We are to have the opportunity to make submissions regarding the Treaty Principles Bill. But that seems pointless if it does not subsequently proceed, although it would make clear the disrespect that our Parliament has for us. I figure that if I do not make a submission, the government will use that as an excuse to say that we were not really interested. So I’m going to take the opportunity to tell them what I think, then and now.
My approach for the submission is to show why the present interpretation of the Treaty is wrong and then say why David Seymour’s Bill is an appropriate replacement that espouses core values of our society and democracy.
I am relatively new to the problem of the maorification of New Zealand, so to read up on the subject I recently bought a dozen books from Tross Publishing. They cover a number of related topics, are recent, loaded with facts and reasonably priced. For those who are also new to the problem and want to make a submission, I will introduce these books along with some related material. Nevertheless, the views expressed here are mine, just as I expect that you independently develop yours.
These titles and others may be browsed and
purchased at the Tross website, here:
If you read some of these or similar publications I expect you will agree that there is at least a case to be answered. The Treaty of Waitangi has been grossly misinterpreted and the facts of colonization have been misrepresented. It is therefore of concern that these fallacious claims are being used as the basis of fundamental changes to our government and society that have not been democratically mandated.
If you want just one book for a general overview, I suggest Mike Butler’s The Treaty: Basic Facts (2022). Dr John Robinson also has published a number of books which cover a range of problems with the Treaty interpretation, including Who Broke the Treaty? (2024) and the Corruption of New Zealand Democracy: A Treaty Overview (2011). Robinson has also written a number of postings on the NZCPR site. Furthermore, Twisting the Treaty: A Tribal Grab for Wealth and Power (2017 Revised), is a collection of chapter essays by six authors that provide various perspectives.
Here is what I believe you will find:
1. The Maoris comprised warring tribes and there
was not overall governance.
2. The Maori chiefs agreed by the Treaty to
overall government by the Crown.
3. The Crown did not enter into a ‘partnership’
with Maori chiefs.
4. The Treaty applied British law equally to
Maoris and Europeans.
5. The Judiciary and the Waitangi Tribunal habitually lie to you.
To start with, don’t make the same mistake I did and think that when the authorities say “the Treaty of Waitangi” that they are referring to the Treaty of Waitangi. What they are referring to is the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and consequent legislation and misinterpretation by the courts. So everything the authorities now say to you about “the Treaty” is a lie and I will give some examples in what follows.
Colonization: A Force for Good
Part of ‘the Treaty’ strategy has been to vilify the colonists. We need to restore their reputation.
John McLean’s Sweat and Toil: The Building of New Zealand (2020) and Adam Plover’s New Zealand: The Benefits of Colonisation (2022) describe the remarkable achievements of the colonists as they built the country that we now enjoy. It is worthwhile to remind ourselves, and our deluded Government, how much the Maoris have benefited from the work of the colonists. There are two sides to the equation: It is lying by omission not to consider the benefits when making Treaty settlements and other unnecessary concessions to the Maoris. But of course doing so would nullify the grievance narrative.
McLean in The British Empire: A Force for
Good (p. 497), says the Maoris benefited from the introduction of
British sovereignty, British law, British ways and the British people and
quotes the following from Sir Apirana Ngata at Waitangi in 1940:
“Let me acknowledge first that in the whole of the world I doubt whether any race has been so well treated by a European people as the Maoris.”
Tikanga is the new taonga.
In Taonga and Contra Proferentem, Piers Seed (2023) gives an analysis of the two terms in the title which he says have under-pinned many pivotal Waitangi Tribunal decisions. To identify what taonga meant from the time of the Treaty until now, Seed took a variety of approaches including searching dictionaries, general literature and thousands of newspapers. I enjoy his book in part because of how comprehensive his research was. Simply put, leading up to the Treaty taonga meant property and it now means anything at all, including radio waves. (NB Radio was invented around 1900.) That is a clear example of how present reference to ‘the Treaty’ is not true to the actual 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
Now we have a similar issue with tikanga. Rev. Mamari Stephens, a law lecturer at Te Herenga Waka, says tikanga progress in the judicial system is unstoppable, but that it will take decades for the two systems to fuse together into Aotearoa-New Zealand law (NZ Herald, 17 June 2024, here). Oh, Really? Would an Act of Parliament not stop it? Who’s running this country; the judiciary or we the people via our democratically elected House of Representatives? We should require an answer to that question, because it will influence what we do next.
