Heather du Plessis-Allan: Meng Foon might want to think about resigning

I’d say Meng Foon is in a position where he should probably think about quitting his job.

It’s been revealed that he’s a Kiri Allan donor. 

So, go back to the last election: he and his wife gave her 1500 dollars for the campaign, also allowing her to use an empty shop his wife owned, and only charged her campaign a nominal amount so she basically ended up with a rent subsidy worth around $9200.

A problem because he was already the race relations commissioner and in that job he’s supposed to be politically neutral; that’s what the law requires of him. That’s what his job description says.

Giving money to a Labour MP is clearly not politically neutral. 

And, Kiri Allan by the way —incidentally— now happens to be the Justice Minister.  

Wasn’t at the time, but she has since taken on the role, and that means she will be deciding whether to reappoint him in his job if they’re both still there next year.

Now look, if this was just the one mark against Meng Foon’s name he’d probably get away with it, but the fact is that he’s actually been doing more harm than good in his job.

He called the police racist, which so upset frontline officers that he had to apologise for it.

He’s been trigger happy on throwing the racism label around in weird examples like that, 

but then when a poem suggesting descendants of Captain Cook and all white people be tracked down and stabbed through the ribs with pig knives gets publicity he tells the media he’s got nothing to say about it.

The problem is that it’s getting harder and harder to respect the role of the Race Relations Commissioner.

So while I don’t think this is resignation material in and of itself, if Meng Foon and his responsible Minister want punters to continue to respect the mana of the role, he might have to give it up.

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