We are seeing a sea change in our democracy, and it is being done right before our very noses, with nary a peep from a complicit media. That sea change is the wholesale abandonment, by Maori, of democracy in favour of threats, bullying, intimidation and outright brown-mail if they don’t get their own way.
Whether it is Rawiri Waititi saying he isn’t a fan of democracy, describing it as the “tyranny of the majority” and suggesting it is time to end it. Or perhaps Willie Jackson proclaiming that one person, one vote should be ended as we have a new form of democracy where anyone who is opposed to co-governance is guilty of racism and where they are described as “refus[ing] to accept this maturing of our democracy and seek to frame co-governance as a racist evil by manufacturing ‘one person, one vote’ outrage.“
Or just last week where Maori were highlighted by the media as being noble because they are threatening anyone who suggests we need a referendum about the Treaty of Waitangi.
Then yesterday we learned that Tau Henare has been issuing threats and brown-mail over Auckland Council voting against his preferred option of having Maori wards on the council, while he sits as an unelected, well compensated appointee on the Independent Maori Statutory Board.
Former MP Tau Henare has vowed retribution against councillors who voted against Maori seats on Auckland Council last Thursday.
Following the vote, the deputy chair of the Independent Maori Statutory Board (IMSB) tweeted he would vote no and oppose everything put forward by the 11 councillors who voted against Maori seats at the 2025 local body elections.
The board has nine members, appointed by a selection process overseen by mana whenua, who each sit on council committees with voting rights but not on the main governing body.
Today, Henare told the Herald he was flabbergasted at the 11-9 vote not to establish one, two or three Maori seats on the country’s largest council and would “pretty much” vote against anything put forward by the 11 councillors on the planning and council-controlled organisations (CCO) committees.
He said right across New Zealand, there are areas where you would not expect to vote for Maori seats but have voted in favour to help recognise where the country is as a nation. About half of the country’s councils have Maori seats.
“This city is over 150 years old and still can’t bring itself to recognise the place of Maori in this society and so I’m just going to use the tools I have in my small little toolbox,” said Henare, who plans to raise the issue at the next meeting of the IMSB.
NZ Herald
Unelected, appointed by iwi elites, and paid by Auckland Council, now spitting the dummy and throwing his toys while issuing threats and intimidation, and promising utu and brown-mail against the eleven councillors who voted against looking at Maori wards for the next local body elections.
This is anti-democratic, but seems to now be the Maori way: if something doesn’t go your way you issue all sorts of racist threats and intimidation, and mutter darkly about settlers and colonialism.
I’m starting to get the feeling that they are really hankering for a return to the old ways of actual violence and utu to get their way and that rather perturbs me.
Why is it though that when confronting this absurd behaviour the media always make those confronting them seem like the devils?
Speaking on Newstalk ZB on Friday, councillor Maurice Williamson described Henare’s tweet as “outrageous”.
“You cannot be on the IMSB and putting out a statement ‘I will vote no on everything no matter what’,” said Williamson, who add that the IMSB should look at whether he can stay representing people as an independent Maori vote.
N Herald
Good on Maurice Williamson for calling it out. He’s also right. What Tau Henare is doing is the old-style union tactic of working to rule, and the new Maori tactic of exacting utu by blocking absolutely everything, grinding democracy to a halt in Auckland.
This is exactly why we need a referendum on this nonsense. We need to end this divisive behaviour, stamp it out and send a message that it will not be tolerated.
Tau Henare and the rest of his brown-mailing pals have failed to read the room in the electorate and are carrying on like their racist pals in Labour are still in charge.
If only we could vote racist bullies like Tau Henare out, but we can’t because they don’t do democracy. That’s another thing that needs to end.
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