Percy Smith and the Legacy of Alternative Facts

Words by Kelly Mitchell, Ngaati Maahanga (she/he/they)

Last week the Greymouth Times published a racist cartoon by David Thomas Healy which depicted a Pākehā person at The Three Waters ‘table’ asking, “do you ratepayers want your water?” and a Māori person responding with “it’s not theirs; it’s mine!”. 

The owners of the Greymouth Times also own the Otago Daily Times (ODT). In 2019, the ODT faced criticism about a Garrick Tremain cartoon mocking the measles crisis in Hāmoa. On the same day, as he ran an apology for his racist cartoon, Healy also shared an article on his (amazingly public) Facebook page regarding Tremain, where Tremain rejected the criticism he faced on his ODT cartoon. The article about Tremain is three years old. Healy added the caption, “stay strong Garrick.” 

Healy has a history of publishing racist cartoons against Māori, and the cartoon in this instance was an objective lie attempting to turn the public against The Three Waters infrastructure by insinuating that it results in Māori ownership of waterways. The Three Waters does not do that and never intended to.

As is typical, the criticism against the cartoon centred on its attitudes towards Māori. It forced onlookers to put themselves into one of two camps: one which is anti-racist and one which thinks the cartoon was funny, harmless, and that the negative reactions are coming from sensitive PC cucks. This approach to criticism often overlooks what is just as, if not more, important than the attitudes expressed—the fact that the cartoon is a lie. 

White racism has always been used to spread lies in New Zealand, the most notorious historical example being Percy Smith’s theory of Māori settlement, ‘the Great Fleet.’ ‘The Great Fleet’ posed that Aotearoa was first settled by primitive, nomadic, moa-hunting people (the Palaeolithic Moriori) before being usurped by a superior race (the Neolithic Māori). Oh, and the latter were also lighter-skinned, naturally, as it, of course, adds to their superiority. The Moriori myth was satisfying to Pākehā New Zealand and remains so even today, despite being thoroughly disproved. It aligns with two of the tenets of racism: indigeneity is a lie and lighter-skinned people are better. 

When we address this kind of racism, as it exists in academia, media, and other published texts, we often focus on the emotional harm caused. The same happened in the public response to Stuff’s apology, ‘Tā Mātou Pono,’ in 2020, where most of the reports and responses considered Stuff’s apology as ‘inflaming race-relations, but very little considered the work which needs undertaking to fix the lies which are now buried in the New Zealand understanding. The lies which lend themselves to how we view education, crime, co-governance, and the like. This is not to say that the emotional harm caused does not deserve addressing; rather, it is all in vain if we turn and leave Māori to clean up and disprove the lies—a job which itself involves facing racism and resistance. 

Just look to the American public, who, following Conway’s explanation of Trump’s ‘alternative facts,’ are still working away trying to save their whānau from descending into the clutches of conspiracy and Nazism. Imagine having to do that, but with 180 years of racist, colonial drivel. Shot Healy.