John Robinson has written Dividing a Nation: The Return to Tikanga (2021 Revised) and several related pieces for NZCPR, including “Tikanga in law: what does it mean?” (20 June 2021, here). Appendix 1 of Dividing a Nation lists 97 Acts of Parliament that give special rights to Maori and tikanga, and the list only goes up to when Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister in 2017.
Robinson writes in “Tikanga in Law”: “Any claim
that ‘we are one people’ is a lie.”
“Early tikanga was murderous in practice. Since the coming of other peoples, tikanga has changed and fragmented. The current version is various, uncertain, and impossible to define. … the people are divided in law by race, to co-govern New Zealand in a partnership of two separated social groups, no longer one people.”
To show the difference between the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) and the Treaty of Waitangi Act (1975) etc., Dividing a Nation (p. 14) quotes from A Guide to The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi as expressed by the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal (2001, here). The Guide says, “As Justice McKay noted in the Broadcasting case (1992): ‘It is the principles of the Treaty which are to be applied, not the literal words’.” (p. 74) … “The Waitangi Tribunal has said that: ‘the essence of the Treaty transcends the sum total of its component written words and puts narrow or literal interpretation out of place’.” (p. 76) … “In the view of the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal, Treaty principles are not set in stone. They are constantly evolving as the Treaty is applied to particular issues and new situations.” (p. 77)
Excellent! They should have no problem adapting to the ‘new situation’ of David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill then, should they? Unless, of course, it conflicts with their constitutional racism.
Education or Indoctrination
One of the main problems arising from misinterpretation of the Treaty is the decline in our schools and universities. In New Zealand’s History Curriculum: Education or Indoctrination? (2023), Roger Childs, a teacher, educationalist and writer, points out the omissions, bias and lies in the new Maori centric school history. One of the eight things that Childs says are omitted is the benefits of colonization (p. 126-130) and an example of bias and lies that have been presented to pupils is the “atrocities” of Rangiaowhia (p. 24-33).
That problem is also present in our universities. Dr David Lillis, “New Initiatives at Massey University,” Breaking Views, 14 June 2024 (here), tells of how the University requires graduates to “have a deep understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its relevance in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand, and they are skilled at integrating this knowledge into their professional practice.” That is obviously problematic if their teaching is a misinterpretation of the Treaty.
Childs quotes Professor Paul Moon of AUT: “Of course there are risks that, if done poorly, compulsory history in our schools could veer into the realm of indoctrination.” (“Compulsory NZ history is a turning point for our schools and society,” Stuff, 13 September 2019, here and subsequently here)
The History department of AUT Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau (here), offers a course “HIST501 The Holocaust: Its Causes, Character, and Legacy” (here). The course descriptor says, “For further information, contact: Te Ara Poutama - Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development”. So I ask the Faculty: Do you facilitate comparison of the Holocaust and the European colonization of New Zealand? If so, that would constitute indoctrination; if not, what is the relevance of the Holocaust to New Zealand history? A course on the Maori genocide of the Morioris would be more relevant, and a comparison of that with the Holocaust would be more meaningful.
It seems that the approach is to indoctrinate young folk while they are at school so that they are ready to be trained in the context of the new ideology when they get to university. Cute, if you don’t mind living in an Orwell novel; but sick if you do.
The Maori Party and Tikanga
In a 16 June speech in Parliament, which was followed by a standing ovation (here, see also here), Winston Peters gave the Maori Party a growling for undermining Parliament and Maoridom. The camera gives us a shot of the Mad Hatter’s Te Pāti making mayhem in Maoriland and I was particularly disappointed to see that Tarsh Kemp was still there (See why here).
