NZCPR Newsletter: A Betrayal of Trust

The Labour Government has betrayed the trust of New Zealanders by changing key constitutional conventions without any mandate from voters.

When they took Office in 2017, equality of citizenship and the Rule of Law were constitutional cornerstones of New Zealand democracy.

Now, five and a half years later, New Zealand is no longer a society of equals.

Labour has elevated the leaders of multi-million-dollar iwi business corporations into a privileged ruling class. On the basis of their race, they have been given the power to influence Government decision-making. As a result, a Maori world view is now being imposed onto the country.

The effects are everywhere. Maori has replaced English in the name of our country, government departments, streets and towns, and now even road signs. Throughout the workforce, public servants are being forced to swear allegiance to the Treaty of Waitangi, undertake cultural competency training, learn te reo, and even stay overnight on marae.

Similar requirements are also being imposed on the private sector in companies that rely on government registration or funding. A Labour Party Private Member’s Bill, the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill, has even proposed that private companies should honour the Treaty.

Nowhere can the takeover be seen more clearly than in health, where an Equity Adjustor Score has now been introduced to prioritise Maori patients over others in greater clinical need.

As the Herald reports: “Some surgeons said the new scoring tool was medically indefensible. They said patients should be prioritised on how sick they were, how urgently they needed treatment, and how long they had been waiting for it – not on their ethnicity.”

Surgeons were said to be “disgusted” by the new ranking system: “It’s ethically challenging to treat anyone based on race, it’s their medical condition that must establish the urgency of the treatment.”

The public outcry following the revelation that an Apartheid health system has been imposed onto our country, sent Labour’s PR machine into overdrive as they flailed around to release a flood of reports and announcements – some before they were even ready – to distract the media and the public away from their blatantly racist health policy.

To achieve Maori control of the health system, the District Health Boards had to be abolished and replaced with a centralised system jointly controlled by a Maori Health Authority. The Pae Ora legislation not only prioritises “improving the health sector for Maori”, but it also ensures Maori control the Health Minister. To accomplish this, a permanent ‘Maori Advisory Committee’ of eight members has been established with such authority, that any advice given to the Minister that is not accepted, must be publicly notified.

In addition, the Minister must not only “have regard to advice of the Maori Health Authority when determining a health strategy”, but “iwi-Maori partnership boards” have also been established around the country to influence health delivery.

The legislation requires both Health New Zealand and the Maori Health Authority to have expertise in the Treaty, tikanga, and matauranga Maori – and by requiring both bodies to “jointly develop and implement a New Zealand Health Plan”, Maori have been given the power of veto.  

And just to be sure, the Government Policy Statement on health prioritises Maori: “The new system design must place Te Tiriti o Waitangi at its heart. It will strengthen Maori leadership and… improve the responsiveness of general health services for Maori…”

Under Labour’s race-based health system New Zealanders are no longer equal.

It’s a similar story with the control of water. Despite widespread public opposition, Labour is pushing ahead with Three Waters, which iwi leaders see as a stepping-stone towards gaining ownership of New Zealand’s freshwater.

With lavish establishment expenditure of $1 billion more than forecast already blowing the budget, the shear insanity of Three Waters is becoming more evident by the day. This is especially the case following the news from the UK that Thames Water, which uses the same highly leveraged debt funding model as Three Waters, is facing a financial crisis and is literally drowning in debt.

And that’s the reality – Three Waters is a financial disaster waiting to happen. If it is not reversed by the incoming government, it will create a major financial crisis for New Zealand in the future.

The Water Services Entities Amendment Bill – which increases the number of water entities from four to ten and sets an establishment date of 1 July 2024 for the first water entity for Northland and Auckland – is now in front of a Select Committee. While the Bill introduces “community priority statements” to appease concerns that Three Waters delivers control of water to Maori, they are no more than window dressing.

Under Three Waters, iwi control of water is all tied up: a Maori advisory board controls the water regulator; regional co-governance boards give Maori the right of veto; Te Mana o te Wai statements give local Maori the power to dictate demands to the Boards running water services.

Submissions on the Bill close on July 5 – full details can be found HERE.

Not content with controlling health and water, the tribal takeover has also engulfed education and the tertiary sector, as this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, Auckland University’s Professor Elizabeth Rata, explains:

“Decolonising and indigenising all government institutions, including the education system and the universities, are retribalism’s strategies…

“Justified by retribalisation politics with the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi used as the mandate, the aim is to insert traditional ways of being, thinking and doing into all areas of the university. The commitment to a revisionist historical treaty can be found in universities’ strategic plans.

“Curriculum initiatives along with research ethics and funding are also required to demonstrate a treaty commitment. There is some dissent, but accusations of racism and the response to those who have spoken publicly have silenced opposition.”

