Corina Shields: "Te Pāti Māori Doesn't Speak For All Of Us" | Free to Speak

"I have always been the big-mouth Māori that says things we're not supposed to say."

Corina Shields — better known online as Aunty Heihei (@AuntyHeihei) — returns to Free to Speak to talk with host Dane Giroud about her move from social-media commentary into the producer's chair at Radio Aotearoa, where she now produces "Shubz Says So" with Shubz Live.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Corina is a wāhine Māori who built a following by saying the things she believes mainstream and Māori media won't. In this wide-ranging conversation, she and Dane dig into why so many New Zealanders no longer trust the legacy press — and why a wave of citizen journalists and independent broadcasters has risen to fill the gap.

They cover her conviction that Te Pāti Māori does not speak for all Māori, the gulf between iwi leadership and the ahikā keeping the home fires burning, and why she argues "racism" has become a lazy label used to shut conversations down rather than have them. Dane brings his own perspective as a Jewish New Zealander on how hate-speech laws can end up silencing the very minorities they claim to protect — by letting the government decide which voices within a community are legitimate.

The conversation also turns to a three-week hīkoi across the North Island to communities that rarely get a microphone, the difference between funded and unfunded media, the role of academics versus the people doing the work on the ground, and why Corina decided her voice is more powerful outside Parliament than inside it.

A frank conversation about media plurality, hard conversations, and the freedom to disagree.

Transcript

Welcome And Karina’s Story

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Kilda, and welcome to Free to Speak, the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. I am your host, Dane Giroud, a council member of the union. And joining us today is Karina Shields. Now, Karina, I am gonna leave it to you to introduce yourself because as soon as I try to pin you down, you've moved on. So who are you and what are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

So Karina Shields is my name. Most people would know me as Auntie Heihe from social media, but I have evolved over time. As you said, um it started as a social media thing for me, then I got a bit of writing in there for a while. And now I find myself as a radio producer for Radio Alti Arua. But the one thing that has always been consistent throughout everything is that I have always been the big mouth Māori that says things we're not supposed to say.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

There we go. So we've got a big mouth Mori for you uh today, people. Um so Karina, uh a reason why I I wanted to have you on, I mean, I was always gonna have you on anyway, but I I think that this new move into production, radio production, and being a producer is really, really interesting because it really talks about the the cultural moment we're in um with the media. The media, arguably, pretty convincingly, has let Mori down, I would say, uh over more recent years, maybe since time immemorial. But um but there is a ri there is technology now. And there are opportunities now. You took the opportunities with social media, as many other Māori did, and it's racked a lot of people up, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Oh, it has. And so for me, uh what I found three years ago with a lot of the things that I was saying, I was subject to a lot of bullying and online abuse from people. And that's continued out throughout the last three years. The disappointing thing for me is that multimedia have been some of the worst at bullying. Matthew Tukaki and Wazia fully came after Schubbs and myself for wanting to go out into communities and have conversations. And so we have been lucky enough to find ourselves in this position where we were asked, do you want to like, do you want to be part of radio? Do you want to show? And so Schubbs jumped at the chance to be the host, and I jumped at the chance to be his producer. We work really, really well together, him and I. And so to be given this opportunity to step into this space and have conversations that not just mainstream media aren't having, but multimedia aren't having, that's a really big thing for me. And I am truly grateful for the opportunity that George Natay has given us with Radio LT at all because what I'm finding is I don't always agree with the guests that we have on. People are quite, they know what my views are on certain topics. But as a producer, it's my role to bring all voices to the table. And so I have organized for Georgie Dancy to come on, Tony Boynton to come on, people from the left. I want more people from the left to come on. Unions, I've invited unions to come on the show and have their say. So I don't all I don't have to agree with these people, and that's what it's always been about for me about we need to have the hard conversations. And that was one of the articles that I wrote three years ago for plain sight, no, the need to have hard conversations. That Tepati Moldy doesn't speak for all of us. And what Tepati Moldi is showing us now is that they are a mess. They are an absolute mess as a result of John Tamahidi's own actions, Debbie and Rabodi's own actions, and they are proving exactly what I said three years ago. Teparty Moldi does not speak for all Mori. And there are some who are paid off to try and shut the likes of Shubs and I down. We are really, really fortunate to have this platform where we can run at these stories, bring things to light, and just have conversation. How do we fix things if we don't have conversation?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, that's great. Look, you've just given us a lot to chew over there. And where I'm a little concerned is that some of our audience may not understand some of the factionalism and just disagreement in Māori. So I think we've got to unpack a few things. So who is Shubs? Because he he's the presenter on the show that you are um now producing on Radio Alteroa. So who is Shubs and where did where did

Building Alternative Māori Media

SPEAKER_00 5:10

you meet him? Let's start there.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Okay, so Shubs is Shubs Live or Martel Weekeeper. He came over back from Australia in January. Him and I met online, and it was because he was starting to put out content that was similar to some of the content that I put out. And I stitched one of his videos one day about John Tamahidi and I said, Welcome to hell, because I knew what he was stepping into by talking about John Tamahidi.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

When you started your social media stuff that that led to everything that's happened, where were you coming from? What was the grievance? If we can narrow it down, what was the grievance? What would have separated you from a Tepati Māori sort of supporter, passionate supporter? What what what were the what were the big points of difference?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

With Tepati Māori is that I found that the essence of the party changed when the name changed. So the Mori party under Papapita and Daintari was a completely different party than they are now. The party they were was about was actually about the people. The party that exists today, Tipati Māori, is about John Tamihede and what he wants and what he can get out of it. It actually isn't about the people, because if it was, they would have dealt with the Miriam Menor Takutaferis debacle a lot better than what they did.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

So, okay, so as an example then, what what was that debacle? What was at the core of what was going on there?

