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Melissa Derby and Stephen Rainbow
Melissa Derby and Stephen Rainbow

OPINIONMediaAugust 17, 2024

Can you be a human rights commissioner and transphobic at the same time?

Melissa Derby and Stephen Rainbow
Melissa Derby and Stephen Rainbow

What are the odds of two new human rights commissioners holding anti-trans views? Madeleine Chapman ponders the latest appointments.

In a classic comms move, justice minister Paul Goldsmith announced the appointment of three new commissioners to the human rights commission on a Friday afternoon. The roles (chief human rights commissioner, race relations commissioner and equal employment opportunities commissioner) are not minor jobs in this country. Typically, commissioner roles are held by people who have extensive experience in community work and advocacy. They may have particular areas of interest but overall have a strong sense of equity and inclusion in the work they do. They also would all be expected to believe in protecting the human rights of New Zealanders.

Which makes it particularly baffling that two of the three commissioners appointed on Friday have a history of the complete opposite.

Let’s start with our new chief human rights commissioner Stephen Rainbow. Despite his last name and the fact that the press release touted his work of “promoting LBGT rights”, Rainbow has publicly expressed anti-trans views. In 2021, while working at Auckland Transport, Rainbow commented under a post in the Rainbow Auckland Networking Group on Facebook. The post was urging members to sign a petition calling for a ban on conversion therapy. Rainbow commented: “be careful…there’s some elements of the trans agenda being sneakily promoted through this campaign.”

Complaints were made, including from within AT, and an investigation launched. And if you flinched at the word “transphobic” in the headline… believing that there is a scary “trans agenda” behind the criticism of conversion therapy is a literal representation of trans-phobia.

Rainbow is a gay man, and been a vocal advocate for gay marriage as well as a former board member of New Zealand AIDS Foundation (now called the Burnett Foundation). On first glance, Rainbow’s history suggests at the very least a support of the full rainbow community but his comments from not long ago would suggest otherwise.

On a different human rights note, Rainbow has consistently expressed support for Israel while the country decimates Palestine. In January of this year, Rainbow authored an article for the Israel Institute questioning “the left’s” sympathy for Palestinians despite Israel being “one of the most gay-friendly countries in the world”. Such arguments defending Israel’s attacks have been roundly critiqued for being, shall we say, really fucking stupid.

Then there’s Melissa Derby (Ngāti Ranginui), our new race relations commissioner. Derby is a founding member of the Free Speech Union and has also raised eyebrows by sharing posts that were decidedly anti-trans. In 2023, after the trans rights protest in Albert Park, Derby shared a tweet saying the “trans movement” cannot be tolerated in civil society.

Just to be clear, the “trans movement” and “trans agenda” mentioned by our new commissioners is simply trans people existing and living their lives.

In 2020, Derby spoke at an event hosted by anti-trans group Speak Up For Women, the same event cancelled by Massey University amid safety concerns. She opened with a mihi then confusingly followed it with a joke about how apparently “you’re not allowed to criticise anything Māori”. Derby then wasted no time in making her general views known: “As far as points in the oppression Olympics are concerned, I’m always off to a pretty good start, being female with Māori heritage. Although now that people who are biologically men want to compete in our sports teams, my winning streak may be coming to an end.”

In an information booklet published by the Human Rights Commission in June, it is explicitly stated that “trans rights are human rights” before going on the explain that “Under international human rights standards, everyone has the right to be recognised, respected, and participate in public life. You have the right to define your own gender and be free from harm based on your gender.” The booklet suggests contacting the Human Rights Commission with any concerns regarding gender discrimination and the Human Rights Review Tribunal will soon hear its first case of gender discrimination on the basis of being trans.

In June 2023, a global Ipsos survey showed that New Zealanders had the highest level of agreement that transgender people should be protected from discrimination (84%). Which means the vast majority of New Zealanders are at the very least of the view that trans people should be left alone. Of the 16% who disagree, fewer would make it a public stance and even fewer would risk employment to voice such a harmful minority view.

So it’s mighty interesting that two of the highest positions regarding human rights in New Zealand are now held by people who have publicly voiced anti-trans views (among other questionable views). Wow, what are the odds?

This week’s episode of Behind the Story

Anna Rawhiti-Connell knows more about the internet and how it functions than probably any other journalist in New Zealand. And this week she had the perfect subject: Raygun, the Olympic breakdancing competitor from Australia.

Raygun has been many different things since she first revealed herself in the final weekend of the Paris Games. She’s been an icon, an embarrassment, a hero, and now apparently the subject of an investigation. Anna tracked her rise and fall and rise and fall in a deep dive for The Spinoff. We talked about the latest developments and shared some lukewarm takes about New Zealand’s success in Olympic sports.

So what have readers spent the most time reading this week?

Comments of the week

“I was on a local board in the first years of the new city. At that time, along with the enormous effort from staff to maintain professionalism with very limited infrastructure (like phones, desks, computers!), there was a lot of excitement about the new city. Speakers told us that the world was watching the Auckland experiment. Throughout the process of the Auckland Plan and Unitary Plan, people came to meetings expecting something new and responsive.

