New Zealand is at a constitutional crossroad. In one direction is liberal democracy. In the other is co-governance; power-sharing between one ethnic group and all others.
“In New Zealand there is now separation into two people: the minority Maori, and all the others, who are second-class citizens. This division is by race: in legislation, where any drop of Maori ancestry, no matter how little, places a person into that privileged group.
“There are separate rights, which are constantly added to so that the division has become increasingly absolute. Different and vastly unequal voting rights, many specified special powers over the sea, rivers, lakes, mountains – and all water systems.
Race based special treatment rather than treatment based on need (for any ethnicity) is becoming a real issue. A huge majority of voters believe NZ has become more divided. Here are some examples of the rights & funding solely determined by ancestry, most of which have been introduced under this Labour government:
• Labour announced 12 new HIGH protection areas in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf to ‘protect and restore marine ecosystems’, while allowing only Maori to still fish in them. Instead of becoming Marine Reserves; they are actually race based exclusive fishing zones.
• Te Whatu Ora (Maori Health Authority) is using tax payer money for Maori & Pacific of any age (only Maori & Pacific ethnicity) to receive free advice and ‘management’ (including free medicines) at pharmacies for certain conditions.
• Reduced/removed rates for Maori landowners under the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Maori) Amendment Act 2021: Allowing Local Bodies to 1. Write off rates owing 2. Remove rates altogether for land owned but not developed 3. Reduce any remaining rates.
• Guidelines from Pharmac reveal that “Maori are considered the priority population”. Essentially, those with Maori ethnicity are now guaranteed priority treatment ahead of other ethnicities with greater health needs.
• Auckland surgeons must now consider ethnicity in prioritising patients for operations giving priority to Maori and Pacific Island patients (contrary to the Human Rights Act 1993).
• Since May 2023 only Maori & Pacifica are allowed to get GP referrals for free counselling.
• The Department of Internal Affairs has released a proposal for a new way to regulate social media and traditional media platforms that will control what can and cannot be discussed online. However, Maori are given elevated status in a co-governing role within the regulatory body. Maori are granted protections to “express themselves freely,” a privilege not given to any other New Zealander. The proposal will place Maori at the heart of the decisions about what New Zealanders are allowed to say.
• Labour have decided that government agencies need to ENSURE 8% of government contracts go to Maori business. Only Maori can apply for all government contracts, everyone else is restricted to 92% of them.
• $560 million tax payer funding to support Maori in getting the free Covid vaccine, including cash incentives for Maori to get vaccinated. Also, a Covid vaccine ‘Priority Access Code’ was made available if you were Maori.
• $438 million in tax payer funding given to upgrade privately owned marae across the country (510 projects – 358 marae, from a ‘range’ of crown funds including from the Covid funds).
• Labour set aside $7.75 million for truancy issues for Maori & Pacific students.
• All employees from the Department of Conservation will get paid $3500 (of tax payer money) if they attend a Maori language course.
• Labour changed the rules so that if Maori or Pacific Islanders make up over half of a GP’s clients they get an increase in funding. If the proportion is 49% or below, they get no increase.
• Three waters proposal (now renamed as Affordable Waters) gave Maori 50% voting rights (with only 16% ‘opting’ as Maori) and power of veto over all water. Labour spent $14 million tax payer dollars on increasing Iwi/Maori understanding of the changes, including a $220 per hour ‘strategic advisor’ in Maori.
• New water services entity amendment bill (for 3 waters) states that public submissions (Community Priority Statements) ‘may’ be considered. In contrast, the Water Services Entities (WSE’s) ‘must’ respond directly to Te Mana o te Wai Statements and ‘must’ include a plan how the Water Services Entities intends to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai Statements – the new “Community Priority Statements” fall well short of the powers provided to local Maori through Te Mana o te Wai statements. This is what Labour is not telling you about as these are at the operational level, unlike the (50%) co-governance at the Regional Representative Groups level.
