by Paul Henry
At the same time, I was told by a couple of Labour MPs that they almost pissed themselves laughing when they heard it. And when they found out there was talk of a complaint they put the kibosh on it very quickly. It would have made them look ridiculous. It’s called humour!
Another political complaint that never made it all the way involved Murray McCully as Foreign Minister. Because the political talent pool is so small and the expectations are so low he a) has the job, and b) is seen to be doing it adequately. If Winston Peters and Murray McCully can do a good job as Foreign Minister, who couldn’t? Why don’t they get Susan Boyle? To me Murray represented everything that was wrong with National being in government. Here he was again, back at the top after all these years, shuffling around in those suits. I always used to refer to him as silly old Murray McCully, even when I was interviewing John Key.
‘Are you going to get Winston back or will silly old Murray McCully be Minister of Foreign Affairs?’ I asked, and he didn’t pull me up on it, which was to become something of a habit with him.
Murray McCully wasn’t happy, however. He is also much smarter than George Hawkins. He recognised it was going to be hard having a go at me over the use of ‘silly’, but he complained about the use of ‘old’, based on the fact that he was only marginally older than me. He was able to get some mileage out of the complaint but it didn’t go to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. He did have a point re our similar age.
I think I have the record for generating more BSA complaints than anyone, but I don’t have the record for complaints being upheld, because I knew where the lines were drawn. You can cross a line in good taste or good judgement, and I frequently did, long before you cross a line that will get you into legal trouble. The best broadcasting takes place on the line.
I hope that anyone who has bought — or probably borrowed — this book hoping to read what I have to say about things like the Greenpeace spokeswoman Stephanie Mills’ moustache ‘affair’ and then scorn my ‘attempts to justify’ such incidents will be disappointed. I don’t need to justify anything. If any of those people has a genuine interest in being informed, I would encourage them to go online and look for the original broadcasts where they will invariably find that what happened differed considerably from what was reported.
The occasion on which I upset some homosexuals by saying that it was ‘not natural’ for gays to adopt children is typical. Most reports ended there. They did not add that I backed it up. I said same sex adoption is not natural because it does not occur in the animal kingdom. I went on to say that homosexuality itself is perfectly natural, and I know that because it is displayed widely in other species. I talked about animals that I know for a fact have been caught in homosexual acts. My point was that you can’t argue with the way nature organises things.
The people who complained did not want me to be reasonable. They wanted to have their own prejudices reinforced.
I must, however, since they were front-page news for months — not days or weeks, but months — and led to my resignation, discuss my on-air comments about Sheila Dikshit and Anand Satyanand.
Sheila Dikshit is the chief minister of Delhi and has a funny name. No one can deny it is a funny name. Attempts at such denial are futile. Nor will I attempt to deny that I made fun of it on air. Many of the people who purported to be incensed by what I said, I know, had themselves made fun of it privately. How could you resist? I made fun of it because it made me laugh and because it wound up our Breakfast newsreader Peter Williams. The humour inherent in the name was magnified for me because at the time she was having to front up to defend Delhi’s preparedness for the Commonwealth Games, when there were reports that the plumbing facilities were less than ideal.
There were murmurings of complaint after my comments and members of the BSA had to wake up and take a call or two, but that was it.
Many people, including Peter Williams, claimed that the name was pronounced Dicks-it. It is not. In any news video from India that involves her, the name is clearly pronounced Dick-shit. Australia’s Sunrise programme had noticed what an interesting name Ms Dikshit had some time earlier. They interviewed her and at the end of the interview, the journalist said, ‘Can you just tell me how you pronounce your name?’
‘Sheila,’ she says, ‘as in Sheila, dick shit.’
‘Can you say that again?’
‘Dick shit.’
I did not — never have and never would — deliberately mispronounce her name for comic effect. I didn’t need to.
Timid non-Indian news organisations, among them TVNZ, insist on mispronouncing her name to avoid the comedy inherent in it. I think that’s hugely insulting. One of the basics of journalism is to get people’s names right. To deliberately mispro nounce a person’s name because it is unpalatable is offensive.
I got a lot of feedback about this and a surprising amount of it was from Indian people telling me that they had been laughing at her name for years.
It would almost certainly have been tossed on the pile with my other alleged misdemeanours from over the years had I not asked the Prime Minister, John Key, some days later about selecting a new Governor-General when Sir Anand Satyanand’s term came to an end.
‘Is he even a New Zealander?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?’ It was a cheeky way of asking what sort of person he was looking for.
When TVNZ PR person Andi Brotherston said in the following days, unhelpfully as it turned out, ‘Paul says what a lot of people think but don’t say’, she was actually close to the mark. A lot of people don’t register that someone of Indian descent and with an Indian name is a New Zealander. I am not one of those people but I wanted in my roundabout way to point out that this was a point of view that existed in the community.
Of course I know that Governors-General now have to be born in New Zealand. I wasn’t saying that Sir Anand wasn’t a New Zealander or that he wasn’t fit to be Governor-General.
