Barrie Davis: State of the Nation Rant

We have had a 180 degree change of Government at the election after the previous regime pursued an unrealistic ideology financed by tax and borrow, with the primary architects leaving politics and a nation in recession. Their delusion, deception and propaganda were enough to make Putin blush: never in the history of political poncey-toggling has so much balderdash been said to so many by so few. And we fell for it sufficient to vote them in for a second term. While the celebration continued in pursuit of vibrancy, equity and gratification, the country is bankrupt of purpose, ethics and means, as it spirals to somewhere between Samoa and South Africa.

At the centre of the problem, and what the recent election pivoted on, is a compliant Government allowing the corruption of our democracy by the United Nations, the Courts and a Maori elite. The Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement by the Chiefs that the Crown has complete government over all of New Zealand, yet that is being ignored if not disputed, including by our complacent representative Government whose position has consequently been usurped.

We are repeatedly told the Treaty is our founding document when there are other documents that fulfil that function. We are repeatedly told that there are principles in the Treaty when anyone who has read it can see that none is mentioned. We are repeatedly told that one of those principles is partnership leading to co-governance when the Treaty has long been held to be the Maori Magna Carta – an agreement between a King and his subject barons. By repeated recitation we are being conditioned to accept a contrived constitutional arrangement that is neither a democracy nor fair and reasonable. We are being manipulated. 

This stuff has been written all through our legislation without a democratic mandate. We are being compelled to go on courses to be indoctrinated with this stuff or we will lose our livelihood. Our history is being rewritten and our children are being indoctrinated with this stuff at school.

Sir Apirana Ngata LLB published “The Treaty of Waitangi – An Explanation” in 1922 in which he concluded, “… the Treaty of Waitangi created Parliament to make laws … it made the one law for the Maori and the Pakeha.” So why are the courts now writing laws and why are there exclusive provisions in legislation for Maoris?

Astonishingly, with the support of Hutt City Council CEO Jo Miller, copies of Sir Apirana’s “Explanation” have been removed from HCC community hubs because “The HCC deemed the publication racist and not in line with the organisation's values”. Apirana Ngata was once held among the greatest of Maori leaders, but is now condemned as racist. They are painting Apirana Ngata out of the picture, like Nikolai Yezhov from the photo with Stalin.

Freedom of expression is being suppressed in Britain, including by the Government, the Courts and the media. Paul Weston, Liberty GB party chairman, was arrested in 2014 for quoting a passage about Islam from Winston Churchill's 1899 book The River War (here). Is that our next step after the censoring of Apirana Ngata’s 1922 “Explanation”?

Our politicians are afraid of the Maoris as the British authorities are afraid of the Muslims. For a taste of what it is like in Britain, watch this short mind-boggling clip (here), replete with over 8 thousand supportive comments, of British activist Tommy Robinson and Pakistani media personality Saira Khan in 2017. Note the mention by Robinson of a ‘two-tiered policing system’. Robinson was jailed in 2018 for contempt of court after reporting on a Pakistani Muslim ‘grooming gang’ (i.e., child rapists) during their trial (see Wikipedia here). Note how long it took to get these men to trial after the police and councils ignored the issue from 2004 for fear of being called racist. Recent reports say the grooming gangs are still operating (e.g., GB News here).

There are also instances in New Zealand of children being violently abused because of fear of racism. A Star-Times editorial by Tracy Watkins “So many babies are being killed and maimed” (24 March) says “The worst thing that could happen would be if we shoved these stories out of sight because it’s too hard”. But that editorial and the associated newspaper reports exclude the word Maori, even though the published pictures of the victims and their abusers are usually of Maoris. The story of Maori child abuse has been shoved out of sight because it is too hard. Watkins further says, “News avoidance is a very real phenomenon”, yet she and her newspaper are doing just that, presumably to avoid being deemed racist.

Film-maker Taika Waititi has said “New Zealand is the best place on the planet, but it's a racist place”. Quite so, there are racist elements that need to be removed from our constitution: local and national government need to have Maori seats abolished; the Waitangi Tribunal needs to be abolished; and references to the Treaty need to be removed from legislation. These things need to be done really, not just in name. We must actually do these things, not just be told they have been done.

Our newspapers ridicule Russian totalitarianism, using their recent election as an example, while at the same time hypocritically taking payment from our Government to “Actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner.” Our lame parliament has let go of the reins and the power vacuum is being filled by other agents who now in turn control our supposedly representative Government.

The lies are extraordinary. It took me some time to realize that when politicians, lawyers and academics say “the Treaty of Waitangi” they are actually referring to the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. They claim that it is the ‘spirit’ of the Treaty that matters, not the actual words. I claim that they are flat out lying to me. What the Treaty means is what the Treaty says, or it’s not worth the parchment it’s written on. You would have to take leave of your senses to believe what they say, and I’m afraid that a lot of us have. We have been well and truly brainwashed with their incessant propaganda which entangles us like a net.

