Geoff Parker: One Law For All Is Not An Attack On Maori

A response to Sir Douglas Graham

Sir Douglas Graham warns that ACT’s “one law for all” agenda is foolish and likely to provoke protest.

But there is a rather revealing assumption behind his argument: that seeking equality before the law is somehow an attack on Māori.

It isn't.

The real question is whether New Zealand should continue developing a legal and political framework in which some rights, powers and forms of political participation depend on ancestry — or whether citizenship should ultimately mean equal rights and responsibilities under one law.

Guest Post: Socialism Within NZ Politics

A guest post on No Minister by Kerry Butler

We are facing a very frightening scenario, whereby the four likely Partners in a Labour led coalition are all of a Socialist persuasion.

Firstly, take a look at Labour’s present leader, Chris Hipkins, who knows no other way than to follow in the footsteps of Comrade Jacinda.

Geoff Parker: Were Māori A Sovereign Nation Before The Treaty?

The claim that Māori had already established a sovereign nation before the Treaty of Waitangi sounds straightforward enough. But the answer depends on what is meant by “sovereign” and “nation” and, most importantly, whether Māori — the people with whom the Treaty was signed — were politically united under any common authority.

There is no doubt that Māori exercised authority before 1840. Chiefs, hapū and iwi controlled their own people and territories, and the British Government recognised that reality.

Graham Adams: India’s view of ‘indigenous’ rattles Māori advisers

A month before 2023’s election, Winston Peters ignited a brush fire in the media after he told a campaign meeting in Nelson that Māori were not indigenous to New Zealand.

His reasoning was simple: “We come from Hawai-iki. Where's our Hawai-iki? We think it is in the Cook Islands. We think it’s in Rarotonga... but we’re not from here.”

He noted that his tribe Ngāti Wai “came to Aotearoa about 900 years ago or longer”.

Andy Oakley: Kapiti Mayor Exposes Her Racist Agenda

Unelected Māori infiltrate Council

Well, today we have a real humdinger to discuss. In a July 6 article in Kapiti News by Ashleigh Collis, Kapiti Mayor Janet Holborow made what amounts to a public confession that she is a Marxist, or rather, she’s in charge, and she’s against democratic accountability.

Insights From Social Media: It Must Be So Embarrassing Being Different

NOTE: The following article was published in June 1995, newspaper unknown.

I am glad I am not a Maori. It must be awful being a Maori. So embarrassing.

Fancy knowing that you are so dumb you need extra resources for your education, that you are not capable of becoming a nurse without special help such as being allowed to sit your tests again and again till you pass, that you need a special quota system to give you a chance of becoming a doctor or a teacher or a policeman, that you are very good at “cultural” things such as singing and dancing and flax-weaving, but absolutely hopeless at practical things and useless at business!

Andy Oakley: For Social Cohesion, Should We Scrap the Terms Pākehā and Māori in New Zealand?

In today’s opinion piece, the question is a big one: Should New Zealand ban the words Māori and Pākehā?

Not just discourage them — I mean remove them from legislation, from government documents, from schools, and from official use entirely. For the sake of actual social cohesion, these two words have become more harmful than helpful.

Guest Post: It’s Called Setting Yourself Up

A guest post on NOMINISTER by William Chambers.

The Conservation Minister, Tama Potaka, has said he is removing certain DoC land from the stewardship category to allow for future sale or exchange.

A majority of respondents during last year’s consultation opposed this. But Patoka confirmed that he is going ahead with it anyway.

John McLean: UNDRIP On The Sly

National, Labour & ACT are sneaking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into New Zealand law

The signed Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and India will come into force in New Zealand when approved by New Zealand’s Parliament. The National, Labour and ACT political parties have each committed themselves to voting in favour of legislation adopting the FTA. It’s therefore virtually certain that Parliament will entrench the FTA in New Zealand’s indigenous law before the next general election scheduled for 7 November 2026.

Guy C Charlton, Tim Fadgen: A landmark US court ruling on birthright citizenship is coming. What does NZ law say?

The US Supreme Court is poised to deliver its much anticipated and debated decision on the question of birthright citizenship.

