Yes, there’s a couple of Pacific Island items to leaven the heavy Maori diet, but there’s little planned to showcase the cultures of Auckland’s principal residents. These days, Asians outnumber Maori in Auckland by more than two to one, and Pakeha by five to one. There’s scant recognition of these facts from the programme except for a couple of concerts by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. The growing significance of talented Kiwi-born Asian classical musicians seems to have passed the organisers of Te Ahurei Toi Tamaki by.
I looked to see who was funding the festival. Amongst a long list of the great, the good and the generous, not a Maori name in sight. No iwi, despite their substantial income streams these days. Instead, Auckland Council, Creative NZ, Foundation North and the Australian Government feature in the list of funders, along with a few commercial groups that stand to benefit financially from attendance at events.
This set me thinking about why Maori themselves demonstrate so little support of their own cultural events. Then I remembered that they take only a small interest in the education of their young. Otherwise, Maori wouldn’t be the biggest group of low school attendees, and spectacularly the worst at getting their children vaccinated. Parental failings among Maori are legendary, and the costs of Maori crime in the courts and prisons exceed those of other cultures combined.
Somewhere, somehow, governments and people of goodwill have managed to create all the wrong incentives for Maori to succeed in modern day New Zealand. Don’t blame colonisation. There are simpler reasons. It has become all too easy for people to flop on to welfare and to laze away the hours. As Lindsay Mitchell has shown, the welfare rolls keep ticking up, even under a centre-right government. More than a third of the Maori babies born in 2024 were born onto a benefit. Ministers have become notoriously unwilling to lean heavily on parents who fail the children they often fecklessly bring into this world. Jacinda’s “Be Kind” message is having disastrous consequences. Many of the welfare benefits that Maori take up are intended to enable their children to thrive. But there are not enough sticks or carrots to ensure parents act accordingly. And despite the big settlements achieved by many iwi, they seem to put little into education, or ensuring that Maori kids abide by the law. Life wasn’t meant to be a self-indulgent free ride for anyone, and yet things like the coming Arts Festival seem to encourage the notion that all that Maori have to do is lie back and others will tell them that they are the greatest.
Why do the great, the good and the generous part with their money so easily? Surely if one is invited to contribute towards an arts festival, one would assume that the festival celebrated everyone’s culture, and not relegate those of the major groups of the population to obscurity?
Asking these questions, fastens the spotlight on the woke who for several years now seem to have been entrusted with putting the Auckland Arts Festival together. The programme for next year lists a collection of administrative figures, all with fancy Maori titles like Kaiwhakahaere Matua, Pou Tikanga, Kaihapai Hotaka etc. They claim to be engaged in “mahi towards better accessibility and education opportunities for our audiences.” “Human connection and manaakitanga will always be at the heart of what we stand for”. Then, brazenly, they add: “We truly believe that the festival has something for everyone”.
Codswallop!
It’s high time someone in authority – probably Auckland Council should be the one – ran a slide rule over the dispersal of public and private money on the scale involved with this upcoming festival. A good place to start would be a careful monitoring of the numbers attending this bogus Auckland Festival and some robust analysis afterwards.
Historian Dr Michael Bassett, a Minister in the Fourth Labour Government. This article was first published HERE
I looked to see who was funding the festival. Amongst a long list of the great, the good and the generous, not a Maori name in sight. No iwi, despite their substantial income streams these days. Instead, Auckland Council, Creative NZ, Foundation North and the Australian Government feature in the list of funders, along with a few commercial groups that stand to benefit financially from attendance at events.
This set me thinking about why Maori themselves demonstrate so little support of their own cultural events. Then I remembered that they take only a small interest in the education of their young. Otherwise, Maori wouldn’t be the biggest group of low school attendees, and spectacularly the worst at getting their children vaccinated. Parental failings among Maori are legendary, and the costs of Maori crime in the courts and prisons exceed those of other cultures combined.
Somewhere, somehow, governments and people of goodwill have managed to create all the wrong incentives for Maori to succeed in modern day New Zealand. Don’t blame colonisation. There are simpler reasons. It has become all too easy for people to flop on to welfare and to laze away the hours. As Lindsay Mitchell has shown, the welfare rolls keep ticking up, even under a centre-right government. More than a third of the Maori babies born in 2024 were born onto a benefit. Ministers have become notoriously unwilling to lean heavily on parents who fail the children they often fecklessly bring into this world. Jacinda’s “Be Kind” message is having disastrous consequences. Many of the welfare benefits that Maori take up are intended to enable their children to thrive. But there are not enough sticks or carrots to ensure parents act accordingly. And despite the big settlements achieved by many iwi, they seem to put little into education, or ensuring that Maori kids abide by the law. Life wasn’t meant to be a self-indulgent free ride for anyone, and yet things like the coming Arts Festival seem to encourage the notion that all that Maori have to do is lie back and others will tell them that they are the greatest.
