John Raine: A Country Too Easily Swayed by Minorities?

I started writing this with the Doors singing Strange Days. It seemed apt.

We now live in a surreal world where the post-modernists and critical social justice warriors are determined to give equal standing to traditional knowledge and vitalist belief systems against modern world science [see Raine, Lillis, and Schwerdtfeger [1]). Calls to preserve democracy by ensuring equal rights for all ethnicities in our country are now labelled extreme right-wing and racist. In our new world, climate science has been politically weaponised, and biological women can be censured for objecting to a transwoman who is still a biological man being able to use the same changing room.

How did this happen? I am not a social scientist but, as an engineer, I see in social media behaviour, and instant access to worldwide mainstream “news” and on-line blogs/podcasts, the analogy with an electronic control system whose gain is turned up too far and whose time constant is turned right down. The consequence can be instability and, in an audio system, very loud noise. Just like that public address system we have all experienced at some time where the microphone is too close to the speakers and the feedback is deafening. This amplified access to information and misinformation have magnified and distorted current societal focuses, whether they be interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, panic over climate change, or gender and identity politics.

In New Zealand we have a further issue. The lack of an upper house of Parliament means that there is too little damping in the political system, so we are vulnerable to swift and uncritical adoption of world movements, and the implementation of local issues policies driven by minority pressure groups without Government first obtaining a democratic mandate. When the people wake up to what is going on, and this happens too slowly in New Zealand, a lot of damage has already been done.

The UN seems to have a lot to answer for, and even more so our Government in their interpretation the UN resolutions on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007 and later resolutions), and on Climate Change (November 2021, and earlier resolutions).

New Zealand’s response to the UNDRIP Resolution

The careful dissection of the highly inaccurate statement in parliament by Willie Jackson in Bob Edlin’s article, “Jackson and The Treaty” [2] is yet another commentary unavailable on mainstream media that discusses the reality of what the Treaty of Waitangi meant rather than the Crown-Māori “partnership” that we are so often told exists. It is hugely problematical for New Zealand that successive governments have now divided us as Māori and the rest. It will require a massive effort of will for an incoming government to reverse the damage that has already been done, and the new Government will have to reposition NZ's judiciary. The Key and Ardern governments took this past a tipping point. What chance do we have of a new constitution to replace the Treaty, which is clearly not fit for purpose in 2023? Efforts to position New Zealand with a fit-for-purpose constitution will be fought by activist groups as it will remove the opportunity to keep reinterpreting the Treaty. Still, our country must find a way to move on so that we can become one people again. Ongoing creation of separate rights and advantages for one ethnic group will lead at the very least to enduring tensions and corruption. Take a look at countries that have this – Malaysia is just one example.

The early August 2023 interview of Act Party leader David Seymour by Simon Shepherd on Newshub Nation was a perfect example of rational and reasonable policies for a fair and democratic society being called out as anti-Māori, and/or fostering wealth and poverty extremes. It is of great concern that non-analytical and uncritical thinking is also being encouraged in the infusion of Treatyism into our education and research funding systems (Lillis, Raine and Schwerdtfeger [3,4]. It is worrying that decades of good work in building a racially harmonious society in NZ appear have been undermined by a Government that has turned up the amplifier gain too far on the rights of people of one ethnicity, albeit that they have a distinctive position in New Zealand’s history, versus the rights of all others – six major ethnic groups but people who may have originated from any one of more than 100 countries. Moreover, defining just who is Māori is increasingly difficult. Māori culture and language, resolution of property rights, and socio-economic betterment are important to our country, but ultimately we must preserve full democracy as well.

Climate Change Panic

The 5th August 2023 article by former MP Barry Brill (“A Climate Crisis? Really?”) [5] on Bassett Brash and Hide, and his subsequent BB&H posts on this topic, present a well-researched summary on climate science and climate change that should be published in the mainstream media to calm some of the climate change panic engendered by the media in New Zealand and overseas, and amplified by former Prime Minister Ardern.

The authoritative paper by Happer, Koonin and Lindzen [6] interprets the available scientific evidence as indicating that anthropogenic causes of climate change are very small compared with those from solar and planetary cycles. These authors note in their final overview, “Human influences on the climate (largely the accumulation of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion) are a physically small (1%) effect on a complex, chaotic, multicomponent and multiscale system. Unfortunately, the data and our understanding are insufficient to usefully quantify the climate’s response to human influences. However, even as human influences have quadrupled since 1950, severe weather phenomena and sea level rise show no significant trends attributable to them.

