Table of Contents
Jim Cable
To most Kiwis, “fairness” is a concept deeply rooted in our psyches. But as an ideal it’s been long abused by exploitative individuals who’ve relentlessly perverted it. Consider how often we, as a nation, have uniformly upheld or endorsed all manner of palpable nonsense from the moment the playing of the “fairness” card became part of the equation.
It was “fairness” that saw us resort to the impractical idiocy of MMP. The baseless claim of “fairness in parliamentary representation” completely subverted the former, sane objective of seeking to elect the most capable and competent minds to direct the country’s course. MMP happened solely because adherents of fringe parties couldn’t raise sufficient support to be represented. Despite those parties’ mostly fatuous perspectives, somehow “it wasn’t fair” that their voice wasn’t heard. So, in an ironic, but determinably unfair, outcome, MMP inflicted us with many far-less-than-adequate parliamentarians. Their progressive forsaking of objectivity reduced us to the administrational inadequacy of Ardern and Hipkins; the most turpid and deceitful agglomeration of political ineptitude imaginable. Little wonder, when candidates whose discernible inadequacies had failed to impress electors under FPP not only became MPs but, despite undeniable deficiencies in personal competence, became Ministers of the Crown as well.
The appalling legacy of the Ardern/Hipkins administration simply must have us question our tacit understanding of “what is fair”, its substance and exactly just what we’ve accepted so blindly for decades as “being fair”. For example, how could it be “fair” – let alone even remotely rational – that under the absurdity of MMP, a party amassing only 5% of the vote can become empowered to “tail-wag the dog of the major party”, and the wishes of the majority of voters, so as to be able to demand that its majority-unsupported, undemocratic policies be implemented? How can anyone possibly relate “fairness” to the resultant chaotic ineptitude or to the crippling indebtedness – topped off by the reduction of a once proud country into a socially-riven, handout-expectant, racially-divided shambles?
Through bogus methodology, “fairness” has rendered billions to Maori, completely undeservedly via the never-even-remotely justifiable “3rd Treaty settlement”. Never-even-remotely justifiable because, in 1948, the 2nd Treaty settlement had been wholeheartedly agreed to by Maori as “full and final”. Indeed, the generosity of its terms was praised in parliament by one of the greatest and most accomplished Maori, Sir Apirana Ngata. “In the whole world,” he declared, “I doubt whether any native race has been so well-treated by a European people as Maori.”
Finalisation of that 2nd Treaty Settlement was supposed to have meant that the matter, for all time, was done and dusted – resolved completely, utterly, totally and absolutely – that no grounds possible existed for future recourse or intervention.
However, with the perpetually advantage-seeking Maori elites’ arm-twisting Labour’s electoral position in 1984, their playing of the old tried-and-true “fairness” card succeeded. Sir Apirana Ngata’s mana and his endorsement of the 2nd Treaty settlement were trampled in the mud once the fatuous cooperation of one Geoffrey Palmer was gained. Palmer, an overblown, ego-inflated, one-time-bullying university academic concocted a nonexistent absurdity he named “Treaty principles”, and his orchestrated legislative charade deceived David Lange’s 1985 Cabinet. Decades later (mere weeks back in fact), Palmer was reported having admitted that Maori exploitation of his legislated phraseology had not been what he’d intended – begging the yet-to-be-asked media question, ‘What, in any way, was “fair” about that?’
That Palmer-enabled, 3rd round of “settlements” turned the lot of elite Maori into a sizable economic force – they effectively extorted wealth and productive assets worth some $90-odd billion dollars in today’s money. Palmer and ministers of successive governments from the 1990s continued to mislead New Zealanders that the settlements would finalise all Maori “grievances” and that the benefits would accrue to all Maori.
But such an objective has never eventuated – one that could never even possibly eventuate. Many Maori have no direct tribal connection or any sort of admissibly tangible iwi relationship; so, in consequence, despite their indisputable ethnicity, they’ve never received a cent of settlement monies.
“Fair?” Hardly! Especially so when it’s remembered that Tipene O’Regan, Ngai Tahu’s prominent negotiator, is only of 16% Maori ethnicity himself – and many, many non-iwi-related Maori possess far more Maori ethnicity than that.
Settlement wealth has filled only the coffers of undeserving iwi leaders, and in recent times it’s been untowardly utilised in creating false and undemocratic concepts advantageous to Maori, like the spurious “reinterpretations” of the Treaty, and the efforts to re-write history and “cleanse” their violent, cannibal past.
Spuriously, even when seeking to pretend they’re in “partnership with non-Maori under the Treaty”, it’s understood that almost every Maori industry acquired and/or structured via “settlement” is registered as a charity – and pays no tax. Isn’t that somewhat contradictory to “shouldering the load” if there really were an “equal partnership”? Even more shocking, given the vast numbers of Maori who are welfare beneficiaries and therefore funded through the efforts of non-Maori taxpayers – their claimed “partnership” only exists, it would seem, when it suits their own self-serving agenda. Where lies any “fairness” in that?
By dint of Ardern/Hipkins’ efforts and their menage of inept and maladroit ministers – in Justice, any prior understanding of “fairness” has been corrupted beyond rational interpretation. “Fair” treatment of ram-raiders, of murderers and of legions of seriously dangerous offenders has resulted in nonsensical applications of “justice”, where any manner of irrelevant influences may be pleaded successfully to diminish sentences, granting offenders encouraging latitude to resume their nefarious pursuits.
