Firstly this from the Race Relations Commissioner (via NZ Herald)

“Television New Zealand probably has some responsibilities as a public broadcaster.”

Mr de Bres said Henry often said things to challenge or shock people “but this one was off the planet”.

“What he was saying was that if you were an Indian New Zealander and you were born here, you went to school here, you went to university here, you practised law here, you became a judge, you became an ombudsman and you became a Governor-General, that a key presenter on national television still thinks you don’t look like or sound like a New Zealander.”

This is the best summary of just how offensive Henry’s comments are.

Now TVNZ has suspended him for two weeks but that is still not good enough. He needs to be fired. Blogs from the right, left and centre are saying he needs to go. This isn’t a PC vs not-PC battle this is a battle that strikes right at the heart of what it means to be a NZder we are not just all white! And if you have that mindset you are living in the wrong century and the wrong country.

Danyl at the Dim Post comments:

The story led the MSM news websites all day but has yet to be covered by TVNZ News. How professional. TVNZ’s self-censorship is a perfect illustration of why being the state broadcaster is incompatible with using offensive and controversial material to boost your ratings.

Danyl also mentions his own blog stats from yesterday:

Busiest day ever on the blog yesterday with 9,464 visitors. Average for a weekday is 4,500 which goes up to around 6,000 if I find the time to write something original or amusing, which isn’t very often these days. If I advertised I’d be rich!

My visits were also about double normal rates and my busiest day since April when I blogged on the new version of Ubuntu Linux… although my numbers are only about 1.5% of Danyl’s numbers.

Until now I have been reluctant to dislike Paul Henry. When he is in his prime he is a damn good interviewer. However, he is far too much of a shock jock to continue on national TV. Particularly on Government funded TV.

His latest bout of stupidity is from this morning, while interviewing the Prime Minister about the appointment of a new Governor General he asked if the new GG would look and sound more like a New Zealander. Watch for yourself:

This was not a gaffe or a mistake this was a deliberate racist comment against a senior representative of New Zealand.

Only last week CNN sacked Rick Sanchez for anti-Jewish remarks against Jon Stewart. Yes a commercial TV station sacked a news anchor for radio comments against a comedian.

Yet here we have a government funded national broadcaster willing to keep on air someone who is racist in an interview with the Prime Minister. Disgusting.

How many nine lives has Paul Henry had now?

Update: Oh god, I missed this from last week:

Update 2: @nzben (Ben Gracewood) of www.ben.geek.nz fame has withdrawn from his regular gadget section on the show. Good on him for standing up on principal. His comments are here.