Amy Brooke
100days
What has happened to New Zealand? We would do well to consider what those in this country, who fought in two world wars to safeguard our democratic freedoms, would say if they could look at this country today. Many would regard as sheer corruption the racist policies that places in our universities and jobs in industries may now be awarded on racial grounds, rather than merit, as, too, with Crown agencies.
The romanticising of pre-colonial Māori history, whose living conditions at the time horrified Charles Darwin; the subservience our successive governments pay to radicalised part-Māori; that Gerry Brownlee, the controversial Speaker of the House, needs to rethink; and how the falsified name for New Zealand, Aotearoa, was put on our bank notes and passports without our consent. All these are all touched on in this Quadrant article, as well as other important issues.
How ironic, too, that former Attorney-General Chris Finlayson – not chosen by New Zealand voters to become an MP, but headhunted by the National Party hierarchy to leapfrog into parliament as a list MP – should now rail against the coalition Government’s planned restrictions with regard to the foreshore and seabed legislation.
His calling them foolish and extremely harmful raises eyebrows, as these adjectives could well describe his and John Key’s former decision to allow local Māori groups to claim ownership of parts of New Zealand’s coastline rather than allowing it to remain in Crown ownership, i.e., that of all New Zealanders.
Those foreseeing the unintended consequences were dismissed by this former Minister for Treaty of Waitangi: Finlayson asserted that very few Māori would be able to claim exclusive possession since 1840.
It does not seem unreasonable to ask whether it was simply naïvety that caused this lawyer to make such a foolish claim, as has been borne out by the results. Some would regard it as legitimate to wonder whether there was another, quite different agenda at play. Finlayson’s habit of describing those opposing him as “nutters” has not endeared him to the country at large. Moreover, the provision for Māori claimants to receive taxpayers’ funding for their claims – while those defending their own territory have to pay their own legal costs – seems not only manifestly unfair, but inexplicable.
The result, of course, apparently not foreseen by Finlayson at the time, has been that the entire coastline around the country has now been claimed by various Māori interests and all New Zealanders are paying millions to support these claims with apparently activist judges seemingly happy to grant ownership to claimants.
Given that this minister assured the country that very few would fit the criteria of exclusive possession – and that he apparently did not foresee the consequences to the country as a whole – it is indeed strange that he now inveighs against the government’s plan to restrict the ability of activist groups to claim our entire coastline. He is calling this intent foolish and “extremely harmful to race relations”.
If he was simply naïve, why is he now objecting when he originally stated that very few would be able to meet such a stringent test – a state of affairs the government is now working to restore. Should he not welcome this?
The usual radicalised extremists will no doubt persuade many gullible part-Māori to stage another protest march, or similar. But what has been far more harmful to race relations is his apparently ill-thought move. New Zealanders do not see why they are now funding this to the tune of millions of dollars to support such claims against us all – so that the ownership of this coastal land passes from the Crown into the hands of local part-Māori.
The past folly of so many government decisions costs us all. Among these were the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal by Geoffrey Palmer. Although the original intent of the Treaty of Waitangi was to grant equal rights to all New Zealanders, Māori and non-Māori. In so many aspects of our national history, part-Māori have been granted superior rights to those of European ancestry.
Just one example is where the University of Otago, faced with hotly contested access to the Medical School, grant those with even a smidgen of Māori ancestry, and notwithstanding mediocre examination marks, preferential entry on racist grounds over someone predominantly European who may succeed in gaining a 90 per cent pass. This unfair practice has been going on for years and is completely unacceptable.
The abolition of the Waitangi Tribunal itself is well overdue. It represents the interests only of radicalised Māori and supports claims that are ridiculous – such as Maori claims to the airwaves. It even described an historic Māori rebellion against the Crown – where nobody was hurt except for when a horse trod on a boy’s foot – as a holocaust.
Former paratrooper and doyen of media commentators Brian Priestley described the Waitangi Tribunal as a Star Chamber: he stated that he had never seen a body less well designed to get to the truth of things. Its overly partial decisions over the years have brought it into disrepute. It’s well time for it to go.
Well overdue, too is the removal of the Māori seats in parliament, originally designed to ensure Māori had a voice in decision-making. However, there are no longer any full-blooded Māori in New Zealand and with part-Māori representatives spread over all the political parties – both New Zealand First and ACT are led by part-Māori individuals – it is high time the Māori-only seats are removed. Those seats have ended up in the hands of fanatical, anti-democratic, representatives who misbehave in the House and are not only less than civil but actually vindictive in their interactions and utterances.
“We are one people,” was Governor William Hobson’s claim. And most New Zealanders do not want to see the constant promotion of racial divisiveness and the sneaky co-governance this government is now endorsing – breaking its pre-election pledge.
We need to define who can actually claim to be Māori. What, in fact, is a Māori? At present, many of those with their hands constantly out for more funding and privileges have a very minimal amount of Māori genetic inheritance and little right to claim to be Māori.
It is time to revert to what we once did, until activists got busy: define Māori as individuals with at least 50 per cent of Māori genetic inheritance. Below that, one cannot possibly claim to be predominantly Māori.
A sensible definition would rule out so many activists claiming – to the annoyance of the majority of part-Māori – that they speak for Māori, when they do nothing of the sort.
The most important thing, of course, is that we are all New Zealanders. But as has been said, a house divided against itself cannot stand. We need to turn our back on identity politics and repudiate racial discrimination so that we can indeed be one people.
To achieve this, we need more New Zealanders to do what our forebears did – to take on board the fact that we lose a democracy when we do not fight for it.
As for the damage our politicians cause – yes, there is indeed a way to control them – as the clever Swiss do.