SPEAKER_02 6:47

It sounds like a whole lot of leadership issues and uh talk about money, Miriam Menor overspending in her budget, and she's claiming that she didn't. And so there's inconsistencies within their own leadership team and what's actually happening. And so, if as a party you can't hold your own team together, then why are you trying to convince the rest of the country that you speak for all of us? Now, John Tummy Here and Rawari, Debbie, they all come from south of the bomb base, right? They're all from down the line. Yet every year they go up north, they go up to Waitangi, and they cause chaos. Christina did it this year. Christina did uh waited. She went up there and did her little haka and her little disrespect. And that's the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that there are moldy on the ground. There are ahika, those that keep the home fires burning, who are often overlooked, and the problems are swept under the mat because of the likes of John and uh Rawari Debi and the Iwi leaders who take the attention away from them. Now, people go to Waitangi and you actually spend time with Ahika, with those that keep the home fires burning, you will find out that they are completely disconnected from those that claim to run the Murai and are doing for the people. They are disconnected from those people because those ones that take the money aren't actually there all the time. They're not there for the tonguing, they're not there for everything important that happens on the day-to-day. They just they just sweep in when the government says here's some money. And that's my big problem is that people on the ground aren't being heard because we're being told that our IWI leaders are leading us. Not we don't want Iwi settlements over the treaty for a reason, because they don't want the money to go to Iwi. They want it to go to Hapu, where they have a better chance of benefiting from those settlements. And then, of course, you've got people like me who don't actually care about a treaty settlement.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Oh, that's another kind of word. And that's a whole nother process here. Um, yeah, so well, that's that's saying to me that there's a this is a class war, isn't it, within Mori. Yeah. Really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

People want to blame Labour and they want to blame national and they want to blame the white man all the time, and they forget the issues that we have within Mori. You know, I'm constantly told by people that I'm anti-Moldi, and that is so far from the truth that it's ridiculous. But it's because I don't subscribe to other people's way of being Mori. And that's been a sucker. I refuse to move on who I am and what I stand for, and what I stand for is tutoru Moldi. No, we have we don't have trans ideology as part of Tiao Mori. And I will stand on that hill until I die. We have sex-specific roles within Xiao Māori, who are Kaikrang, Awahine, who sits on the tomata, who sits on the pipe right, our men. No, but people think that women don't have a voice on the Murai. We can shut the men down simply by standing up and singing. And so when I see the likes of genders, minority out here or try and push out these things, claiming that they're Tao Mori. No. Hani too with their hafa haka and having the man stand in between both. No, we're not doing all of that. That is not our culture. We have sex-specific roles. Women are Faratangata. We are the ones with the wombs. We are the ones that give birth. And so I'm not anti-Moldi. I just don't subscribe to government's way of being Mori. And that's what I found. The language, the culture has been bastardized, has been government. No, it's been messed with by government and pushed out then. Because I don't subscribe to that, and others do, well, I'm the sellout.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, that's interesting. I I have that concern as a as a Jewish person uh with the hate speech laws. One of the arguments I made is that if the government's deciding for us what is anti-Semitic uh and what is not, um it could end up prosecuting Jews who are critiquing their own community. Um the same goes for Muslims too. A lot of a lot of Muslim reformers would be called Islamophobic by conservative Muslims. So the government would be taking a side, and normally it would be taking a side in a in a censorship debate with the most conservative voices in a way, or the most privileged

Te Pāti Māori And Internal Power

SPEAKER_00 12:00

voices. It's not really gonna be the people, you know, like yourself who are on that ground level, um, and on that grassroots level, that are that are gonna have the air of government who are gonna be able to dictate it. That's why we need an open field, or else we'll never understand the diversity within these minority groups.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Exactly. And so that's why Shub Cesso is a really cool platform to be a part of, like being part of that show and and knowing and hearing the feedback from people that we are part of real change and real conversations, and we've had feedback like people don't always agree with our guests, which is great, love that, because we shouldn't always agree with someone all the time, right? But what they have come back and said is okay, I don't like that person in their politics, but I have seen a different side of them. I have seen a human side of them where we wouldn't normally because like the media hates them so much. Brian Tamaki is a prime example of that, you know. People saw the hunter side of him that gives food away, and not just this person that the media put out there as wanting to cross over the harbor bridge and being full of hate. And so it's been that part of it has been really cool for me. And just to see the evolution from where I was three years ago and go, actually, what I'm part of now is everything that I wanted three years ago. I wanted the conversations to happen, I wanted people to is good, bad, or ugly, I wanted these things to be brought out into the table. And we're part of doing that now. And so for me, I look at my entire journey over the last three years and go, wow, it's been one hell of a ride, but I am so grateful for where I am right now because it's been worth it. Even the hardest parts of it have been worth it to get to where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

