Dr Muriel Newman
There’s been a great deal of huffing and puffing over the last few weeks as the tribal elite responds to the threatened erosion of privileges. The Coalition Government’s commitment to equal rights will undermine their lucrative Treaty grievance industry and they are in full defence mode.
They claim the new government is racist and wants to impose oppressive policies that will disadvantage Maori. They are doing their best to stir up discontent.
Of course, by blaming everyone else for Maori disparity, they remain blind to the reality that their own elitist race-based attitudes that encourage collectivism instead of personal responsibility – defining a person by their lineage instead of their character and contribution – may be exacerbating the problem.
And while they posture about the misfortunates of ‘their people’, the tribal elite enrich themselves with the perks and privileges of their status. It’s disgraceful hypercritical behaviour that has been politely tolerated for far too long.
As the former US President Barack Obama warned, tribalism itself is the problem: “Ethnic-based tribal politics has to stop. It is rooted in the bankrupt idea that the goal of politics or business is to funnel as much of the pie as possible to one’s family, tribe, or circle with little regard for the public good. It stifles innovation and fractures the fabric of the society. Instead of opening businesses and engaging in commerce, people come to rely on patronage and payback as a means of advancing. Instead of unifying the country, it divides neighbour from neighbour.”
Equal rights, not race-based rights, was the consistent promise made by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in his speech at Ratana. It was aspirational, outlining a vision for a better New Zealand, but one would have to have read the speech rather than the media reports of the speech to appreciate that. The media coverage has, as we have now come to expect, been appalling.
Given the media seemingly can’t get over their bias, we are republishing the prime minister’s Ratana address as this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentary, so you can read for yourself what he actually said:
I stand before you today as Prime Minister and as the Leader of the National Party, the Party of Apirana Ngata, the Party that has negotiated the vast majority of Treaty settlements – and the Party that has worked hard over decades to honour the Treaty and restore the honour of the Crown. That is a heritage of which I am extremely proud.
So, let me be absolutely clear: The Government has no plan, and never has had plans, to amend or revise the Treaty, or the Treaty settlements we have all worked so very hard together to achieve.
The Government will honour the Treaty. But unlike the Labour government, we will honour it without moving away from equal voting rights, without creating complex co-governance bodies and bureaucracies in Wellington to decide how central services should be delivered in the regions, and we will honour it while upholding the equality of all New Zealanders before the law…
The full speech can be read HERE.
The prime minister reaffirmed the coalition government’s commitment to equal rights.
But as admirable as the sentiments of Chris Luxon may be, he will not appease or silence Maori sovereignty activists and the tribal elite, who do not want their gravy train derailed.
Their aim is not only to perpetuate the grievance industry for profit, but to advance a radical agenda to oust those who are not in favour of Maori privilege from positions of influence.
But the truth is that fair minded kiwis, including many of Maori decent, have had enough of tribal activists using culture as a vehicle, not only for personal enrichment, but also to impose their radical agenda onto the country.
Their extremism is plain to see.
Just last week members of a northern iwi tried to stop a fishing competition that had been going for 40 years. They are reported as saying their grievance was that their mana had been disrespected because the competition organisers had not consulted them. Their protest action was designed to send a message to the fishermen taking part in the competition – and also to the Government for its plans to ‘abolish the Treaty’.
Clearly the PM’s commitment to “honour the Treaty” did not resonate with these radicals.
Local iwi also claim they intend having all fishing competitions in the future banned, “to preserve fish stocks”. Such rorts usually involves the imposition of blanket bans for ‘sustainability’ purposes that cover the public, but which exclude Maori through exemptions for ‘customary fishing’.
Unfortunately, this sort of action will be legitimised when tribal groups are given control of New Zealand’s coastline right out to the edge of the 12 nautical mile Territorial Sea – if a recent Marine and Coastal Area Act Court of Appeal judgement is not overturned by Parliament.
This has become a matter of the utmost urgency, since the next large groups of claims for the coast under the flawed Marine and Coastal Area Act are due to be heard in the High Court this month.
In the health sector, alleged racism has been used by the new Maori Health Authority to introduce a multitude of privileges for Maori – transforming healthcare into an Apartheid system where access to medical treatment is now based on race.
An ‘equity adjuster score’ has been introduced that prioritises Maori patients on hospital waiting lists ahead of other patients in far greater clinical need.
The costs of accessing a variety of health measures that others have to pay for, have been removed for Maori.
New Zealand’s drug buying agency, Pharmac, also appears to have been ‘captured’ with funding now redirected into treatments that prioritise Maori.