Sadly, I think the old, clumsy, heavy-handed Council response simply reappeared. Agile, innovative? Digital town hall? Nope. And following the people’s Unitary Plan, along came the Government’s own version that simply trumped what Aucklanders had worked so hard to achieve consensus on.”

— HelgaA

“I was on a benefit during the last National government and it was a hard life.
I had no car, only a single pram to get my two little kids around. Every time I tried to do something to improve my situation I would get told off by WINZ or end up in a worse situation.

What got me off the benefit wasn’t sanctions, tellings off from WINZ case managers, or “ready to work” seminars. What got me off the benefit was living somewhere rent was 1/4 of my benefit, where I didn’t have to worry about buying food and could afford heating. When I could finally take a break from the crushing poverty, I spent my money on self-improvement, networking, and courses that put me in circles with people who weren’t poor which got me a job offer that was my start. You can’t get out of poverty when you’re crushed.”

— Kirsty

Pick up where this leaves off

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The Philip Polkinghorne trial is everywhere – is that why we can’t look away?
The Philip Polkinghorne trial is everywhere – is that why we can’t look away?

SocietyAugust 16, 2024

Drugs, sex and ‘murder’: Why can’t we look away from the Polkinghorne trial?

The Philip Polkinghorne trial is everywhere – is that why we can’t look away?
The Philip Polkinghorne trial is everywhere – is that why we can’t look away?

It’s got all the fantastical elements of a true crime Netflix series, and our news media is saturated with it. But is it all a bit much?

The Philip Polkinghorne trial has it all: the backdrop of an affluent Auckland suburb, sex obsession, methamphetamine use, a Canadian rope expert, an unhappy marriage, a dead woman and her husband in the defence. The New Zealand Herald has likened the trial to OJ Simpson’s, while it and media rival Stuff have both launched podcasts dedicated to breathless Polkinghorne coverage alongside daily live blogs. No moment, no piece of information, has been missed. 

Polkinghorne, and the public, are now nearly halfway through the trial brought by the Crown, which alleges the 71-year-old murdered his wife, Pauline Hanna, by strangulation while possibly under the influence of methamphetamine, or prompted by an argument concerning Polkinghorne’s sexcapades. The prosecution alleges Polkinghorne staged her death to look like a suicide. Hanna was found dead in the couple’s Remuera home on Easter Monday 2021, and the defence maintains she took her own life before being found by her husband. At his first court hearing in August 2022, Polkinghorne pleaded not guilty.

The Crown alleges Polkinghorne lived a double-life, and evidence heard so far paints a picture of a man whose wealth was disappearing on a methamphetamine habit and sex workers in Auckland and Sydney, and an unhappy woman pressured by a controlling husband and her role as a DHB boss, helping to roll out the Covid-19 vaccine. 

There are many ways to engage with the Polkinghorne trial – in the 24 hours after the hearing began on July 29, the New Zealand Herald launched its podcast Accused: The Polkinghorne Trial, a live blog, recap of the hearing’s events and commentary from former court reporter Steve Braunias, who described the trial as “a case from the golden age of tabloid journalism” and later, “the most scandalous trial of the century”. Driving the streets of Auckland, headlines from NZ Herald about the trial shine out from digital billboards. Some of the quotes played out in recordings are such fodder for headlines you can almost hear the furious typing of the court reporters. This from Hanna, for example: “He screws women, and he hurts me, but I know he loves me … I just know he’s such a sex fiend and wants to have sex with everyone.”

It’s not just the Herald though. Stuff launched a second season of its own true crime podcast The Trial to follow the Polkinghorne case, alongside a daily live blog. For lighter reading, 1News and RNZ are offering multiple written stories rather than rolling blogs.

An ‘ad nauseam’ access to the courts

It may seem par for the course now, but court reports weren’t always so instantly accessible, or padded out in immense detail. Award-winning journalist Donna Chisholm first began her career in court reporting for the Auckland Star in the 70s, when stories were written in the press bench by hand on paper with carbon copies, which were later run back to the office, or retold over the phone so an editor could copy it out for printing, line by line. If there was no available phone, you kept two cents in your pocket to find a phone box.

Now, journalists enter courts armed with laptops that can instantly update stories with the push of a button, so that as soon as a verdict is called, the public will know about it too. Throw a live blog into the mix, and the reporter can publish every statement they hear without having to worry about editing to fit a word count.

It may seem like “ancient history” now, but court reports weren’t always so instantly accessible, or padded out in immense detail (Photo: Getty)

It’s an ability which shocked some members of the public in the reporting of the Lauren Dickason trial, also live blogged by the media. However, Chisholm says she doesn’t have any ethical concerns with today’s coverage of the courts. For one, it removes some of the inherent bias in reporting. “I think that it’s probably safer in many ways than cherry picking,” she says. “Obviously, there’s angles to stories, but a blow by blow of every single witness and everything they said, ad nauseam, is in there, and if you’re interested enough, you can go and find it. You’re not relying on another person’s filter.”