It's interesting when you talk about Brian Tarmaky, because when I met him out at Destiny for the first time, um uh I know he's not from South originally, but he just struck me as a guy from the street, you know, just very we we had a pretty deep conversation quite quickly, you know. Um I talked about my growing up out there. I I probably got a bit of a different understanding of of what destiny is able to achieve out there, because I know like uh some people say, Oh, look at the the guys that follow them around, they look like thugs. It's like, well, yeah, but you should have probably seen them six months ago. Who are you? Right, when they were thugs, when they were when they were actually thugs, yeah, yeah, then then it's a bit of a different conversation. But do you think and and just listening to you, it's just struck me. Do you think sometimes people avoid the conversation because they know they may be charmed by a character like Brian? They know they may learn more and go, oh, once I have that information and I like the guy a little bit even, I'm gonna find it harder to go hard on him.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah. And people are fearful of having conversations because they don't want to see the other side.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

But they don't want to see the human side. So it's like, let's just keep it surface, let's just no, let's keep it, let's keep him less inhuman, is basically what they're deciding.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah, pretty much. And for me, I'm just like, no, let's show all sides of it. Uh, before we went on the road for Iwe Fakumahu for three weeks, Shubs and I, I had been in touch with the police so that we did everything right. And so I had a police officer come to my house, we sat down together, and he asked me, What do you think of Brian Tamaki? I said, I can agree with some of the things that he says and does, and I can disagree with some of them. I said, It's foolish to think that we're going to agree 100% of the time with anybody. He said, I don't agree with my hands, my husband 100% of the time. What makes you think I'm going to agree with somebody else's husband? Like that, and so is that. Yeah, I actually agree with that. Like he had to he has to give into that because no, how do you argue with logic?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

What do you think, Corina? Because you were where were you raised? Out west? Out west, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, see, I'm I'm from South. I mean, they're different, but they have similarities. Um these these places are melting pots. If if you were really against groups and people and opinions and everything, you wouldn't last very long, would you? Because everyone's so different.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah. West Auckland and South Auckland, as different as they are, they're also very similar. They also are big melting pots of people, and we have people of different backgrounds, and it's always been that way for us. You know, I had Chinese and Pakia friends and Samoan friends and Mori friends at school when I was in primary. And so this idea that we're not accepting or we're racist, no, racism is just a lazy argument to stop conversations. Because if we can throw a label at somebody, you're you're anti-trans or you're homophobic or you're racist, it just shuts down the conversation instead of allowing it to happen. I went to Nationals event last night. They had an event in West Auckland. Okay. And I went along to listen because, you know, we good we got to give everybody airtime. And I didn't realize that Luxon was gonna be there. And I was looking at him and I didn't meet Chris Pink, and I'm like, so what was that about the whole, you know, the nuclear thing? Like we should have those conversations. And he's like, I got in trouble for saying

Free Speech And Seeing The Human

SPEAKER_02 18:00

the N-word. And I'm like, I need to go and tell Chris. I need to go and tell him that we need to have these conversations. Because, yeah, okay, people can go on about nuclear-free, but 40, 50 years have gone on since Hiroshima. Technology changes clearly, because we're online right now doing this podcast. And so let's have the conversation. Chris Pink didn't say we're gonna we're gonna support nuclear and we're gonna do all these things. He said we should at least have the conversation because our closest allies being Australia are gonna have nuclear weather, you know? And so there's nothing wrong with the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Let's have them. And I and I think where people get a lot of stuff wrong is that they or that this this wrong is that they think that like some conversations are settled and they're never gonna come back. But if you look at history, conversations do come back. I mean, sadly, anti-Semitism is something that's seemed to have gone away, but it's sort of coming back. So we're dealing with a lot of old tropes. And uh this is where censorship, I think, becomes appealing to people, especially in something like Holocaust. You know, the Holocaust, they'll say, let's just deny, let's just um uh uh criminalize deniers, basically. Um, and it'll be done with it, but it won't be, you know, it won't be done with it. These we're gonna have to relitigate a lot of different things time and time again. The idea that we can just draw a line in the sand and move on for good, we don't really get that choice, you know. If people are inspired for whatever reason, or if the um circumstances change, as is is uh the point you're making with nuclear, yes, the conversation will happen. And um it's you can't just say to people, no, we had this conversation, we're done. That's that's not the way life has ever really worked.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

No, and it's not going to work if we keep trying to shut things down, and that's again the beauty of what we're doing with Shubs Cesso is we've had people try and shut us down to the point that they got physical. No, they came and they stabbed up our tires on our van. And if if they had the chance, someone would have taken Shubs out. Fortunately, he wasn't around when it all broke down, when it all broke out. But that's how bad people wanted to shut down him and I from doing what we were doing, more so him. More so him.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

