Steven Gaskell: Emerging Patterns of the Tribal Elite in Political Manipulation

New Zealand prides itself on being a liberal democracy one person, one vote, equal under the law. But a concerning pattern is taking shape in recent years: a growing tendency by elements of the tribal elite and their political allies to challenge the legitimacy of democratic outcomes whenever the results don’t align with their ideological or tribal ambitions.

This isn't a stray incident or emotional overreaction it’s becoming a calculated political strategy.

John Robinson: Jim Crow racism in New Zealand

Here I consider the introduction of racism into New Zealand, the similarities with The Jim Crow laws, which were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, and the influences that brought that era to an end – suggesting probable features of the New Zealand effort to return to equality, above all, the continuation of racism and the consistent effort required to assert equality.

This is the first of a set of three articles.  The second will describe the extent of the forces (which I have labelled the “Treaty Industry”) and the divisive world view that has been created, which must be overcome.  The third will suggest some ways in which the current government can help us, members of the general public, to overcome the belief in indigenous supremacy, and establish an egalitarian world view. 

David Lillis: Respectful Relations between Science and Traditional Knowledge

The following article was submitted to ACCESS: Contemporary Issues in Education (https://pesaagora.com/access-journal/) but was rejected. In declining to publish, the reviewers’ comments were very curious indeed! Readers of Breaking Views might be interested in reading it.  

Science and Traditional Knowledge 

A recent article makes a call for improved debate on science and Māori knowledge (Stewart et al., 2024). The authors suggest that respectful dialogue and greater understandings of the history and philosophy of both science and Māori education are necessary in order to prevent the invalid denigration of Māori knowledge. We agree with the stated need for respectful relations but, in addition, we believe that New Zealand needs a clear consensus on the relative positions of modern science and traditional knowledge within our wider innovation system. However, we will not reach such an agreement as long as traditional knowledge is being pushed politically within education and science.

Barrie Davis: Global Women

An article in the Sunday Star-Times, “Global Women adds Treaty bill to heavy workload” by Dita De Boni, 29 September (here), makes two specious claims which I shall critique. I will first show that Global Women is irrational and second that it is mistaken in its two main claims.

The article introduces Global Women as a group of influential and high powered political and business women representing diversity and inclusion in New Zealand. They had a hui at Waitangi in June of this year and according to the article “they came away from the event more determined than ever to f... shit up”. Let’s take a peek at how they intend to do that.

Wayne Ryburn: The Rising Anarchy in New Zealand's Democracy. The Saga of TV1 News at Six and the BSA.

Part One; The BSA and historical misconceptions. The rise of “Insider History” resulting in a lack of accuracy and balance in New Zealand's History.

It came as no surprise that complaints concerning TV1 News at 6’s news story, regarding the ‘gifting of land’ for Auckland, were dismissed. The composition of the members of the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) would have led to this. Its members were appointed, over the past six years, by the former Labour Minister for Broadcasting, Willy Jackson. The following were appointed: Susie Stacey (2018); Pulotu Tupu (2021); Aroha Beck (2022) and John Gillespie, former head of news and current affairs TVNZ (2021). Jackson, a keen advocate for Labour’s ‘Hepuapua’ co-governance policies, has widely proclaimed that democracy has to evolve to place Māori at the centre of decision-making. Therefore, it is unlikely he would select anyone opposed to these policies to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Barrie Davis: Behaviourism 101

We regularly receive communications from the authorities, universities and the media which seem to be driven by an ideology of either a Maori or a European persuasion. What brings about these communications: why are they created and how are they structured? And what do they achieve and how should we respond? Barrie Davis uses behavioural psychology to help find some answers.

In a recent Breaking Views post, “Dealing with today's small, raucous, crazy Maori fringe,” 21 July 2024 here, Dr Michael Bassett critically commented on the Jack Tame interview of Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, in particular her “assertions about how Maori ‘korero’ and ‘kaupapa’ justified her allegations of ‘genocide’ being perpetrated by a ‘white supremacist’ government against Maori.”

