Bob Edlin: Columnist is critical of Luxon’s leadership......

Columnist is critical of Luxon’s leadership – and that’s without examining policies which approve separate funds for Maori science

Janet Wilson, writing in The Post, muses on why New Zealand’s major parties seem hellbent on making themselves as irrelevant as possible to the voters they serve.

For different reasons, both National and Labour have unshackled themselves from their identities and what they stand for, she contends.

Cam Slater chats to Muriel Newman on Reality Check Radio about various political issues

In this interview, Former Act MP and head of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research Muriel Newman joins Cam to discuss the rise of polarisation, separatism and overt racism in New Zealand politics, plus the state of play in the polls.

Click image to listen

Point of Order: Ardern is right – Peters is politicking

But it’s rollicking politicking as he denounces co-governance and separatism

Returning from the political wilderness, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters delivered what some commentators described as a “withering attack” on the government. He said the Labour Party was pursuing “woke, virtue-signalling madness” and a “separatist agenda”.

The government, furthermore, was scattering the “seeds of apartheid” through New Zealand’s laws and institutions.

Ross Meurant: To Hold A Pen Is To Be At War

Along with other former Members of Parliament including Hon Michael Bassett, Dr Don Brash, Dr Muriel Newman, Hon John Banks, Graeme Reeves, Hon Richard Prebble to name some, I have taken the up the cudgel by pen, to fight against the blatant racist policies of this Labour government.  My days of a sword in hand as a police enforcer are past as it is between tending the roses that I pick up my feathered quill.

But as Voltaire once said: “To hold a pen is to be at war”.

In my view, and as other commentators including left leaning Chris Trotter (1) also now begin to suggest, an emerging outcome of Labour’s racially divisive policies will result in violence on a different scale to 1981 Springbok protests.

Visible protest in the streets, can be handled. (2) The danger is, if the perpetrators of violence, go “invisible” i.e., “underground”. 

Denis Hall: This is serious stuff - but may seem a bit weird! Christopher Luxon?

I can’t say I’m feeling sorry for him - but I am very concerned.

We can’t say he’s dead at the wheel - - because he doesn’t even seem to have made it into the vehicle yet. He hasn’t inspired me even slightly - and me - like the rest of the Nation’s people - are desperately looking for a new leader for what is left of the actual Nation - not to even mention the National Party itself.

Maybe National needs to do the big switcharoo - and swap him for Nicola Willis - or look deeper into the membership for leadership material.

We need a leader who will be strong - and whose strength is obvious - and ready for trouble - and able to deal with it - and he will need charisma - and the drawing power to lift the Nation out of the deepest and most corrupt and dangerous hole it has EVER been in.

Point of Order: The co-governance debate – why Singapore would eschew such a model (and look how well the people of that nation are doing)

Peter Dunne, who was leader of United Future and served as a minister in former National and Labour governments, is right to remind us that “co-governance” is not a new idea, It has been at the heart of many of the successful treaty settlements of the past 30 years, he points out in an article posted on Newsroom.

“In the specific instances where it has been applied, it has generally worked well.”

A recent Stuff headline echoed this: How co-governance is already working

The accompanying article began:

Garrick Tremain: Ardern's Parliament

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the power-base in Parliament! 

Bruce Moon: An Open Letter to Professor Jacinta Ruru and her friends

Well, our Jacinta Ruru has certainly done quite nicely for herself: a professorship in law, an award in the New Year Honours and a nice little article, with a photograph, in “Waatea News” for 1st January 2022.[1]

So there she is, “from Raukawa, Ngāti Ranginui, and Ngāti Manapoto [sic]”. Yet her photograph shows that she unequivocally has significant European heritage. Indeed one might reasonably assume that it is her dominant ancestry but it is not even mentioned in her stated lineage. Strange, given that a simple DNA test could reveal a raft of interesting ancestral information. So why does she see herself as only a part person? Does she, perhaps, mention only her Maori ancestry because she sees some advantage in that??

Bob Edlin: Oh dear – ECan to spare Ngai Tahu the bother of winning votes at the ballot box

Oh dear – ECan has dug up a bad Bill (that was buried in 2019) to spare Ngai Tahu the bother of winning votes at the ballot box.