It's really intense, Karina. So, like there's been physical altercations and things.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, yeah. As part of this three-week hiding that we went on, and we it took half an hour for the police to turn up in Kaikwe. So it took half an hour for the cops to turn up. We've not had one word from them about anyone being arrested. We've given them videos, we've shown, we've given them names, everything. So that was on a Saturday night. I had to try and find an after-hours tire shop on a Sunday in the middle of bloody kaiquare, like like you're not, you know, and it was it was really hard. But we were determined to get to our end goal. They wanted to stop us from getting to the end, they didn't want us in Kitia. And so we we didn't stop, we kept going, and we made it to the end. But the system has let us down by not coming through. I've done at least two or three requests with police to get an update on

The Hikoi And Real World Pushback

SPEAKER_02 21:50

the case. Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

You should have sent that one our way. I I mean, I I think the audience might need to know a bit more about um the HICOI. So it what where did the general Does this for that come from and what were you wanting to achieve with this echo? And where did you go?

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Okay. So initially, Shubs and I had talked about going out and having conversations with in communities and going to Murai and bringing in a bunch of different people to have these conversations.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

It morphed conversations or wanting to persuade, or you were you were going to finish probably, so you you carry on.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

No conversations. So we wanted to bring in people from the community, Pakir, Mori, everybody to have conversations about what was happening within their communities. And we wanted people within the communities to be part of facilitating those. At the same time, we wanted to talk about some of the things that happened within Mori that aren't often talked about, like the abuse that is swept under the carpet. And so it morphed into there was a group of us that decided we were going to go together on the road for three weeks across different places. And we did, some of them fell off. So because of dramas that happened along the way, some of them fell off. And it ended up the core group before that started, ended up being two that finished, Shubs and I. And I always said that to him. It's the manu of the man and the woman that would is always important to everything in life. There's a balance to life, and it's a man and a woman. And so I said that to him. And so we finally finished that three-week journey. We bounced across the North Island. So we started off in Wellington. We went to Ratana, we went to Namotu, Tikuri, Topur, Ruturua, Gizbin. We went up the coast. We didn't just go straight up the middle. Most people, when they do a hikwe, they or any kind of hiding, they start at the top and they go down to Wellington. We did the complete opposite.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

So they can get those custard squares at the Flat Hills Cafe. I think that's what they want.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

And so we did the opposite to everyone else. We went from Wellington up to the Cape and we went like that across the islands instead of straight up the middle. Because we realized that a lot of those people in those outer communities that aren't on the beaten path, so to speak, to Wellington, they get missed out on a lot of cordial. And so we were able to go to a lot of these places and people opened up. People that weren't intending to open up, opened up about their own abuse, the things that they had been through in life, the challenges that they saw in life. We got to meet uh Robert Lee, Councillor Robert Lee from Rotarua. He came out to our public event in Rotarua. Uh Kahira Olli, she runs Save Our Babies in Rotarua. She's an amazing woman who does work with women and children and families. No, but they do it on the smell of an oil rack. And that was the thing about a lot of the people that we've met is that the things that they do, they do it because they're passionate, they do it because they have heart. They don't do it with government funding.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yeah, it's interesting. It's like Henry O'Keefe, who I sent to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

He's um uh in Flaxmere, and he he's a community champion. And I did a documentary on him, like like I said, I I told you, which is on Apple TV, actually, people, if you want to see it. Um well over a decade ago now, probably about 12, 13 years ago, I did this documentary and I was really proud of it. Spent time in that community, Flaxmere, which is kind of has a reputation of being the uh mangri of Hastings, really, isn't it? It's that kind of it's a it's it's the hood. It's struggle streak, you know. Um and it has social issues, but he's just a servant of that community. And I I there are thousands of of uh Henaris out there. They don't get a lot of uh media attention, they don't get a lot of um uh, you know, no one's handing them the mic necessarily. They don't get profiled and stuff, but they are they're out there, these guys. And uh it's a little bit like the free speech union, to be honest with you. Like before I joined the union, I would have been cynical about the the amount of change a group like this could make. But I think we've made more change than a political party can.

unknown 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

In a strange way. And um, well, not even in a strange way, I think it's pretty clear, you know, culturally we have moved the dial a lot in a way that political parties don't seem to be able to. But um community stalwarts like Henade and the people you're talking about are the same as well. They're like that too. They're the ones making change.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Yeah, they are. And so for me, it's really important to grab some of those voices and put them on the radio show with us. And we have. We've had people that have been on the journey, that have been there with us on the road, who have come on the show and have shared about who they are and the things that they do. And then we've had others that didn't get to make it out on a journey, but we do know of the money that they do, and we've had them on the show as well, and we know that they don't get government funding, the likes of Esther Peters. No, she writes, she has the triple R model, and she works with people who have come out of prison, and she's been doing that for a good 10 years without government funding, but it it's working really well for them, and so it's trying to highlight highlight those community voices as well, those people that are doing really cool work out there in communities and talking about traumas and things that people have gone through. Because there are a lot of people who have gone through things and they think that they're the only ones who have gone through things. And we found that when we were out on the road, that there were just people who were never planning to speak, who just opened up about everything, and it's just like wow, there was a lot of really, really powerful moments out on the road. It was heavy, definitely heavy, and I was ready to let go a lot of a lot of what we had picked up along the way because of what had come out from people, and yeah, it wasn't just people talking about their abuse and things, it was people going on about um politicians and things that they had experienced within politicians, and I was just like, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