Karl du Fresne: Are there rorts we don't know about?

There has long been a nagging suspicion that taxpayer-supported Maori organisations are not always held to the same standards of accountability as non-Maori ones.

Along with that, there is a suspicion that there exists within Maoridom a mindset which holds that allegations of dodgy practices should be dealt with in the Maori way; that Maori are accountable only to Maori, even when public money is at stake, and outside institutions have no business poking their noses in. Keep it in the family, so to speak.

What’s more, it’s sometimes hard to escape the feeling that government departments and other bureaucratic institutions play along with this in the interests of cultural sensitivity, even if it means turning a blind eye to irregularities.

Karl du Fresne: Leave it to Maori and hope for the best

The recent conviction of a Hawke’s Bay kaitiaki, or “guardian” of customary fisheries, makes a mockery of the word.

Napier District Court heard that authorisations issued by Rangi Spooner under customary fishing regulations covered multiple dates instead of the allowed 48-hour period. A man named Jason Brown obtained 11 such authorisations and was later convicted of illegally selling crayfish for $10 each. A separate hearing was told that Brown caught 1730 crays, supposedly for events at his house. That’s a helluva lot of crayfish.

Chris Trotter: Thoughts on Tariana Turia’s “Whanau Ora” Programme.

Far from being a modern and progressive social programme, Whanau Ora has been, from its very inception, an attempt to present a politically inspired programme for the enrichment of private individuals as a bold reassertion of traditional Maori values and practices. 

Jacinda Ardern is right and wrong about Whanau Ora. She’s right to insist that any programme funded by the state remain accountable (both figuratively and literally) to the state. But she is quite wrong to identify Whanau Ora as a progressive measure worthy of Labour’s support – provided it remain under the supervision of Te Puni Kokiri.

Bryce Edwards: NZ Politics Daily

It’s been a week of debates about economics, ethnicity and inequality. The most interesting story of the week combines all three issues – the controversial decision announced by the Minister of Whanau Ora to shift provision of the funding outside the walls of the state. This has alarmed Chris Trotter who has condemned the whole programme, saying: Nothing Progressive About It: Thoughts on Tariana Turia’s “Whanau Ora” Programme. Similarly, on the right, Muriel Newman says that essentially Whanau Ora is a ‘Maori-only welfare programme’ and the latest change hands the power and funds over to Iwi leaders – see: Institutional racism. Newman also critiques historic and contemporary attempts to introduce Treaty clauses into government legislation.

Mike Butler: A timeline of faulty racial policy

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira’s demand for no-deposit home loans for Maori is the latest strident demand that usually results in some concession from an appeasing government. The call for Maori self-determination may be traced to 1935, when the Communist Party of New Zealand ran in the general election of that year on a platform that included “self-determination for the Maoris [sic] to the point of complete separation.” 

Michael Coote: Submission on the Auckland Unitary Plan

May 2013

Draft Auckland Unitary Plan Feedback from an Auckland Ratepayer and Resident

To whom it may concern,

I write concerning the Draft Auckland Unitary Plan (“D-AUP”) as it relates to policy concerning Maori and Mana Whenua [The people of the land who have mana or customary authority – their historical, cultural and genealogical heritage are attached to the land and sea].

Reuben Chapple: Gross Impudence

“In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. And he that does not know his own history is at the mercy of every lying windbag.” – outgoing Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, in his 1922 farewell address

 New Zealand is increasingly being referred to in the public square as “Aotearoa” or “Aotearoa New Zealand.” This fiction deserves to be mercilessly deconstructed.

Karl du Fresne: Shafted by their own council

So this is what it has come to. The Kapiti Coast District Council, according to today's Dominion Post, has identified 40 "sacred" Maori sites on which owners will not be allowed to subdivide, alter existing buildings, or disturb the land.

As I write this, I'm fervently hoping the citizens of the Kapiti Coast will be laying siege to the council offices and that the mayor, the councillors and the council functionaries (who I suspect are the real villains of the piece, because that's usually the case) will be cowering in terror in a basement panic room.

