Clive Bibby: Lessons from the vote

My guess is that most people reading this column headline will be anticipating the author writing about Saturday’s general election in this country - a result from which we could draw some pretty obvious conclusions. 

Well, if people did think that, they’d be half right but regarding the lessons to be learned, I am actually mainly referring to Saturday’s referendum on the “Voice “ in Australia that enables me to make some really startling observations, drawing comparisons with our closest neighbour that are very revealing.
Let’s be clear! Both elections were about race - or ethnic heritage if you want to be less precise.
Both Governments were attempting to or had temporarily succeeded in dividing their respective populations based solely on the colour of your skin. 

And both were prepared to ignore the need for proof of ancestry or in New Zealand’s case, the fact that the current population mix are all descendants of immigrants - the only difference being that one small group of people arrived here about 1000 years before the rest of us.

In Australia, the Aboriginal’s documented heritage provides undisputed proof that they can claim to be Tangata Whenua. 

Here in New Zealand, the only people who can legitimately claim to have been here first are the Morioris, who were supposedly forced to flee to the Chatham Islands in an attempt to escape the marauding Maori tribes prior to the Musket wars here on the mainland. Unfortunately, that local migration only temporarily saved them from the slaughter that was to become their fate..

So, having disposed of the various claims to legitimacy, it is important to examine why there is this sudden urge to divide both countries on the basis of ethnic heritage. And why have the respective populations responded in similar fashion to reject these attempts to enshrine in legislation privileges that will only ensure the division continues until a revolt of unimaginable proportions returns us to the way we have been for the last 283 years - dual heritage but one people.

The main reason Kiwis overwhelmingly voted to overturn the 2020 emphatic election result is because they felt betrayed into believing their Government was intent on ensuring minorities were treated with respect but not in the disproportionate and privileged fashion exposed in the clandestine He Puapua report. 

I contend that our election and the reaction of the majority of voters was one of anger at being betrayed rather than a response to the financial pressures associated with modern daily living.
Of course, inflationary pressures added to the mix of discontent but you can’t expect to see such a monumental change in voting preference is such a short time based solely on a single issue which just happens to be, for some, one that is always there. 

No, I believe that the responses in both countries was to emphatically reject the notion that the majority are inherently racist and there is a need to promote that image to the world as if we need to be cleansed of this cancer that prevents the folk who have been here the longest from reaching their full potential. 

As Jacinta Price, one of the aboriginal leaders of the “No” vote which was successful in all Australian states and across the nation in the general vote, said during the campaign - “that notion is simply a false interpretation of modern Australian society. That is not who we are!” - a powerful message in anyone’s language. 

Back here at home the message to our government was the same - we are not a racist people and it is an affront to every decent New Zealander by suggesting that we are. 

Our record of peaceful coexistence between people of different ethnic origin is second to none in a world aflame with tribal warfare. 

We should be proud of our history, including our attempts at reconciliation and compensation for misdeeds perpetrated by our colonial ancestors - although it is somewhat ironic that not all groups have been forced to atone for those acts of barbarism. I suspect that the reason racism claims don’t stick here is not only because, in most cases, it is a figment of radical imagination, but because those who promote this lie want to ignore the facts surrounding their own tribal history which includes genocidal acts that make the Hamas atrocities seem like a Sunday stroll in comparison.

It would be interesting to know how the world might have responded if our mass tribal murders had occurred yesterday. 

Fortunately, those ancestral warlords are not representative of modern Maori who are, because of the beneficial aspects of colonialism, a much more self assured and competent members of our society - equal in every sense of the word. 

Long may it continue but we need to learn from these two timely votes that treachery and mistaken attempts to divide are not part of who we are. 

Don’t even think about it ever again.

Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.