What kind of things like struggling to be heard and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Um, and stuff around pedophilia and stuff around abusive, um, abusive MPs and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

So can I pay my last lawyer's bill before I get you to talk about that?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

You know, and so yeah, we won't go into any details, but those were the conversations that people were bringing to us. And it did, it got really heavy. And so to be where we are now and to have that continuation of what we had started on the road, now being able to take it to a whole nother level is just mind-blowing to me. I'm just like, wow, because we were never planning this. That's the thing. It was never on the radar for us to be on the radio. As far as I knew, Shumps was going back to Australia not long after we'd finished hitting the rope, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's not as quick as he thought it was because he's he's got a show five days a week that he needs to run.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah, well, I look, it's just amazing that you've gotten into producing, because producing working in film and TV, I I don't produce films, but uh I have produced some TV and podcasts with R and Z and different um so it it's an interesting job. You're like the business manager, you're doing the bookings, uh, because you're you'd be a one-woman show, I'd say, for most of this. Um and uh and honestly, the people that you've been able to secure have been extremely uh impressive. So that really speaks to who you are and your ability to shake hands and connect and convince and uh persuade people that it'll be safe enough for them to air their views. Um, I think that's

Community Voices Over Institutions

SPEAKER_00 31:00

really to be commended. But what what surprised you about becoming a producer?

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Everything really. I think because it wasn't something that I had planned, I wasn't looking to be a producer. And so when it fell into my lap, I'm like, I did question myself quite a bit. Can I do this? Do I do I have the right stuff for it? And I'm just like, okay, we're just gonna roll with it, we're gonna see what happens, we're gonna roll with it. And I got to a turning point a few weeks ago, and I just said, Shabs, you know what? I'm not the queen of your world, and I'm not aiming to be the queen of your world, but what I am is the queen of this empire that we are trying to build, and that's exactly what it is. We are trying to build an empire within media where we can have these conversations, and so for me, with that mindset, I throw everything at it, and it means staying up until stupid o'clock sometimes, you know, writing emails and then up again at the Sparrows Bart to try and contact people again to keep things rolling, to make sure that we're ahead of the game, that we've always got the next day is already starting to be planned before, you know, and then it's keeping on top of the news. And there's there's a lot that goes into it. People don't actually realize how much work goes into it because you're not just booking your guests, you're doing research into them, you're doing research into the topics that they're going to speak about. You've got to pull all the questions together. There is far more to it than just being able to send an email or make a phone call and get somebody on it. But no, I'm grateful for the last three years because the last three years have given me a lot of people to go back to and say, hey, you want to come on the show? And who else have you got for me? Yeah, you're a prime example of of that. D, who have we got?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yeah, yeah, well, that's right. It's like you your your circle broadens, doesn't it? Because you're just reaching out to people you never would have given a phone call in the past. And uh yeah, that's that that is the exciting part about it. But I think what you're probably learning, which is what I did, is like I thought, oh, if I become a producer, I'll be smoking cigars and I'll be the businessman and I'll be saying, yes, I approve of that budget, and where's more money and all this stuff. It's actually a relationship business, isn't it? It's like producers are creating relationships. Even in feature films, it's like they need a relationship with the actors, they need a relationship with a writer, with a director. It's it's relationships with theater owners and people like that. That it that's it's it's the it's the it's the people business. It's actually the people business, you know?

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah. And so I'm really good at that side of it, the business side of people relationships, and Shubs is really good at doing the interviewing side of things and pulling stuff out of them. And so we have a really good working relationship, him and I. And I just am excited to see what happens from here in terms of what we do and where we go next. Because I know that there's big plans, and I know that I'm going to get back into writing again because I miss it. I miss writing. Writing for me is one of the things that I'm really, really good at, and so I do want to get back into that space again. I think for me, my confidence took a knock with writing purely because of the online stuff that was going on from you know the likes of Trinda and and Hudson.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

And I'm like, well, just for clarity, these are like woke sort of trolls that were really giving her a hard time at one point on X and stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Oh, huge notes.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

And they were associated with Wartia or they're sympathetic to Water Two.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

They're friends of Joe's, they're uh of Matthews, they're friends of Matthew too, Khakis.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

When um when the Mikey Sherman thing broke, um he he wanted to have a crack at Annie O'Brien, obviously, like a lot of people did, and um and he wrote this uh piece on uh on X and it would have been on his Facebook and everything, and he was like, I have questions, and he was being you know, being being a bit of a dick. And he's like, Can people report on things if they weren't there? It's like yeah, it's called journalism. A lot of times it's like, so what happened? I wasn't there, but I'm gonna write the story. I mean, yeah, and but and he's got a radio show, this guy. This is his level of of logic in in computing things, and he's got a radio ship.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

I know, it's crazy, right? And I'm just like, wow, how how did you get that, Matthew? How did you get any of the positions that you've got in? And as it turns out, it hasn't been because he's got the skills or the knowledge, and he's even admitted himself like he's a fake it till he makes it kind of guy.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

