By Peter Williams

If you were hoping race relations temperatures in 2025 might reduce after the simmering discontent of the hikoi, Christchurch organization Brown Town has turned up the thermostat.

In an extraordinary act of tone deafness they’ve decided if you are brown, or presumably merely identify as Māori or a person of the Pacific, you can get a discount price for a music festival on January 26th called Waves.

The cheapest tickets, available to those of all skin colours or racial ethnicity, are the buy early variety. They’re $15. Missing that deadline means you pay $20 if you’re brown – or say you are – and $30 if you’re a bulk standard white person.

So a millionaire brown person like say, oh John Tamihere, or his high earning Te Tai Tonga MP Takuta Ferris, gets a cheaper price than an unemployed white person.

That’s really fair isn’t it?

It’s also highly patronizing on the part of this Brown Town outfit. The reason for the price difference between brown and white people is because of “systematic inequalities that have historically impacted Māori and Pacific communities.”

What Brown Town seem to be saying is that all brown people are poor and need a cheaper ticket. What tosh. There are hundreds of thousands of affluent brown people who don’t need a cheaper ticket just because of their skin colour or who their ancestors were. Just like there are hundreds of thousands of white people who are poor and could do with a bit of a subsidy to an event like this.

When Brown Town trot out the excuse about how tiered pricing is common at many events for students and pensioners and other economic groups, they’re ignoring the basic premise.

To discriminate against a group of people on the basis of their skin colour or ethnicity is illegal in this country. It is now in the statute books – the Human Rights Act – but it has always been the morally correct way for people to behave.

Brown Town have now changed the wording in their marketing material. The cheap tickets are still for those who buy early. But the reality is despite some fancy word changes the pricing structure still discriminates. The ticket for “Alofa” is $20 and for “Ally” is $30. That translates to whitey having to cough up $10 more than brownie.

WE DON’T DO THAT IN NEW ZEALAND.

The reaction of government agencies supposedly overseeing this fiasco has been pathetic.

The Human Rights Commission says its received complaints but can’t tell us what they are because of the Privacy Act.

Sigh.

Then a spokesperson says this: “The commission also can’t make findings or decide if the law has been breached.”

Well find someone who can – like the police.

And just to prove how stupid the HRC is, we had this doozy.

“It’s our understanding that the ticketing structure to this event was amended this morning.”

No it wasn’t. The ticketing structure is exactly the same. Only the fancy ways to describe brown and white people has been changed.

Creative New Zealand’s Dinah Vincent doesn’t want to face reality either.

“Many events have tiered ticket pricing, named in ways that reflect the organisation, the event and the target audience.”

Except Dinah dear, we don’t discriminate against people because of race, ethnicity or skin colour. That’s ILLEGAL.

Neither has the new Race Relations Commissioner made an auspicious start.

“While recognising the event organisers were well-intentioned in aiming to increase accessibility for their communities, there are alternative, non-discriminatory avenues which could also achieve the same outcome without the risk of perpetuating negative stereotypes about particular communities.”

Melissa Derby should stop being an academic and learn to speak English.

Something like: “this ticket pricing discriminates against a group of people based on their race. That’s not allowed and the ticket price categories must change.”

The event has already had to shift from its original venue because the owners of that place, Muy Muy, didn’t want anything to do with such blatant discrimination.

Currently Waves is on at a venue TBA. But the illegal and racist ticket pricing still continues.

If you want racial disharmony in this country separatist policies like this are just the ticket – unless you get the early bird special.

Update: According to NewstalkZB the event has been postponed due to safety concerns