Legislation to entrench Ngai Tahu representatives on Environment Canterbury – these would be  guaranteed appointments, to spare them the bother of pitching for popular support – failed to pass its first reading in Parliament in 2019.

On that occasion,  New Zealand First’s Shane Jones featured in scuttling a bill which would have entitled Ngai Tahu to appoint two representatives to sit with elected councillors after the local elections later that year.

It seemed that was the end of a bad Bill – but hey:  a few weeks ago the regional council announced it was again promoting a Bill that will provide “for mana whenua representation around the Council table”, by empowering Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to appoint up to two members of the Council. This will be in addition to the elected members.

Effi Lincoln: Gout and the Treaty-driven misrepresentation of health equity statistics.

“Research is political, and we must ask the question “who will benefit from the research?” [Irahapeti Ramsden.  Cultural Safety and Nursing Education in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu – 2002]

Yes. We must ask…

So what is gout?

Gout is a painful and debilitating condition.

It runs in my family.  Doctors frequently treated it poorly.

I recall an elderly relative turning his gnarled, tophaceous hands in bemused horror at what they had become; another, stricken with gout, wincing silently as she chopped the onions.

Crying.

Their experience is a microcosm of the suffering many New Zealanders endure with gout.

It is an important condition that deserves wide recognition and continued efforts to manage using best practice.

Don Brash: The Future of New Zealand is at Stake

In January 2004, I addressed the Orewa Rotary Club by asking:

What sort of nation do we want to build?

Is it to be a modern democratic society, embodying the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state?

Or is it the racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship, that the present Labour Government is moving us steadily towards?

But the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi was expressed simply by then Lt-Gov. Hobson in February 1840.  In his halting Maori, he said to each chief as he signed: He iwi tahi tatou.   We are one people.

Over the last 20 years, the Treaty has been wrenched out of its 1840s context and become the plaything of those who would divide New Zealanders from one another, not unite us.

In parallel with the Treaty process and the associated grievance industry, there has been a divisive trend to embody racial distinctions into large parts of our legislation, extending recently to local body politics.  In both education and healthcare, government funding is now influenced not just by need – as it should be – but also by the ethnicity of the recipient. 

Since that time, most of the evidence suggests that the country has chosen to move further towards a racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship. 

Derek Mackie: Has apathy become New Zealand's new national sport

The last few months have been some of the most radical and disturbing in NZ politics. In fact, I can’t recall any period that can rival this for extremism and racial division, all done in the patronising and perverse name of kindness and racial healing.

 Firstly, the mad, crazy rush to enact the Maori Wards legislation. Supposedly done to ensure Maori have their fair say at local government level...when the actual statistics show that Maori are already perfectly represented on councils and over-represented at national level.

 Secondly, the Climate Change Commission's draft recommendations, no doubt very soon to become actual government policy. A raft of woke, left-wing ideas to take more control of people’s lives and restrict freedom of choice, when we already have a sensible mechanism to control our emissions that allows flexibility and efficiencies in how the economy responds. 

Karl du Fresne: We're all in the same waka

One thing that struck me about the background profiles published about Dame Cindy Kiro this week was that while listing her tribal affiliations, they also mentioned that her father came from the north of England.

It was only an incidental point, but it stood out because prominent Maori often don’t acknowledge their Pakeha antecedents.

It has become the norm for people of part-Maori descent to recite iwi connections, but without any reference to their European lineage. That inconvenient part of their ancestry is routinely erased.

I say “inconvenient” because I suspect it suits many part-Maori activists not to acknowledge their bicultural heritage, the reason being that their bloodlines demonstrate that New Zealand is a highly integrated society. This conflicts with their aim of portraying us as intrinsically and irreparably divided, with one side exerting dominance over the other.

Karl du Fresne: Maori wards - what councillors who vote 'no' can expect

 

“Tears, anger and heartache followed tangata whenua out of the room as an historic opportunity became, in the eyes of some, cynical sidelining.”

That was the opening sentence on Stuff’s report of last week’s meeting at which Manawatu district councillors voted 6-4 against the creation of Maori wards.

Stuff reported that the council voted to defer a decision until 2024, “amid accusations [that] aspirations of re-election were put ahead of their convictions”.

Karl du Fresne: The He Puapua affair makes Labour look shifty

The cat is well and truly out of the bag over the hitherto secret report He Puapua – no thanks to the media, which seemed to be in no hurry to dig into it when ACT began asking awkward questions in Parliament last month (see the comment posted yesterday by Trev1 under Joyous hugs and kisses as democracy takes another hit). Even now, some in the press gallery are playing things down with a “nothing to see here, folks” line.

If He Puapua (translation: “a break”) were to be adopted as policy by the government that commissioned it, the creation of Maori council wards and provision of council seats for unelected iwi representatives would be just the first step in a revolution that would entrench racial separatism over broad areas of our constitutional arrangements and methods of governance. Needless to say, this is potential political dynamite.

NZCPR Weekly: The Tide is Turning

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter, we examine the Government’s separatist health reforms and expose the deceit that underpins the He Puapua roadmap for the tribal control of New Zealand, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Mike Butler shares his critical analysis of the radical plan for a Maori sovereignty takeover, and our poll asks whether you agree with the Labour Government’s proposal for a separatist Maori Health Authority.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Derek Mackie: Have National found their mojo?

In the words of Austin Powers - Yeah, baby! 

I watched Judith Collins' speech to the National Party Northern Convention with uncontained surprise and welcome relief. I was beginning to think our champion of traditional Kiwi values had developed agoraphobia or been infected by the woke virus, for which there is currently no cure. 

 Finally, it appears our main opposition party has drifted out of the doldrums and set course to join ACT in challenging Labour’s separatist agenda. There will doubtless be many mainstream media (MSM) storms along the way but, with a determined captain and crew, there is now a good chance that New Zealand will not have to endure another term of left-wing, socialist division, brainwashing and propaganda. 

 Collins has finally brought Labour’s He Puapua report officially into the public sphere. It’s been doing its best to hide in Nanaia Mahuta’s bottom drawer at the Beehive, covered by the unabridged version of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales and the self-help volume “Let’s get Spiritual!”. Meanwhile, Jacinda has been enacting snippets of it which are rushed through parliament under urgency. There’s now a real possibility that the public can be properly informed of what’s in store for them if they continue to elect Labour-Green governments. 

Andrew Dickens: Are Maori breaking the Treaty?

So the Waitangi Tribunal called on the Government to step back from intruding into Māori communities. The say the uplift and care of Māori children by Oranga Tamariki has breached the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Tribunal recommends that an independent Māori Transition Authority should be created to reform the agency’s care and protection system for tamariki Māori. Which is Maori children for those people who refuse to recognise Maori language.

But the Tribunal stopped short of recommending full devolution. That is a Maori Authority that deals with all Maori cases of child welfare run by Maori.

Derek Mackie: Democracy...mmm, I remember that!

The title "Democracy...mmm, I remember that!" is something I sincerely hope we’re NOT saying to each other in 2040. 

This may seem a far-fetched statement to make but our current government’s obsession with race-based separatism, as the foundation on which to build a future New Zealand, is setting us on a path to just that.

In the government’s mind - which must be a very strange and scary place to be - only one race is worthy of special attention.  By virtue of finding these islands of ours about 600 years before the rest of us, the 15% of New Zealanders that now identify as Maori, or more correctly part-Maori, are apparently entitled to be given rights, powers and legal protection far in excess of all other citizens.  Every other race is lumped together in a group, best called the vast majority.

Clive Bibby: Nothing surprises me anymore

I used to think and was led to believe by those who should know that we have nothing to fear from Maori moves towards greater involvement in how this country is run - especially in the control over the use of our natural resources.

Like most kiwis wanting a peaceful path towards reconciliation and meaningful compensation for past mistreatment of Maori by agencies representing the Crown, l have been proud of the settlements that in most cases appeared to be fair, recognising as we must, that nothing will ever truly compensate for some of the significant losses that have occurred.

It is clear that none of the settlements that have been negotiated would have happened without the large amount of goodwill contributed by Maoridom itself.

As a nation, the progress we have made towards reconciliation (which is light years ahead of any other county on the planet) is almost entirely due to the genuine desire by both parties for a shared future. Hopefully those aspirational attitudes will continue until we reach a stage where we can all claim that justice has finally been served.

Only then will we be free to move on towards a society that allows equal opportunity for all who would benefit from the egalitarian model that is within our grasp.

Unfortunately, recent events suggest we are fools if we think any of that is possible.