Why do the great, the good and the generous part with their money so easily? Surely if one is invited to contribute towards an arts festival, one would assume that the festival celebrated everyone’s culture, and not relegate those of the major groups of the population to obscurity?
Asking these questions, fastens the spotlight on the woke who for several years now seem to have been entrusted with putting the Auckland Arts Festival together. The programme for next year lists a collection of administrative figures, all with fancy Maori titles like Kaiwhakahaere Matua, Pou Tikanga, Kaihapai Hotaka etc. They claim to be engaged in “mahi towards better accessibility and education opportunities for our audiences.” “Human connection and manaakitanga will always be at the heart of what we stand for”. Then, brazenly, they add: “We truly believe that the festival has something for everyone”.
Codswallop!
It’s high time someone in authority – probably Auckland Council should be the one – ran a slide rule over the dispersal of public and private money on the scale involved with this upcoming festival. A good place to start would be a careful monitoring of the numbers attending this bogus Auckland Festival and some robust analysis afterwards.
Historian Dr Michael Bassett, a Minister in the Fourth Labour Government. This article was first published HERE
25 comments:
Clear example of an ethnocracy - the event promoting a minority funded by the majority . Welcome to tribal rule. Auckland Council is a disgrace.
When I started reading thia article, I thought I'm wasting my time with more Kiwi distracting racist Maori clap trap, and i was right...
Although, I noticed Michael mentions the Australian government is funding Maori mumbo jumbo.
Its almost as if the Australian Government is clandestinely supporting Aussie big businesses stealing billions from Kiwis via iillegal price collusion, whilst successfully distracting us with racist clap trap.
Split Enz sang history doesn't repeat but...
Luxons government is following the path of the quality of life destroying UK crooks who enraged the UK population with racist clap trap to convince them to vote to give those same crooks the ability to steal voters' wealth and quality of life, otherwise known as brexit.
The clever UK citizens who saw what was happening packed up and left.
The same is happening in NZ today.
Well done Mr Luxon, your current political legacy is purposefully overseeing the export of Kiwi wealth, and clever Kiwis, to Australia.
And the rot is spreading, Chris Bishop has just.been caught redirecting vital infrastructure funding to a walk / cycle bridge in his electorate.
Human connection and manaakitanga serve to expand and cement the maori insurgency network. It is incredible that so much public money is invested in sponsoring revolution. Other ethnicities suffer the tedious distraction of serious attention to the workforce and to property ownership and lack the state supportred Insurgency Coordination Centres (marae) at which to refine revolutionary technique.
Note to anon@5.18am Maori ARE racist. Stupid wokesters fal for the Maori grift everytime. Those of us who have spent our lives living amongst Maori come to Breaking Views to have their experiences confirmed. It is not racist to point out where public money goes in NZ. Of course Kiwis are leaving and the racist preoccupations of our idiot administrators need to be exposed. Our moronic news media don't do it.As a boomer who left NZ and always regretted coming back to raise my family all I can say is History does repeat . Anon you need to read the history of this country to understand that Maori have always robbed non Maori.
Correction anon. SOME Maoris are racist just like SOME politicians are corrupt!
You're part right, expressing a BALANCED view on the dispersion of public money is a necessary part of democracy.
So why haven't you, Bassett, or the Australian government funding the Maori Mumbo Jumbo, discussed the $0.5b budgeted for Maori social issues this year versus the $8b excess profit stolen off Kiwis and taken bak to Australia by corrupt Aussie banks?
Doh!
How long is the anonymous idiot's trolling (5.18am and 9.58am, clearly the same person) going to be tolerated? 5.18am? Really?? Are there such things as troll 'bots'?
100% 5.18 Anon. Fantastic programme representing all of us, the best of us. So much good happening in the Arts community here is Aotearoa New Zealand. Kia kaha!
We do seem to be being subjected to a troll attack. However, we don't want to give them an excuse to cry 'censorship' so we have to let this kind of thing through. Ignore them and they'll go away.......
When I started reading Anon@5.18, I immediately thought here we go again, and I was right!
As the character Jackson Lamb said on Slow Horses (referencing the Joker in 'The Dark Knight') I wanna stick a pencil in my eye and head-butt the table. We know what you think and it's getting more than a little tedious. So please give it a rest, unless you've have something new to say.
