The Rena disaster has produced some moments we can be proud of, such as ordinary kiwis showing up to clean their beach when the government won't. But its also given us something shameful: a racist backlash against the Filipino community, based on the ethnicity of the ship's crew.
This is absolutely shameful. To point out the obvious, local Filipinos are not responsible for the oil spill. Hell, most of the crew aren't responsible either. And those that are are being prosecuted.
We are supposed to be a better country than this. It would be nice if the residents of Tauranga started acting like it.