We all know how that will turn out. The inquiry will drag on for months by which time we will have moved on and forgotten the details. Kemp will be excused after it is claimed that what she did was tikanga and the inquiry will instead make scapegoats of the European institutions for not stopping her. Yet had they done so, the Maori Party would have cried ‘institutional racism’.
All the while the Maori Party will continue to rort our supposedly representative Parliament whilst pursuing a Declaration of Political Independence intended to establish an independent Maori Parliament. Note in the clip that while Mr Peters was speaking, Prime Minister Luxon is sitting there with a grin on his face like he is trying to laugh it off.
Sovereignty and Chieftainship
Here is a story of my own to add to the misinterpretations of the Treaty.
The above literature shows it is not true that the Treaty provides for co-governance. The Treaty has long been called the Maori Magna Carta, which was an agreement between a King and his subject barons. It is also claimed that the agreement to retain Maori chieftainship has not been upheld, but that is not true either.
After the Treaty was signed, the chiefs went back to their tribes and continued with their traditions for more than a century. On the other hand, the Europeans built towns and farms in which to practice theirs. In Urban Maori: The Second Great Migration (2018), Bradford Haami says “Before World War II, 90% of Maori lived in rural tribal communities; by the mid-1970s, almost 80% lived in cities.” “The ‘pull’ to the city in search of ‘work, money and pleasure’ was strong, but so to was the ‘push’ away from the rural regions due to the unsustainable earning power of tribal land.” (p. 19) Professor of History Paul Moon in New Zealand in the Twentieth Century (2011, p. 307) wrote, “The city offered a playground of leisure as well as work opportunities [and] a place where individuals could live unfettered by the encrustations of tribal traditions and constraints…”
So the Maoris themselves deserted the territory of traditional Maori chieftainship in favour of the dominion of traditional European sovereignty. In response, the Government promptly built new state housing suburbs for the Maori migrants: in my home town of Gisborne that suburb is Kaiti, here in Wellington it is Porirua and Wainuiomata (11,000 sections by 1975); these suburbs are still disproportionately Maori.
In a recent Newshub article (17 June 2024, here), “‘Over my dead body’: Māori respond to Govt’s proposed Fast-Track Approvals Bill,” iwi leader Helmut Modlik complains of twentieth-century Porirua, “The Government of the day decided this was a perfect place to intensify housing. And so, the equivalent of the fast-track development in that era took place. The sedimentation then began down into our harbour. The pollution began. And within 20 years, our beautiful food basket, the pātaka for Ngāti Toa, was turned into a polluted pond - barren and toxic.” (Note that Ngati Toa are not native to Porirua but arrived in the 1820s having been chased out of the Waikato by Te Wherowhero.)
Furthermore, Haami tells us, the migration “was something the cities were not expecting or even prepared for at the time.” (p. 19) “The Department of Maori Affairs tried to alleviate the congestion by expanding its housing programme from 700 in 1960 to 2000 in 1967. These homes built in the cities followed a policy where Maori were ‘pepper-potted’ among Pakeha homes… In contrast to this, Maori also obtained rental housing through the State Advances Corporation, which did not have a pepper-potting policy.” (p. 21)
Haami continues: “On the whole the major criticism of urban migration is that it was a ploy by successive governments to assimilate Maori to become Pakeha and aspire to the modern Pakeha lifestyle.” (p. 23) Instead, he says, the Maori migrants “are all tribal and should be identified with their iwi back home.” (p. 24)
So, the Government participated in the actualization of Maori aspirations to transition from primitive tribalism to modern materialism. The Government built new homes for the Maoris and welcomed them into European society; however, the Maoris did not fully participate the benefits, including education and health. Some Maoris now want a regressive enclave in a progressive multiracial world, in which they fear they cannot compete, but from which they still want the benefits.
