New Zealand – a Racist Nation !
At least that is what the Maori Party and a few of the so-called tribal elite of the Iwi would have us believe.
Guess What?
They are right; we have over the last fifty some years developed into a racist nation and that has occurred mostly at the urging of those same people from the so-called tribal elite and the Maori Party, ably supported by the Waitangi Tribunal.
It is just over forty years (1980 to be exact) when New Zealand stood almost on the brink of civil war regards the effects from the opposition to the South African, (Springbok) Rugby team’s tour of New Zealand.
South Africa at that time was a country ruled by the white minority population under a system of Apartheid which gave the ruling white citizens all of the power and control of the nation whilst restricting any persons of colour to a life of not much more than slavery.
At the time that the tour was announced an organisation with the name of H.A.R.T. (Halt All Racist Tours) was formed to protest and try to stop the tour as a signal to the country and the world of our opposition to the system of Apartheid, and it has been said many times by a lot of different people since then that this had a huge part to play in the demise of Apartheid in South Africa.
The social unrest that developed within NZ as a result of the protests saw almost rioting in the streets with one of the tour games being cancelled at the last minute due to a pitch invasion by a large number of protestors.
On Aug. 28, 1963, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in which he said those oft repeated words:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
He was speaking about the coloured people of America’s segregation based on race and he also said:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
New Zealand has had a democratic system of government that is the oldest in the world, going back to the emancipation of women under the suffragette movement when they were granted the inalienable right to vote regardless of colour or gender in 1893.
On 19 September 1893, Governor Lord Glasgow signed a new Electoral Act into law, and New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to enshrine in law the right for women to vote in parliamentary elections.
Yet here we are in New Zealand, 2024, with the Maori Party (which claims falsely, to represent the Maori population of NZ) and the self-appointed so-called tribal elite of Iwi trying to go back and reinstate a system of race based governance as seen in the He Puapua document. The 2019 He Puapua report to Government (based on a report to the Iwi Chairs Forum, Matike Mai) became known to the public in 2021. The “Vision 2040” described there sets out the intention of two separate, racially defined, government structures; New Zealand is broken apart, with no pretence of inclusivity or equality.
Dr John Robinson a research scientist with broad experience including in the social statistics of Maori recently wrote in an article for the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, the following:
The foundations of New Zealand were laid down by those British who had just put an end to slavery. They would never have written, or agreed with, a Treaty that divided the country into two unequal races, having asserted the very opposite, that all New Zealanders were equal British subjects. This was a precious legacy for the new nation, to be safeguarded and never taken for granted.
“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
John Philpot Curran 1750-1817, Irish judge
New Zealand has paid the price of ignorance and inactivity, allowing a determined minority to build a tribal, ‘indigenous’, race-based division which destroys the claim to equality and liberty of all others.
At last, in 2023, two of the political parties (ACT and New Zealand First) in the newly-elected tripartite Government moved to reassert three basic principles: that this is a sovereign country with one government that we are all equal, that ownership of land is assured. Those Principles are universal and hardly controversial – and certainly were held by the British founders of New Zealand. But none hold now in New Zealand.
In fact, New Zealand is a racist country, with belief in race and classification by race (“A Maori is a member of the Maori race”). There is separation in government (with race-based Maori seats and a race-based Maori Party), special rights by race in law (the Supreme Court gave sovereignty to Maori tribes, with a special place for Maori ideology: “Tikanga Maori [to be defined by the Maori party] will be functioning and applicable across Aotearoa under Maori [national, iwi, hapu, whanau] authority”), and in many organisations (the Waitangi Tribunal deals only with possible breeches of the Treaty by the Crown against Maori).
This proposal to respect these three principles, ideals that are widely accepted across the world, was followed by a loud and angry outcry, with many inflammatory calls to resist this ‘pakeha’ government (equality being now ‘anti-Maori and racist’) from Maori spokesmen. The call for separation and special rights to Maori, coupled with a denial of equality, has become widespread, a national ideology.
That belief in racial division is based on a belief in wrongs committed against Maori by the Crown – no other wrong from the past is admitted. Based on that false belief, Maori are angry, demanding recompense; non-Maori must feel guilt. New Zealanders are not one people, but divided into indigenous people and the others – second-rate citizens who must pay for fake claims of past wrong-doing by their ancestors.
Based on detailed instructions from the British Government, and after several days of debate, the final copy of the Treaty of Waitangi was decided upon, and written down by James Busby, on February 4, 1840. This was translated into Maori by Reverend Henry Williams and his son, Edward, before being handed back to the Governor, Captain William Hobson. This initial text was missing for some years before it was found in 1989; it is often referred to as the “Littlewood Treaty”.
It is the same as many back-translation from the Maori in the years following 1840, and is in accord with the Maori understanding of the Treaty as was made clear in the words of the chiefs during many meetings and, most significantly, with the forthright discussion in 1922 by the great Maori leader and statesman, Apirana Ngata, a prominent scholar, Government Minister and champion for Maori culture, in his booklet, “The Treaty of Waitangi, an explanation”, which was written in Maori, for Maori, and then translated into English.
No standing should be given to the many, and often conflicting, versions and interpretations built up during the last 49 years as an alternative Treaty is put forward to destroy the true intention by contradicting the initial call by Hobson to the chiefs: “Now we are one people.”
There are three Articles in the Treaty: sovereignty is ceded to Britain; the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property is guaranteed to the chiefs and tribes and to all the people of New Zealand; and the rights and privileges of British subjects are granted to all the people of New Zealand.
Insistence on a separate Maori government has built up over the decades since the formation of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975. The Tribunal has over time constructed and publicised a complete rewriting of history – the “retrospective recrimination” and “counterfactual history” of the Tribunal, quoting the words of historian Bill Oliver. This fundamental reversal of the message and meaning of the Treaty has been aided by a captive media and the crippling of free speech.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the rule of tikanga was followed and loyalty was for those in the hapu
or iwi; all others were of no importance and could be robbed of land, killed, and eaten. War bred war, as frequently a group would escape a stronger tribe and move to attack another. Fighting was strengthened by the demand for revenge, utu, and the call to defend the mana of relations and ancestors.
The calls for a system of “Race Based Co-governance”; is a terrible mistake, promising disruption and the potential of race war. New Zealand has never been so divided. The challenge of the 21^st^ century is to oppose any talk of race based governance; support that “now we are one” and to move from division to unity with all persons being equal under the democratic system of one person one vote irrespective of colour creed or gender.
It is time this current government under Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, grew a pair and decided to “Fully” implement their campaign promises to do away with all race based legislation and stop all talk of co-governance at any level.
Race based governance has never succeeded anywhere and it would not be any different here in New Zealand if it was implemented.
We can have co-governance without democracy.
We can have democracy without co-governance.
But we cannot have democracy and co-governance.
Democracy will only prevail if we oppose any moves towards legislated race based co-governance policies. We need to oppose co-governance for Democracy to prevail.