I thought no more about it until I heard some talk on the radio about the fact that I was a racist because I had said that unless someone looked and sounded exactly like me they weren’t a New Zealander. This person claimed I wouldn’t countenance a woman as Governor-General, which was doubly ironic because had we not run out of time I was going to give the PM my short list for the position, at the top of which was the Auckland City Missioner Dianne Robertson, for whom I have an enormous amount of respect and admiration. I assume she is a New Zealander. I think someone who gives their life to helping the destitute and homeless, and has smarts, is just what we need as Governor-General.
As usual most of the people who expressed strong opinions about what I had said hadn’t seen the broadcast. As far as TVNZ was concerned, in the early stages of reaction there was not a lot to worry about. I had never been sat down at any time and asked to tone things down. The only feedback I ever had from management was that things were going well, thank you very much. I was never encouraged to be more outrageous, but I was trusted and left to perform.
I know people at management level came under pressure at times to rein me in. They had a right to do so because they were paying me, but if they had I would have left long before because that was not how I worked. So they let me carry on. But in a quiet news week the New Zealand Herald made a big story out of the Satyanand interview and resurrected the Sheila Dikshit comments. And when a massive public outcry arose, calling for my dismissal, all of a sudden, management were very quick to advise me and counsel me, but it was too late. I have no ill feeling towards TVNZ nor to those mindless individuals who got worked up into such a lather. Not the least of the ironies in the whole affair was that I was able to entertain even them. I’m glad I subjected them to me for as long as I did.
The Herald’s coverage created the perfect storm from which it was very hard to see an easy way out, especially when the Dikshit story was picked up around the world. That was awkward. Suddenly there was a feeding f
renzy with me at the centre. It was talkback catnip — hosts didn’t need to come up with a topic of their own for days.
I spoke to TVNZ. We agreed that an official apology was needed to put the lid on the whole thing, and that was planned for the next morning. I had no qualms about apologising for hurting anyone’s feelings. I never intend to hurt people, so I’m always happy to apologise on the odd chance that I have genuinely hurt someone. But I will never apologise for outraging anyone.
On the evening of the day it blew up, I had to go to a fundraising event on behalf of the first Christchurch earthquake. The Prime Minister and various Ministers of the Crown were there. Some people were surprised that I had turned up because I had been keeping a low profile and refusing all comment.
The first person I saw was one of the TVNZ board.
‘Oh God, what kind of a day is this?’ I said.
‘I’ve suffered slings and arrows for you today,’ they told me. ‘But it’ll be fine. Don’t worry, it’s just another storm. Everything’s cool.’
Numerous MPs slapped me on the back and told me not to worry about it. This was informed advice because I knew what I was going through was what they lived with every day.
Pita Sharples put his arm around me and gave me a big manly hug.
‘You’re one of us now,’ he said, meaning I think, someone on the receiving end, not just dishing it out. I was touched by that. Two days later he was publicly calling for my sacking.
John Key walked in. Normally he would have come over and talked to me but he just moved past. I was talking to Gerry Brownlee at the time, and it was noticeable that he acknowledged Gerry and just kept on walking. I fully understood that and had no intention of embarrassing him by going up and talking to him.
The next day I read a statement on the show:
‘I’d like you all to know I have the greatest respect for Sir Anand Satyanand. I don’t know him personally, but I understand his reputation is beyond reproach.
‘He is highly respected in both judicial circles, as a former judge, and as the Queen’s representative here in New Zealand. He has done a very fine job as Governor-General and I am sincerely sorry if I seemed disrespectful to him. That was not what I intended, and I certainly didn’t intend to sound racist. It was wrong for me to ask the questions that I did.
‘Sir Anand was born in New Zealand. His lineage, as far as I can ascertain, is far more dignified than mine, which makes him a better candidate for Governor-General than me.
‘Most people think I’m British, but the truth is much, much worse than that. Like the Governor-General, I was born in New Zealand, however, I am at least half what they colloquially call in Europe, a gyppo.
‘So, let me make it quite clear, I will never apologise for causing outrage, however I will and do apologise sincerely for causing real hurt and upset to anyone, no matter what their background, who works to make this country a better country.
‘So, in that spirit, I apologise unreservedly to Sir Anand and his family. He is a very distinguished man and I am a gyppo television presenter.’
That just seemed to fire people up more. When the programme ended I was called upstairs to see the head of news and current affairs, Anthony Flannery.
‘This is gaining momentum and we need to find some way of stopping it,’ he said. ‘We need to go and have a chat with Rick.’
At 11am we went to see Rick Ellis, TVNZ’s chief executive officer. I was surprised that when we got there the decision to suspend me had already been made. We talked about it briefly and I could see that for TVNZ it was a good idea.
‘Why don’t I just walk out now?’ I said. ‘I won’t go back into the newsroom, I’ll head out and I’ll go to Napier and hang out at my beach house for a while.
‘Let’s actually dock my salary,’ I said. I was getting quite enthusiastic. We made it clear I would be suspended without pay so they could say that. I didn’t even take holiday pay, a considerable amount of which I had due.