A lot of people are like that. Like in the film industry, there are people out there who will call themselves a screenwriter, right? I've met so many of these people, and some of them I've known for 30 years, right? So it's like screenwriter, and they're on a board and they're like going, well, you know, they're teaching about this is the way it is and that, and it's like, oh, they've been they're gonna appear at the big screen symposium and all this kind of stuff and everything, and and it's like, but they haven't done anything, they haven't done anything. It's nuts. It's like you know, whether you hate my work or not, like I have worked consistently for a long time, you know. I I have I have droughts like everyone in the business, but I've had some good runs, but you know, I've got credits, but a lot of these there are people out there that don't even have credits, but they're they'd probably they position themselves with the where they'd sort of look down on me a little bit or they'd put that aura out there. It's it's it's incredible, but I think a lot of industries are like that. There's always that that that character like Matthew who sort of swans around and you know talks a good game and then it's it's the Emperor's new clothes, you know. It just needs that little kid to walk up and go, hang on a minute, this dude is naked.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yeah, crazy, right? Yeah, yeah. And that that's the world that we find ourselves in today.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

And I'm just like, oh it's probably the that's probably the world we've been in for a long, long time. I think these characters have always they're like an archetype, you know, they've always existed. Just the well, I mean, I guess we'd call them, call them a bullshit artist, really.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, yeah, which is pretty much what Matthew is, and he's been one of our biggest bands with uh what's happened with our Heidinger. He was the one throwing out all kinds of accusations and things going on about Hobson's Pledge supported us. Well, there was nothing stopping Wasia and Tia Modi supporting us going on this Heidinger either. They didn't want us

What A Producer Actually Does

SPEAKER_02 38:15

to have conversations.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Okay, well, that's interesting. So Hobson's Pledge, because you do get a lot of pushback for this. Now, Hobson's Pledge is not a group that I've explored terribly deeply. I tend to be a bit more standoffish when it comes to what I perceive to be anti-treaty stuff, because it's like I I I believe there is a partnership. I don't know what it's meant to look like all the time or anything like that. I have to plead a bit of ignorance, to be honest with you. But um, you know, I don't pretend like I know it all, you know. Um which is a which is actually a shame because I live in this country. It would be it would be it would serve me if I had more um developed thoughts on the whole thing. But I have that instinct like a lot of people probably would to look at Hobson's pledge and go, ooh I'll I'll I'll put I'll leave this over here. So so what is it what is that connection? How how strong is it? What drew you to it, or were you drawn to it? I mean, is it even a real thing? Um okay, so can we talk through that relationship?

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Yeah, so Elliot Eccelay is actually a friend of mine, and he has been since before he joined Hobson's Pledge. He's a good man, he is a good man, and you know Hobson's Pledge for everything that people think about them aren't as bad as people think. What they actually do support are treaty settlements, and Don Brash, we've had him on the show, and he's spoken about that himself. He does support treaty settlements.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

He had the time of his life on Shoves' Show, by the way. He did, he loves it. He's got a he's got quite a happy way to like he's quite yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

He did, he had a good time, and so knowing that about Don and having the opportunity to sit down with Don and have a conversation. I said to them, like, that Moldy Wards thing that you did with that billboard and that that lady with the Mokokoa, like that was bad. It was a it was badly done because they should have always used within their own people, they should have gone to people that they knew first. Because when you're dealing with Mori, if you're gonna put a stock image out there, you're going to have those radicals that are gonna go crazy.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Oh, I I had I had a um uh situation happen like that in one of my comedies, Corina, where um and I even warned the producers, the producers were Mori. And I warn them. Like, like there was a character that was meant to be on a dating side, and and they said, Oh, we'll we'll use a um person but we'll blur it. And I was like, I I think there's a bit of a thing with Mori where if you use an image, you're putting even if it you're putting that fictional view on that person, like they're not going to that they're not gonna like that. They said, Oh, it's gonna be blurred. Amazingly, the Farnu saw through the blur. I don't even know how they did it. I mean, this is just pretty wacky. It went to air and and the producers got dragged in to a Facata Māori meeting, and they just got strips torn off them by about like a like a wider Fano because the person had passed, and and they were putting this character's vibe on them. It was a look, if you saw it, the blur, I do not know how they picked up it was that person, but they did. They did, and and it really went sideways, but anyway, so that's my story, but um, similar situation, you're sort of agreeing, aren't you? You don't do that, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

And so, you know, I said to them, like, that was not a good idea to do that. Uh and so they said, like, would you sit down and have a talk about Moldy Wards? And I was like, Yeah, okay. So I had a conversation, and they asked some questions and I answered them, and Elliot was there, and people got angry, and they were so upset that I sat down with Hobson's pledge to have that conversation. I'm like, well, it was better somebody that they knew than you know to use stock images. I can take the heat. I've been taking the heat for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

All good. So, so so okay, so where would you find common ground with them, like in terms of their views? What do you what do they agree with that you agree with?

