Shoot – it sounds like a race row but Dame Susan prefers to stay off the court this time

 

Here’s how to respond to questions of discrimination against non-Maori –

Dunno what to make of the fuss about the Maori basketball tournament that became the stuff of a Waitangi Day controversy.

Perhaps there’s some confusion about the rules and how they should be interpreted.

This is appropriate for a Waitangi Day controversy because the Treaty of Waitangi – clause two, anyway – is most certainly open to all sorts of interpretation.

It is understandable therefore that a spin doctor in the office of Sports Minister Jonathan Coleman opted to decline comment rather than be lured into denouncing anything that might involve racially discriminatory rules being enforced against non-Maori.

The spin doctor would have recognised that our Government tolerates discrimination against non-Maori, in the spirit of regarding indigenous citizens as special, and so this was an occasion when it was best to stay silent.

Another job for the PC police – taking the smut out of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

More offensive than the goods in a sex shop?

Political correctness gone mad, as they say…

Ah, but has the madness gone further in this country than elsewhere?

Or can the Brits lay claim to being more crazed than us?

In that country a group of toddlers has been re-educated in how to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with hand gestures to ensure they do not offend the deaf.

In sign language – it seems – you’ve got to be careful when you make a star shape, because in British sign language it translates into a woman’s genitalia.