John Robertson: Whakapapa and the Politics of Pretend - Why Myth Has No Place in Modern Law

There comes a point in every nation’s development where it must decide whether its laws are grounded in objective reality — or in ritual chants and inherited bedtime stories.

In New Zealand, that moment is long overdue.

Let’s talk about whakapapa — a word that gets thrown around in legislation, policy, and public rhetoric with the reverence of scripture. It’s often treated as a sacred concept, a divine thread that links Māori to their ancestors, their land, and some ethereal state of collective being.

It sounds poetic. It also sounds completely unfit for legislation.

Why? Because whakapapa is not a legal concept. It’s a spiritual one, laced with cosmology, metaphysical meaning, and racial identity politics — and none of those belong in state law. It’s esoteric by design, purposely vague, and loaded with unprovable ideas about spiritual connection, sacred lineage, and inherited mana. That might belong in cultural spaces or ceremonies — but when it starts shaping legislation, we’ve got a serious problem.

Here’s the reality: every person identifying as Māori today is genetically mixed. Every. Single. One.

There is no untouched, unbroken Māori bloodline floating around Aotearoa. Interbreeding has been happening since long before the British ever set foot here. Pacific migration alone ensured that. Then came colonisation, trade, marriages, sex, partnerships — and generations of beautiful, mixed-blood New Zealanders.

So what, exactly, are we legislating when we legislate whakapapa?

A spiritual fantasy? A racial purity myth? Some vague sense of ancestral pride?

Because if you strip away the soft language, what remains is a legal mechanism that divides New Zealanders based on race and ancestry — regardless of how interwoven and indistinct those bloodlines have become.

And yes, let’s say the quiet part out loud: this is apartheid logic, dressed up in indigenous branding.

“Our people, our land.”
“Our knowledge, our way.”
“Our whakapapa.”

It’s always us — and then everyone else. And when that kind of separatist language makes its way into binding legislation, we’re not unifying a country — we’re carving it up.

Now, the counterarguments will come — like clockwork.

“But whakapapa isn’t about DNA, it’s about identity!”

Exactly — which makes it even less suitable for law. Laws require objective definitions. If a concept is based on feelings, spirituality, or self-identification, it has no business determining rights, resources, or recognition under the law.

“But Māori have a special relationship with the land!”

So do farmers. So do homeowners. So do kids growing up barefoot on the beach. Connection to the land is human — not racially assigned.

“But whakapapa is about honouring heritage!”

Great. Do that in schools, on marae, in cultural centres. Celebrate it, protect it — but don’t weaponise it through legislation.

Legislation should be secular, universal, and fact-based. Instead, we're inserting sacred cows and calling them constitutional principles.

Whakapapa, in the context of law, is the legislative equivalent of using a Ouija board in Parliament. It’s vague, exclusionary, and ultimately unprovable. And if it were any other group pushing a racialised, mystical concept into government policy, they’d be laughed out of the room — and rightly so.

But here? We nod solemnly, as if to question it is blasphemy.

Enough. Rip the word out of the books. Rip out its cousins too — the esoteric spiritual language that hides behind culture and creeps into law.

New Zealand deserves a legal framework that treats everyone the same, not one that plays favourites based on ancestry, myth, or political guilt.

Laws are for citizens. - Not spirits. Not gods. Not bloodlines.

Citizens.

■ Make New Zealand Secular

John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.