"I have always been the big-mouth Māori that says things we're not supposed to say."

Corina Shields — better known online as Aunty Heihei (@AuntyHeihei) — returns to Free to Speak to talk with host Dane Giroud about her move from social-media commentary into the producer's chair at Radio Aotearoa, where she now produces "Shubz Says So" with Shubz Live.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Corina is a wāhine Māori who built a following by saying the things she believes mainstream and Māori media won't. In this wide-ranging conversation, she and Dane dig into why so many New Zealanders no longer trust the legacy press — and why a wave of citizen journalists and independent broadcasters has risen to fill the gap.

They cover her conviction that Te Pāti Māori does not speak for all Māori, the gulf between iwi leadership and the ahikā keeping the home fires burning, and why she argues "racism" has become a lazy label used to shut conversations down rather than have them. Dane brings his own perspective as a Jewish New Zealander on how hate-speech laws can end up silencing the very minorities they claim to protect — by letting the government decide which voices within a community are legitimate.

The conversation also turns to a three-week hīkoi across the North Island to communities that rarely get a microphone, the difference between funded and unfunded media, the role of academics versus the people doing the work on the ground, and why Corina decided her voice is more powerful outside Parliament than inside it.

A frank conversation about media plurality, hard conversations, and the freedom to disagree.

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