All of this has been going on despite the fact that the fabricated claims of systemic racism in the health system have no basis – as numerous researchers have shown including New Zealand Initiative senior fellow Dr Bryce Wilkinson HERE, social policy researcher Lindsay Mitchell HERE, and Medical Practitioner Dr Lawrie Knight HERE.
Dr Knight points out that since a comprehensive network of Maori health providers set up by Helen Clark’s Labour government to “close the gaps” 20 years ago has made little difference to health outcomes in their two decades of operation, it is misleading to claim a race-based approach works.
Furthermore, research from the Ministry of Health which shows only 20 per cent of a patient’s health outcome is determined by medical care, with around 40 per cent by socioeconomic factors such as education and income, 10 per cent by physical environment including the quality of housing, and 30 per cent by lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise, and the use of drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes, provides perspective.
The message to advocates of better health for Maori is that they should be focussing on the importance of a good education and a decent job, as well as more personal responsibility including regular health checks, attending medical appointments, and taking medication that’s been prescribed, instead of attempting to deny non-Maori patients the essential healthcare they need.
And let’s not forget racial quotas for medical school: Auckland University’s medical school advises that of the 287 places on offer in 2024, 40 per cent or 115 places are reserved for Maori and Pacific Island students – up from 70 in 2022 – while “general entry” places have dropped from around 120 to 98. And while A-grade levels are necessary for ‘general entry’ candidates, C grades appear sufficient for the Maori and Pacific students.
New Zealanders surely deserve the brightest and best doctors irrespective of ancestry, yet merit appears to have become a secondary consideration to race.
Claims of institutional racism in the state sector has led to racial privilege being embedded within its procedures, manifesting itself in staff hiring practices, remuneration, and the awarding of contracts based on race. Private businesses that depend on the government for registration or funding have also been caught in the net.
An array of de-facto governance roles have also been created to give Maori greater influence than other New Zealanders, including in the management and allocation of fresh water by regional councils, in resource management decision-making by local authorities, and in the management and operation of the Conservation Estate.
New Zealanders have also witnessed the hypocrisy of iwi leaders demanding more and more public funding for ‘their people’, while the billion-dollar business corporations they run pay no tax. Iwi have made no contribution to the running of the country since 2005, when Helen Clark’s Labour Government exempted tribal businesses from a long-standing charity law requirement that prevents organisations from being able to gain tax-free charitable status if their beneficiaries are relatives.
This is another gravy train initiative that now needs to be withdrawn.
Many race-based privileges have been introduced under the guise of Treaty ‘principles’.
Yet the Treaty itself doesn’t have any principles. It only has three articles.
For the record, in his explanation of the original Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, Sir Apirana Ngata expressed the three articles in this way:
The First Article: “The Chiefs assembled including Chiefs not present at the assembly hereby cede absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the government of all of their lands.”
The Second: “The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes and to all the people of New Zealand the full possession of their lands, their homes and all their possessions…”
The Third Article: “In consideration thereof, Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her Royal Protection, and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects.”
In other words, under the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori ceded sovereignty, property rights were protected, and all New Zealanders were treated as equal citizens under the law. There was no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens – New Zealand was a colour-blind society where individuals had equal dignity and equal rights.
The Waitangi Tribunal, which was established almost 50 years ago as a permanent commission of inquiry for Maori into alleged breaches of the Treaty by the Crown, was ‘captured’ long ago by activists to become a taxpayer funded advocate for Maori supremacy. As such it has been influential in embedding race-based privilege – at the cost of equal rights and democracy itself.
It is therefore fitting that the coalition agreement between National and New Zealand First includes a commitment to review the tribunal’s operation.
The coalition also intends reviewing all legislation (excluding Treaty settlements) that includes the “Principles of the Treaty”, with a view to replacing vague references with specifics – or repealing the references altogether.
The ACT Party, of course, is also committed to progressing its Treaty Principles Bill, which aims to codify the principles to mean what the original Maori version of the Treaty says – that the government has the right to govern, that property rights are protected, and that all New Zealanders are equal under the law.
Under their coalition agreement, their bill will be supported to a Select Committee and if it later gains the backing of National and New Zealand First and is passed into law, a nationwide public referendum would then be held so New Zealanders can either accept or reject the new law.
What is crucially important is that none of these measures being undertaken by the coalition government changes the Treaty itself.
Those making such claims are deliberately scaremongering and misleading the public. They don’t want New Zealanders to have a debate about where the current Treaty arrangements are taking the country. Nor do they want public scrutiny of the vast array of race-based privileges that have already been established.
But the public have spoken and the new government has been given a mandate to reset this country, removing race-based oppression, and returning New Zealand to a country where we are all equal in the eyes of the law and where our long-standing democracy can flourish!
