Maori are Indigenous to NZ:
The Cambridge dictionary definition of indigenous is as follows:
Indigenous:-
Adjective:
Used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else:
Used to refer to plants and animals that grow or live naturally in a place, and have not been brought there from somewhere else:
Not foreign or from outside an area:
By their own claims we know for a fact that a fleet of seven canoes – Aotea, Kurahaupō, Mataatua, Tainui, Tokomaru, Te Arawa and Tākitimu – all departed from the Tahitian region at the same time, bringing the people now known as Maori to New Zealand.
Before that time and until the 1920s, the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands represented a pre-Maori group of people from Melanesia, who once lived across all of New Zealand and were replaced by the Maori.
Ngāti Tama ki Te Waipounamu Trust recently called for an unnamed public road in the Hira district of Nelson to be called Hawaiki Lane.
A Nelson City Council hearing panel agreed the new Te reo name would be given to the public road connecting Cable Bay Rd to the new Drumduan Rise subdivision after local iwi representatives told the panel the name Hawaiki carried mana and dignity.
Iwi said that Hawaiki can also refer to the traditional homeland where Maori migrated from, and a reference to where the spirit returns after death.
Trustee Andrew Stephens said it was important to bring back Maori place names and acknowledge “the first colonisers of this whenua.
So taking into account this definition combined with the history of the Maori migrating to New Zealand from Hawaiki in their canoes we must conclude that the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand just very early migrants/colonisers by their own admission.
Claim:
The Treaty of Waitangi created a partnership between Maori and the Crown:
Prior to the signing of the Treaty Maori in NZ were living a life based on tribalism with slavery and cannibalism as accepted parts of life with “UTU” or revenge commonly occurring between the various tribes as a result.
Despite the implication from many Maori today there was no overall system of governance in the Maori way of life it was purely tribal based.
Given this fact, the implication that there was a partnership created by the signing of the Treaty, is nothing more than a fallacy designed to support the current claims for compensation and control.
A claim of Partnership between the Crown and Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi is nothing more than a Lie; a dangerous, divisive attempt to gain advantage based on race, which will end in the destruction of democracy in New Zealand.
The reason that the Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi was to gain protection for their people and a simple study of the statistics for the Maori people in New Zealand since the signing of the Treaty up to the current times, shows that Maori have been very well served by the relationship with the Crown overall.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty Maori commonly practised cannibalism and slavery amongst their own tribes and after the signing of the treaty these practices were outlawed and ceased. Inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 of the various Maori tribes and after the signing the so-called Maori or Musket wars came to an end.
New Zealand has one Government and it is democratically elected. No matter what ideas are claimed about the chiefs not ceding sovereignty at Waitangi in 1840, the Government's authority has been cemented by every subsequent general election since then, and in our body of legislation.
The acclaimed Maori Leader; Sir Apirana Ngata- M.A. LLB. LIT.D in his book, the "Treaty of Waitangi" concludes with the words:
"The Treaty made the one law for the Maori and Pakeha. If you think these things are wrong and bad then blame our ancestors who gave away their rights in the days when they were powerful".
The claim that the Treaty of Waitangi created a partnership between the Crown and Maori is not supported by any of the documentation of the Treaty although this latter-day reinterpretation of the Treaty is simply stated as a fact, without any acknowledgement that the assertion is hotly contested, and is flatly contradicted by many of the speeches recorded by Colenso in writing at the time (on 5 February 1840) and flatly contradicted also by speeches made by numerous chiefs at Kohimarama in 1860.
In November 2000 the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, David Lange, stated:
“As our increasingly dismal national day continues to show, the treaty is no basis for nationhood. It doesn’t express the fundamental rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and it doesn’t have any unifying concept. The importance it has for Maori people is a constant reminder that governments in a democracy should meet their legal and moral obligations, but for the country taken as a whole, that is, and must be, the limit of its significance.
