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February 19, 2023 11:00am by David Farrar

Hooton’s Auckland Grammar speech

A great speech by Matthew Hooton to his old school of Auckland Grammar. Deserves a wider audience, so am blogging it.

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Comment39

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Auckland Grammar
Matthew Hooton

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Comments (39)

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stewmar

I’ve got no time for Hooton, he is too critical of Chris Luxon and National and unfairly IMHO.
I’m not sure what his grievance is with them.
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February 19, 2023 11:19am
- Widogast Corwin
  
  Could you give an example of a criticism of Luxon with which you disagree?
  
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  February 19, 2023 11:25am
- nathie
  
  I recall Hooten being critical of Simon Bridges and John Key (even writing critical articles of Simon Bridges as he was campaigning for Muller). Seemed to stem from being denied some contract work (for National) during Key’s time I think?
  
  Anyway Hooten gave a great speech for sure, that’s the Hooten I prefer and like how he was years ago when he used to dual with the Left on Kathryn Ryan’s Mornings show years ago. Be great if we saw that Hooten return!
  
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  February 19, 2023 11:36am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    He may well have given a great speech – somewhere, at some time, to some audience – but that steaming pile of crap he dished up to the unfortunate Auckland Grammar students most certainly wasn’t it.
    
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    February 19, 2023 10:34pm
- crikey
  
  It is a great speech, totally fit for purpose. I think you ought to be able to read it in context, in isolation from your off-topic political views.
  
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  February 19, 2023 4:02pm
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Stewmar – Hooten is an utter loser. Anybody who backs Todd Muller has to be a loser.
  
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  February 19, 2023 6:11pm
Jack5

Matthew Hooton tells of an ADHD diagnosis, and of being helped by ritalin. A good speech.

If Matthew’s ever looking for a cause to support, autistic kids higher on the “neurodiversity” scale than himself could be helped by use of his political and PR skills in educating employers.
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February 19, 2023 11:23am
the deity formerly known as nigel6888

I gave up once he claimed that “Woke” simply means having good manners.

Mr Hooton always runs with the hares and hunts with the hounds.

I have no particular interest in what he claims to believe sincerely in, this week.
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February 19, 2023 11:29am
- Kimble
  
  He didn’t.
  
  If woke is just another name for having good manners, for being considerate and inclusive of others, for being alert to injustice and willing to fight it when necessary, then those are values that you should be proud of and which you should embrace.
  …
  What I think being woke has come to mean is being haughty about your virtues, and then that does become a vice.
  
  You might want to pause to consider just how many things in this world you are only desperately upset about because of your self-inflicted, elective illiteracy.
  
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  February 19, 2023 11:54am
  - Simon
    
    “You might want to pause to consider just how many things in this world you are only desperately upset about because of your self-inflicted, elective illiteracy.“
    
    Lol – you go first
    
    They jaxxed all these kids with unsafe useless shit so old people would feel safe. That’s enough.
    
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    February 19, 2023 12:25pm
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    I’m not desperately upset about Hooton.
    
    I read a stupid analogy, realised life is too short for this shit and hit delete.
    
    I could point out that Hooton has never had a principle that survived the cheque clearing – but he went to Auckland Grammar, so no real surprise there either.
    
    Why do you read him?
    
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    February 19, 2023 1:51pm
    - Kimble
      
      Forget him, this is about you.
      
      You gave up after you misread something.
      
      How many of the other things have you given up on are because you couldn’t bring yourself to read it accurately?
      
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      February 20, 2023 10:14am
- David Garrett
  
  Deity: You lasted that long? As I understand it Woke most definitely does not mean:
  
  …. just another name for having good manners, for being considerate and inclusive of others, for being alert to injustice and willing to fight it when necessary…
  
  What Hooten describes is what used to be called “being a gentleman” – before we had to substitute an alphabet soup for the word “gentleman”.
  
  For me at least the term means: Finding endless excuses for peoples’ bad behaviour; being ultra-sensitive to anything which might conceivably be called racist, or sexist, or – that silliest word of them all “homophobic” ( I am not remotely frightened of homosexuals, which is what the word actually means, but I do find many of their practices abhorrent and disgusting); it means being overeager to find “injustice” in how criminals are treated, but having little interest in their victims’. I have seen this on many occasions when I have been asked to address students on criminal justice in today’s New Zild.
  
