my view on the matter would have elicited such an abusive and unreasonable response from councillor Teri O’Neill. In response to my argument, Ms. O’Neill made the following statement and looked at me and my fellow councillor Tony Randle while saying it:  “It is sinister to pretend that your opposition to the submission is anything other than racist.”

The fact Ms. O’Neill considers my opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill submission as “racist”  is clear indication that Ms. O’Neill believes that I am racist. After all, only a racist could make a “racist” suggestion. But not once did she argue against my position that such a submission falls outside of core council business.

I’ve always viewed such abusiveness and slurs as the last refuge of a weak argument. Slander is the tool used by fools when they know the debate is lost. It is then that they deploy words like “racist” or “Nazi”.

The Mayor, Tory Whanau, defended Ms. O’Neill on Newstalk ZB, saying she “never called anyone racist.” That’s a reinterpretation of events if ever I heard it. But then the Mayor has some form in these matters, for example, refusing to condemn remarks by the unelected iwi representative Liz Kelly who disparaged Filipino workers at Wellington Water as being “seasonal workers” and taking away jobs from Kiwis and refused to apologise when Wellington Water said they were highly qualified Water Engineers.

Too many councils in New Zealand engage in issues that are beyond their remit. The recent decision by the Nelson City Council to sanction Israeli companies operating in Palestine is a case in point. None of these issues are, in my opinion, matters for council involvement. Cultural politics and identity politics don’t belong around the council table.

What I am focussing on for my constituents is to ensure that Wellington city remains an affordable place for them to live. Double digit rates increases are not acceptable to the vast majority of residents. Whether they are property owners or whether they’re renters who will have the increase passed onto them in the way of rent increases. The ideological demands from the majority of city councillors that have led to the rates increases are the same factors that drove Ms. O’Neill to call me a racist.

My duty is to the ratepayers of Wellington. Those who pay for the services provided by the council. I don’t know what all ratepayers and residents think about the Bill or whether the council should make a submission. I suspect their views are as widely varied as the coffee you get around Wellington these days.