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Sunday, January 7, 2024

Mike Butler: The Voice and our choice


A current affairs report on “the vote that shocked Australia” by activist Mihingarangi Forbes shows what to expect as the New Zealand Left struggles to cope with the ACT Party’s Treaty Principles Bill.

This call-to-action piece titled “Trick or Treaty? Indigenous rights, referendums and the Treaty of Waitangi”, posted on the 1 News site, conveys dire warnings to no-vote campaigners in any New Zealand treaty referendum from Australian Yes Vote activists dismayed at the failure of the Voice referendum on October 14.

The Australian vote was on whether to change the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Peoples of Australia and establish an independent advisory body for them.

New Zealand has had such a body for nearly 50 years, set up under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, by the Third Labour Government, without a referendum.

Forbes’ Indigenous rights, referendums and the Treaty of Waitangi piece:
1. Conveys a dire warning from Australian Yes Vote campaigner Thomas Mayo about the likelihood of well-funded intimidation should the ACT Party’s proposed treaty principles referendum proceed.

2. Quotes climate alarmist Dr Jeremy Walker who said that both No Vote leaders, Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price, “come out of” a conservative political lobby group once called Advance Australia.

3. Attempts to smear Advance Australia by saying it is a “right-wing think tank” with links to the Atlas Network and is “bankrolled” by 12 Australian rich listers.

4. Asserts that the Atlas Network aims to flood the world with “free-market institutions” which “oppose indigenous rights because they could threaten the oil and gas industry”.

5. Presents treaty lawyer Moana Tuwhare saying that a yes-no vote on the ACT Party’s three-clause Treaty Principles Bill would be “intellectually dishonest” because the great unwashed are not brainwashed sufficiently to make the correct choice, or words to that effect.

6. Emphasises the threat of a great-right-wing conspiracy by quoting “investigative journalist” Josh Drummond repeating that the Atlas Network generates think tanks that “promote neo-liberalism, laissez-faire capitalism, are opposed to indigenous rights, and climate change action”.

7. Shows Lord Daniel Hannan of the Atlas Network addressing a New Zealand Taxpayers Union meeting as evidence that fingers of the great right wing conspiracy have reached into New Zealand.

8. Records Tuku Morgan of the Maori king organisation saying “we will fight”.

9. Presents another treaty lawyer named Paul Majurey asserting that “the concept that through a poll we can determine what are the rights and interests pretty much fly in the face of every convention around constitutional documents”.
Forbes did this piece for the Aotearoa Media Collective that she set up with Annabelle Lee-Mather “to tell Maori stories from Maori perspectives”.

But the treaty is not just a Maori story. It is a New Zealand story.

The opinions of all the people of New Zealand have been carefully circumvented as the treaty industry spread its roots, according to treaty settlement grand-daddy Sir Geoffrey Palmer in his 1990 book New Zealand’s Constitution in Crisis.

But when the Ardern-Robertson-Hipkins government began covertly setting up two-governments in New Zealand, one by Maori for Maori, and the other a fully bicultural version of what we already have, under the He Puapua roadmap, the wider public took a stand.

The separate Maori health authority and Three Waters tribal control of water are two major steps of this plan.

The Forbes doco did not mention the “Alarming developments from Waitangi Tribunal a warning for the Voice” type of stories that circulated in Australia while voters were weighing up their options.

Australians just needed to look across the Tasman to see what changing the constitution to set up a racist advisory body would lead to. Given a choice, the Australians were too smart to go along with that.

To be clear, the Act Party Treaty Principles Bill, that will enable submissions to a select committee and may proceed to a referendum, gives all voters a choice, of whether or not we agree that:
1. All citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties.

2. All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.

3. New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal
Yes-Vote Mayo warned Forbes “to be ready for the tactic of intimidation” should a referendum proceed in New Zealand. Mayo accused the Right of intimidation but the November protests in New Zealand show that intimidation is coming from the Left.

Oh, by the way, the Aotearoa Media Collective is funded by the Public Interest Journalism Fund via New Zealand on Air and Te Mangai Paho. You can see your tax working against you.

As an end note, while checking Forbes’ depiction of a great-right-wing conspiracy pushing Chicago school economics on to hapless voting consumers, what emerged was a corollary great-left-wing conspiracy that included the George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the Greenpeace Unearthed journalism team which is pushing climate alarmism.