  As for that old saw about every generation since Socrates’ finding the next generation soft and indolent, there is some truth in that – even if Hooten had to insert [cellphones] into the quote to make it more relevant.
  
  As regulars here know, I idolize that golden generation of men – particularly the members of Bomber Command and their American equivalents who, in 1942, had only a 1:3 chance of completing their “tour” of missions – 30 for the Brits, and 25 for the yanks.
  
  I simply do not believe that the tattooed gits I see lounging around Helensville with bits of wire through various parts of their faces who are – as Hooten acknowledges – addicted to mindless trivia via their cellphones, would keep on doing it “night after night” as those young men, little older that Hooten was addressing, did 8o odd years ago. And they were all volunteers.
  
  The young men I describe, 50,000 of them, cannot even get off their lazy arses and pick fruit and prune trees and vines – which means we have to import Islanders to do those jobs, thus creating serious labour shortages in the Islands themselves.
  
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  February 19, 2023 12:12pm
  - Old.Mickey.Blue.Eyes
    
    sadly, any positives that can be labeled “woke” are surely overtaken by the negatives – including the Virtue signaling climate change cultists. the evil of woke is when kids are indoctrinated to believe they are the problem with the world and end up in dispear that they can’t fix the world or make a difference. this dispear often ends up incorporating drug abuse and addiction. sadly, as was the case a few weeks ago with a friend’s son, he took his life as reality created an unbearable and bleak future. woke is evil, it creates dispear and angst and anguish everywhere its tentacles reach. the greens and climate cult have much to answer for, they are not making the world any better. most don’t understand basic science, the history of climate or ice ages. at a dinner party on Friday a good friend said woke is just being kind. that is the gateway drug like pot is to meth. woke agenda requires unquestioned loyalty and belief. it is a cult pushing a dangerous cool-aide.
    
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    February 19, 2023 12:37pm
  - David Garrett
    
    As an aside, the Socrates quote [there are many other great thinkers who have said similar things] is also often cited to “prove” that criminal behaviour – particularly violent criminal behaviour] is really no worse now than it ever was. The aptly named professor Pratt, a criminologist at Victoria, loves to use this one.
    
    In fact violent and property crime is waaay more common than it was a generation or three ago. In New Zealand during the first 3/4 of the 20th century, our homicide rate was about 0.5 per 100,000 of population per year. In fact in 1959 there were no homicides at all – not one.
    
    Our culpable homicide (which includes both murder and manslaughter) rate of about 1.5/100,000/p.a. is now not only three times what it was 60 or 70 years ago, but higher than the OECD average.
    
    No amount of quoting from Socrates or anybody else can make that stat mean “things aren’t really any worse than they were in the past.”
    
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    February 19, 2023 12:46pm
  - Kimble
    
    But if by “woke” someone DID mean having good manners, etc, then those would still be good things, right?
    
    This is what Hooten said. He skillfully sidestepped the minefield and re-established the relevance and importance of traditional virtues.
    
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    February 20, 2023 10:17am
- Close Hen Counters
  
  My son in 6th form thought Hooton was a complete cock – he said speech was for an hour …. I guess out of school time for learning something more valuable …. Current grammar kids and their politically exhausted parents are fairly clued up on the world at present. Don’t need Hooton to mansplain it further
  
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  February 19, 2023 5:29pm
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Your son is a good judge of both character and content.
    
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    February 19, 2023 10:37pm
Sacha

Gosh, that reminds me of the Leavers Speech when I left school, back in 1954. We didn’t know about autism or vaping or lots of today’s ‘challenges’, but the core character values were the same. to aim for.
By the time today’s 3rd Formers have reached the 7th, they will have hopefully ‘read, learned and inwardly digested’ the lessons of the past.
Go well, you kids.
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February 19, 2023 11:31am
Simon

Any kid finishing secondary school should have started making plans to exit NZ. At some point. Already NZ is steady system failure.
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February 19, 2023 11:41am
- yossarian
  
  The problem is…and go where?
  
  Australia is playing catch up, Melbourne is already there. The UK is ahead of us. Canada? Forget it.
  
  Only the US has pockets of resistance
  
  Personally I think we’re seeing the start of civilized decline, which by irony, means we’re not that civilized afterall.
  