It used to be that actual crime and its impact were central to the judgment of each case – what used to be known as a “fair trial”. Today, however, all manner of “explanatory” influences – like whether or not the accused had been abused or maltreated as a child – like the state of their present homelife – like consideration for their possible addiction to drugs or even the vaguest deficits in their living environments – can be adduced to explain or justify virtually any sort of criminal behaviour. Under the absurdity of this Labour-wrought system, “fairness” – as an outcome to those hurt or injured, or to those whose property/lifestyles have been damaged, or to those who’ve suffered loss as a consequence and whose expectations have been radically reduced – are maintained as entirely different quotients.
Standards of uprightness and moral behaviour here have deteriorated markedly in the past thirty years, but never as extensively as they have during the six years of Ardern and Hipkins. Once, respect for authority was inculcated from primary school, along with respect for others and their property. Such inculcation sprouted the seeds of the individual’s own self-respect, whereby he/she grew and developed to become worthwhile members of society who appreciated what was fair and what was not. Sadly today, with former values either completely relegated, or their intent corrupted by politicos hell-bent on pandering to the idols of whatever must be done to gain votes, the elements of “fairness” have been twisted beyond recognition. “Fair” used to imply a sense of equalness and balance plain to the parties involved – but where one side demands advantage as is so often the case today, “fairness” no longer projects anything like the substance of such values.
Despite having constantly touted otherwise, “fairness” seemed to become anathema to the Ardern/Hipkins “administration”, whose efforts to misapply it would run at joke levels if not so serious. To have irreparably damaged our once widely-upheld state of race relations by granting Maori race-based advantage over other New Zealanders was simply heinous. Advantage-rendering only, not a trace of “fairness” or equality. What was “fair” about the billions gifted to Maori to uphold demonstrably corrupt “interpretations” of the Treaty? What “fairness” lay in Labour’s lauding and then seeking to install unjustifiable policies like Three Waters, where Maori elites would have absolute control of the country’s water? Or in their attempt to grant Maori sole stewardship of our coastal seas up to 50 kilometres offshore? Any notions of “fairness” have been pointedly ignored by Labour as, deceitfully, it calculated its efforts to secure the Maori vote.
What was “fair” to non-Maori New Zealanders in Labour’s spending $60-odd million to build Maori TV stations? What was fair in inflicting TVNZ broadcasts with so much blatantly pro-Maori influence? From all the presentations in ads, programs and front people, visitors here might easily have believed that our population was 95% Maori. In consequence, for many of us, TVNZ has become all but unwatchable. With its agglomeration of announcers, reporters, weatherpersons, etc., prattling unwelcomely in te reo – meaningless to most Kiwis – and constant bastardisation of plain English into virtual pidgin with so many unnecessary Maori-word substitutions – what’s “fair” in such treatment toward those whose own backgrounds and culture are every bit as important to them as are endlessly claimed to be so to Maori? What’s “fair” in being forced to swallow all the contestable and inaccurate hype TVNZ’s minions touted about the significance of Maori culture? Why should any Maori-placed “rahui” or ban be remotely significant to, or binding on, any other Kiwi?
It’s long been obvious that elemental deficiencies in pragmatic thinking have dogged the Labour Party since its inception. Shout-down skills as practiced in union thuggery don’t ever substitute for intelligent debate and are completely inappropriate in official proceedings. But such carry-ons were pretty well standard among the Ardern/Hipkins lot. Recall the empty fatuousness of Ardern’s constantly uttered responses in the Debating Chamber: “I refute the premise of that question.” A Speaker other than Mallard would have demanded she properly address the questions asked.
The stunted efforts of Labour “ministers” in misapplying “fairness” have underscored their monumental failings in their terms of office. Patently ill-acquainted with even the rudiments of intelligent practice, Labour’s ministers repeatedly squandered the nation’s potential on attempted fake fallbacks to “fairness”. Not unexpectedly, for persons as devoid of personal ambition as those who viewed their parliamentary remuneration and freebies as the acme of their employment aspirations, almost every Labour candidate seemed to have ignored that their capabilities weren’t even remotely up to the necessarily expected demands of office.
What simply isn’t “fair” is that, because of Labour’s incompetence in office, from here on, every Kiwi will face legions of strictures and impositions that’ll impact heavily on their lifestyles until our mountain of Labour-incurred debt has been substantially lowered. Presently, the NZ Government Debt Clock (www.debtclock.nz) registers $163 billion of debt. To give that enormous figure some perspective – 1 million dollars in $100 notes, stacked vertically, is about 1 metre high: a billion dollar pile, a kilometre high. At present our debt column would reach 163 kilometres – more than 18 times the height of Mt Everest, incurring a massive amount of interest that’ll leave little available for capital reduction.
Given the appalling volume of electorally unsanctioned and unjustified measures taken by Labour’s pretence of an administration, it wouldn’t only be fair, but absolutely imperative if such a state was ever to be prevented from happening again, to moot that Labour and all its former ministers be held fully responsible, jointly and severally, and forced to account for their manifest failures in responsibility to the electorate. Every single one deserves to face recourse and appropriate sanctions.
They should all be treated exactly the same as directors of any NZ company whose actions had failed the interests of the shareholders.
No prior New Zealand Government ever foisted such a disastrously performing regime; such fiscal insanity; such economic chaos; such abject deterioration in race relations; or such appalling, devastating results in schooling, in criminal justice, and in health.
Our situation now is such it exhorts that we revalue so much of everything we’ve accepted so blindly, for so long – all in the name of “fairness”.