• Labour giving Maori access to funding for their legal costs to claim the Seabed & Foreshore, from mean high tide out to 12 nautical miles. Opponents to Maori claims must fund their own legal costs.
• $7.3 million tax payer dollars to make new screening process for cervical cancer screening free for Maori and Pacific Island woman but anyone else pays $40-$60.
• Requirement for staff to take into account a student’s cultural identity when awarding passing grades; rather than their individual merit.
• Labour announced 20 per cent of commercial spectrum to be given to Maori, a permanent Maori spectrum entity will be established and $75 million of funding will go towards development.
• Maori and Pacifica are automatically entitled to free flu injections over 55 years of age, aged 30 & over are eligible for a free extra Covid booster and free anti-viral Covid treatment over the age of 50 (for everyone else it is 65 & over).
• Labour has prioritised Plunket care for Maori and Pacifica, all other ethnicities have been deprioritised.
• Maori don’t have to score mid to high 90’s to pass exam to get into medical school.
• Only Maori can legally collect particular shell fish in particular areas.
• Auckland Council is aiming to have 5 percent of the value of all direct contracts awarded to diverse suppliers – Maori and/or Pasifika-owned business or social enterprises.
• Auckland Transport’s target is to have 2 percent of the value of procurement spend with Maori-owned businesses by the end of 2023.
• Watercare aims for 5 percent of total spend to be with Maori businesses by the end of the 2025 financial year.
• Labour removed rights voters had to trigger a local binding referendum – e.g. Maori wards.
• Labour’s Local Government Minister tried to get 50% of Council seats to be held by Maori.
• Report by the Auditor-General on the $290 million “Strategic Tourism Assets Protection Programme”: The Tourism Recovery Minister decided to fund all tourism businesses that scored more than 15 out of 30 points in the assessment process. They also decided to fund all eligible Maori tourism businesses, including those that scored less than 15 out of 30 points in the assessment process.
• The Plant Variety Rights Bill introduces a Maori Plant Varieties Committee. It can block plant varieties being registered and the bill says ‘A person must not be appointed as a member of the committee unless, in the opinion of the Commissioner, the person is qualified for appointment, having regard to that person’s knowledge of matauranga Maori.’
• The $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund requires media to promote that the Treaty of Waitangi is a partnership – forty percent of the first allocations went to projects benefiting Maori journalism. The fund prevents an opposing point of view to the Labour government’s race-based program.
• An Independent Maori Statutory Board has been established tasked with representing the views of Maori at the governance level in councils.
• The Hauraki Gulf Forum voted 11-7 in favour of changing its composition to that of a 50:50 co-governance authority with mana whenua and ‘others’. It is also proposing to develop its own statutory plans that could prevail over council policies and central government decision-making, for all matters in respect of the Gulf. Although the elected members voted 7-5 against the proposals, six more votes were collected from the tangata whenua appointed members making the final vote 11-7 in favour of the proposals.
• The Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation) Act 2022, set a significant precedent for unelected iwi representation.
• The Maori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora) is spending more than $1.15 million a month on contractors and consultants. The Maori Health Authority will have veto rights over the entire health system; Maori patients to be prioritised over non-Maori.
• A 91.75% majority vote to change Play centre Aotearoa’s constitution has been overruled due to Maori co-governance vote having ultimate power.
• Planning laws to be taken from local councils – given to 14 co-governed entities. Labour decided that there would be 14 regional planning committees throughout New Zealand comprising representatives of the local government and of Maori.
• Labour introduced a school ‘history’ curriculum that supports the Maori view of New Zealand to indoctrinate children into ‘Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles & partnership’.
Arrogant comments from Nanaia Mahuta, Willie Jackson and Kieran McAnulty, especially the last, have given the impression to new immigrants that Labour has turned NZ into a privileged place for Maori where Chinese, Indians and non-Maori New Zealanders would never have more than second class status and that Maori under Labour keep receiving additional privileges that all non-Maori New Zealanders, are expected to pay for through their taxes.