Here I come to the dangers posed by the increasing entrenchment of the treaty in statute. The treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts. It is a bald agreement, anchored in its time and place, and the public interest in it is the same as the public interest in enforcing any properly-made agreement. To go further than that is to acknowledge the existence of undemocratic forms of rights, entitlements, or sovereignty.
The treaty is a wonderful stick for activists to beat the rest of us with, but it could never have assumed the importance it has without the complicity of others. It came to prominence in liberal thought in the seventies, when many who were concerned about the abuse of the democratic process by the government of the day began to see the treaty as a potential source of alternative authority. It’s been the basis of a self-perpetuating industry in academic and legal circles. Many on the left of politics who sympathise with Maori aspiration have identified with the cause of the treaty, either not knowing or not caring that its implications are profoundly undemocratic.”
Claim:
Maori were given the right of Co-Governance under the Treaty of Waitangi:
Over recent times a number of politicians and other parties with possible vested interests in the decisions around co-governance, have made the erroneous claim that the Treaty of Waitangi created a partnership between Maori and the Crown and as a result there is a requirement for co-governance.
This stance has over recent years been repeated so many times that in the minds of many within the government bureaucracy it is truth, when in actual fact a short study of the Treaty document shows that Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown on signing the treaty, and gained all rights as a British subject by doing so.
The claims for a system of co-governance based on the erroneous interpretation of a requirement for a partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi, are nothing more than a grab for control of our country based on ethnicity and disrespectful of the valuable contributions of the 250 plus, other cultures that have settled here.
As the leader of the Labour Party the late David Lange said in 2000; his government could not acknowledge the existence of a dual sovereignty.
In a speech given by David Lange in the year 2000 he highlighted the danger to democracy of proceeding down the path of dual sovereignty. Mr Lange said that in a democracy what we cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as we do that, it isn’t a democracy. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t co-exist and we can’t have them both. He went on to say that the court of appeal once, absurdly, described the treaty as a partnership between races, but it obviously is not.
Any claims of dual sovereignty are not only wrong in fact, but also promote racial separation of our country and creates a serious threat to our democratic system of governance.
“The Treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts. It is a bald agreement, anchored in its time and place”.
The claims for a co-governance system based on ethnicity is nothing more than an attempt to introduce a system of Apartheid under a different name and has led to a significant increase in racial division in New Zealand.
In summary if someone wants to achieve in New Zealand they have the options available to do so under the current systems if they wish to apply the effort to do so.
But we will not improve anything by introducing privileges based on ethnicity other than to cause further increase in racial division within New Zealand. All citizens of our country must be considered equal irrespective of race, colour or creed.
Claim:
Maori lost their land in NZ as a result of colonisation:
A myth has grown over the years that since the 1800s, Maori somehow “lost” most of their land.
New Zealand has a total land area of around 26-million hectares and land in Maori Title within New Zealand is now only approximately 6 per cent.
The New Maori Queen, Nga Wai Hono i te Po Paki (two years prior to her coronation as Maori Queen) met then Prince Charles in London in 2022, and said that she had taken the trip to honour her ancestors, but that it had been difficult reflecting on the brutal impacts of colonisation on Maori in New Zealand. She also stated “I’ll be honest; my greatest desire of all is for all Maori land to be returned to Maori.”
She seemed to be making some inference that there was something untoward in the fact that Maori have ended up with only 6 percent of the land in New Zealand under Maori title, approximately 1.47 million hectares which includes customary land.
So as far as this statement goes let’s look at the full facts of the issue in relation to Maori land ownership.
Prior to the arrival of the European settlers Maori possessed all land in NZ.
After the signing of the Treaty, about 1.3-million hectares were confiscated during the 1860s as a consequence of tribal rebellion.
There were complaints at that time, and the confiscations were investigated. As a result of those investigations a total of 646,774 hectares were returned, which left 651,793 hectares that remained confiscated.
