Roger Childs: Book Review – He Puapua: Blueprint for Breaking up New Zealand

"New Zealand is being torn apart, separated into an apartheid system of two race-based peoples in an unequal partnership." 

- John Robinson

A historian with integrity

John Robinson is one of the country’s top historians. The big names who are lionized in the mainstream media, the likes of Ann Salmond, Jock Phillips, Claudia Orange and Vincent O’Malley, have sadly sacrificed their reputations on the altar of political correctness.  Robinson however, is prepared to fearlessly and honestly take on the tough topics of New Zealand history and politics such as the truth about the Treaty of Waitangi, tikanga in the modern era, and now He Puapua. His research is always thorough and meticulous, his analysis thoughtful and perceptive, and the conclusions he reaches are carefully backed up with evidence.

Stealth and secrecy

Readers will be aware that the He Puapua strategy for progressively increasing the control of Maori in running the country to ultimately achieve joint Maori- Crown governance by 2040, has been around since 2019. But did you hear about the programme, which is now effectively government policy, discussed in the lead up to last year’s election?

The strategy is based on carrying out the recommendations of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). When the declaration came out, Prime Minister Helen Clark wouldn’t have a bar of it because many of its Articles were in conflict with our laws and system of government. However, her successor, the devious and manipulative John Key, had no such scruples.

Being dependent on the Maori Party to hold power, he instructed Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples to scuttle off secretly to New York to sign the country up to the UNDRIP. There was no consultation with the public and scant analysis in the media of what it would mean for New Zealand.

John Robinson looks in detail at what the Declaration says, which practically directs sovereign states to allow their indigenous people to virtually run their countries. (The full wording of UNDRIP is contained in one of five very useful Appendices.)

He Puapua is well underway

The He Puapua Report proposes revolutionary changes for New Zealand. Professor Elizabeth Rata

The author traces the background to the current reality that the Ardern Labour government is already implementing the programme. He looks at how growing separatism between Maori – about 13% of the population – and the rest of the New Zealand people, is undermining our democracy. In today’s New Zealand Maori have special rights and in George Orwell’s classic phrase have become more equal than others.

John Robinson looks at

• the reality that there is no such thing as race
• the weak case Maori have for being regarded as indigenous
• the considerable evidence of pre-Polynesian settlement of New Zealand
• the evolution of the groundless claims of partnership and Treaty principles which has led to Maori having special rights and powers in local government and other areas
• the manipulation by the Department of Statistics to increase the percentage of the Maori population!
• the twisting of the words of the Treaty of Waitangi so that Maori have been given separate rights which were never intended
• the undemocratic nature of Maori representation in parliament
• the reality that New Zealand is a racist country with a small minority increasingly becoming more powerful and dominant.

There is also analysis of how He Puapua is currently being implemented in law, education, local government, health, conservation and water resources. Much of this is justified on the basis that as the country’s indigenous people Maori should be given special consideration, and that separatist policies are needed to deal with the inequities they face compared with the rest of the population.

As the author puts it: There is no longer any mention of equality; the inequality implicit in the new understanding is hidden behind vague talk of fairness – with no recognition that the special rights (given) to Maori are unfair to others.

Subterfuge and lack of consultation aids increasing separatism and racism

In recent years there have been many hui and meetings of iwi leaders around the country discussing how joint Crown-Maori governance can be progressively achieved in the next twenty years. One of the worst feature of this process has been the lack of consultation with the rest of the New Zealand public – 87 % of the population.

The author also points out that in justifying their right to share power the big players in the Maori lobby constantly falsify the realities of our history. One reality is that almost all Maori today have the blood of colonists running through their veins and most have less than half Polynesian blood. For example Tipene (Steve) O’Regan (Ngati Toa, Wellington and Ireland) has one sixteenth Maori blood.

There is also the constant bleating that colonialism is the reason for all their current problems, and rejection of the idea that the early white settlers and their descendants brought huge benefits for the native people. Perhaps the greatest of all Maori leaders, Sir Apirana Ngata, has it right in observing:

Let me acknowledge first that, in the whole of the world, l doubt whether any native race has been so well treated by a European people as the Maori … Sir Apirana Ngata

An important book

He Puapua: Blueprint for Breaking up New Zealand is a work that all New Zealanders should read to understand what is going on under their noses with the connivance of the government. By allowing the Maori causus in the Labour Party to call the shots, Jacinda Ardern is doing the nation a massive disservice as the democratic rights and liberties of non-Maori continue to be undermined by the implementation of He Puapua.

(John Robinson’s book can be bought at good bookshops or ordered directly from Tross Publishing - https://trosspublishing.co.nz/ for $35.)

Roger Childs is a retired teacher who taught History, Social Studies and Geography for 40 years.