Karl du Fresne: Sabotage is not too strong a word

During Maori Language Week in July, my wife and I attended a kapa haka concert followed by a hangi at our grandson’s school. It was a charming event in which the whole school performed. We were impressed with the way even the younger classes had memorised the words and actions of the songs.

The kids obviously enjoyed themselves, yet I came away with a nagging feeling of unease. It is not a Maori school; in fact there are relatively few Maori pupils. It serves a suburb with an ethnically diverse population. To have mastered all those songs and actions must have taken a lot of classroom time, and I had to wonder whether there were other things the children might more usefully have been learning.

Steve Baron: United we stand, divided we fall.

As I sat in a café watching two young families from two different races enjoying each other’s company, along with what looked like a 1 year old and a new-born, it made me contemplate. It seemed like only a year or two ago that I was in the same position; yet next week my 1year old turns 25. No doubt, sooner or later, it will be my grandchildren I will be looking at and this makes me consider my future and theirs.

The world has become very complicated. Nothing is simple any longer; each of us, and our many societies’, has baggage. And let’s face it; if there is no baggage then there is no life of any significance. What complicates matters even further is that races have many different cultural practices, cultural heritages, perspectives and traditions. This makes it harder for us all to get along and it is often hard to see eye to eye with each other. It was only today that an elderly person pontificated to me that she could see a civil war in New Zealand. Maybe not in her time she said, but to her, it seemed inevitable as she perceived a growing divide between Maori and European New Zealanders.

Karl du Fresne: State Radio Reports Maori Gods angry at asset sales

Due respect for Maori culture is one thing. Expecting us to swallow wild superstition is quite another – yet I heard a reporter on Morning Report this morning solemnly relaying a Maori warning that recent volcanic activity on White Island and Mt Tongariro was a sign that Ruamoko, the god of earthquakes and volcanoes, was unhappy about the way the government was proceeding with the partial sale of state assets.

This comes only a couple of weeks after the Maori Council’s lawyer, Felix Geiringer, invoked the Maori belief in taniwha at the Waitangi Tribunal hearing on water rights.

Mike Butler: What Maori and non-Maori think about separate seats

What do Maori and non-Maori think about separate seats and whether the Waitangi Tribunal should be abolished? Two polls four weeks ago gave a taste of current thinking – one was a poll on separate representation in Waikato and the other a Colmar Brunton survey.

A poll conducted by the Waikato District Council got a clear message, from 80.06 percent of those who voted, that the district was not ready for separate Maori seats. Of the 12,672 (30.16 per cent) electors who voted, 10,111 were against the idea, while 2517 favoured it. Results were announced on April 5.

Marc Alexander: The case against race-based rights - The Waitangi fish-hook.

To supporters of the ever increasing cash payouts from the treaty of Waitangi grievance industry, it means racial and social justice – a means of compensation for past and present discrimination supposedly borne from colonialism. To critics, it has only perpetuated the problem of discrimination while creating a host of new problems.

Philosophically, to show prejudice in favour of maori (whether in terms of rights to collect shellfish from the foreshore denied other citizens; specifically funded projects for health, education and so on centred on maori-centric world views; or even the statutory requirement to have maori seats on councils, ethics boards etc) contradicts the obvious dictum that you cannot do away with race-based discrimination by policies which promote it.

Karl du Fresne: Maori objections cancel exhibition

There are probably several good reasons why Lower Hutt’s Dowse Art Museum shouldn’t host an exhibition by a Mexican artist in which bubbles, partly made from water previously used to wash dead bodies, are blown from the ceiling into a silent room.

The first and most obvious is that it isn’t art, at least as most people understand the term. The second is that it’s grotesque and ghoulish. But as a believer in freedom of expression, I’m obliged to support the Dowse’s right to stage pointless exhibitions that are likely to appeal only to people wearing black clothing and funny-looking spectacles.