Mike's Minute: Our race relations prevent progress

The TJ Perenara performance and the reaction to David Seymour are both indicative of all that is wrong with this country in terms of race relations. 

It is not harmonious, it is not well debated, it is not cordial, and it is not better than it has been. 

The Prime Minister gets it, but Seymour doesn't. There is no point in heading north each year, you are simply treated poorly by rude people. 

This year in Seymour's speech the mic was removed twice, backs were turned, and people tried to sing over the top of him. It's the same old, same old. 

There is always a grievance and there is always someone to hate on. They defend it by telling you how angry they are and this year it's the Treaty Principle's Bill, but at no point does anyone accept that just because you disagree, it doesn't mean you have to be rude. 

Rudeness is not justified simply because you are on opposite sides of the debate, or page. 

It is why most of us have tuned out of the national day. 

Then you come to the rugby union, the guardians of our national game. 

The Perenara scenario unfolded because we live in a country where Māori issues are too often acquiesced to in an excessive manner. 

Perenara is just a player and a player in a team. His race does not trump the team. 

Yet it is very clear, as per the story on Wednesday, that he was allowed to blackmail a woke collective into a sort-of submission. 

The NZR was woke, enamoured by the modern-day practices, because it is inept and has been for years. 

Organisations, groups and businesses who are not sure of themselves sway in the wind and, as such, are captured by whatever is currently cool. 

Māoridom in public life, or public service, or the zeitgeist, for a while got cool. Everyone had to say "kia ora", call it the "motu" and token it up to look like you were part of the gang. 

That tide has turned, but because the NZR were submerged in it, the Perenara scenario was allowed to unfold, with all the indecision and panic so eloquently recounted in the story if you haven't read it. 

It's as much about Perenara and his arrogance as it is about governance and ineptitude, whether in Waitangi or Turin. 

It is this sort of nonsense that prevents progress, and we are all paying the price. 

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