Back when Chisholm was in the press bench, reporters spent all day in the High Court sitting through every case in the courtroom, waiting to hear something that might be newsworthy. “There wasn’t any better example of what was happening in the community,” Chisholm says. Witnessing the courts on a daily basis “gives a far better reflection of what’s happening out there than the one-off spectacularly newsworthy cases like [Polkinghorne].” The truest example of this she recalls is a case from 1978, concerning a 17-year-old Niuean boy Iki Toloa, brought before the magistrate accused of stealing a comb from his workplace.

He was stopped by police on Auckland’s Karangahape Road while walking home from his work at Consolidated Plastics factory in Ellerslie. Toloa was arrested, charged and convicted of theft from his employer. “I was sitting there and thinking, ‘why?’ What that said was, this is racism in action,” Chisholm says. “I actually went running back to the office with the story, that’s how outrageous this was. And [then-acting editor Pat Booth] put it all over the front page.”

The follow-up became an even bigger story – University of Auckland law lecturer, David Williams, handed himself and a UOA-branded pen over to police for arrest. This became a front page story, too, after police chose not to charge him. “[Toloa’s] only real crime was that he was poor and walked home at night,” Williams told Chisholm at the time. Following Chisholm’s front-page reporting, Toloa’s case was referred back to the courts where police failed to present any evidence and his conviction was vacated. Chisholm says watching Toloa’s case unfold was a class in “racism 101”.

David Williams’ pen (Photo: The Single Object)

Polkinghorne sits at the opposite end of the spectrum to Toloa. As a wealthy white man, his trial is unlikely to offer a lesson on institutional issues, instead it taps into our curiosity of how the other half lives. And the life of Polkinghorne is particularly fantastical for a court case. As Chisholm points out, you don’t typically expect your eye doctor to go around and “thump” somebody. “This trial obviously has everything: with most murders, you don’t get status, you don’t get wealth, sex, drugs, all in one pot,” she says. “That’s pretty unusual in court, and that’s not really what court coverage is all about.”

Our fascination with true crime

Anyone with a Netflix subscription and internet access will recognise the true crime genre has grown exponentially since the 2010s, though its history is much longer, back to the gallows of 17th century London. The Polkinghorne trial has coincided, for this reporter, with a first time reading of In Cold Blood. The 1969 Truman Capote novel, which follows the quadruple-murders of the Clutter family in Kansas, is often touted as the pioneer of the true crime genre, though considering it arrived following centuries of crime reporting, it might be more suitable to think of it as a grandfather of the genre.

In 2024, where reading is meant to be a break from our constantly updating social media timelines, In Cold Blood offers no respite from the horrors of the real world. In immense detail, Capote retraces the family’s last day on Earth, the anxiety-inducing hunt for the killers, and their subsequent downfall. The book has sold millions of copies worldwide, though it began as a four-part series for The New Yorker.

It’s not hard to imagine, like the Clutter family’s small town community, Remuera locals gathering in cafes and recounting the trial of their former neighbour over coffee. Maybe they’re the same people packing out the public benches in Polkinghorne’s courtroom – on Wednesday, the Herald noted that “to get into Courtroom 11 this afternoon, media and lawyers have had to push past at least a dozen mostly older people who are coming to watch every moment, and who have massed in the corridor outside to ensure they get a seat.” On a separate day, Stuff described a group of older women loyally sitting in to see the trial.

Truman Capote’s famous true crime novel In Cold Blood began as a series for The New Yorker (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Drew University criminology professor Scott Bonn has chalked interest in true crime up to the adrenaline our brains produce when we “witness terrible deeds”, and the fact the genre can be consumed in a controlled environment where fear can be manageable, and we can act as armchair detectives.

Crime author and DeSales University criminal justice professor Katherine Ramsland also argues true crime gives us viewers a puzzle to solve, and that “people gawk at terrible things to reassure themselves that they are safe”. Former lieutenant commander of the New York City Police Department, Vernon Geberth, has said that true crime piques our curiosity, and that a viewer can insulate themselves from the “reality of the horror by viewing the events through the prism of entertainment. This tends to make the reality less threatening, because the event happened to someone else.”

Whether or not he is found guilty of murder, Polkinghorne and all his flaws have already been immortalised in the public mind and media. And so has Hanna – the victim at the centre of this trial, whose death has inadvertently produced hundreds of headlines. She has no idea that the nation has been breathlessly following the last years, months, days and minutes of her life, trying to piece together her story like a game of Cluedo. What remains is her family, loved ones and friends (such as The Housewives of Middlemore), and while the Polkinghorne trial may serve as entertainment for some, for others it acts as a constant and jarring reminder of the loss of the woman they loved, the struggles she faced in her marriage and ways in which her husband may have failed her.