If the Earth is entering a natural warming period with a small anthropogenic input that cannot not be ignored, then we have an adaptation task ahead, and protecting and remediating the environment must be part of this. Nonetheless, efforts to address climate change must not wreck the economy on carbon emissions reduction efforts that will have a vanishingly small effect worldwide, and may well, together with the net Zero 2050 resolution, turn out to be misguided. Recent terms in the media such as “Global boiling” are scaremongering, and unhelpful to objective debate and appropriate action.

Gender Activism

YouTube is awash with interviews of key players and commentators in the gender diversity debate. It was sobering to see the rage in the crowd protesting Kathleen Stock’s Q & A at the Oxford Union in the U.K., and the very rational explanations she gave with admirable calm to the people gathered inside on the rights of biological women in the face of unreasonable transactivism. If you watch Kellie Jay Keen-Minshull on any one of a number of YouTube interviews she is seen as a calm and rational advocate for women’s rights, not the extreme right-wing purveyor of hate speech as she was portrayed by our mainstream media at the time of her aborted March 2023 visit to New Zealand.

Half a century ago or more we had no idea at school that English grammar as we were taught it would be hit with the complication that today men would legally be able to self-identify as women - and vice versa, and that we would have a Prime Minister who appeared unable to simply define a woman as an adult human female. It is astonishing that a small minority of the population (overall 1 in 20 of our population identify as LGBQTIA+, according to Stats New Zealand, and a really tiny number are born intersex) could force a massively obfuscatory change in media and official document use of personal pronouns. Is this a good enough reason for the media to suppress he/she him/her etc pronouns for the majority?

How often have we read in the Herald or Stuff something like, “A vehicle crashed in the northern motorway at 1:30 this morning. A person was killed and a second person seriously injured. They were taken by ambulance to North Shore Hospital. One other person, believed to be the driver left the scene of the crash. They were later located at a property in Browns Bay.” Needless ambiguity and lack of clarity.

So, What Next?

I have used as illustrations just three areas where we are subjected to highly amplified conflicting views, misinformation, and disinformation. We also see behaviours encouraged or mandated by governments through pressure from small minorities.

What can we do about this? Social justice, climate, gender, and identity politics are very much alive in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Australia, so it is no surprise to see New Zealand following suit. But, we need some independence of thought and action that addresses problems that are specific to New Zealand. We cannot expect the noisy amplifier feedback from social media to go away. But, for a start, the mainstream media need to revert to providing full, dispassionate, and objective journalistic analysis of key issues rather than leaping into bandwagon us-too support pieces, or simply remaining silent on critical issues such as the future of democracy in NZ. That may at least result in more New Zealanders waking up to what is happening in our country, and reading a wide range of opinion rather than what often seems mostly a one-sided narrative supporting and funded by the Government. Our collective responses might then be more informed and considered.

New Zealand is a country with a small population easily swayed by current movements. If our democracy is to survive, policies enacted must have the mandate of the people, whether they relate to rights of different ethnic groups in New Zealand, the safeguarding of science education in our schools, climate change actions or even the loss of our pronouns. Perhaps an upper house in Parliament would provide the necessary checks and balances, but whom do we appoint to this? We must certainly protect true freedom of speech and see balanced journalism in open media to counter the more egregious directions being pushed by critical social justice activism and by a Government without a mandate. The big question is whether a new Government after the October election will have the grit to make some real change for the better. The economy is only one of many things that need fixing.

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John Raine is an Emeritus Professor of Engineering and held Deputy and Pro Vice Chancellor roles across three New Zealand Universities.

References:

1. John Raine, David Lillis, and Peter Schwerdtfeger, “Where are our Universities Heading?” Breaking Views, 28th June 2023. https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/06/john-raine-david-lillis-peter.html#more

2. Bob Edlin “Jackson and The Treaty”, Bassett, Brash and Hide, 2nd September 2023 https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/point-of-order-jackson-and-the-treaty

3. Peter Schwerdtfeger, John Raine, David Lillis. “Post-modernism and the Degrading of Education in New Zealand “ Breaking Views, 24th July 2023

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/07/peter-schwerdtfeger-john-raine-and.html

4. David Lillis, John Raine, Peter Schwerdtfeger. “Funding of Research in New Zealand” Breaking Views, 18th August, 2023. https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/08/david-lillis-john-raine-and-peter.html

5. Barry Brill “A Climate Crisis? Really?” Bassett, Brash and Hide, 5th August 2023. https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/barry-brill-a-climate-crisis-really

6. William Happer, Steven E. Koonin, Richard S. Lindzen ‘Administrative motion of William Happer, Steven E. Koonin, and Richard S. Lindzen for leave to submit presentation in Response to the Court’s Tutorial Questions” (on Climate Change). United States District Court, Northern District of California. Case 3:17-cv-06011-WHA Document 157-1 Filed 03/19/18, 26pp.