Recent reports of the death of Māori nationalism are, as Mark Twain said of his own death notices, ‘greatly exaggerated’. Political journalist Graham Adams argues that the most apposite comparison to be drawn is with the Bolger Government’s dismantling of trade union power and influence in 1991. The Council of Trade Unions huffed and puffed for a few months and then slunk away to lick ineffectually at the legislative wounds it had received. Thirty-three years later, the CTU has still not recovered from the injuries inflicted by Bill Birch’s Employment Contracts Act. The downgrading of the relationship between the Crown and Māori by the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government, Adams argues, has produced a similar effect: lots of huffing and puffing but not much else.
Well, not yet. But, to paraphrase American independence fighter John Paul Jones, the Māori have not yet begun to fight. At the strategic level, the iwi leaders’ group is still making up its mind as to whether or not the present government will make it to a second term. Strong evidence that it is unlikely to do so would militate against a full-scale campaign of protest and civil disobedience. If the National-ACT-NZ First coalition is seen to be faltering, then the smart move would be to make sure that the incoming Labour-Green-Māori Party coalition is absolutely committed to undoing all of the incumbent government’s ‘anti-Māori’ changes.
