Andy Loader challenges the idea of “white privilege” in New Zealand, arguing that ethnicity does not determine wealth, hardship or opportunity. He questions race-based funding, co-governance and the expanding influence of Treaty policy, while arguing that assistance should be based on individual need rather than ancestry. Loader contends that New Zealand’s future depends on equality before the law, open debate and democratic government in which every citizen has the same rights.
New Zealand has gradually become a more racist country as time has gone by and this process has been ably assisted by the mainstream media.
In my honest opinion part of the reason is due to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the average life expectancy for Maori was mid-thirties; the tribes were constantly at war with one another and the Maori practised slavery and cannibalism as a common effect of their warlike practices.
In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, an agreement between the British Crown and Maori which established British law in New Zealand.
One of the main drivers behind the signing of the Treaty was to protect the Maori population from inter-tribal warfare, the threat of invasion by other nations and to bring an end to the musket wars.
The Musket Wars were a series of as many as 3,000 battles and raids fought throughout New Zealand among Maori between 1807 and 1837, after Maori first obtained muskets and then engaged in an intertribal arms race in order to gain territory or seek revenge for past defeats.
It is believed that as many as 20,000 Maori may have died as a result of the musket wars. Tribal boundaries were also changed by the musket wars.
As a result of the signing of the Treaty, Maori and other immigrants have lived in a reasonably harmonious relationship since then, notwithstanding that there were complaints around the confiscation of lands by the European settlers.
The Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 to hear claims related to issues around the Treaty of Waitangi and also the actions of the early European settlers to NZ.
What began as a well-meaning effort to settle all such claims and offer an apology to those affected has since that time developed into nothing more than an industry that is focussed on claimants getting every last cent they are able to extract from the Crown (read taxpayers of NZ) for any and everything they can possibly dream up to make a claim in relation to.
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.
Over decades since the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal, the so-called Maori elite have gained positions of power and influence through division and deceit. The Waitangi Tribunal has morphed into an almost permanent commission of inquiry into contemporary breaches of the Treaty with jurisdiction extended to include already-settled historic claims and anything else that can be quantified, giving rise to what has become a multi-billion dollar Treaty gravy train.
What we have now is a system of ideological indoctrination which is cloaked in cultural empathy, enforced by social shame, and hidden behind a virtue signalling sea of Maori culture with many of our public servants scrambling to prove their cultural credentials and enforcing a cultural ideology across every aspect of national life rather than concentrating on delivering basic services.
We also have many local bodies signing off on co-governance agreements as if they are making some magical step towards implementing Treaty requirements when in actual fact all they are really achieving is to introduce a race based bureaucracy which is nothing more than turning democracy into Apartheid under the name of Co-Governance.
But elevating Maori spiritual ideology to sacred, unchallengeable status, above science, above secularism, above democratic consensus might make some feel good but it does nothing to ensure the provision of effective public services to either Maori or non-Maori.
Yet we’re not allowed to question it. If you do, you’re dismissed as backward, racist, colonial; a problem to be fixed or, preferably, ignored.
Many students are introduced to Racism that has come to dominate much of academia, public policy, and activist culture, through the school systems.
They are taught that “White” people move through the world carrying a set of invisible advantages we often fail to recognise. And racism is not primarily about individual acts of prejudice, but about systems, structures and power. Most importantly, it is not possible to be racist to white people because white people occupy positions of social power.
The public is constantly invited to imagine white people as a privileged class whose position in society is defined by historical advantage.
In New Zealand Maori and Pacific people experience poverty and deprivation at higher rates, but NZ Europeans make up a larger share of the total poorer population.
These statistics genuinely shock many people, especially actually well-off white people, because they have been taught so aggressively that being white is a privilege and, because they are privileged themselves, they accept it. They are blissfully unaware of the suffering of a large number of white people.
White does not necessarily mean wealthy, or powerful, nor does it mean insulated from hardship. Thousands of working-class white families across New Zealand struggle with low wages, poor housing, economic insecurity and limited opportunities. Being white does not guarantee access to privileged elite status. Most white NZ’s are simply ordinary people trying to build decent lives for themselves and their children.
When National, ACT and New Zealand First announced they had formed a coalition government post the 2023 election, they promised they would uphold democracy, equality, and put an end to race-based rights and privilege.
But there are a lot of New Zealanders feeling very let down at the moment, given that this government has done little to ease voters’ concerns regards putting an end to race-based rights and privilege.