SPEAKER_02 42:56

One law for all. No, it there's no, it's not as complicated as people think it is. They just want the same equal rights for everybody, and they're not seeing that within Xiao Modi, and I have to agree with them. There is a lot of unfairness within Xiao Māori, and people don't realize just how easy it is to be moldy today. It is a hell of a lot easier to be moldy in 2026 than it was for me in 1981. Because the opportunities that you have today within Mori, we didn't have those. I'm so much older than my siblings that I missed out on Kohanger. I missed out on going to Kudah. But my siblings got to go to Kohanger, they got to go to Kudah, they got to do all of be on the Kupaka stage, perform, they got to do all of that. And so now in 2026, which is even further on from when my siblings. Left school in 2026, it is so much easier to be moldy. So, this idea that people think that we're oppressed, we're only oppressed if we think we're oppressed. Oppression of the mind is worse than anything. Poverty of the mind is worse than poverty of the pocket. Because you can change what's in your pocket. But if what's up here is broken, if what's up there is empty, you're not going to be able to do anything. And so it's trying to change that poverty mindset that people are in so that they can make moves to change the poverty in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yeah, no, that's that's that's interesting. I I was doing an interview the other day um on RNZ, and and the chap that I was um having a little bit of a debate with, he sort of we were talking about Maori and he finished off his segment. Lovely guy. Um, but but he he he

One Law For All Debate

SPEAKER_00 44:55

ended by saying, Well, listen to Maori. And I he was sort of implying that I should probably listen more to Māori, but it's like I said which one? Which Maori? You know, the academics. The academics. The um I I gotta say, I'm gonna just segue really violently turn into the next lane on this because academics really get me going. Um we were talking about Kenneth uh Henade O'Keefe earlier and people like yeah, the people that you met who are doing stuff on the ground in the community. I'd take uh I mean, I'd take the word of someone like that over an academic any day of the week.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

But these academics are getting m hundreds of thousands of dollars and writing reports and that on like what should happen, and this is what I've learned, and this is what this stat says, and what that stat says. And it's like, get rid of all of that crap, just give me one hen a day.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I just think the whole thing, it's like you cannot understand a community by dropping in for two days, doing a few targeted interviews, then going out and then getting a whole lot of data and then just writing this thing. That's what it feels like to me. And and I just I just can't respect people like that, you know. Like it's if you're not from the street, if you don't understand the dynamics of the hood, uh truly understand it. I I just don't think you can really contribute that much.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

No, and it's not just there either, where academics have made a mess of things. You look at all the gender stuff that is going on. Academics are a big part of pushing that. They came out with the Beyond the Birds and the Bees app that when it first came out in 2023 was in the Play Store for three-year-olds. And that app talks about anal sex, oral sex, penis and vagina sex, it talks about all kinds of things that three-year-olds shouldn't even know about. But these academics put it in the three-year-old section, education section of the Play Store. And so I started an email campaign over that one, eventually got changed to 12-year-olds, but even 12-year-olds don't need to know about sex techniques, and that's what one of those sections on this app is.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Well, Peter Bogosian, who was the the visiting American philosopher um and YouTuber that we we had here for a few months, actually, he he had a really good time. Um he he wants the end of universities, it'll just shut it down, bring it down, and it's like, oh man, that's really intense. And he's like, Well, there universities have become a place where people teach false the false views. These things are all false, the things that they bring up are false, you know, like they're not real. Judith Butler and that, you know, um gender as a social construct and all this kind of stuff, and might flirt with truth occasionally, but at its core, it's it's just not true. You know, uh, but that goes for even a lot of um uh foreign policy stuff on on Israel and everything. A lot of it is just uh objectively false, you know. It's not true. So people are paying a lot of money to be lied to and then to go out and and spread the lies. Yep. Um, and and that's why academics have become, it's like our friend Mohan Dutta, you know, like every time I criticize him, and you know, I've I've given him a hard time, but I've also written articles that have been very thoughtful, and I've got some real academics to help me that have really pulled apart what he has to say, and he'll say, I'm silencing him for doing that. You know, I'm not silencing him, but you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna put a lot of false ideas in the world, this is this is the thing with free speech. You know, expect people to respond. They're going to respond, you're not gonna have it all your way the whole time. Even if you get your censorship laws, people are gonna find a way. Yeah, they're gonna find a way to challenge you, you know, like the media has mm, I don't think is played fair. And because of that, we have that's what's driven you to do what you're doing. You know, you've done it out of necessity, haven't you? It's like, yeah, well, I better do this, it's an opportunity, I want to be heard. This is how it's gonna have to be. If if you had columns and stuff, you wouldn't have you wouldn't have even done that. So the the the online um and

Academia, Sex Ed, Citizen Media

SPEAKER_00 49:50

new, you know, uh podcasters and everything are basically a creation of the media, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

Yeah, absolutely. You know, media have done such a poor job that people have taken it upon themselves to become the media. We're seeing more and more citizen journalists out there doing their thing. You've got the likes of Simon Anson doing his thing as well. Cam Slater's been doing it forever and a day, right? I give major props to Cam. He was actually one of the ones that I had a conversation with a couple of years ago. And I said to him, like, there's this talk about politics and me going into politics, and I've been approached, and what do you think? And so we ended up having this two-hour conversation about politics, and he was the one that convinced me actually my voice is more powerful outside than it is inside. And so I've run with that.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

