JD: All of Us Are Equal

Guest post on The Good Oil by JD

The challenge now is for the silent majority to stand up and display their support for proper equality in NZ.

Not being Māori myself but having married into NZ society I find the great majority of my closest relatives are. A diverse bunch, they lay claim to varying degrees of ethnicity, ranging from my partner who traces unadulterated Māori ancestry back for several generations to those at the other end of the spectrum whose claim seems based on little more than their grandmother having once passed a Māori in the street.

These latter are people who, partly in jest, I refer to as “mini-Māori”.

But here’s the thing. I find often the less Māori ancestry people have the more they seem keen to assert and display it, affecting a range of ostentatious cultural adornment and claiming to speak on behalf of others, irrespective of what those others may themselves prefer.

Paradoxically, whilst many are keen to take on tā moko and moko kauae to display their ethnicity, I see much less evidence of korowai or piupiu in the streets of our cities.

Clearly designer jeans and waterproof clothing are two of the benefits of colonisation that even the most radical amongst us are happy to embrace.

Strange how selective ones acknowledgement of the positives of colonialism can be, but I digress.

In view of the current furore around the idea of Māori rights in NZ, it seems appropriate to ask just how many Māori, of whatever degree, are there in this country?

And here we find some interesting facts emerging. According to RNZ(1), the 2023 census tells us that “the Māori population count is hovering just below 1 million – an increase of 12.5 per cent to 978,246 people compared with 869,850 in 2018 census.”

However the report also goes on to say “This means that 19.6 per cent of the population of Aotearoa have Māori whakapapa, this is different from the number of people who affiliate with Māori as an ethnic group, who make up 17.8 per cent of the population.”

Which tells us the Māori population, those who consider themselves to actually be Māori, numbers just 17.8 per cent of the population, or 888,407 people, which is not significantly more than the 869,850 counted in 2018.

The other 89,839 reported in the census papers who “have Māori whakapapa” but do not “affiliate with Māori as an ethnic group” must be some kind of ‘ghost Māori’, determined by the census bureaucrats to be Māori, even though they themselves don’t recognise it.

All in all, this decision to count as Māori those who don’t think they are I find totally bizarre. But does it matter that the NZ census makes these strange assumptions? The answer is yes, because these claims of one million Māori, nearly 20 per cent of the population of NZ, are often repeated by Te Pāti Māori and the likes of Willie Jackson, TPM’s fifth columnist ensconced at the heart of Labour’s Māori caucus.

Such claims are used as a rationale to justify more governmental power be given to Māori, or, more specifically, to those who claim to know what Māori want.

Even though Māori are no more of a homogeneous group than European, Asian, Pacifica or any other ethnicity living in NZ, there are those who would have us believe that they are. That Māori have one agreed set of goals, and most importantly, only those anointed by tribal elites or John Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori are able to advocate on their behalf and elucidate these goals.

Another prime example of one who displays such hubris is Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, herself a prime example of the ‘mini-Māori’ alluded to earlier. One who, not feeling Māori enough, compensates by stridently pursuing every cause that they personally feel Māori should be happy to embrace.

This is the arrogance, the belief that they know best, and speak for Māori as a whole, that drives Te Pāti Māori with its disregard of parliament, its wild claims of co-sovereignty, its car-kois and hīkois and its hysterical over-reaction to David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.

A Treaty Principles Bill that simply asserts three things:

1. Parliament rules.
2. Everyone is equal under the law.
3. Māori have rights like everyone else and those enshrined in any treaty settlements will be honoured.

Unfortunately, and for personal gain and advancement, Te Pāti Māori would prefer to deny these rather self-evident truths. Instead they claim, with particular reference to item one, that parliament is not sovereign and there should be two states within NZ: one governed by Māori and one for the rest of us.

Even a cursory analysis of this idea shows how nonsensical it is when we ask how would a Māori state within NZ actually work?

Should we have tracts of land which only Māori would inhabit?

Or a separate Māori parliament passing laws that only Māori would obey, levying taxes that only Māori would pay, building roads that only Māori would drive on, hospitals that only Māori would use, universities that only Māori would attend, etc.

To satisfy the inane aspirations of a few radical opportunists, should NZ end up with two of everything? This would be a high ambition indeed when the country currently struggles, and often fails, to properly deliver on any one of the essential services listed above.

Māori sovereignty is a pipe dream, promoted as a classic diversionary tactic to shift the attention of the Māori majority away from the high living enjoyed by Māori politicians and tribal elites, funded from the taxpayer purse and the treaty settlement billions currently under iwi control.

But many Māori, some of my relatives among them, driven in large part by a fear of appearing to be ‘not Māori enough’ have fallen into line with Māori Party doctrine that Seymour’s bill somehow denigrates Māori and is antithetical to the original treaty.

This is unfortunate and ultimately will do much harm to the social fabric of NZ, yet these opinions are gathering momentum, with the slogan “Toitū Te Tiriti”, appearing in public on banners and bumper stickers.

And we should never discount the power of a simple slogan to eventually move political mountains. Think how “MAGA”, or “Get Brexit Done”, or “No taxation without representation”, and many more such phrases have been extremely successful in shifting public opinion and winning political success for those who espoused them.

Which brings me to my final point: are we to allow this Te Pāti Māori con-game to continue unopposed, or are we going to respond with our own slogans in support of the Treaty Principles bill?

If we are, then I offer the following as a first attempt(2). I’m sure there are many others that would do a similar or better job, so the challenge now is for the silent majority to stand up and display their support for proper equality in NZ.

(1) https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/518182/what-the-census-tells-us-about-the-maori-population
(2) The Māori word ake means forever, which seems particularly apt for this slogan. It lends itself to a simple riposte, whenever Toitū Te Tiriti is shouted, ake can be shouted right back.