To many New Zealand voters, the total absence of any strategy to tackle this continuing erosion of democracy and the rapidly expanding influence and authority being given to Maori is a huge concern!
We have operated under a system of democracy which has been based on the principle that all persons are equal in the eyes of the law and entitled to equality in the political and governmental processes but now we have this section of the population which wants to divide the country based on ethnicity.
If we are to have unity/equality it won’t be through Co-Governance. Co-governance doesn’t unite us, it divides, inflames, and festers. We don’t need more committees and cultural vetoes; all we need is one law for all.
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.
In the 2025 budget, government proclaimed it had allocated over $700 million in funding for Maori.
It is this separate Maori funding that many New Zealanders are questioning in these difficult financial times and why we continue to allocate large amounts of government funds, specifically to one ethnic group.
Why is there Maori-specific funding and why should they be treated differently to any other ethnicity in New Zealand?
We are constantly being told by a portion of Maori that white people in New Zealand are privileged and that under the Treaty of Waitangi we are required to treat them differently to other ethnicities in New Zealand.
In 2004 the then Labour Government published research that claimed Maori households contributed more in tax than they received in benefits and other Government transfers.
Labour commissioned the race-based research to justify its race-based approach to social spending and its preference for Maori in spending programmes. An Institute for Economic Research study appeared to validate this approach.
The Act party produced significant research that showed there was a $5 billion Maori tax-to-benefit gap. For every $2 Maori paid in tax, Maori receive $7, a net gain of $5.
Act's research demonstrated that the Government's published research was wrong. Maori households did not contribute more in tax than they received in benefits; the reverse was true.
The Institute of Economic Research finding was found to be false because the researchers left out non-cash benefits received by households. Non-cash programmes, such as health and education, which were the bulk of Government spending.
The Prime Minister at the time, Helen Clark, called Act “fanatics” for having done this research, and claimed they intended to use the research to promote racial division. The Minister of Maori Affairs also claimed the research showed Act to be Maori bashing, ignoring the fact that his department commissioned the original research.
It is a deliberate strategy to attack anyone who questions the effectiveness of spending on Maori as being racist. In a multiracial country, to be called racist is a serious matter. Fear of being so labelled has prevented open and intelligent debate on Maori issues.
Act stated that the research needed to be published, not just to keep the Government honest or because the taxpayer paid for it; these are significant findings.
Some $5 billion a year is a huge sum. It was about what the Government was spending every year on roads, defence, police, courts, prisons regional development, conservation and the arts.
Looking at the money in individual terms, Maori were on average, receiving each year in benefits from the taxpayer $8000 more than they were paying in taxes. Over a lifetime, the average net benefit for each Maori was $560,000.
Put another way, on average the Government were taking $120,000 in taxes from every non-Maori over their lifetime to give to Maori.
These transfers did not include Waitangi settlements, the allocation of radio wave bands, fishing settlements or the foreshore claims. They were all extra.
The taxpayer transfers put the Waitangi settlements into context. The fiscal envelope for total Waitangi claims was $2 billion, less than half the annual transfer to Maori.
This research raised important questions over the Government's priorities and approach and although the research implied that all Maori adults were receiving a subsidy of $8000 a year, this was not so. There was a growing Maori professional class who were earning good incomes and paying the 39c income-tax rate in place at that time.
Most New Zealanders are willing to pay taxes to enable those whose life chances are challenged, to receive assistance where their personal circumstances require it, but those policies should advantage all sectors.
Government should govern for the good of society as a whole and not just for the benefit of a specific ethnic group as this is bound to lead to racial disharmony.
The size of the Maori tax-benefit gap at that time raised the question; what return was the country receiving from that enormous investment?
The evidence indicated that the Government spending was not the solution, but a large part of the problem. You do not cure poverty by giving away taxpayers' money. As Government spending had gone up, it had not helped.
It is time we stopped accepting that there is any basis that political power should be based on ethnicity or that ethnicity is any type of qualification for Leadership of our country. The future of New Zealand doesn’t belong to tribes, it belongs to all of us, equally; we all matter the same.
We should be united in our support for democracy and ensure that those who make extreme and divisive comments are held to account.
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.
Yet here we are currently, with the Maori Party, and the self-appointed so-called tribal elite of Iwi trying to go back and reinstate a system of race based governance.
But there can be no mature discussion about our future as a country until everybody accepts that the Treaty provided for the government to have final authority, with all citizens, no matter their ancestry, having equal rights.