Ross Meurant: What is Sovereignty? What is Monarch?

Recent television coverage of the crowning of the Queen of Tainui, devoid as it was of rantings by pseudo radical Māori leaders who plagued earlier television coverage of the farewell to the deceased King, was refreshing.

Yet, within a short passage of time beyond the boundaries of the Royal Palace, utterances by self-assessed “influencers”, repeatedly referred to the new Queen as, Sovereign and Monarch.

What means Sovereign and what is Monarch?

According to one definition on Wikipedia:

Sovereignty is a political concept that refers to a dominant power or supreme authority. In a monarchy, supreme power resides in the sovereign, such as a king or queen. In modern democracies, sovereign power rests with the people and is exercised through representative bodies such as Congress or Parliament.

Question posed must be, do these “influencers” think their view should be the path the new Queen of Tainui treads?

Given the historical animosity among Māori tribes which raided, possibly cannibalised, raped and plundered each other (Ngāpuhi v Ngāti Porou in particular), a supreme ruler of all Māori, may be a long bow to draw.

If these “influencers” are so delusional (or mad), that they expect the Rest of New Zealand, to be subservient to the Head of a Māori tribe, that would be to break the bow before the shaft was released.

Imagine however, if I had been on the short list to be the next King?

I’m not familiar with the House Rules applied by Tainui, but I’m well aware that Tainui know my pedigree (as told by Billy T James on TV early 1990s when he referred to me as “That Red Squad Cop now a MP!  He’s, my cousin.”)

I have direct lineage to Te Whero Whero via my French Huguenot Gt Gt Grandfather who rocked up in Kawhia 1832 and on 19 January 1835 married Princess Kenehuru, daughter of Chief Te Tuhi-O-Terangi of Ngai Mahuta and niece of Te Whero Whero.

Reverting to the question of Sovereignty & Monarch.

The New Zealand Parliament is, in my assessment, Sovereign and the Governor General as part of the Executive, is the stand-in for the Monarch, currently King Charles.

Going forward under this enshrined umbrella of Governance, might wear with some of the “woke” brigade which seems to have been entrenched in bureaucracies during the rain of Jacinda.  But population predictions suggest that the growing core of New Zealand populace, will not be amenable to any deviation from the regime New Zealand currently embraces.

In New Zealand, the base of the white population are descendants of, “Downstairs” emigrants from Great Britain; a category of people who paid their own passage seeking new opportunities but knowing full well that their survival depended on continued subservience to the ruling elite (at the time very much in the hands of disciples of Christianity).

In my assessment, this frame of mind has endured to this day.  Result?  Fighting for legal rights, standing fast, putting principle ahead of self-preservation?   A rare quality – outside of Eden Park, where even that fire now dims.

Conversely, the Australian white base was largely transported convicts who held an entirely different attitude towards their former Lords and Masters.  From day one in the new land, this category of immigrant fought for freedom, equality before the law and most defiantly, a society where mates stood together.  And a white only immigration policy. (1)(2)(3)

White Australia Policy?

On 23 December 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act came into law. It had been among the first pieces of legislation introduced to the newly formed federal parliament.

The legislation was specifically designed to limit non-British migration to Australia. It represented the formal establishment of the White Australia policy.

Attorney-General Alfred Deakin, 12 September 1901:

That end, put in plain and unequivocal terms … means the prohibition of all alien-coloured immigration, and more, it means at the earliest time, by reasonable and just means, the deportation or reduction of the number of aliens now in our midst. The two things go hand in hand, and are the necessary complement of a single policy – the policy of securing a ‘white Australia’. (4)

During World II Prime Minister John Curtin reinforced the policy, saying, "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race. (5)

Demographic impact

The White Australia policy had an immediate impact, rapidly changing demographics. By 1947 only 2.7 per cent of the whole population was born outside of Australia, Ireland or the United Kingdom. The effect was most obvious on the Asian population. Though only 1.25 per cent of the Australian population in 1901, it had shrunk to around 0.21 per cent by the late 1940s.

It wasn’t until 1966 that the dismantling of the White Aussie policy was begun under the Holt government. In 1975 The Whitlam government completely eliminated it in the 1970s with the introduction of policies like the Racial Discrimination Act.

Current Australian Demographics

In 2021 a census stat estimate apropos the number of ancestry responses within each standardised group as a proportion of the total population was as follows:

           European 57.2% (i.e. 46% North West Europe and 11.2% South East Europe).

           Oceania 22.7%

           Asia 17.4%

           North African & Middle East Others 2.7%

The legacy of the White Aussie Policy, in a country of 27 million, has been to bequeath the nation a large white breeding base with a not too latent (albeit now unfashionable) racially cognisant attitude.

Current New Zealand Demographics. (2018 estimate.)

           European 64.1%,

Māori 16.5%,

Chinese 4.9%,

Indian 4.7%,

Samoan 3.9%,

Tongan 1.8%,

Cook Islands 1.7%,

Filipino 1.5%, 

Other 0.9%

With a population of 5 million (same as Melbourne), and the current White New Zealander birth rate dropping as fast as the exodus from the Land of the Long Black Cloud, of White Kiwis in the age bracket of “productivity”, any objective forecast of population ratios, indicates a rapidly dropping white base – a trend exacerbated by many of the current white population, being geriatrics, on the home run.

Concomitantly, the expanding inward flow of Indian immigrants and Chinese capital, will dramatically alter the demographics within the next 25 years.

Outcome? 

For they who seek Civil War, sage advice I proffer is: Be Careful for What you Wish.

Continued attempts to elevate Māori above the Rest of New Zealand by artificial means i.e. legislation rather than self-determination, will be to take-on an unstoppable expanding ethic base of Asian and Indian pedigree immigrants (and subsequent New Zealand born), which, by my observations, has little empathy for Māori.

Such attempts at artificial elevation (something I consider to be a demeaning insult to the many part- Māori who have succeeded in their own right), will be met with determined resistance: (a) via yet to be formed ethnically base political parties holding the balance of power and (b) capital investment taking majority control of commercial enterprise and private property.

As Euripides cautioned:  Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.                                   

Addendum:

Meurant and Kenehuru were at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – where Meurant was a translator.  On their way through Auckland, Ngāti Whatua gifted Kenehuru 20 acres of land in recognition of her royal status.  Later when that land title was converted to European title, 10 acres was “appropriated” by the State.  Kenehuru as a widow, protested but it wasn’t until 1993 as the privatisation process impacted on NZ Rail (to quantify its assets) that it acknowledged that 10 acres at the intersection of Remuera Rd and Broadway in Newmarket, on its books, was in the land “appropriated” from my Gt Gt Grandmother. Note: Getting to the bottom of a TOW land claim I assisted lodging on behalf descendants, when I was an MP, has been as evasive as slippery eel.

Ross Meurant BA MPP Former Police Inspector, Member of Parliament & Honorary Consul.

References: 

(1) Blainey, Geoff, The Tyranny of Distance, Sun Books, 1977.
(2) Clark, Manning, A Short History of Australia, Tudor Publishers, 1969
(3) Ward, Russel, The Australian Legend, Oxford Uni Pres, 1977
(4) https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy