Rodney Hide: The Maori Electorates - Racist Relic That Must Go

The Maori electorates are a 19th-century anachronism that should have been abolished twice—first when universal suffrage arrived in 1893, and again when MMP was adopted in 1996. They are racist by design, divisive by operation, and the breeding ground for the ethnic grievance industry now dominating our politics.

Created in 1867 as a temporary bridge for Maori men excluded by the property qualification, the seats lost all justification the moment every adult New Zealander gained the vote on equal terms.

JC: One Country, One People, One Law

Why on earth does the National leader, Christopher Luxon, bother to go to Ngaruawahia? Is it a case of if you don’t go you’re insulting your supposed hosts, and if you do go it’s their chance to insult you? Regardless, it serves no useful purpose. ACT and NZ First had the good sense to stay away. A better idea would be to scrap the Maori seats because they serve no useful purpose.

It is now 2023 and the time is well past when the priority should be to ensure we are all one people living under the same laws. National has to stop pandering to one small sector of Maoridom. There are no votes in it for them. The elite know their best chance of screwing the rest of us is to stick with Labour. The last six years and particularly the last three since Winston left, are proof of that. The Labour Maori caucus has virtually run the show to the detriment of our country.

John Franklin: “Stand for Equal Rights”

When I consider the current political landscape, I involuntarily shake my head and ask how on earth did we get here? Some of the rhetoric coming from politicians, the government and the agencies they run is so wayward that it borders on lunacy. And I can’t escape the conclusion that much of it contradicts the foundational rights underpinning our society’s civil liberties that previous generations fought to protect.

We are seeing the introduction of several new policies that are biased towards certain ethnic groups, so we no longer have a society where all ethnicities can expect to be treated equally. We are also seeing the introduction of new gender-biased policies despite decades of work to stamp out gender prejudice, notably from the suffrage movement.

Ross Meurant: Standing Up for New Zealand

Last week Dr Newman published for me, the article A Step Too Far https://www.nzcpr.com/a-step-too-far-bi-cultural-partnership/ in which I debunked the myth that the Crown ceded Sovereignty to Maori and exposed the fact New Zealand is a country of many cultures and is not Bi Cultural.

That, was going to be ‘it’, for my contribution to the disturbing trend of racial division which lurks latent as a menace to the harmony of New Zealand.

However, before this week had past, Dr Don Brash drew attention to a threat with more enduring consequences than the tsunami that threatened to plunder our pastures.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Ritual action and the religious freedom argument

It’s not very often that Jews and Muslims present a united front, but they did so in Germany recently when a court held that the circumcision of baby boys for reasons other than medical was illegal. It’s not very often that Muslims and Christians sing from the same song-sheet either, but they did so in their submissions to the Select Committee on the Marriage Amendment Bill, when both the Federation of Islamic Associations of NZ and various Christian groups presented submissions that in some instances would have looked like carbon copies. But we are more accustomed to hearing about Muslims getting in hot water in Western countries over such things as the female veil and forced marriages. And then there were the Sydney riots. Jews too occasionally find themselves falling foul of Western norms, such as the debate over shechita (ritual animal slaughter) in NZ not long ago.

A common defence is that of the freedom of religion. But freedom of religious expression is a qualified right, not an absolute right. It does not confer any right to break the laws of the country in which one lives. As with all rights, clear legal boundaries need to be put around religious freedom. And this is where the basic problem lies: which law is to define those boundaries?