Reality of Racism in New Zealand
It is safe to say that most people want to live peaceful, happy and productive regardless of race and to do that race/ethnicity should be irrelevant.
And yet we are being increasingly divided, forced to take sides, as either black or white when in fact life is mainly grey. Without some measure of compromise between races, society as we know it couldn’t exist.
We seem to have developed a section of the population in New Zealand which believes in “Critical Race Theory”.
So what is Critical Race Theory?
Critical race theory seeks to link racism, race, & power and Critical race theorists challenge the very foundations of democracy. They argue that social life, political structures, and economic systems are founded upon race, which (in their view) is a social construct.
The recent Labour government passed much legislation that was undemocratic and race based. The reasons for this were being stated as redressing historical wrongs of institutional racism against Maori.
A classic example of this being the “He Pua Pua” report
How is CRT affecting us?
CRT advocates incorporate its key elements into policies, training programs & manuals and standard operating procedures with their efforts are being advanced under various euphemisms such as cultural competency training and diversity, equity, and inclusion. There’s this revolving language system that they use to confuse, avoid, and obfuscate. They’re using it because they refuse to defend their race theory on its own merits because even they know that it’s indefensible politically.
In fact the recently defeated Labour government was guilty of taking New Zealand down a path of race based co-governance by unelected tribal elite on the basis of a “mythical partnership” requirement of the Treaty of Waitangi.
I say “mythical” deliberately because when you read the Treaty document there is no mention of partnership or anything that remotely resembles a partnership requirement.
But as a result of their reliance on the mythical partnership requirement that Labour government made many changes to legislation and proposed more, that have and may continue to significantly alter the fundamental principles upon which our country has been governed and on our democratic rights.
The Ardern led Labour government denied that the He Pua Pua report was in any way government policy, yet they took action in different ways that seem to respond to the recommendations within the He Pua Pua report as shown below:
Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training – To get staff to address these issues, government departments required them to undergo compulsory cultural competency training.
Changing Educational Curriculum Requirements – There was a push to expose the broader public to the supposed racial biases imbued in New Zealand’s history curriculum. As a result changes were made to the curriculum for it to be heavily oriented to the history of Maori in New Zealand, with so much of that history relying on sometimes unreliable oral accounts. The themes of what is to be taught are, at best, an extremely incomplete view of our history.
It is asserted in the new curriculum that Maori chiefs did not cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty but rather entered into some kind of “partnership” with the Crown. This latter-day reinterpretation of the Treaty is simply stated as a fact, without any acknowledgement that the assertion is hotly contested, is flatly contradicted by many of the speeches recorded by Colenso in writing at the time (on 5 February 1840), and flatly contradicted also by speeches made by numerous chiefs at Kohimarama in 1860.
Funding Critical Race Theory Programs and Research – The government spent $55 million on what they called the Public Interest Journalism Fund and although this was supposedly to support the mainstream media through the economic downturn resulting from the international Covid 19 pandemic, one of the requirements of eligibility for that funding subsidy was that all applicants had to “actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Protection [their capitals] under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Maori as a Te Tiriti partner”. All applicants had to show a “clear and obvious” commitment to the Treaty and Te reo; no exceptions.
It was stated that applicants were likely to be regarded favourably if their journalism proposals “met the definition of Maori and iwi journalism” or “reported from perspectives including Pacific, pan-Asian, women, youth, children, persons with disabilities [and] other ethnic communities”.
“Maori and iwi journalism”, incidentally, was defined as being “made by Maori about Maori perspectives, issues and interests prioritising the needs of Maori”. But that’s not journalism; that’s advocacy. The two are quite different and may often be at odds.
Many have spoken about the Crown sharing power and control with Maori and supporting by Maori for Maori solutions.
So let’s first address the issue of sharing power and control. The previous Labour government made many changes to legislation on the basis of race and justified those changes by claiming they were a requirement under the Treaty of Waitangi.
But as I have said many times, this is rubbish and a simple reading of the treaty document shows this to be the case. The Treaty consists of three sections.
The standard translation used by the Waitangi tribunal in the early 1990’s was made by Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu. Here is his full translation of the Treaty:
“The first: The chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.
“The second: The Queen of England agrees to protect the Chiefs, the Subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures. But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent.
“The third: For this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the Government of the Queen, the Queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand (i.e. the Maori) and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.”
There is no mention in the Treaty of a co-governance or partnership role as a part of the Treaty requirements. A ‘partnership’ between Maori and the Crown is constitutionally-impossible nonsense.