Before I went to Napier I had to come back home where I was confronted by journalists from the Herald. They were on my property, having passed ‘Unauthorised Entry is Prohibited’ signs, and come down a private right of way. I went in and they knocked on the door moments later.
‘I’ve got no comment,’ I said, ‘I’m not interested in saying anything.’
A few minutes later I walked out and the photographer was back on my property taking pictures.
‘You’re trespassing,’ I said. ‘Leave.’
I went back inside. After another 20 minutes I drove up to the top of the private road leading to my house — the road I own part of and pay the rates for. And the photographer and two journalists — the fact there were two told me just how slow a news week this was — were still there. Now I was annoyed. I told them to fuck off. I went inside and rang the Herald.
‘I don’t want any of those photos used,’ I told the editor. Of course, they were used along with an account of my tirade, with no acknowledgement of the fact that the tirade occurred because they were trespassing and had ignored my requests to leave.
While there, they had interviewed all my neighbours so can rightly claim to know them much better than I do. I can’t imagine what they hoped to learn or what questions they asked: ‘So, have you seen Paul Henry being racist much?’
They had also been to my local dairy. I’m not sure, because I have never asked them, but I think the people who run it may be of Indian descent. The journalists — and I can see them congratulating themselves on their cleverness when they had the idea — went in to ask the couple how much racial abuse they receive from me in an average week. Unfortunately, though I don’t go in there very often, I get on very well with the pair. The husband sent me an email telling me the story. He was highly amused.
I was on the front page for the whole week. TVNZ led their news with the story. TV3 led with it. TV3 were very measured in their handling, although when you’ve got screaming banshees demonstrating outside TVNZ, you don’t really have to sensationalise it.
Other people were very kind. I got offered flights away to take a break. Someone else put his super yacht at my disposal. ‘The crew is on board,’ he said, ‘best wine in the fridge, just go.’
I didn’t comment because I was suspended. I was still an employee of TVNZ so it was not my place to do so. I had an unimaginable number of calls and texts coming in on my cell phone, nearly all of which I didn’t answer. Napier was good for giving me some distance and perspective. It was a shame the rest of the country couldn’t have been there.
A couple of days later TVNZ rang and asked me to come in again because it didn’t look like things were going to die down.
The Foreign Affairs official who volunteered an apology to India without any official sanction managed to inflame matters further. New Zealand had not been asked for an apology and, indeed, should not have made an apology at government level. I thought that was rich given people in India had been burning a New Zealander in effigy the week before — Mike Hooper, the Commonwealth Games chief executive who had questioned Delhi’s readiness to host the Games.
But someone had decided that my comments threatened a pending free-trade agreement with India. I find it hard to believe that a hard-headed Indian businessperson would have boycotted New Zealand for the sake of Sheila Dikshit.
We planned to meet at Rick Ellis’ house on a Saturday morning. At the last minute I got a call to say the meeting would be at TVNZ because ‘the media are staking out Rick’s house’.
For TVNZ, I knew, there were just two options, both awkward. They could let me go and alienate all those people who wanted me to stay. Rick Ellis had shown me a pile of emails a foot high, apparently just one of several, demanding that I be retained. They weren’t just from fanatical Paul Henry fans, but from people who were saying things like ‘We actually think he probably did overstep the mark this time, but you don’t suspend someone for saying something like this. We’re intelligent enough to be able to under
stand that not everyone is going to say the right thing.’
The other option was to keep me on and drive the crazies even crazier.
I would never want to work anywhere where they didn’t want me. I am not a hoop jumper. If I was told I had to cross a road in order to keep a job, I would not cross that road. There were a few other factors to consider, not least the pressure on my family. I could, on one level, stand back and enjoy the entertainment value of the whole scenario, but there was no way I could enjoy the death threats to my mother and my daughters.
Letters had been passed on to the police, one of which specifically mentioned my mother, where she lived and her name. It also mentioned my daughters and the throwing of acid. It was almost more of a threat to them than to me. There was another occasion when the press were outside my mother’s rest home, which I found unsettling. Given that I was not going to jump through hoops to keep the job, and that I had the idea of leaving in the back of my mind anyway, the decision was not hard to make or accept.
My youngest daughter, Bella, was turning 18 at the time and having a celebration at a bar in Queen Street. I was advised by TVNZ and the police not to go because, irrespective of any threats, the moment anyone saw me they would ring the media, photographers would turn up and the evening would cease to be about Bella and be about her annoying father instead.
I thought about the matter overnight and we met again on Sunday.
During my career I had never once gone to a meeting about my work with a lawyer or agent or anyone at all. I have been very relaxed about my work conditions and handled things myself. I have never had a ‘support person’. HR people know to keep their distance from me. But this time, because everything was going so fast and the circumstances were so exceptional, I took a lawyer and a friend.
In light of everything, the only option I had was to resign. For it to be of any use to TVNZ, it had to be done quickly to make them look decisive and so it could lead the news that night. Journalists had seen me go in and they were blocking exits. It was a very long meeting, but it was extraordinarily amiable.