I'm convinced by that too. Like I I I feel like being a part of the free speech union is is I mean, I I've got a lot of we've got a lot of wins uh under our belts now. And I just don't, if I was a politician, I just don't think I would have be able to boast as much of what of what we've been able to achieve. It's it's uh I just think and it's interesting, isn't it? Because people get so cynical about lobby groups like Jordan Williams and Taxpayer Union and everything. It's like, no, the the you want people, even if you disagree with them, you that's you want people uh corraling, wrangling uh people with a view and giving them a channel to express their grievance over a political party. It's the political parties are the ones that are problematic, you know. Yeah, they're the ones that can be sold to the highest bidder, but really you know, um a taxpayer union has to stay on brand, you know. I mean, we have to stay on brand. All these groups have to stay on brand. That that's that's the difference. And that's why I think we we are, you know, it's like, oh you know, the shadowy. No, it's the political parties that are shadowy. We're the ones in the sunlight.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

And and you know, the really cool thing for me with Radio Al Toro is we are different in that we're not taxpayer funded, we're not ew funded, so we're not having to jump through those same hoops that everybody else is having to jump through. So when people hear Tadel Multi being spoken or they hear moldy songs on Radio Altiroa when Shubs is on, that's not because a box is needing to be ticked. That's just us being unapologetically ourselves, listening to the music that we would normally listen to, talking in the way that we would normally talk, because Shubs' first language is to the old Moldy. And so, you know, you can be authentic. Yeah, yeah. We can be authentic, unapologetically moldy on air without having to tick boxes because we want the handouts from the e we or we want the handouts from the government.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

And Karina, if you're wrong, if you get something wrong, you're getting you are getting it wrong. You're not getting it wrong because you know the boss probably wants you to tell a bit of a fib at this point. Yeah, yeah. Or to go easy on that character. You know, you're making that choice, uh or not even a choice. If you get it wrong, you can be corrected or whatever, but it's not something you're doing. You know, it's it's your mistake, it's not a corporate mistake, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Yeah. No, we are unapologetically ourselves. And so that has been one of the best things about doing it is George isn't trying to change us, he isn't trying to take away, if anything, he is really, really supportive in helping us to be better versions of who we are and what we're trying to do and how we come across to people. And so I've learned over time to pull back a little bit. I don't need to be as combative, I don't need to be as confrontational as I do. You know, it's been a learning journey over the last few months, and it's it's learning how to handle things within the system and and doing it that way. And he's just an amazing man. And if you get the chance to ever spend time with him and understand how his mind works, he is just awesome.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Well, when when I come to Auckland, maybe I'll take a drive out out west and you can introduce me.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll we'll get you to come over to the station. Yeah, yeah. Why not? We might have to sit down and film a potty there.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah,

Where To Listen And Connect

SPEAKER_00 54:35

we'll do it. We'll do it. That'll be nice. Um, okay. So look, uh, we've been going a while. Um, so how can people find you? Um I'm imagining you'll be a repeat guest, so there's no worries there. But um uh how can people find you? Yeah, like like the show, you know?

SPEAKER_02 54:52

So the show is on Radio Altioroa. The best place for most people is through the Rover app or Freeview71. We also have that. There are some frequencies, most of them are lower-powered frequencies, so they don't cover the whole of Auckland. Like we've got Puquet, Manuco Todanga, which is all about plenty, Danita and Christchurch. So those frequencies are all on the website. Um, but Rover and social media are the best places. Shubs Live has social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram, uh, Facebook, X, and TikTok. We stream the show online, four o'clock till seven o'clock as well.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

And you got and because he's got a name like Shubs, yeah, S-H-U-B-Z. S H-U-B-Z? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

Yeah. Yep. S H U B Z.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Yeah. Um, oh that's that that's amazing. So and and the numbers going good?

SPEAKER_02 55:54

The numbers seem to be going good. I I keep an eye on the social media numbers, and I've noticed from the beginning they've gone double, triple from the start. And so, yeah, the we've got definitely got those core group of people that are on on the same platforms every day posting all their comments and things, but then we see lots of new people come in talking about I'm a first-time listener, and you know, nice. I I do try and keep on top of all of the comments too, just so I can see where people are at with things and who else they want us to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

The audience is everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Yeah, no, it's finding the guests that they want us to talk to as well. And so that's been cool. Then, you know, we just had Rodney Hyde yesterday, and that was off the back of uh viewers' suggestion.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Yeah, he's a nice guy, he's a really good guy.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah, he actually was a lot of help for us. He helps me find information about John Summer Hedi and Hansard.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Okay, yeah. Should that be public information, or will we know something on him?

SPEAKER_02 57:04

No, he knows. We bought it was up on the station yesterday in the interview. Yeah, and so you know, it's it's really cool to see these connections start to come together and people having really solid conversations as a result of the way things have changed lately. You know, that they needed to change sooner, but we are where we are now. Yeah, so we are.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

You're you're you're you're taking the world by storm, and I love it. So thank you, Dean.

SPEAKER_02 57:50

It's always good to catch up with you.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Thank you for listening to Free to Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.