Any such partnership
would be a fundamental subversion of democracy. It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into a partnership with any of its subjects. The true position is that the Crown is sovereign but owes duties of justice and good faith to the Maori descendants of those who signed the treaty.
This duty of justice and good faith has finally been seen to be done through the process of the settlements of grievances under the Waitangi Tribunal and rightly so, yet still we see a section of the Maori people trying to claim non-existent rights under the Treaty.
Since 1995 there have been 86 settlements with a total value of approximately $2.6 billion yet very little of that settlement money seems to have benefitted the Maori at the bottom of the food chain but the so-called elite seem to be well provided for.
The reason that the Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi was to gain protection for their people in the first instance (particularly given that inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 members of the various Maori tribes) and a simple study of the statistics for the Maori people in New Zealand since the signing of the Treaty up to the current times, shows that the Maori have been very well served by the relationship with the Crown overall.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty Maori commonly practised cannibalism and slavery amongst their own tribes and after the signing of the treaty these practices were outlawed and ceased. Inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 of the various Maori tribes and after the signing the so-called Maori or Musket wars came to an end.
Yes there have been some cases where they have suffered injustices but most of those have been redressed through the Waitangi Tribunal process.
At the time of the signing of the Treaty the life expectancy for Maori was approximately 30 years and today it is approximately 75 years which has to be seen in anyone’s eyes as a general improvement.
The current proposals that revolve around a 50/50 sharing of governance between Maori and all other races in New Zealand is nothing more than a system of Apartheid with governance being controlled on the basis of race alone.
The reality of co-governance is that if Maori were to truly be given the control they desire and then be required to fund their dreams on the basis of their numbers it would very soon be realised that they would not be able to do so and the numbers wanting to be considered as Maori would I believe, seriously decline.
The so-called Maori elite that have been pushing hard for co-governance over the last couple of years would rapidly find that the gravy train had stopped and they had been left at the station.
Against a backdrop of this high-profile push for co-governance, it is easy to overlook the positive statistics.
For example, 64 percent of Maori are employed as compared to the employment rate for all New Zealanders, of 68.4%. In excess of 400,000 Maori have jobs, provide products and services and pay tax and 97 percent of Maori aged 15 or older are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order. Over 99 percent of Maori are not gang members.
Yes there is a small number of the Maori population which create a huge number of problems by way of their personal choices in relation to their way of living and their attitude to the law of the land, and this affects the Maori population in general by influencing public opinion.
But it must be stated that the fact that although this small number are very much over represented in the criminal statistics and in the prison populations, this is not as a result of racism but a result of their own poor lifestyle choices.
When we study the claims of institutionalised racism within New Zealand, we find that in most cases the answer lies with the personal choices of those involved and the effects resulting from those personal choices.
This is backed up by the statistics that show that the vast majority of Maori are employed in jobs that provide products and services, pay tax, are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order, and are not gang members.
No matter that the Treaty Grievance industry members may claim otherwise. Again they mostly make these claims so as to prolong their ability to benefit from the gravy train that has developed around the Treaty of Waitangi and the Waitangi Tribunal.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” If we let our guard down and become complacent we automatically become vulnerable.
This year we have seen all sorts of threats and assertions directed against the newly elected coalition government, and in fact against democracy itself.
We have seen some extraordinary outbursts and unsubstantiated claims this year with one example of these being the announcement from the Maori Party that the government decision to divert thirty million dollars of funding from Te Reo programmes constitutes "cultural suppression" and will bring upon them the "wrath of Maori".
The most recent census recorded that there were approximately 850,000 people registered as Maori in New Zealand and a recent report stated that around 182,000 people in New Zealand are proficient enough to hold a conversation in Te Reo.
It is my opinion that with this level of support from their own race the expenditure of $millions of public money to fund the teaching of Te Reo is one of those things that is a nice to have not a necessity and as such in these tough economic times it is not “cultural suppression”; it is just good economic decision making.
The making of extraordinary outbursts and unsubstantiated claims has become the norm for those on the left of New Zealand politics, yet how can we justify these attacks on our elected government.
How can we allow a relatively small group of people to continually make outrageous, ill-considered, and incendiary comments, and yet still receive public funding, and support?
We have allowed a climate to develop where extreme views become accepted by sheer repetition, and the absence of counter-arguments as it has become almost impossible to challenge those views as you are branded as a racist and the mainstream media will not print any opposing views.
In allowing these extreme views to become accepted through our failure to strongly oppose them, we have failed to defend our hard-earned freedoms and our democratic values; allowed dangerous ideas to permeate our cultural and educational institutions; and enshrined lies where there was once truth.
We should have been united in our support for democracy and ensured that those who made extreme and divisive comments were held to account.