At the centre of the case (known as Trump v. Barbara) is an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day of office in 2025, barring citizenship for children born to parents illegally in the United States or on long-term visas.

Peter Williams: The FNDC debacle – Why democracy matters

The Local Government Act must be changed

Democracy, as Sir Winston Churchill once said in the House of Commons (quoting an unknown parliamentary predecessor) is the worst form of government, apart from all those other forms which have been tried from time to time.

Democracy, from the Greek words demos, meaning people, and kratos (rule, power or strength) in its purist form is government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Thousands of organisations, from the smallest membership based incorporated societies to local authorities and central government vote for the people they wish to govern them.

Colinxy: Did Māori Invent Trench Warfare?

A popular claim, one promoted most prominently by Professor James Belich, whom John Campbell once introduced as “Our National Treasure”, is that Māori not only invented trench warfare but that their innovations directly influenced British military doctrine in the First World War. Belich’s early work goes further than celebrating Māori ingenuity: it explicitly implies a causal line from nineteenth‑century pā fortifications to the trench systems of the Western Front.

It’s a striking narrative. It is also historically indefensible.

Professor Jerry Coyne: More touting of indigenous knowledge as coequal with modern science

Once again we have an article about how science could be improved if only it incorporated indigenous “ways of knowing”—the “braiding of knowledge” referred to in the Guardian article below (click to read). I often see another metaphor used to express the same thing: “two-eyed seeing”, with one eye seeing the way indigenous people do, and the other way modern science does. (I won’t use the term “Western science,” often used to denigrate it.) The implication is that modern science is half blind without indigenous knowledge.

Lindsay Mitchell: 'Brown Optimism'

I visited the new Wellington Library today unprepared for the towering inscription, rising through almost three stories, which has been installed on the west face.

Colinxy: Popping the “Māori Are Oppressed by Colonisation” Bubble

For decades, the political class and its media courtiers have repeated a single, soothing explanation for every negative statistic involving Māori: colonisation did it. No matter the indicator—prison rates, unemployment, income, health, education—the answer is always the same. History is the culprit, the Treaty is the solution, and the taxpayer is the ATM.

It’s a tidy story. It’s also wrong.

Geoff Parker: The Politicisation of Indigeneity and the Mythologising of New Zealand’s Past

In modern New Zealand politics, few concepts have been stretched, reshaped, and weaponised as dramatically as “indigeneity.” What was once a descriptive anthropological term has evolved into a powerful political label, invoked to justify constitutional preferences, resource allocations, and competing visions of national identity. But as the term has gathered political force, it has drifted further from the actual historical record — and further still from the material realities of when human beings first reached these islands.

David Farrar: 27,000 fewer Maori are victims of violent crime

The NZ Crime and Victims’ Survey has released its latest data to August 2025, and it is staggering how much violent crime has dropped. When you declare war on the gangs, instead of funding them, the results can be amazing.

Insights From Social Media: Maori - An entire money driven industry

Stuart Bennett Clarke writes > The debate surrounding the endless demands and complaints of so-called Maori are all utterly Fallacious and pointless…

These people do not exist. It's a giant con job and a scam.

Maori is merely a name for an outlook and a lifestyle ONLY. ALL other political considerations are a preposterous farce.

Pee Kay: It might not be about ownership of the water today… but it will be TOMORROW!!!

An article in the Herald headed “Māori group takes freshwater rights fight to court in landmark case against Crown” caught my eye last week .

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/maori-group-take-freshwater-rights-fight-to-court-in-landmark-case-against-crown/

“In a landmark case, a group representing Māori landowners and hapū across the country is fighting the Government in court over freshwater rights.”

Insights From Social Media: To All Who Believe there exists “Maori”.

Gravedodger writes > Some time somewhere some place it will be revealed there is no such entity as “Maori”.

The term will revert to its historic nomenclature for the native Peoples who had arrived in New Zealand some years earlier than the Europeans who settled and tried to bring civilisation to the disparate Native groupings who spent almost their entire energy on enslaving eating and bringing to submission any other tribal grouping they encountered until February 1840.