We are only a few months into the new term and we are already seeing watering down of election objectives. The Maori Health Authority is being disestablished in name only with funding, roles and functions, including the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards and the Hauora Maori Advisory Committee, being moved to Health New Zealand or the Ministry of Health. And the Comments section hot mumble on Three Waters is that management of fresh water will be staying under Maori co-governance and with Te Mana o Te Wai provisions. We need closure on these things, not a never-ending source of conflict.

A faction of our society sanctimoniously patronizes the Maoris while hypocritically not giving the same attention to Islanders and Asians. For example, while we are frequently reminded of Parihaka, where none died, we largely forget or ignore our participation in Vietnam. We were told at the time that was necessary to halt the spread of Asian communism into Australasia. You may recall we lost that war. So where are all the Asians? They are here in New Zealand on work visas doing the jobs that we are no longer prepared to do.

Why did they come here? For the same reason half the population of Samoa migrated to New Zealand, legally or illegally. Because the country the colonists built is one of the best in the world.

So why do the Polynesians who were already here complain incessantly? Because they have been conditioned to get what they want by doing so. Judith Collins need only raise an eyebrow for Tina Ngata to book a flight to New York. Or the Maori politician who, when he didn’t get everything his way, like a spoilt child threatened, “I lift my gun, and I let the shots do the talking.”

That was a wholly inappropriate thing for a Member of Parliament to say, of course, as it contributes to the loss of respect for the House and a corresponding loss of authority. Or was that his intention. Because it also gives away that he is like a child rebelling against the parent. At the meeting on 5^th February 1840 at Waitangi, and feeling in need of protection, the chiefs referred to their relationship with the Crown as child and parent. Now, in adolescence, the Maori chiefs want to rebel. They do so by discrediting our House of Representatives while promoting the Waitangi Tribunal as an Upper House.

Parliament is being relieved of the burden of authority and is already largely impotent. David Seymour and Winston Peters are like horns on a bullock. They are rendered ineffectual by being appendaged to a beast that does not have the purpose, energy and will to participate assertively. While colonial politicians were motivated by the desire to build a new country, our politicians are mostly trying to navigate their way through another term unsullied. Instead the Coalition needs to be making bold moves to review, revision and reestablish our country while recognizing, owning and managing the attendant risk.

The colonists built this excellent country which we now enjoy, and in return we vilify them even though we can’t maintain what they built. It is not just that the authorities are lying to us: We are lying to ourselves. By our own complacency, we have begun the descent into a dystopian nightmare that is ruining New Zealand.

When you are at the top you can only go down. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our health system is struggling and our universities are being degraded. New Zealand is in need of a reset and we are not going to get it by the Government fiddling with the issues and then telling us they have fixed them. There needs to be a stop on the Foreshore and Seabed devolution, the MHA needs to be actually abolished, and the disgusting indoctrination of children at school must stop.

To address these issues, the Coalition needs to put aside irrelevant detail – somewhat like a colonial government – and Christopher Luxon is showing he can do that with fast-track resource consents; his handling of the first 100 days was also impressive. Even so, he needs to be a bit less Chamberlain and a bit more Churchill: “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Wellington, we shall fight on the foreshore and seabed, we shall fight on the airwaves, we shall defend our island home …” But whatever Churchill had only comes naturally and it is painful watching someone pretend they have it. Mr Luxon’s corporate management approach is a welcome change to what went before and seems promising. But it would not be so very constructed to affect a bit less smiling and a bit more growling. If it helps, I find reading The Post keeps my disgust up.

On the other hand, the Maori elites need putting in their place, which is right there alongside the rest of us. Rather than wrangle over the possibility of a principle of partnership in the Treaty, we need to consign the Treaty to history where it belongs and do what is best for today’s future. The we-were-here-first argument is archaic, inconsistent and selfish. Maoris are not more or less precious than other races, and to claim otherwise is racist. We need to recognize that New Zealand has been a multicultural society for some time and that the phenomenon of race has already started to go extinct. The Maori elites must accept that New Zealand is not a Maoriland theme park in which to explore their fantasies of sovereignty, but a country striving for existence and prosperity along with all the others in the real world.

Abraham Lincoln’s motto of democracy, 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth,' has suffered ruin here in New Zealand. What we have is government by the Waitangi Tribunal, laws devised by the Courts and a constitution imposed by the United Nations. I don’t even know who these people are, let alone get to vote for them. Our individual democratic power is miniscule and diminishing, but together we have recently overthrown a Government, and that power is not to be wrested from us by a faction of elite Maoris.

Barrie Davis is a retired telecommunications engineer, holds a PhD in the psychology of Christian beliefs, and can often be found gnashing his teeth reading The Post outside Floyd’s cafe at Island Bay.