Nobby Clark rebuffs calls to resign or apologise for explicitly citing offensive words

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Rather than resign himself, Nobby Clark has called on the Race Relations Commissioner to do so.

Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark has dismissed a political call for his resignation for citing offensive words and phrases he had been unhappy to encounter in the arts community.

And he’s made his own call for Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon to resign.

He said Foon had called on him to apologise and never again use the words he unleashed in a speech at an Art Foundation New Zealand event in Invercargill on Tuesday.

But Foon should resign for refusing to investigate the “hate speech’’ of poet Tusiata Avia, who was among those Clark had directly quoted.

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Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she “absolutely’’ thought Clark should resign.

His comments sounded like a direct, quite blatant attack on Pacific women, women and brown people, she said.

“There’s no place for that racist leadership … and it’s not just racist, it’s classist. Completely unprofessional as well.’’

Clark said he held Davidson in no esteem, and he had made no reference to Pacific women.

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon: “Caution should be taken ...”

He had merely quoted, accurately, phrases from poets, rappers and others in the arts community which he personally found offensive, asking where the boundaries should be.

This included, rappers’ use of the N-word and the increasing acceptability of the word queer, and particularly Avia’s poetry, which he found alarmingly violent and from which he’d cited “f… the bitch.’’

She had escaped Foon’s scrutiny whereas “just quoting one piece of her poetry - look at the response I got’’.

“If that’s not a racial interpretation I don’t know what is.’’

The apparent distinction being made was that he wasn’t an artist. “And I’m deemed to be white and male and old.’’

Taupō District Councillor John Boddy apologised after he used the 'n' word during the council meeting. (Video first published June 30, 2020)

Foon said in a statement that as time passes, understanding of issues and the impact of language evolve “and some words are just not appropriate in today’s world’’.

It was important to not normalise the use of words which were derogatory or offensive to others.

Some language which was casually used among friends and whānau could fit into that category.

“The ‘N-word’ holds a connection to a terrible and horrific history and in that light, caution should be taken around its use,’’ Foon said.

Clark said he had no regrets about questioning where artistic licence stopped and community wellbeing started.

Public feedback had been strongly supportive, and when he had warned his councillors after the first indications of the rising controversy, not one had criticised him.

Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty said it was for Clark to decide whether to apologise or resign.

“I think even if you were directly quoting someone else who said it, you’d apply some caution in that regard,’’ he said.

Clark’s use of that language was “not something I think is appropriate, regardless of the circumstances.’’

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said the comments “are not ones that I would make and not ones that I think many New Zealanders would find acceptable”.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority last year released its latest research into offensive language and found it [the N-word] was the least acceptable of all the words tested, with 65% of those surveyed considering it totally unacceptable across all scenarios.