Local councils and Māori seats.
A lot of the overlay around this Government, involving all three parties, is about the Māorification of this country.
It has been shockingly destructive, and councils have led, and been allowed to lead the way when it comes to simple racism.
Policies based on race are racist.
Polices that advance one race over another are racist.
Despite that, they have not only gone ahead, but been encouraged to go ahead.
The law that let the community hold a vote on Māori seats was disbanded. That alone was undemocratic, but it was disbanded because the results were always the same.
When a vote was held no one wanted race-based seats. Why? Because New Zealanders are inherently fair.
This was all predicated on the idea that in a democracy somehow Māori were denied the right to stand, when in fact no such restriction was ever in place.
Like everyone else, Māori can stand for boards and councils and committees and Parliament. Top to bottom, democracy is an open field in this country and that is what needs to be treasured, nurtured, encouraged and preserved.
What made yesterday's announcement even more effective is councils will be made to hold votes on recent seats that they didn’t hold votes on, and if they don’t want to hold a vote the seat gets scrapped.
Brilliant. That was a step I suspect many didn’t think would be coming.
Some councils will gnash their teeth but what councils forget is they represent their community, and, on this issue, they have been wildly out of step.
To get where we have got to democracy has been gerrymandered, the way it is gerrymandered in countries we hold great suspicions about.
We are better than that. And yet the previous Government, in cahoots with ideologues on councils with more important things to deal with, held us to ransom and shoved it down your throats.
When a Government restores democracy, driven by common sense, that’s a Government on the right track.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Policies based on race are racist.
Polices that advance one race over another are racist.
Despite that, they have not only gone ahead, but been encouraged to go ahead.
The law that let the community hold a vote on Māori seats was disbanded. That alone was undemocratic, but it was disbanded because the results were always the same.
When a vote was held no one wanted race-based seats. Why? Because New Zealanders are inherently fair.
This was all predicated on the idea that in a democracy somehow Māori were denied the right to stand, when in fact no such restriction was ever in place.
Like everyone else, Māori can stand for boards and councils and committees and Parliament. Top to bottom, democracy is an open field in this country and that is what needs to be treasured, nurtured, encouraged and preserved.
What made yesterday's announcement even more effective is councils will be made to hold votes on recent seats that they didn’t hold votes on, and if they don’t want to hold a vote the seat gets scrapped.
Brilliant. That was a step I suspect many didn’t think would be coming.
Some councils will gnash their teeth but what councils forget is they represent their community, and, on this issue, they have been wildly out of step.
To get where we have got to democracy has been gerrymandered, the way it is gerrymandered in countries we hold great suspicions about.
We are better than that. And yet the previous Government, in cahoots with ideologues on councils with more important things to deal with, held us to ransom and shoved it down your throats.
When a Government restores democracy, driven by common sense, that’s a Government on the right track.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
I suspect many councillors wil be overjoyed. At last they can be themselves instead of ahving to yield to threat of cancellation and pretend to be supportive of maori uber alles.
And aren't the MSM and some Council commentators sickening - bleating on about the cost now to hold referenda. Well they should have thought about that before creating these seats without listening to those they purportedly represent. That additional cost will hopefully remind voters what their representatives did unilaterally on their behalf and, if it goes to the vote and those Wards are quashed, one hopes those that promoted this racist nonsense will also find themselves also out of office.
i'm sure each such referendum can be afforded by deferring one of the council-funded rainbow crossings.
Long overdue, and great to see a show pony like Sam Broughton of LGNZ ( and Mayor of Selwyn) gnashing his teeth over policy that restores democratic rights.. the same Sam Broughton I might add who refused Selwyn Ratepayer requests for bilingual signage on the Rolleaton Library in arrogant pursuit if his own personal agendas. One can only hope that this behaviour is remembered by ratepayers and voters come next Local Body elections
In the Post today I read a piece by Moko Tauariki which states that Maori will be under-represented if unelected Maori wards do not take their place on councils and that "this is not a Tiriti partnership as promised to Maori in 1840." He describes himself as "a Maori councillor for Hamilton City."
If this is the kind of muddled thinking and twisted logic offered by Maori wards one can only applaud proposed govt. action to hold referendums on whether there should be unelected Maori wards.
All un-elected and incompetent people should be forced out of their
?? function ??.
To much waste of taxpayers money.
And when will decendants of a certain race be under represented??
Some 16-17% of people with a minimal amount of maori blood and having voting
and veto rights, is not under represented.
Dual language??
If Iwi pays for it. I don't have a problem with it. As soon as the taxpayer has to pay for it, I do have a problem with it.
Go to France, the province of Britany, where 30 to 35% of the population is fluent in Gaelic. ( 1% in NZ speaks te reo )
There is dual language for placenames on road signs.
Which, by the way is exstremely dangerous.
More than 2 place names mentioned??
Where the heck does a tourist have to go??
3 times around a roundabout??
Not a good thing.
Those seeking Maori electoral privilege don't know the history of their country, and need to read a bit more widely.
I'm not going to do their research for them, but I'll give a few examples of Maori/part-Māori who have been elected to public office on their own merits.
There are many more if you go looking.
James Tui Carroll (later Sir) was first elected to Parliament in the Eastern Maori seat in 1887.
In the 1893 election, Sir James stood in the General Seat of Waiapu and was returned to Parliament by a large majority.
From 1908, he represented the General Seat of Gisborne, until defeated in 1919.
Sir James was acting Colonial Secretary (equivalent to the Minister of Internal Affairs) from 1897 to 1899.
He was the first Maori to hold the cabinet position of Minister of Native Affairs, which he held between 1899 and 1912.
Sir James was held in such regard within the ruling Liberal Party that he was Acting Prime Minister for several months on each occasion in 1909 and 1911, when the Prime Minister was overseas for protracted periods.
In a first past the post Parliament, National Party candidates Ben Couch and Rex Austin in 1975 won Wairarapa and Awarua respectively.
Winston Peters was elected to the General Seat of Hunua in 1978 but only after winning a High Court battle for a recount that overturned the election night result.
He lost this seat in 1981, but in 1984 successfully stood in the General Seat of Tauranga, which he held until 2005, first for National, then for New Zealand First.
The man who defeated Peters when he tried to regain his seat in 2008, Simon Bridges, is also of Maori descent.
Two of Winston Peters’ brothers, Ian and Jim, have also held public office.
Georgina Beyer, a trans-sexual as well as being of Maori descent, has been Mayor of Carterton, and has represented the General Seat of Wairarapa, defeating her National Party opponents several times in a conservative rural electorate.
Donna Awatere-Huata’s father, Maori Battalion hero, Arapeta Awatere, was elected to Auckland City Council in 1962, serving until 1969, when he got into a spot of legal trouble and went to jail.
Seems to run in the family.
When I was living in Whangarei in the early 2000s, Kahu Sutherland, a youth and community worker, was elected to Whangarei District Council because people of all races saw him as a committed and tireless worker for his community.
Indeed, I voted for him myself, for that very reason.
All these people were voted in by a general constituency of voters on their merits.
There’s a raft of others if one bothered to look.
The Treaty of Waitangi does not provide for separate political representation for brown supremacist part-Māori who turn their white ancestors into a toilet bowl to identify monoculturally as “Maori.”
What is does provide for is for ALL New Zealanders, regardless of ancestry, to enjoy individual equality in citizenship.
All New Zealanders of legal age have the same right to stand for elected public office. That is all which is required here.
For brown supremacist part-Maori to demand separate, unelected political representation at any level of government is to trample both on our democracy, and on the mana of those of Maori descent who have achieved such representation on their own merits.
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