Moreover, a more recent Radio NZ article (14 December 2021, here), “Porirua housing project to provide 880 new homes, Ngati Toa iwi prioritised,” reports that a Government Infrastructure Acceleration Fund was signed between Kāinga Ora, Porirua City Council and Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, which will see 880 houses built in Porirua between 2025 and 2030. “Chief executive of Te Runanga o Toa Rangatira Helmut Modlik said this meant people from the iwi would be able to get a home. … ‘But what it also means for us is that we are actually enabling creation of a new community or suburb, it will always have our flavour on it, it will be a Ngati Toa associate suburb, a satellite if you like, of our kainga’.”
Is that because the Maori leaders, such as Helmut Modlik, want to increase tribal power which they will then control and wield to their personal benefit?
In summary, the Maoris abandoned their traditional chiefs when they migrated to the European cities. Now their pretender chief Helmut Modlik is criticizing the Europeans for building houses for the Maoris in the cities and blaming the Europeans for whatever mess the Maoris made after they moved in. Furthermore, the Pretender-in-Chief is himself now facilitating building more houses exclusively for Maoris with a Government Infrastructure Acceleration Fund while criticizing the Government for legislating Fast-Track Approvals. Moreover, some Maoris want to now regress to tribalism and yet continue to participate the benefits of a modern European lifestyle.
There’s got to be a word for all of that.
That is a remarkable example of misinterpreting the Treaty because it suggests that ‘protection’ of Maoris by ‘the Treaty’ includes protection of Maoris from themselves.
Discussion
The reason why we are implementing co-governance is not because it is better or even good, but because it is Maori. It is clear that the reasons given are not true and it is being forced upon us with propaganda and coercion. It has a racial bias which is adversely affecting our education and health systems, it is jeopardizing our economy and degrading our democracy, and all the while it is patronizing the Maoris. It is being driven by the aspirations of a faction of Maori elite to acquire power for themselves and to subsequently accumulate wealth.
Clearly, the whole Treaty scenario needs to be dissolved. It should not have been allowed to get so far out of control and the new Government should hasten to regain it. The best explanation I can come up with is that the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, is scared of the Maoris. It is telling that the leaders of the other two coalition parties are Maoris or part-Maoris and it is they who are most vocal about resolving this problem. Could it possibly be that White men really are as emasculated as the women’s magazines lament?
David Seymour’s proposed Treaty principles are what one would want in any society – democratic government, racial equality and universal law. The real question is: Why do we not already have that? Surely writing it into legislation is a mere formality. We should not need a binding referendum to force the Government to do it. It should have been written into their election manifestos and the legislation done decades ago.
But instead, PM Luxon has said he will not support the Bill, which makes the submissions process something of a farce. The problem is, if we don’t make submissions then Mr Luxon will say that is because none is interested in the proposal. And even if they ever do anything, it will not be until the end of the term and then say they will do something if we vote them back in.
That is like what is happening in Britain. The Tory Party has been in power for 14 years and they will have an election on 4 July. They have been promising all that time to ‘stop the boats’; that is, to stop illegal mass migration into Britain which is causing problems with housing, health and education. However that hasn’t happened and the Brits have had enough. The Tories are tanking in the polls and a landslide for Labour is almost a certainty. The cry from the Right is that Labour will deliver a dystopian society much like our previous Labour Government was doing here. Britain is already in trouble with services, crime and social cohesion, and continued illegal mass migration will finish Britain forever.
Despite what the mainstream media tried to sell us, our last election was about maorification. We voted for National and the coalition parties in the hope of purging the Treaty misinterpretations from legislation. Furthermore the racist Maori seats and the Waitangi Tribunal need to go; indeed, should already have gone. Instead, it is already looking like we could switch back to Labour at the next election, which I expect will be the nail in the coffin of New Zealand as a prosperous first world country. We are in trouble now, but it will be irretrievable soon. Is there nothing we can do to stop the process?
Sovereignty in New Zealand belongs to the New Zealand people who delegate it to the King in Parliament for three years at a time. The laws passed by Parliament are the ultimate valid authority. Ask yourself: Who’s running this country – We the people via our representative Parliament or a presumptuous quarrel of pretentious pettifoggers in the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal?
