John Banks Embattled ACT leader and MP John Banks' deeply ingrained homophobia has risen to the surface again, in response to questions about his 'anonymous' mayoral campaign contributions and connections between him and internet upload millionaire Kim Dotcom. Asked last week on Radio Live: "What about donations to your campaign? Do you have a relationship with Kim Dotcom?" Banks immediately interpreted the question as being about his sexuality and responded with a remarkable degree of negativity and bluster. Banks: "...This is offensive. He's a married man, what are you talking about?" Radio Live: "Not a relationship like that." Banks: "No, look I don't want to go down... I've had no relationship with Dotcom - he's got a wife." Radio Live: "Not like that, a business relationship..." Banks then hung up. Radio Live immediately called him back. Banks: "Hello?" Radio Live: "Hi. I was just wanting to clear up something, I wasn't meaning to..." Banks: "Just a minute. Just a minute... I have never had a relationship with Dotcom, he is a married man..." Banks then quickly ended the call. In the brief interview Banks also seemed to morph questions regarding Sky City donations to his campaign into suggestions he and Dotcom had spent time at the casino, restaurant and hotel complex together. "I have not been to Sky City with Dotcom" he exclaimed. Twice. Banks has virulently criticised and demeaned homosexuals for decades during his public life, particularly as an MP during the mid-1980s campaign to decriminalise homosexual intimacy. Also when he was the National government's Minister of Police in the early 1990s and more recently throughout his years as a controversial talkback host on Radio Pacific, a position he has not held for some years. Pro-gay Labour MP Lianne Dalziel once famously suggested that he was a man with unresolved issues. You can discuss this New Zealand gay community news story in the GayNZ.com Forum.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 1st May 2012 - 3:44pm