Professor John Raine: Ancestry-Defined Enthnostate or a Working Democracy

The Treaty of Waitangi should be a unifying document but instead it seems to consign New Zealand society to a future of categorisation and determination of rights by race. Look no further than countries such as Malaysia, India or Iran to see how damaging this is to societal harmony. Can we avoid a further drift towards becoming an ethnostate?

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.

Dr Michael Bassett: Maori Party madness

After the mass Maori Party madness over David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill comes more extreme Maori make-believe. Some are now calling the 83% of New Zealanders who aren’t Maori, “guests” or “visitors” to the country where they are citizens. Many of long standing. According to some radicals, the 83% are “manuhiri”, a word traditionally used on marae to describe someone visiting from another tribe. So puffed up are they by their recent hikoi, that several Maori leaders have taken to treating every non Maori as a foreigner to the country that an overwhelming majority of us were born in.

Roger Childs: Te Pati Māori fears the Treaty Principles Bill

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. –Article 1, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights

Small but noisy

As the Hikoi grinds its way on to Parliament, the Maori Party claims that it has a key leadership role. But this is a group with a single focus: to speak with a strong, independent and united voice for Maori. They are just a small party with a loud voice having garnered only 3.08% of the popular vote in last year’s election. However, they have six seats in the House of Representatives courtesy of the undemocratic special Maori seats.

Rodney Hide: Blood Quantum

ACT Leader David Seymour posts on X:

“Today in Parliament, Rawiri Waititi referred to a Government MP's 'blood quantum'. That's the dangerous and divisive idea that how much ‘Māori blood’ a person has in their body should matter.

If any other political party behaved in this way, they would lead the 6pm news.”

Suze: Are We There Yet?

Toward complete Maori and non-Maori separation

The pursuit of a race-based society is repeatedly thrust up my nose. It’s offensive, unnecessary and impossible to justify, but a little historical reflection provides hope.

Racial inequality can’t last because it doesn’t actually work. Arbitrarily drawing a line between races to assign superiority and inferiority didn’t work for Hitler who failed to exterminate a race he considered inferior. Eventually, Judaism became celebrated but unfortunately not everywhere. A few Arab countries remain openly hostile having no Jewish citizens.