So much politics seems to be about trying to get one group of people to feel angry about another. Whether it’s Chris Luxon pledging to “crack down” on beneficiaries, who he has called “bottom feeders” or David Seymour trying to scare Pakeha about Maori. Or Winston Peters blaming immigrants for our woes.
If it’s not bashing on someone else, it’s playing the victim: farmers so hard done by they can take time off during spring to drive their tractors the length of the country, landlords threatening to sell up if they don’t get tax breaks, small businesses complaining about the cost of paying people the minimum wage.
There’s one corner of politics in Aotearoa New Zealand where we don’t see politics as a constant confrontation and debates are about what’s best for the people, not about who can score the most points off the other side.
I wish more politics could be like the Maori electorate debates I’ve hosted over the past few weeks.
NZ Herald
He seems to have forgotten that the most divisive government in our history has been led by the Labour Party: first by Jacinda Ardern, then Chris Hipkins.
They brought division to this country.
Let’s start with the division sowed during Covid when they demonised and ostracised the unvaccinated, then brought in segregation on the basis of whether or not you’d received an experimental medical treatment of indeterminate safety. Vaccine passes and mandates caused massive division in society, and all the then Prime Minister could say when confronted about it by a journalist was, “Yip, yip, that is what it is.”
Then we saw the demonisation and attack on a peaceful protest at Wellington, where the strong arm of the state forcibly removed peaceful protestors on the thinnest of evidence. The elites squatted in Parliament and refused to meet their constituents who were camped out looking for politicians to hear their very real grievances. They refused, and then sent in the jackboots, batons, tear gas and grenade launchers. That sowed real division.
Shane Te Pou seems to have forgotten that in his article, which is really a shabby and racist hit piece against people he disagrees with politically.
He forgot, of course, the Government’s He Puapua document created an absolutely heroic re-write of what the Treaty of Waitangi says, which forced division on the basis of race through Parliament to segregate health services and steal the water assets of Kiwis to gift them to unelected iwi elites, all in the name of co-governance.
He also forgot that this same amazing Labour Party he supports also attacked Kiwis with Chinese-sounding names. It’s amazing he has forgotten that because he loudly condemned it at the time…now a dark and distant memory.
Now he waxes lyrical about how grand Maori politics is, in a rather motherhood-and-apple-pie view of the whole heaving mess that is Maori politics.
He forgets that Debbie Ngarewa-Packer likes to call Kiwis of European descent, which also ironically includes herself, colonisers, as some sort of sneering and derogatory insult. Those insults are as far from what he claims as is possible.
The insults certainly aren’t “about people and values”. They’re not “conversations about what is the best path forward, how we make progress towards common goals – rather than vilifying the other side and accusing them of wanting to take the country to hell in a handcart”, are they?
No, they are about promoting a looter mentality, where Maori are superior and the “colonisers” can go hang.
The constant claims that Maori never ceded sovereignty, and believing the heroic assumption that Queen Victoria agreed to co-manage New Zealand with Maori, is hardly “respectful and honest”, is it?
Shane Te Pou just ignores the overt racism of Te Paati Maori, Willie Jackson and many other Maori MPs and clearly supports the denigration of other Maori voices like David Seymour, Winston Peters and Shane Jones because they are the ‘wrong sort of Maori’.
The Maori way of politics has a lot to teach the wider political discourse in Aotearoa. The best leaders are those who don’t want power for power’s sake and are willing to do anything, say anything, promise any nonsense to get it.
NZ Herald
Oh really? I don’t think so. The naked greed from the looter class and the iwi elite is unbecoming, but, I guess, when you look at life alternating between red- and brown-tinted glasses, you’ll readily believe such articles reflect the reality of the situation we face, as people like our corrupted media, who grabbed millions in taxpayers dollars with the proviso that they promulgate the lie that Maori did not cede sovereignty.
Shane Te Pou and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. They want, hanker and agitate to head New Zealand towards an ethnostate, riven with dissent, racism and separatism while telling us all that is our problem if only we did things the Maori way…
No thanks, Shane. That’s not the New Zealand I want to live in.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
I think that most of us have come to understand "Maori Politics" as much as we want to. It is headed by a small group of very verbal elitists who would have us believe that they represent all of Maori when the voting papers say it is more like 3 or 4 %. They always claim to be working for "Their People" but I think that most of us have seen the lies behind that, we have seen what Barak Obama believed back in 2006 :-" Ethnic based tribal politics has to stop. It is rooted in the bankrupt idea that the goal of politics or business is to funnel as much pie as possible to ones family tribe or circle with little regard for the public good. It stifles innovation and fractures the fabric of society. Instead of opening businesses and engaging in commerce, people come to rely on patronage and payback as a means of advancing. Instead of unifying the country to move forward on solving problems. it divides neighbour from neighbour”
Barack Obama University of Nairobi 2006
Good stuff Cam.
All this sort of crap will continue until we all stand up and say enough is enough.
I fear things may end only one way, and a change of government is not it.
In the Land they oft called New Zealand, the populace have seen since the General Election of 2016, the " rise of the NZ Socialist Party (aka Labour NZ) elected on the basis of Young Female who "would lead the Tribes out from under the dark stain of a National Govt" (quote) - "We will be source of all truth.." (unquote) and with the connivance of Labour Maori Caucus (and quietly by Te Paati Maori) saw the " emergence of Policy, that was to benefit Maori, especially the more affluent of those People and again after the General Election of 2019 we saw the "revealing of Truth" that pertained to certain actions/ Laws/ Papers being considered = that would see NZ assets go to a " specific entity" without prior consultation, of also the monies that had been both allocated & spent on "a specific entity" - and the now obvious "division of Peoples in NZ" on the basis of "how you speak, to whom and what you say" - It reminds me of another Country that suffered the same fate - South Africa - and it is interesting that we have People who came from there to here, who are no considering going from here to elsewhere - why - they are seeing the things re-occur (they saw in South Africa) and they do not want to be part of that again - and the sad thing - is they can not understand how the People of NZ can not see this developing division and how it will affect them if it gains traction.
Just remember who is making the statements of Racism and it ain't Luxon and/or Seymour.
I read the original Te Pou article. As with previous articles and most maori they state anything, secure that no one except a few independent retired old men will risk cancellation and seriously challenge. And any such will not be published anyway. Of course the meetings are single minded. The worshippers are probably all in contact. The potential gain; control of NZ including its water is a goal within grasp and not to be questioned. In any case to do so would invite a beating, in keeping with te ao/tikanga. When there is not a common bonanza in sight, maori are notoriously fractious. I am currently reading a collection of articles by Lange. Palmer called a meeting at Waitangi to discuss the future of the commemoration. After observing the locals getting stuck into one another and completely ignoring the hosts, after 20 minutes Palmer passed Lange a message "I am not of this planet" and departed.
Did anyone else see the shit fight between Tainui and the Auckland tribe after the kapa haka? Competition earlier this year?
I suggest Shane watches the episodes on YouTube by a guy called Kiwi Codger. Includes fact based description on how Maori interacted with each other before and during the secret musket wars.
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