Geoffrey Churchman: The definition of ‘Maori’ in NZ legislation needs looking at

With all the new major institutions that the Jacinda government has been creating for people with some Maori descent (even if it’s minimal) with special privileges and veto power over everyone else, one glaringly obvious question that needs to be addressed properly is the definition of who a Maori is.

Nearly 750 Acts of Parliament contain provisions relating to Maori issues, and the sole Interpretation for the term is:

Maori means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand; and includes a descendant of any such person

As in Nazi Germany and South Africa during the Apartheid era where the rights people had were determined by their bloodlines, race and racism has become the core ideology of the Jacinda government in NZ.

However, this definition is so vague and tautological that it is really no definition at all, as John Robinson has pointed out in several articles. These days many identify as Maori because of the benefits it bestows on them and nothing else: one full-blooded ancestor from the distant past is all it needs.

The two regimes from history mentioned both made white Europeans the superior skin colour / bloodline. South Africa had two further categories: black and coloured — who were somewhere between the two skin pigmentations.

Nazi Germany was primarily concerned with the distinction between Jews and Aryan Germans (white non-Jews), with of course, massive discrimination and restrictions against the former. From a legal perspective, the country had to provide a definition of both, even if the rule of law wasn’t a strong feature of the Nazis’ reign.


Click image to view.

In 1935 the Nazis promulgated the Nürnberger Gesetze or Nuremberg Laws which contained three racial categories: Deutschblutige (German blooded), Mischling (mixture of Jew and Ayran) and Jude (Jew).

The chart above describing the Nürnberg Laws was a pseudo-scientific basis for racial identification. Only people with four German grandparents (four white circles in top row left) were of “German blood”. A Jew was someone who descended from three or four Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row right). In the middle stood people of “mixed blood” of the “first or second degree.” A Jewish grandparent was defined as a person who is or was a member of a Jewish religious community.

This also included a list of allowed marriages (“Ehe gestattet”) and forbidden marriages (“Ehe verboten”). Marriages between a one-quarter Jew and an Ayran were allowed. But marriages between a one quarter Jew and another one quarter Jew were not.

Marriages between a half-Jew and an Aryan or a half-Jew and a quarter-Jew were allowed “mit Benehmigung” (with permission). It’s not clear what the authorities would have looked for in granting such permission. Two half-Jews could marry, and their children would become Mischling. A half-Jew and a three-quarter-Jew could marry and their children would be classed as Jews.

Someone who was one-eighth Jew was classed as an Aryan.

With all the special rights and privileges which the racist Jacinda regime is putting in place for “members of the Maori race”, it seems highly desirable that they have some similar classification system in place for who and who is not a member of the Maori race. Is it reasonable that someone who is only one-16th Maori like the well-known Stephen Gerard O’Regan gets the same privileges and (government) payments as someone who is say one-quarter Maori?

Should it not also define the Maori race as being those people who lived in NZ before the Europeans showed up? This would include some Moriori.

Personally I find the classification of people by race in this manner objectionable, but that’s what radical Leftists want and are getting.

Geoffrey Churchman is a retired publisher and co-editor of the Waikanae Watch blog site. This article was first published HERE