CULTURE CLASH

For those who saw it, the image of commercial-property magnate Sir Robert Jones in the witness box at Wellington’s High Court with a set of earphones upside down on his head was comical.

But more than just a laugh at his expense, the image and some of the evidence Jones gave in court revealed a man who, despite his sharp mind, quick wit and voracious consumption of current affairs, is out of sync with some aspects of contemporary life. Whether that extends as far as holding views that could be considered by an ordinary person to be racist was left unanswered.

Jones, 80, who told the court he does not have a mobile phone, has staff, instead. When, on the second day of the trial, he turned up without his hearing aid, they scurried to find it. They failed, hence the earphones made available in court for those with hearing impairment.

The case came about after Jones wrote a column in February 2018 in the National Business Review that, among other things, suggested there should be a Māori Gratitude Day when “Māori bring us breakfast in bed or weed our gardens, wash and polish our cars and so on, out of gratitude for existing”.

He said the gratitude day was intended to be the first in a series. The next was going to be a day of gratitude to motorcyclists whose deaths in accidents provided hearts for transplants. The Māori Gratitude Day column was removed from NBR’s website two days after it was first published. “You have to be sick not to see the item as a piss-take,” Jones told the court.

“He believes in freedom of choice and responsibility for those choices. His beliefs can perhaps be best described by the principle of live and let live.”

In evidence, Renae Maihi said it was incomprehensible to her that Jones’ column had been “written by a knight”. “His words were an act of violence,” she said. After reading it, she had started a petition to have Jones stripped of his knighthood. Her website was titled, “Strip racist ‘Sir’ Bob Jones of his Knighthood – Read his vile rant here.”