In fact the Labour MP, Kieran McAnulty, speaking about Maori special treatment made the following statement:
“There are provisions that we have in this country that wouldn’t stand up to a purely academic democratic framework but that’s not how we work in New Zealand”.
Despite the well-documented failures of the Labour government — whether in health, law and order, education or homelessness — it has been extraordinarily successful in one particular area. That is the stealthy insertion of an interpretation of the Treaty as a “partnership” — manifested as co-governance — into a broad swathe of New Zealand law and policy.
The meaning of the 1840 Treaty exists in the Articles. Article I recognised British sovereignty. Article II recognised the rights of Māori to hold or dispose of property. Article III recognised Māori as British subjects.
The word ‘principles’ first appeared in the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act. In that legislation, ‘principles’ referred directly to the meaning, value, and purpose of the Articles. The word ‘principles’ was tied to the Articles. It had no referent outside those Articles. It did not state the word ‘partnership’, nor was active protection and redress mentioned or implied.
Given that parliament did not provide a meaning of the term “Principles”, such vacancy of meaning, opened up opportunities for those with vested interests to insert their own meaning. In inventing and consolidating their version of “Principles”, advocates for a partnership-based co-governance structure have used traditional ideology to provide an almost spiritually authorised quality to their interpretation of the term.
The erroneous partnership Principle is given the greatest weight, opening up a wide backdoor to power. Tribal entities are now moving beyond economic interests to demand political power sharing– to be entrenched first as co-governance, then likely to be pushed as tribal sovereignty.
The demand for political power sharing has been supported by the rapid inclusion from the 1980s, of the word indigenous into New Zealanders’ everyday language when referring to Maori. Belief in a treaty partnership requires partners who are to live in a permanent relationship.
Giving one of those partners the status of indigeneity with the other partner being classed as an intruder, raises evocations of the evil coloniser and the indigenous colonised providing a more seductive narrative for the nation’s collective memory than the fact that, from the thirteen century to the present, all New Zealanders are immigrant settlers.
Our history is one of waves of settlers. It is a shared experience that trumps an arbitrary division into the indigenous on the one hand and all other settlers on the other. The word indigenous suggests some type of mythological connection to the land.
Those who oppose this viewpoint and insist that truth lies in reality – that the 1840 Treaty didn’t have Principles and that we are all settlers, no matter the time of arrival, are silenced by accusations of racism.
But tribalist intellectuals, activists and lawyers aside, the group most to blame for the invention of the “Principles” of the Treaty are our Members of Parliament.
Their inclusion of the term “Principles” into legislation without knowing or describing what it meant was an unprecedented failure on the part of our political representatives.
The initial authority for inclusion was not given by the people. Until this occurs, or if the people refuse to authorise the inclusion, the Principles do not have the authority claimed for them. They should be removed. In the end, legitimacy is decided by the people if democracy is to work.
Those who have done well out of the invention of Treaty Principles will object to their removal. They will use the loud voices and threatening tactics that have proved so effective in the past and led to a widespread sense of entitlement. They will be shameless in calling on the democratic ideals of universal human rights to justify a racialised future.
It is in discussion with the people that our parliamentary representatives must assure themselves and us that they know what they are talking about. The discussion about whether we want Treaty Principles may be four decades late, but it must happen for the sake of New Zealand democracy.
Democracy is not just arriving at a decision. It is the act of rational communication that enables the decision to be made. For this to happen, language must be pulled apart so that meaning is exposed, and with it, the intentions of the user. Those who have controlled treaty language have controlled meaning for too long. It is now time to talk critically about the Treaty.
Labour MP’s complained that in the recent election campaign there had been more racism than ever before. And they blamed it on the opposition parties. It doesn’t seem to have been apparent to them that whatever racism occurred during this 2023 campaign, it stemmed directly from the racist crusade the Labour government embarked on immediately after the 2020 election.