And that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Whenever anyone speaks out against the iwi takeover, they are accused of racism. That’s why so few speak out. Furthermore, in the absence of warning voices, many New Zealanders are still largely unaware of the serious danger to our future that totalitarian tribal rule represents – if allowed to continue on after the election.

The mainstream media must bear some responsibility for this travesty. To be eligible for a share of Labour’s $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund, the media were required to support the Government’s narrative that the Treaty is a partnership. That’s why they don’t speak out against co-governance and have largely shied away from reporting the tribal coup.

So, what is the back story – how have we reached this situation? 

The cause can be traced back to the imbalance that’s being created in Parliament by the reserved Maori seats.

These seats are a relic of a by-gone era. They were established in 1867 as a temporary measure to give Parliamentary representation to Maori men, who, along with other men who failed the property ownership requirements of the day, were denied the right to vote.

Although all men gained full voting rights in 1879 and women in 1893, the reserved Maori seats were retained.

When the 1968 Royal Commission on the Electoral System recommended the introduction of MMP voting, they warned that the Maori seats would need to be abolished otherwise they would lead to an over-representation of Maori in Parliament. And that’s exactly what has happened.

In a representative democracy, maintaining proportionality is crucial. If the electoral system results in an over-representation of one group acting in its own self-interest, then the democratic representation of others is diminished, and the system itself becomes discriminatory.

In a bizarre twist of fate, the seats that at one time preserved equality, are now undermining it.

In 2017, the Labour Party won all seven Maori seats. In addition, two Maori MPs were elected in general seats, and four came in on the list. Altogether, 13 of Labour’s 46 MPs were Maori, and at 28 percent, they made up the largest Maori caucus in the history of the New Zealand Parliament.

It was during that three-year term that the foundations were laid for iwi control. In collaboration with iwi leaders the Office for Maori Crown Relations was established in 2018 to drive the process of change throughout the public and private sectors – and He Puapua was developed as a secret blueprint to achieve tribal control of New Zealand by 2040.  

The 2020 election delivered Labour majority rule and 15 Maori MPs – 6 elected in the Maori seats, 6 in general seats, and three on the party list. Making up 23 percent of Labour’s 65-strong Parliamentary team, and 25 percent of Jacinda Ardern’s Cabinet, radical Maori were over-represented at the highest level of Government. By fast-tracking a radical separatist agenda, these MPs have had a disproportionate and dangerous influence on the running of the country.

Ironically, while that small cabal of iwi leaders anointed by Labour claim to be acting in the best interest of Maori, they do not represent all Maori.  

Instead, most Maori are as horrified as the rest of us at their power grab. But the threat of intimidation if they speak out, can be extreme.

In fact, over the years, the oppressive nature of tribal influence has driven many Maori to leave New Zealand for Australia.  

A study carried out by Te Puni Kokiri in 2007, found that one in six Maori were living in Australia, with many having moved there to escape tribalism: they expressed an overwhelming sense of relief on being ‘free of Maori culture’, of being able to ‘get away from the rigid beliefs of our elders’, of getting ‘away from tikanga Maori and whanau dynamics and pressures associated with being whanau’; and ‘you know the story marae, whanau hui, whanau politics, continuously fighting each other but still whanau in the end. It feels like we are able to live our lives without being answerable or having to think is this good for the rest of the whanau’.”

The majority of Maori are just like every other New Zealander. They live in the real world, and have real world concerns about good schooling, good jobs, a decent house, and aspirations for a better future.

The former Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox revealed as much when she said: “90 percent of our whanau don’t live in that kaupapa Maori environment because they live in the mainstream society we all grew up in.”

And before he became a Government Minister, Labour MP Willie Jackson concurred, criticising “elitist Iwi leaders” for the fact that “21 years after the first treaty settlement close to 90 percent of the Maori population have yet to see any benefits from the treaty settlement process.”

It’s only a radical minority who are focussed on tribalism, power, and control. It is they who have been empowered and are now being enriched by Labour to impose their separatist demands onto the country. 

So, what can be done to remove this threat to New Zealand’s wellbeing?

There’s only one answer – the Maori seat power base of these radical supremacists has to be abolished. If they are not abolished – as the extremist Maori Party, which holds the seventh Maori seat and wants full Maori control of the country demonstrates – New Zealand will never be free from their divisive treachery.

What’s worse, is that instead of Labour’s newly released review of our Electoral System recommending that the Maori seats be abolished, they want them entrenched – to make it harder to remove them! Submissions on the review are open until July 17 – full details can be seen HERE.

With the Maori seats now leading to the undermining of equal rights and the Rule of Law – in violation of Section 19(1) of our New Zealand Bill of Rights that guarantees all New Zealanders freedom from discrimination based on race – surely it’s time they were removed so New Zealand can once again become a country of equals.  

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Dr Muriel Newman established the New Zealand Centre for Political Research as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. The NZCPR website is HERE. We also run this Breaking Views Blog and our NZCPR Facebook Group HERE.