Jill Caldwell sees no great value in debating the rights and wrongs of Mr Henry's comments.
"I mean it's great that people are recognising that human potential is greater than defined by how you look on the outside, and that's fantastic.
"But it's a kind of a pointless argument because the reality is we do have these two kinds of conflicting forces."
Ms Caldwell, of Brighton, who co-wrote the 2007 book 8 Tribes: The hidden classes of New Zealand considers human beings to be "innately racist".
"We learn not to be. But we've got all these kind of unconscious systems which are differentiating people on the basis of things like the colour of their skin, how old they are, what sex they are.
"So, all this behaviour, this kind of separating out if you are the same as me or you are different from me stuff, we're having to sort of counteract."
She considers where Paul Henry went wrong was in giving in to those "underlying impulses".
"It doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you an undisciplined person.
It doesn't make you ignorant but it just makes you someone who kind of gives way to their underlying inner animal."
She believed there were "principled reasons" for overcoming the "inner animal" but also practical reasons.
"We are all here on this small island and it's better to get on with each other than to not.
"Social cohesion is a lot better than social friction and acknowledging other people's diversity gives you strengths that you wouldn't otherwise have.
"There is enormous value in not saying you can't sort of work with a particular person ... because you limit the potential of your country, your society by discriminating."
8 Tribes divided New Zealand into groups with a similar "social identity" and did not attempt to define the "myth" of the typical New Zealander.
It dealt with the way in which New Zealanders formed "clusters" according to different sets of values.
"So, Paul Henry lives on the North Shore and surrounds himself with other people who presumably have similar views and values to him.
"But he is quite different, poles apart, from somebody from Invercargill."
She believed Paul Henry had failed to see what kind of New Zealandness he and the Governor-General share.
"The Governor-General is really different to him in that he is a very educated and cultured man and they are not likely to be sort of at the same barbecue.
"So I can see why he kind of doesn't recognise the Governor-General as being like him in any particular way but his problem is in thinking that he has got the edge in terms of New Zealandness himself, which he clearly doesn't."
Ms Caldwell considers New Zealanders do generally share some values and attitudes.
"But mostly we are just incredibly diverse and the idea of there being `a New Zealander' is complete fiction."
Dame Sukhi Turner, of Wanaka, took off her gardening gloves earlier this week and delivered broadcaster Paul Henry something of a knuckle sandwich.
Dame Sukhi does not subscribe to the argument that the Henry remarks can be disposed of with a polite conversation about the meaning of discrimination.
"I can't describe how serious a thing he has actually perpetrated.
"This guy is actually verbalising some real negative stuff about people.
"Someone like that should really not be in front of people because he's such a bad role model to everyone."
Dame Sukhi, who was mayor of Dunedin from 1995 to 2004 was born in the Punjab region of India.
She said she had not been discriminated against in the way many Indians had been - particularly in Britain in the 1960s and '70s.
"New Zealand is nothing like that. I don't know where this thing has come up from ... how things have got so out of kilter.
"We are a multicultural pluralistic society and, you know, it's going to continue to be like this because this is how the world is.
"It is so asinine and so uneducated, so ignorant, to actually say the kind of things that this chappie is saying.
"It's actually just absolutely gobsmacked me."
Dame Sukhi said she had long since given up watching the Breakfast programme because of Mr Henry's attitude.
"There is a term 'the ugly American'. To me, he is an ugly New Zealander.
"He's just abusive about everything for God's sake.
"Do we have to actually put up with that sort of stuff?
"It's juvenile."
Dame Sukhi said she was "really surprised" by a poll showing 38% of the people questioned thought Henry had done nothing wrong.
"Where are the discriminatory processes of the average New Zealander?
"I'm absolutely amazed. You know we are going back to a mentality of the '50s and '60s when no one who was non-white was able to come to New Zealand. That was sort of the dark ages."
And, she did not subscribe to "all this meandering" around the word discrimination.
"The issue is the abuse that has been perpetrated by one broadcaster who should know better and who obviously hasn't had good training.
"It's all very well to have a philosophical conversation about the word discrimination and that everyone discriminates.
"But, this is a particular point this guy has made who is a broadcaster. And I think it is more important to actually focus on that."
Dame Sukhi was also not impressed by Prime Minister John Key's initial reaction to Mr Henry's questions.
"I couldn't believe the sort of weak response the Prime Minister had.
"It is very easy for us to actually go along with this kind of stupidity and bigotry. Once you start, it is the thin end of the wedge."
THE INTERVIEW
The offending questions were put to Prime Minister John Key by TV One Breakfast host Paul Henry on Monday morning.
They referred to New Zealand Governor-General Anand Satyanand.
> "Is he even a New Zealander?"
> "Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time ... are we going to go for someone who is more like a New Zealander this time?"
THE STATISTICS
The ethnic diversity of the New Zealand population continues to increase.
According to 2006 census figures, the European ethnic group had the largest share (67.6% or 2.609 million) of the total population, but between 1991-2006, the number who identified as Maori increased by 30% (from 434,847 in 1991 to 565,329 in 2006); Pacific peoples by 59% (from 167,070 to 265,974); and Asian peoples by 255% (from 99,759 to 354,549).
People of all other ethnicities still make up less than 1% of the population but, significantly, they grew in number faster than any of the major ethnic groups, an approximately six-fold increase from 6597 in 1991 to 34,746 in 2006.
In 2006, the "Other" category included 17,514 people who identified with Middle Eastern ethnic groups, 6657 with Latin American groups, and 10,647 people with African groups.
By the year 2026 . . .
According to Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand's population is projected to grow from 4.18 million to 4.94 million (assuming medium fertility, medium mortality and annual net migration of 10,000 a year). Alternative projections give a range of 4.70 million to 5.18 million.
New Zealand ethnic composition projections by 2026:
European or other - 3.43 million
Maori - 820,000
Asian - 790,000
Pacific - 480,000
• Closer to home...
In Otago, 79.6% of people identified as European in the 2006 Census; 6.6% as Maori; 1.7% as Pacific; and 4.1% as Asian.