Without mentioning their intentions, ministers set out deliberately to give Maori greater rights in New Zealand than all other ethnicities, using the full resources of the state to do it; Notwithstanding Article Three of the Treaty guaranteeing equal rights and duties for all.
Within minutes of Labour’s election victory in 2020, a campaign by the Maori members of the Labour caucus was started to get the government to promote Te Reo, and convince authorised state agencies to give pre-eminence to Maori names for government departments; they changed road signs, and insisted on untranslated Maori flooding the airwaves.
Calls for co-governance stepped up. Maori alone were allowed to fish in exclusive high protection areas like the Hauraki Gulf; they are the “priority population” for Pharmac; and they must be pushed up the priority lists when it comes to public hospital surgery, and the Three Waters scheme was designed ultimately to give total control of water to Maori.
A re-worked history syllabus that ignores all the shocking events in Maori history and accentuates all past wrongs done to Maori has been inflicted upon our school children; while at exam time ethnicity, not merit, now determines whether a student passes. We are being constantly told that Te Ao Maori and superstition are superior to modern science. Moreover, we are expected to accept that Maori are indigenous to New Zealand when, by their own traditions, they aren’t.
Alongside all of this crazy narrative, it seems that the Labour government believed that our current system of government is uniquely disadvantageous to Maori. No other ethnicity, including the 150 different ones that have come to New Zealand over the years, is given so much assistance as Maori when it comes to accessing state resources.
Yet we have constantly been told that it’s colonisation and an unfair system that means that Maori die younger than Pakeha. If we are to believe this rubbish as truth then we must overlook the fact that Maori make choices in life like smoking, eating junk food and doing drugs that take years off their lives.
We must also ignore the fact that more Maori than Pakeha parents fail their children by allowing them to truant from school, become over-represented amongst young ram-raiders, join gangs, get involved in drive-by shootings and engage in shop-lifting. Last year Maori formed 17% of the population, but were 53% of the men in prison and 67% of the women.
The Labour government would have had us believe we must overlook all this and give even more special privileges to Maori because their crazy interpretation of our Treaty of Waitangi demands it. And every one who speaks out against their racial policies is in fact a racist.
Today, we are dealing with the results of a couple of generations of the hand-out mentality. Low achievers, and especially their advocates, many of whom are on the public payroll and are part of the huge industry that now farms disadvantaged people, assert loudly that closing the inevitable gaps that have opened up requires even more special privileges. The just defeated Labour government seemed to have naively believed this fundamentally flawed narrative.
The heavily promoted narrative, which over the last six years of their government, that concluded that Maori somehow have special vulnerabilities which arise from outside forces they cannot control; that contemporary society fails to meet their needs. They are not receptive to messages and opportunities in the same way as other races because the trauma of colonisation carried from one generation to the next.
The Labour government gave New Zealanders a false choice which said that if we want to right the wrongs of the past, cherish Māori language and culture, and give all New Zealanders equal opportunity, we must throw out universal human rights in favour of co-governance.
But co-governance and attributing separate rights such as different education & health systems and different rights in law, where the old tribal tikanga is given special status”, will never achieve this, it only causes more division.
And if anyone needs a concrete example of how dangerous introducing ‘tikanga’ or Maori custom into the law really is, they need look no further than the debacle over the Marine and Coastal Area Act, where it has led the Courts to deliver the exact opposite of what Parliament intended.
This situation occurred when Court of Appeal judges issued a ruling in 2003 that customary title might still exist in the foreshore and seabed - which was owned by the Crown under common law. The resulting flood of tribal claims for the coast, forced Helen Clark’s Labour Government to legislate in favour of Crown ownership. The 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act allowed tribal claims for the coast, but as guardians, not owners.
In 2011, at the behest of their Maori Party coalition partner, National introduced the Marine and Coastal Area Act, to repeal Crown ownership and open up the foreshore and Territorial Sea for tribal claims. The new law specified two legal tests: claimed areas had to have been held not only according to ‘tikanga’, but also ‘exclusively’ and ‘continuously’ since 1840.