Whereas our Parliament has willfully avoided the democratic process for political expediency (e.g., hiding the He Puapua report for the 2020 election), Parliament is goading the New Zealand people into withdrawing the delegation of Sovereignty. And whereas the unelected judiciary has willfully misinterpreted legislation passed by our representative Parliament (e.g., the Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011), the judiciary has corrupted their function in Government and usurped the power of the people.
By not meeting its obligations to the New Zealand people and instead accepting and implementing the misinterpretations of the Waitangi Tribunal, Government has participated in degrading New Zealand’s progressive democracy and is replacing it with regressive tribalism to an increasing degree.
Parliament and the courts have no power but that which we have bestowed upon them. If they continue to flout the will of the New Zealand people, we the people may justifiably use minimum force to effectively withdraw our mandate. (cf. the Second Amendment to the American Constitution.)
I am not advocating violence, but we can no longer leave government to the Government. We need to take a more active role to establish responsible government in New Zealand. Insisting on a binding referendum on the Treaty Principles Bill may well achieve that.
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.
16 comments:
Excellent analysis with facts... not only should there be a Principles Bill, but they can abolish the Maori seats.
please spread far and wide.
Spot on.
Article 3 of the Treaty: equality of rights and responsibilities for all citizens.
Any Prime Minister to describe this as " divisive" is to follow craven politics and to insult all citizens.
NZers must hope the Ardern era of corrupt politics is over. They must insist on this - and demand a referendum.
You hit the nail on the head Barrie
You are absolutely right Barrie, but apathy and a sense of inability to submit prevents most people from taking a stance. Even if one does write or email the Prime Minister, it is very unlikely he will get to consider your input if his staff consider it of no value. Perhaps that is why Christopher Luxon fails to recognise the parlous state NZ is in due to favourable racial bias toward Māori.
I could not agree with you more. Very well written and articulated. I will be making a submission and I will be encouraging many New Zealanders to do the same. Luxon needs to be embarrassed into supporting it.
It's too late. The gangs of kids you see in auckland now are profound. Many of them are taught that crime is their right against the colonisers who came here and stole their land etc. It's real. It's not just somethiing you see in the paper or read about. I saw of group of 10-12 year olds on the side of the road near greenlane, doing the haka and throwing objects at cars. You also hear throwaway comments from people in markets or at your workplace about "colonisers' and people laugh like it is an accepted thing. No one calls it out. So it's too late for nz.
Julian Batchelor of stop co -governance is singing from the same song book!
RE. Submissions
The 80.000+ done for 3 Waters were rejected as " simply repeated/copied " texts.
So, guidelines can be provided - but people must make the effort to submit an original text..
Here again, Kiwi apathy might sink the ship.
This blog including this article, seems to assume NZ is falling to bits and that this is of profound concern to many.
Maybe NZ is simply evolving, most people are OK with it and columnists in this blog are simply out of step. Historical truth is not a prerequisite for change.
If this premiss is wrong, where is the protest?
Anon @11.30, evolving into what though? Do you know of another forner democracy where separatism and tribal rule has worked? I would genuinely like to hear your thoughts on this.
More than 80 books pertaining to New Zealand history were removed from book shops, libraries, schools and universities about 50 years ago. I am aware of one source which has a copy of every book! Twelve gnarled old oak trees were ordered to be cut down in the Bay of Islands because they "were not part of New Zealand's history". That is exactly what they were! Each tree was some 6 feet thick. They may have been 800 years old. Patupaiarehe and Waitaha were two races of people here before Maori. What happened to them? Forbidden HIstory, a book by John Dudley Aldworth, published by Truthful History Publications, (2016) explains much. We ignore the facts and truths of our history at our peril!
Kevan
Anon @1:01, here is what I think is happening, from an evolutionary perspective.
Europeans had an abrupt development when they became a separate race after leaving Africa. However, due to the removal of the geographic barrier and subsequent interbreeding, it appears that Europeans will now be absorbed back into a homogeneous species of homo sapiens that will be without race. It is possible that the resulting species will have little European genetic or cultural content and Europeans could vanish like the Neanderthals.
