Larry Williams Drive

Inevitably, the Aussies have picked up on the slur from Chris Luxon, where he said when talking to Aussies - it pays to be ‘incredibly simple’. And they seem to be largely taking in the spirit it’s intended, which is just a bit of humour. And it also means Luxon’s play worked. Which is - by having a crack at the Aussies to distract us from the actual issue, which is Paul Goldsmith taking Māori words out of the Matariki invitation.Look, let’s get to the heart of this, this was a dumb thing for Paul Goldsmith to do. Yeah, I get he might want an invitation from him to be authentic to him and if he doesn’t make a habit of going around using Māori words in a tokenistic fashion to show off his inclusivity credentials, then sure, he might want to take out the Te Reo and replace it with English - fair enough.But Paul Goldsmith is going have start being a little bit smarter and strategic about this, because this Government doesn’t need a petty issue like this on race relations to deal with. It has got enough going on