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  February 19, 2023 11:56am
  - Simon
    
    Yes that’s the question. Where. It will depend on the individual. NZ is doomed just look at the major nominal centre right party.
    
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    February 19, 2023 12:27pm
- Close Hen Counters
  
  Amen to that Simon – all three sons bolting outta here asap
  
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  February 19, 2023 5:30pm
Kimble

I loved the bit at the end where he said that his whole speech was written by ChatGPT!
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February 19, 2023 11:55am
Michael J Baker

Not quite sure what his point was. And I doubt most of us who critique the ‘woke’, aren’t talking about hard working AG boys that are more self-aware on mental health or the environment than their parents were. So yeah, anyway, work hard boys and don’t get sucked into Marxist bullshit like Hooten.
This is also good. https://youtu.be/TuYhfCkRxyE
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February 19, 2023 12:34pm
Michael J Baker

(Obviously Hooten isn’t (as far as I’m aware) a Marxist. But I have a low tolerance for climate change believers.)
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February 19, 2023 12:36pm
Cassandra

The climate is changing. Why is the question. As someone in 3B in 1955 I’m sure I’d have got the answer if I’d stayed at AGS until 6B (no 7 year in those days), but greener fields beckoned. My grandchildren are heading for Oz. It might be trying to emulate NZ but it’s nowhere near and never will be. Even their Labor Party is committed to nuclear submarines.
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February 19, 2023 12:46pm
Michael J Baker

The climate is indeed changing. That’s different from “Climate Change TM”. (Sorry, I don’t know how to do superscript.)
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February 19, 2023 1:18pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  open bracket tm close bracket ™
  
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  February 19, 2023 1:54pm
  - Michael J Baker
    
    Thank (you) .
    
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    February 19, 2023 3:29pm
Scott

Well I can see why DPF likes the speech. I completely disagree with Hooten.

Homosexuality and transgender are not signs of the advancement of our civilisation. They are the signs of its decadence and degradation.
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February 19, 2023 1:26pm
- Widogast Corwin
  
  I agree on transgender.
  
  However homosexuality has existed for millenia. Do you propose that we go back to imprisoning gay men? Or exposing them to blackmail?
  
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  February 19, 2023 2:11pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Do you propose that we go back to imprisoning gay men?
    
    Except we didn’t. Homosexuality per se was never a crime in New Zealand – or the UK from whence our law originally came for that matter. “Importuning male persons” aka asking to suck some young guy’s dick in a public toilet was and offence – and rightly so in my opinion.
    
    Gays – like the writer Frank Sargeson – who kept their heads down (as it were) and kept their private lives private never went to prison. Incidentally Sargeson did go to jail in his youth for the offence cited in the previous para. After that, he kept his head down (and presumably stayed away from public toilets)
    
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    February 19, 2023 5:14pm
- Scott
  
  What I would say is that Christianity was revolutionary in that it went back to the basics. Sexual activity would be between one man and one woman in marriage for life. That gave us strong families and a healthy nation.
  
  Now our highest virtue appears to be Pride month?
  
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  February 19, 2023 4:30pm
Paulus

I thought it was a thoughtful speech and enjoyed reading it and perhaps understood a little more of the weakness of man’s infidelities, irrespective of who wrote the speech.
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February 19, 2023 1:59pm
CAKE FACE1

Hooton hoots a solipsistic sermon.

Ho hum.
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February 19, 2023 4:17pm
- CAKE FACE1
  
  Mental health?
  
  “Try not to make a fetish of it, as if you’re trying to collect all the stickers.”
  
  My academic record = ME!
  My alcoholism = ME!
  My ADHD = ME!
  
  Curiously, Mr Hooton didn’t mention narcissism on his list of mental illnesses. I suppose he already had enough stickers in his book…
  
  I wonder if he gets awarded stickers for humble brags? He might need to invest in another book…
  
  The virtue signalling, I would say, was truly top notch, For example:
  
  “I think yours is the best generation there has ever been.”
  
  I think I feel sick.
  
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  February 19, 2023 4:58pm
Alan Wilkinson

Knowing Hooten has ADHD makes his inconsistency and egotism a bit more explicable.
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February 19, 2023 8:23pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  Ah, you fell for it. Everyone has an excuse for bad behaviour these days, don’t they?
  
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  February 19, 2023 10:40pm

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