Gerry Eckhoff: Elite

From time to time, it is important to liberate reality from rhetoric especially as it relates to New Zealand’s  past.  The rationale for setting aside reserved seats in parliament 180 years ago so as to ensure a Maori perspective and representation, has been accepted as  appropriate.  

Today however some Maori will  consider they are discriminated against if and when the privilege is finally  removed, as it surely will with the passage of time. This is an obvious consequence of the continuance of the integration of the races. 

Garrick Tremain: Audition

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on NZ's tribal elite chewing up PM's and spitting them out! 

John Robinson: The road to New Zealand Apartheid

Second class citizens, subservient to a tribal elite

When one chosen few, one group, are dominant and take control and power, others are reduced, to become lesser citizens. New Zealand is that place, steaming down a road of division, divided by law into Maori (the ‘indigenous’) and the others. The great majority, lacking some drop of Maori blood, are second-class, subservient. That assumption of superiority is accompanied by the arrogance and bullying behaviour often found in upper classes.

There is no respect, no ‘aroha’, no belonging together; we are not one people.

The sense of belonging to a united, decent country is gone. There is nothing more precious to a people, and a nation, than the common belief of all that we are equal, that we each and everyone belong here, that this land is our land – along with all the commons, the lakes, rivers and beaches, the bush, the mountains and the sea. But that sense of belonging, which is essential to the good life – for us all, for every individual no matter what their background – has been stolen by an arrogant and greedy tribal minority.