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Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Mike Butler: Cannons Creek guide to social reform



Andy Oakley grew up in a troubled family in a state house on the mean streets of Cannons Creek, a suburb of Porirua City approximately 22km north of Wellington. The cultural mix at his school was half European New Zealander and half Maori/Polynesian. There, everyone had an equal opportunity either to end up in prison or become the mayor.

Oakley, who dropped out of Porirua College without a qualification and became a father at age 16, became an engineer, a racing driver, and a businessman, achievements that could be the subject of a riveting biography. Instead he wrote Cannons Creek to Waitangi – Te Pakeha's treaty claim for equality.

He embraces the culture he grew up with to the extent that at his cousins wedding in Port Glasgow, Scotland, he performed the Ka Mate haka composed by war leader Te Rauparaha, who is associated with Porirua, having learned the words from the walls of the public bar at Porirua's Bottom Tavern, where he used to drink

Tariana Turia sparked his obsession with biculturalism, when, as Associate Minister of Maori Affairs in the Clark Labour government, she compared the suppression of Taranaki Maori to the 1940s Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered. Oakley, who was curious how such a dramatic even might have happened in New Zealand without him being aware of it, became driven to find out about New Zealand history.

Last year this white New Zealander of Scottish descent took a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal seeking compensation for the racial discrimination and brutal treatment that his tribe, Te Pakeha, has endured and continue to endure on a daily basis back to the treaty in 1840.

His claim prompted an interesting exchange of correspondence with the tribunal and involves discussion of race and whether race exists or is a colonial construct. He discovered his theory that there is no such thing as race “by sleeping around”. From personal experience he asks how could the offspring of a Scottish father and Maori mother qualify for rights that the father does not have.

Oakley proposes this action plan:
1. The government should acknowledge that the February 4 Busby document also known as the Littlewood treaty is the missing final English draft of the Maori text Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
2. Remove from legislation all references to the treaty and its principles.
3. Abolish race-based seats and positions in central and local government.
4. Wind up the Waitangi Tribunal.
5. Ensure that no individual or group has preferment in legislation or funding on grounds of ethnicity, race or culture.
6. No constitutional change without 75 percent support in referendum.
7. End biculturalism.
8. Repeal Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011.
9. Withdraw New Zealand from the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples because Maori are not indigenous.
10. Launch commission of inquiry to overhaul national teaching with the aim of creating an education system that enables all pupils to show mastery in morals, ethics, parenting, human relationships, mathematics, English, science.
11. Launch commission of inquiry into the false history of New Zealand as taught in the national curriculum, museums, and the flawed Treaty2U roadshow.
Cannons Creek to Waitangi – Te Pakeha's treaty claim for equality, by Andy Oakley, Tross Publishing, Wellington, 2014, has 221 pages, is paperback, is illustrated, costs $30, and is available at www.trosspublishing.co.nz or at a good bookstore near you.

5 comments:

paul scott said...

This is one of the big problems we have with the John Key Government.
We do not want race based priveledge
any more .
I am surprised that John key doesn't throw his hat into the ring about this the response would be overwhelming. And with Man and Dotcom, maybe the man Key will see sense

Unknown said...

Another great piece Mike. Maybe you can encourage Muriel to mention the Littlewood treaty more often in her emails as I find so many people in our land are unaware of it.
Paul Scott. You must understand John Key is just following orders and they don`t come from his employers, the electorate. Look behind the curtain.

Kaimai 6 said...

Probably a dumb question but I suspect I'm probably not the only one wondering, who do you think is behind the curtain, Paul??

Dave said...

If one political party stood up and adopted these common sense principals then vigorously campaigned on them I think they would get a surprising amount of support. (ie Don Brash Orewa speech) The key government has given into every racist separatist demand to keep the Maori party happy, that is a decision that will come back to haunt them as they realise that no matter how much they give there will be no loyalty and it will never be
enough.
Then there would be the outcry from the sickly left liberals who helped perpetrate the lie that has re engineered NZs history and social policy.
We also have a growing part Maori radical group who firmly believe the new social myth that is the Treaty and its so called principals, these people are dangerous and could resort to violence if the division of NZ Land and wealth along racial lines
is ever threatened.
However to do nothing would be the ultimate travesty.

Glenn G. said...

My god Mr Oakley is absolutely completely right on the mark. How can we find out more about where he is with the tribunal & more to the point how can we help him. Should we all submit claims against the tribunal to right all the wrongs that have been perpetrated against Te New Zealander ( pakeha is offensive to me ) who have tried so hard to guide maori towards a better future at huge expense for very little in return ever since 1840.
The clever academics have no idea what has actually happened because they all cocooned in their own tiny little PC misguided world ( There was an example on 7 sharp last night where someone has figured out that NCEA is not working & the clever academic at the top of some BS institute had not ever seen any evidence when anyone in the real world knows that the system is hugely flawed as can be seen by the growing amount of young people that simply have no work ethic, can't read or write or add up because the clever academics were so busy trying to get them to think outside the square that they forgot to teach what the square was in the first place, couple that with the lack of will to get their sorry butts out of bed in the morning & we have a "world class education system" that is a dog just like novopay but no one will admit it, or at least not anyone at the top.)so we need to enlighten them somehow that we have had enough. You can slam key as much as you like but unfortunately he ( along with the conservatives ) will be the only hope (as long as they can cut loose from the maori party ) of stopping the rot, if labour & the greens get in you can forget us ever getting a fair deal in this country which is also ours!!!!