John Robertson: When Bloodlines Run the Country

Look, New Zealand is doing something straight-up weird, and most people feel it but can’t quite name it. We live in a country that calls itself modern and fair, but the truth is, the system treats citizens differently depending on where your ancestors came from. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t vote wrong. You didn’t rob anyone. But if your grandparents arrived on the wrong waka, you get less say. And somehow, everyone pretends this is noble. This is madness.

Turn on the six o’clock news and it’s the same song: colonisation, Treaty this, partnership that, ancestral rights everywhere. Every week, like a broken record. You’ve got bureaucrats talking about “co-governance” and “Treaty principles,” like they’re some kind of holy law, while ordinary people—mum and dad, the bloke down the street—just nod along because everyone’s too scared to say it out loud. And the stuff they’re talking about? Mostly dead people. Most of it happened 200 years ago. Yet we let it decide who gets a real say in 2026. That’s not democracy. That’s backward-ass apartheid with a fancy accent.

Think about it in plain language. Some people get extra political juice just because their bloodline is “special.” Not because they’re smart. Not because they’re decent. Not because they actually contribute. Bloodline. That’s the system. And everyone else? You get to sit there, watch it happen, and pretend it’s fair. It’s like playing Monopoly where someone starts the game with all the hotels and tells you it’s moral because their great-grandfather landed first.

People defending this will say it’s “historical correction.” Bullsh*t. History doesn’t have an off switch. There is no expiry date for past wrongs. If we base politics on ancestral grievance, the argument never ends. Someone will always find another reason to claim extra privileges, another settlement, another grievance. You can’t fix it. You can’t close the book. You’re stuck playing referee in a family fight that no one alive actually started. And somehow, everyone acts like this is sophisticated.

Here’s another thing most people get immediately: ancestry as authority is nonsense. Humans move, mix, intermarry, conquer, flee, adapt—always have. You trace anyone’s lineage far enough, and it’s a big pile of crossover, chaos, and migration. Nobody gets to say, “I alone get moral high ground because my people were here first.” That’s ridiculous. If political power flowed from arrival dates, we’d have to redraw the country every five minutes. But New Zealand treats one point in history like it’s a sacred code, untouchable, forever decisive. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens—mixed race, immigrant, kiwi born—get shuffled around like pawns.

And what does this look like in practice? Boards split by ancestry, local councils with reserved seats, government agencies legally required to consult some people before others. A Māori person might get priority access to water rights or resource discussions simply because of lineage. A Pākehā, Asian, or Pacific Islander citizen? Sorry mate, you wait your turn. It’s subtle, polite, and bureaucratic, but it’s apartheid dressed in a suit.

Let’s be honest: culture doesn’t need political privilege to survive. Language, tradition, music, stories—these live in communities, homes, hearts. Nobody needs co-governance to chant a waiata or cook a hangi. But the state treats culture as a political weapon, and that’s where the rot sets in. Culture is supposed to be lived, not legislated. When the law turns culture into a tool for unequal power, it’s no longer tradition. It’s a cage.

So what’s the alternative? The answer is boring in theory, but revolutionary in this country: one legal status. One vote. One law. Rights for people alive today, not ghosts from 200 years ago. History taught honestly, without hero worship or selective outrage. Settlements that end instead of regenerating indefinitely. A society where ordinary people can actually feel the rules are fair without checking someone’s whakapapa before agreeing.

You want examples you can feel? Imagine a kid in Auckland, born here, mixed Māori and Pākehā. She grows up being told some people have special privileges because of ancestry. She sees the boards, the councils, the co-governance arrangements. She hears the “principles.” She notices she isn’t equal. That’s not history teaching. That’s social engineering. That’s telling a living person that their bloodline determines their worth. And no amount of fancy language changes the fact it’s wrong.

The country can keep tiptoeing around the past, pretending this is a temporary fix. But avoidance is lying to yourself. This system entrenches division. It tells ordinary people that fairness is negotiable. That equality is optional. And it’s building resentment, confusion, and cynicism faster than any politician admits.

Here’s the truth nobody says loud enough: New Zealand has to choose. Either the living are equal under the law, or we continue letting dead people run the show. There’s no middle ground. And the longer we wait, the angrier the population becomes. Because people aren’t stupid—they just know fairness when they see it. And right now, most New Zealanders can feel they’re being played, and it pisses them off.

The clock is ticking. History isn’t coming back to argue. The ghosts have already done their talking. Now it’s the living who have to take control. And the sooner we stop pretending that lineage equals authority, the sooner the country can breathe. Otherwise, we keep running in circles, fighting battles that ended centuries ago, while the people alive today get sidelined for no reason other than their DNA.

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