Disclosure: Forbes interviewed me once. She demanded to know what percent Pakeha I was. That was about six years ago, when she contacted the white males displayed on the new Hobson’s Pledge website and crafted the responses to her “percent Pakeha” question into a hit piece.

10 comments:

CXH said...


8. Records Tuku Morgan of the Maori king organisation saying “we will fight”.

Yet if I was to declare 'we will fight' l, as a mere second class white person, the po-po would be knocking on my door rather swiftly.

Anonymous said...

Taxpayers have been generously funding 'APARTHEID' since 1975.

This has been 'enthusiastically' promoted and encouraged by our successive governments, who have done their best to ignore/suppress our true documented early history which clearly shows that from 1840 on, All the people of New Zealand irrespective of race, colour or creed became one, under one flag and one law for all.

Anonymous said...

Adding to the above comment, following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Queen Victoria issued in 1839 Royal Charters/Letters Patent which made the Islands of New Zealand part of the territory of New South Wales. It was not a separate colony.

New Zealand was not an independent colony until Queen Victoria's letters patent of 16 November 1840 which separated New Zealand from New South Wales and made New Zealand into a British Colony with a Governor and Constitution that set up New Zealand’s political, legal and justice systems under one flag and one law irrespective of race, colour or creed.

This is the only one of 6 foundation documents that established New Zealand as an independent colony with a constitution.

All this talk about the Treaty of Waitangi is a have, distracting the public from the real foundational constitutional documents of NZ which I understand were removed from public view in 2017.

Robert Arthur said...


From my listening Forbes is, of many, quite the most depressing single minded pro maori anti colonist personality on RNZ. Compliant and pliant interviewees are coaxed toward depressing counter current NZ society statements. Most of it is in slots aimed at maori and which others have long since abandoned, so the degree of poison distributed is not generally realised. It is monstrous that such an ardent propagandist should be given such free rein on National Radio. Hopefully new govt will bring a new Charter and new Board and Forbes and her sad like can retreat to private funded maori media. Or drop her not visibly obvious maori association and get a positive life.

Anonymous said...

From Wikipedia:

Forbes was born as Joanne Forbes in 1972 or 1973[1] and grew up with her mother in Feilding, New Zealand.[2][3] Her father is a "Māori bushman" of Ngāti Paoa and Ngāti Maniapoto heritage, and her mother, a counsellor is Pākehā (non-Māori), and a relative of Kate Sheppard.[3][2] Although Forbes's grandmother was fluent in Māori, she spoke English at home.[2]

Sorry Joanne, this heavy duty ‘Maori’ propoganda just doesn’t wash.

Kawena said...

The Maori hyperbole is pure fiction and it is time to bring it to a head. Both Labour and National are responsible for this racist rort that we are now in. They attempted gallantly and failed miserably. The Tea Party Maori are abetted by the Greens and Labour parties. Parliament is for the business of the nation, not racial proclivities!
Kevan

Anonymous said...


Bravo Kawena,
Says it all in a nutshell.....

Anonymous said...

Stand up NZ to reject more preferential treatment based on the colour of your skin.
Here in Australia with the "Voice" the left couldn't help themselves with derogatory slurs and name calling against NO voters. The YES vote had millions of dollars from big Corporations to promote YES. It failed. Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, both aboriginals (who look like aboriginals) prosecuted the NO case with logic and rational arguments. No slurs and they cut through enormous funded opposition, on a shoestring budget. Finally an overdue victory for conservatives. One victory with Nationals/Act/Peters in NZ now for a second with this.

Robert arthur said...

Thanks Anonymous 3.08. Led me to Wikipedia. Her name seemd exceptionally convoluted to have been conferred by any responsible paren. RNZ shots of Forbes suggest much younger. I used to marvel that anyone apparently so young could so effectively mine the past for invective. From Garner's Wikipedia summary, they must surely have had some mighty disagreements.

Anonymous said...

The left push separatism. Their supporters applaud. This is how democracy is lost. The UK, Canada, AU, EU all have issues with democracy right now by restricting speech through legislation and bribery of media. Democracy is in jeopardy.