With ‘ownership’ of the coast the prize, almost 600 overlapping claims flooded in – 200 to the High Court and the balance for direct negotiation with the Crown.
In a landmark decision in the first High Court case, Judge Churchman ruled that holding a claimed area according to ‘tikanga’ was sufficient to justify awarding title to multiple claimants on a ‘shared’ basis.
The Court had elevated the importance of tikanga to the point where the property rights test of whether the claimed area was held exclusively and continuously since 1840, was not even considered.
The National Party is firmly on the fence concerning these actions; leaving the present core policy – that we are divided into two people with different powers – intact. In recent statements they have made it clear that under a National lead government some form of co-governance will remain. “Past local co-governance arrangements that were made in the context of Treaty settlements have worked well. These were restricted to the management of local natural resources, like rivers, local iwi working closely with local or central government.” They must be forced to recognise what is at stake.
The principle of equality, insists that all claims for different treatment by race (Maori) and a special place for an ancient tribal culture, tikanga (based on the pre-Treaty way of life which included warfare, cannibalism, slavery) must be removed from all legislation.
The people in New Zealand need to understand the revolutionary shifts that have occurred under the just defeated Labour government I believe that the majority have little knowledge of what has happened with co-governance and the general public is not aware that we are facing huge revolutionary changes in our country with co-governance being implemented in public services such as Three Waters and the Māori Health Authority.
Of particular worry is the stated intention from National that they are happy to see co-governance continue at the local body level yet as we saw in the court declaration relating to the attempt to appoint Maori councillors onto the Rotorua District Council.
A controversial bill that would increase Māori voting rights in Rotorua’s local elections cannot be justified and discriminates against general roll voters, the Attorney-General has found.
The Rotorua District Council Representation Arrangements Bill aims to change the law to allow the council to have equal Māori ward and general ward seats, with three each. The other four council seats and the mayor would be elected at-large, plus two community boards.
In his Bill of Rights analysis presented today to the House of Representatives, Attorney-General David Parker concluded the bill appeared to limit the act’s right to be free from discrimination, and cannot be justified.
National’s justice spokesman(at that time) Paul Goldsmith called for the bill to be scrapped following the report.
“The bill gives greater voting rights to people on the Māori roll and this cannot be justified.”
He said it would be a “constitutional outrage” to abandon the principle of equal suffrage - one person one vote - and that the bill would make Māori roll votes worth two and a half general roll votes.
New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity must be illegal.
All citizens of New Zealand must have the same political rights with all political authority coming from the people by democratic means through universal suffrage and regular and free elections by way of secret ballot.
The appointment of local body representatives based solely on their Maori ancestry (no matter how small a percentage that ancestry may be in relation to their Maori heritage), is no more than the implementation of a system of Apartheid or Racism on a country wide scale.
As described in the report from the Attorney-General David Parker, into the Rotorua District Council Representation Arrangements Bill, such appointments discriminate against the general roll voters and give greater voting rights to people on the Māori roll and this cannot be legally justified, particularly under the Human Rights Act 1993.
The New Zealand Government has committed to developing a national action plan against racism as described below:
National action plan against racism.
Racism is global and entrenched. Around the world, countries are creating practical plans to end racism. The New Zealand Government has committed to developing a national action plan against racism that reflects the history, challenges, and aspirations of New Zealand.
The aim of the action plan is to progressively eliminate racism in all forms. The Minister of Justice is responsible for this important work. The National Iwi Chairs Forum - a collective of Iwi leaders from New Zealand - are partnering with the Government in the creation of the plan.
Eliminating racism will take time and determination. The plan will set concrete steps for the Government to take, and provide guidance for communities, businesses and institutions to support their own solutions.
What do we mean by racism?
New Zealand has no agreed definition of racism. The Human Rights Commission describes racism as “any individual action, or institutional practice backed by institutional power, which subordinates or negatively affects people because of their ethnicity.” This means racism is any belief in the superiority of one group over another or any behaviour or system that overpowers or negatively impacts people because of their ethnicity or the colour of their skin.