Despite its initial success indicated by an increasing population, it seems that the European development was not in fact adaptive and it is being deselected. That is happening in New Zealand already with a decreasing European population and an increasing Maori one. That trend is amplified when a European and a Maori have a child, because the child is considered Maori, or at least classified as one. The ideas of the Enlightenment, the humanism of the nineteenth century, and Western science are being replaced with Neolithic Maori tribalism, Maori mythical knowledge and Maori customary lore.
The essential elements of our open Western society – liberty, democracy and humanitarianism – are ironically its downfall because they have no defence from internal malevolent factions. Whereas Britain lost the Empire as Rome lost hers, we are now following South Africa as the next major example of the collapse of British colonial civilization. Australia will be next and the same is also happening in Britain itself due to uncontrolled immigration. The British system of democracy, justice and welfare was not adaptive and it is being deselected.
That does not fully answer your question, but any value judgments could perhaps be made from there.
NZ IS falling to bits!!
Our roads are falling to bits
Our ferries are falling to bits
We have the highest school truancy rates ever experienced in NZ
Theft of food from supermarkets is an almost daily occurrence
Our health system is adequate with poor cancer treatments abysmal maternity care
low staffing levels due lousy wages and salaries incompetent buying practices by Pharmac and patients having to source surgery and drugs overseas.
Our school children are indoctrinated with sexual perversions by Inside Out
The History curriculum denigrates non Maori and lies about the Country's History
Our Judiciary are lying hand wringing guilt ridden idiots who think they can override Parliament with deliberate race based interpretations of legislation.
We are EVOLVING into a shitty little backward cesspit of racist division and lies promoted greedy deluded Maori who are filled with spite entitlement and rage at their gross lack of real progress and accomplishment as a people compared to Europeans.
This country sucks big time.
Any one who doesn't realise this is a fool!
Evolving into its own unique blend of quasi democratic tribal dominated government subject to tribal rule ie choices as provided by the tribal autocrats.
Maybe.
The point about NZ evolving is that it is still happening.
What seems to be clear is that people no longer want simple democracy - perhaps a consequence of MMP where tiny parties holding the balance of power fundamentally influence the masses so the concept of majority rule is now fractured. It is majority government controlled by minority rule.
Couple that with matters maori for whatever reason having suffused the public conscience and also with the passive acceptance of pale male and stale as passé to the point of comical, there is a revolution successfully happening - possibly happened - manipulated by maori and other woke, with an acquiescent government and otherwise infatuated establishment eg judiciary and universities, passively supported by the ultimately hypnotised undiscerning unprotesting masses.
Think about it.
an excellent article, thank you Barrie.
I have often pondered how Maori would be situated in todays world had NZ NOT been colonised by people with less progressive and beneficial natures than those from the British Isles and Europe.
Or not been colonised at all.
For the sake of discussion, one can assume that Maori would still be tribal with ongoing warfare, cannibalism and slavery.
It comes across to me that Maori consider that they would be far in advance of where they are now WITHOUT colonisation or any other external input.
Fortunately not all Maori think this way and are aware of who provides housing, finance and other "pakeha" goodies and also know how to make their own way in the world.
Yes, well put and very timely, Barrie.
And if anyone is in any doubt how willful our parliamentarians are in their expediency, obfuscation, and lack of transparency, just think of the Three Waters fiasco wherein Mahuta, and then McAnulty, claimed that the Treaty required us to give Maori co-governance over the water. And yet despite a change of Government and repeated requests, the legal advice stipulating this purported requirement has been kept from public scrutiny. This simply is outrageous and proves that it must be a lie, or one that is very tenuous to say the least. Either way, this is disgraceful conduct and everyone, whenever in the presence of one of these talking heads, should demand its release. Of course, if we had a fourth estate that was worth its salt they would demand it but, of course, they won’t, because they were donkey-deep in supporting this rort from the get go.
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