Hence we go around in circles and bury ourselves in endless dead-end discussions. The approach to this doesn't need to be so fraught and complicated. In fact, it is incredibly simple.
I have postgraduate studies in History and have read history widely.
I can think of no situation anywhere in history where suffrage based on anything other than the principle of absolute equality (one person's vote of no more or less value than another) has been ultimately successful (and by successful I mean sustainably just).
I can think of plenty of situations where attempts to differentiate the value of a person's vote (i.e. of one person's vote - or influence - holding greater power than another's) have been absolutely and ultimately catastrophic.
So here is the challenge. Find a country, anywhere, at any time, that has been ultimately successful when it vested more power to some than others on the basis of ancestry, race, or whatever.
You won't find one.
Now the retort will generally be "Indigenous (tribal) societies were just, harmonious, equal, and fair."
And the simple response ... why then have you worked at such extraordinary speed, and gone to such extraordinary lengths to ensure that our libraries and schools have been divested of the historical accounts of our past, have designed a curriculum that begins in 1840, forbidden open discussion on events before that.
I know this all seems a statement of the obvious, but sometimes perhaps the obvious needs to be stated, and to fail to state it tangles us in irrelevancies and vested arguments.
This should be where the discussion around co-governance begins and ends. No further discussion is necessary.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
8 comments:
And of course we all know that our own 'claimed" indigenous society was harmonious, equal and fair, for that's why they embraced signing the Treaty and ceding sovereignty. It's reflected today in the way their ancestral leadership eschew all the trappings of western society and the latter's desire for money, power and mana over those former civil qualities of harmony, benevolence, protection and education of their young, and, naturally, goodwill for the benefit of all.
All one needs is belief in that mythology and co-governance then seems quite plausible and a natural progression. If only the Moriori could have better understood and appreciated what was about to land on their shores.
Well Caleb, I would start with New Zealand's True Founding Document and First Constitution, namely Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16th November 1840.
This is the document that separated New Zealand from the boundaries, laws and jurisdiction of New South Wales and made New Zealand into an independent British Colony with its own Governor and its own Government under one law for ALL THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND, irrespective of race, colour or creed.
May 3rd 1841 was the day a new Nation was officially born and marks New Zealand's independence day.
Why has New Zealand's True Founding Document and First Constitution been ignored and/or hidden from us for over 183 years?
Is it because it treats EVERYONE equal under one law, one flag irrespective of race, colour or creed?
Further facts
Also focus on the veto for Maori only contained in CG and rarely mentioned.
Any society where one specific group has this final authority is no longer a democracy. When this group is a specific ethnic group the system becomes an ethnocracy.
(Other anomalies of co-governance : i) elected vs appointed - perhaps for life - members of governing bodies and ii) redistribution of voting power: increased to 50% for the 17% and reduced to 50% for the 83%.)
Co-governance is all part of an American woke culture that has come here too and has been used by the activist politicians. In usa the americans have adopted critical race theory where white peoole are - wait for it, the " colonisers' and the black americans are the" victims," as shown by the marxist " black lives matter" movement. Just like here, many black americans don't like it or agree with it and say it is not right. Luckily this and other woke movements have been fully exposed by the obviously brainwashed and crazy reaction of anerican students over the support they have been giving to hamas. Many are saying this could end the crazy woke movement.
Activist politicians here in nz, like willie, marama, chloe and debbie have seen this as a way to get co-governance and anti-white sentiment going here as well. Nzers are too polite largely, to talk abput this openly, so it goes on unchallenged. I admire those like david seymour, winston, julian batchelor and muriel newman, don and others, who have put themselves on the line and have openly said what many of us are thinking. Surely most ordinary people want everyone to be treated equally. Co-governance needs to be disbanded and a referendum must be considered to re-set nz.
The mechanismm of co governance whereby maori gain effective total control has been very ably (and fortuitously) demonstrated by the Tupuna Maunga Authority in Auckland. Mayor Brown realised that a person of maori descent with a moari wife as part of the "other" component of the Board effectively gave total maori control and so apparently removed same. But it only requires one of the "others" fearful of cancellation to side with the maori half and maori total control is reastablished. It may or may not be a coincidence that the electorates surrounding Mt Albert, where the Authority attracted most controversy, veered markedly away from the main pro maori co governance party.
And Anonymous of 16th it is not that NZers are too polite; it is that apart from a few very independent old men they are too terrified of cancellation to comment. Their true attitude was revealed by the elction. Hopefully with the coalition the risks to reputation, careers, business will be hugely reduced and ordinary folk will comment on the peo maori absurdities they have endured to date.
A pervading sense that we (European settlers) have squashed Moari culture through both active aggression and western individualistic capitalism remains the dominant view. And the belief we should address that through political means. Ie, co governance of some nature remains persistent. Perhaps we have a type of "guilty parent syndrome". That is , we know we've been a poor parent/governor but just giving the "children" more money/freedom/power may not actually be the solution.
The solution probably revolves around more protections for the poor and uneducated.
I'm not a big fan of the Moarification of the European/foreign stock but certainly of changing our economy to protect low wage workers. Something along the lines of low rates, CGTs and restricting the access of speculators to the housing market.
One of the anonymous contributors suggested that “co-governance elevated the 17% Marori vote to 50% and reduced the 83% pakeha vote to 50%. That is fearfully wrong. If the veto vested in the Maori bloc is recognised, co~governance effectively increases the Maori vote to 100%. Think about that: the few elite who control the votes of the 17% Maori vote would control the country.
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