There are many forms of racism. It can be hidden or obvious, conscious or unconscious. It occurs:
Within people
Individual racism is negative stereotypes, attitudes or beliefs held by a person that are based on the idea of one group being superior to another. These ideas can be about one’s own ethnic group or about other groups.
Between people
Interpersonal racism is harmful beliefs, attitudes, or behaviour directed towards people because of their ethnicity or the colour of their skin. This can be unconscious or intentional, and include biases, discrimination, verbal and physical attacks, as well as both overt and subtle ways of making people feel they are outsiders.
Across organisations and society
Institutional or structural racism is when government, organisations, education, and wider society use laws, policies and practices that create unfair advantage for some groups, and disadvantage for others. It builds over time and though not always intentional, drives inequality and disempowerment.
Examples:
• Media reports that stereotype ethnic groups.
• Certain ethnic groups being imprisoned disproportionately more and for longer compared with the majority.
• Treating people applying for jobs and promotions, and setting their pay rates, in a way that values those with European-centred knowledge, experience and qualifications more highly.
• Only teaching European-centred histories, leaving indigenous and ethnic experiences invisible and silent.
Why do we need a national action plan against racism?
It is a fundamental human right to be treated fairly, equally, with respect and to be free from racial discrimination. These rights are protected, supported, and reinforced by:
• Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• The Human Rights Act 1993
and also by New Zealand’s commitments through the:
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Convention of the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination.
Racism affects individuals, whānau and families, entire communities, and the sort of society we are.
Racism is harmful in any form, and shapes people’s everyday lives: their work, schooling, sense of belonging and mental and physical wellbeing.
Unfortunately this Plan describes Racism Across organisations and society as follows:
Institutional or structural racism is when government, organisations, education, and wider society use laws, policies and practices that create unfair advantage for some groups, and disadvantage for others. It builds over time and though not always intentional, drives inequality and disempowerment.
Under this description the Labour government itself supported and promoted racism due to the way that it helped create an unfair advantage for Maori and a disadvantage for all other ethnicities with the focus on appointment of unelected representatives for Maori onto Local Bodies and I fear that with the stated intent to carry on with co-governance at a local body level the incoming National led government will only make the level of racial division within New Zealand get worse.
They don’t seem to realise that the push for co-governance of this country is nothing more than an attempt to prioritise part-Maori interests, above those of all other ethnicities in NZ.
A huge part of the push by the just defeated Labour government and their so-called Maori Caucus, for the legislative and constitutional changes that they made was claimed to be a requirement of the Treaty of Waitangi which formed a partnership between the Crown and Maori and as such required co-governance to implement.
The Treaty of Waitangi only has three articles and nowhere in those articles does it mention either Partnership or Co-Governance.
A claim of a Co-Governance Partnership between the Crown and Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi is nothing more than a Lie; a dangerous, divisive attempt to gain advantage based on race, which will end in the destruction of democracy in New Zealand.
Yet the Labour government persisted in promoting the implementation of co-governance, just Apartheid by another name, which increased the cost burdens for all voters across every area of government both central and local.
The most important questions that people will ask of incoming National led government will be; what are they planning in regard to the existing policies around co-governance where a person’s ethnic identity as Maori is more important than Democracy for all citizens?
We can have co-governance without democracy.
We can have democracy without co-governance.
But we cannot have democracy and co-governance.
Up until the just defeated Labour government came into power in 2017, NZ had one of the oldest democracy’s in the world with the adoption of universal suffrage in 1893 and the changes they made by going to race based co-governance systems has done more harm to NZ than any other government in history through dividing the population on ethnic identity and breaking down the trust in our democratic systems of government.
The only way to stop the rot is to hold a binding referendum on co-governance and give all citizens a chance to exercise their democratic right to decide the question: Should we have Co-Governance or not?