To Hugh Jorgan, the troll is targetting several columnists with rehashes of the same theme or messages and trying to get a bite and he/it/she has succeeded in doing so. I suspect it is the same person who refers to white NZers as Cookers as in Capt Cook, though the person is probably part-Cooker too. The person must have a lot of time to spend on it. Most of us, I guess, have a brief scan of columns on BV and have work to do and lives as well. Those who spend hours on sites must be retired or on a benefit. I give some sites of totally opposing views, like Ngamotu Advocate in NP, a quick look too (angry site, very race war) if time. What they say or I say etc isn't going to change anyone's views if they are polarised as they are more and more today. Working as I have done in a mental ward since early 2022 is quite grounding.
The 83% should boycott this event.
The article seems a little off. This fella says “This set me thinking about why Maori themselves demonstrate so little support of their own cultural events” - I’m sorry what? Tell me you don’t attend music and arts outside your own bubble without telling me you don’t attend music and arts outside your own bubble. Has the author ever attended a Kapa Haka festival? An Alien Weaponry gig? Trolls on this website indeed!
Mr Moderator, I believe 'ignoring' will only encourage more to join the troll attacks - The Media is not shy to use 'censorship' against those that do not align with their ideology. - I say let the b****ds peddle their BS agenda on their own forums.
Yeah who is this Robert Arthur troll!? The “maori insurgency network”?!
Look, this “maori insurgency network” rubbish is just that: rubbish. Māori standing up for their rights, their land, and their language is not an insurgency. It's been happening for well over a century, from peaceful marches, land occupations like Bastion Point, to protests and petitions. These people aren’t terrorists or troublemakers; they’re fighting for what's rightfully theirs under the Treaty of Waitangi and basic human fairness.
Calling it an insurgency? If Robert isn’t a troll then he’s just fearmongering as someone scared of change. The real problem is ongoing injustice and the refusal by some to acknowledge Maori rights. So drop the conspiracy theories, open your ears, and actually listen for once. Otherwise, you’re just spouting racist garbage that belongs nowhere in this country.
But Geoff if we do that then we’re just as bad as the other side. Expose their arguments and let the world see how flawed they are vs how well organised and reasoned we are. It’s a no-brainer! Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Agree with Anon 841. I will apply the same rules to trolls as to all other submissions: pure personal vitriol will be deleted but if there is any substance to the case put, it will go through.
Sorry Annie, we are actually in a war for our country, and woke pro-maori leftist 'plants' like yourself should be removed from these forums.
Hi Mod.
pure personal vitriol will be deleted...Followed by
"woke pro-maori leftist 'plants"
And
"cretinous b*****ds like Annie"
It wasn't that long ago BV good standard of discourse WITHOUT THE PERSONAL ABUSE.
Whatever I do there will be those who say I do too much and those who say I do too little.
I don't see anything particularly 'personal' about "woke pro-maori leftist 'plants'." I would agree that 'cretinous bastard' is a wee bit over the top even in the context of an exchange in which temperatures are tangible rising so I have deleted it. Mind you, I am not highly sympathetic to complaints from people who write anonymously. It could be argued that there is no such thing as 'personal abuse' where there is no 'person' in sight.
I agree but please stay vigilant, I'd hate BV to become just another declining and defunct kiwiblog, succumbing to unintelligent, bigoted, and partisan virtriol!
I wonder what the tedious one theme troll makes of Michael Laws on The Platform on matters maori. I suspect Laws regards 'lady" Moxam as very much part of an insurgency movement
Education is for me what is seriously deficient for Maori .
They need the content , discipline and methods of traditional education which we used to have . With that Maori achieved much better than they do now. When they attended school in the past , they achieved well compared with the grievous dominant Whole Language method which actually puts up barriers to children learning to read. Why go to school when failure is assured ?.
It suits Critical Race Theory to have Maori underachieving because then they can cry colonisation and racism. Marxism cares not one iota for Maori . It is obsessed , alone with the promotion of its ideology -anti traditionalism.
Progressive- Marxist Education has always had a callous disregard for the underachiever and we have ended up consequently with an education system that has selectively discriminated against Maori as well as other lower socio-economic groups I repeat what they need most is explicit and disciplined instruction.
Proogressivism,, introduced by Fraser and Beeby the brain child of a militant atheist with its main desire to destroy Western Culture has had a malevolent intent and has triumphed in producing a great semi -literate underclass. which include Maori .
So that's our iniquitous education system then combined with Maori self-destruction in being solo parents and licentiousness with the break down of traditional values which progressives aided.
It is a combination of these two factors which has produced what we we have now.
Chanting and flinging pois around is culture but not education which helps in earning your bread and butter and a decent independent lifestyle. Of course there are always misguided philanthropists with funds for penance which reduces ' White' guilt Marxism specialises in cultivating. How about setting up homework centers for underachieving children instead and writing courses for those who have never been taught how to write a sentence .
Boy ! Has this article generated heat. And rightly so. Auckland Arts Festival is now not worth attending... and I am deeeeep in the Arts. Funders and Council are so weak and blind. These events are a waste of time and money.
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