To be quite clear, the confiscations were legal, a consequence of rebellion and had been carried out under two pieces of legislation passed in 1863 -- the Suppression of Rebellion Act and the New Zealand Settlements Act.
So, since Maori owned most of New Zealand’s 26 million hectares in 1840 when the treaty of Waitangi was signed, 1.47 million hectares remain as Maori land, with around 0.6 million hectares remaining confiscated, what happened to the remaining 24 million hectares?
It was sold.
Maori vendors sold a whopping 92 percent of the land area of New Zealand for all sorts of reasons, but mainly, that it was more in their interest to sell than to hold on to it, which is much the same choice made by any ownership group of any asset, both then and now.
But as we have seen, apart from the relatively small percentage of land confiscated, and apart from surplus land retained by the Crown, Maori vendors sold land at mutually agreed prices over a long period of time.
For instance, a handful of Ngai Tahu chiefs sold most of the 15-million-hectare South Island in 10 deals over 20 years from 1844 and this was after they had sold much of the same area before 1840.
Selling land was good business.
There is a world of difference between losing something and selling it.
People may say that the Maori position has been diminished by the loss of the large percentage of their land but the fact of the matter is that this came about by the actions of their ancestors who sold the majority of their land.
Though they may have sold it for what would be considered today, as a paltry amount, at the time of the sale, they were receiving the going rates and it is not possible to expect any type of redress due to the increase in values since the time of sale.
Given these facts, it doesn’t matter that only 6% of the land remains under Maori ownership, this is simply due to the fact that their ancestors sold the land of their own free will and if Maori feel somehow diminished because of that fact then they should blame their ancestors.
Claim:
Maori have suffered badly as a result of Colonisation:
At the time of the signing of the Treaty the life expectancy for Maori was approximately 30 years and today it is approximately 75 years which has to be seen in anyone’s eyes as a general improvement.
Yet we are constantly being told that it’s colonisation and an unfair system that means that Maori die younger than Pakeha. If we are to believe this rubbish as truth then we must overlook the fact that Maori make choices in life like smoking, eating junk food and doing drugs that take years off their lives.
The so-called Maori elite would have had us believe we must overlook all this and give even more special privileges to Maori because their crazy interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi demands it. And every one who speaks out against their racial policies is in fact a racist.
Today, we are dealing with the results of a couple of generations of the hand-out mentality. Low achievers, and especially their advocates, many of whom are on the public payroll and are part of the huge industry that now farms disadvantaged people, assert loudly that closing the inevitable gaps that have opened up requires even more special privileges.
They seem to naively believe the fundamentally flawed, but heavily promoted narrative which concludes that Maori somehow have special vulnerabilities which arise from outside forces they cannot control; that contemporary society fails to meet their needs. They are not receptive to messages and opportunities in the same way as other races because the trauma of colonisation carried from one generation to the next.
Against a backdrop of this current rhetoric, it is easy to overlook the positive statistics.
For example, 64 percent of Maori are employed as compared to the employment rate for all New Zealanders, of 68.4%. In excess of 400,000 Maori have jobs, provide products and services and pay tax and 97 percent of Maori aged 15 or older are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order. Over 99 percent of Maori are not gang members.
Yes there is a small number of the Maori population which create a huge number of problems by way of their personal choices in relation to their way of living and their attitude to the law of the land, and this affects the Maori population in general by influencing public opinion, badly.
Colonisation has been blamed for the lack of achievement in the educational system by Maori and there have been claims made that we need to decolonise the education system in New Zealand to allow Maori to have an equal chance of achievement with other races.
Again I say this is a load of old bollocks.
My reason for saying this is the fact that if we look at the example of the Maori full immersion schools and their rates of success they are achieving great results.
Are these a result of decolonising the education system? NO!
The results are due to the support from people working within those systems and from within the families of the students. The results come from hard work by all involved.
Yes they may be ably assisted by the full immersion systems but at the end of it all the main reason for their success is down to the commitment and effort of all those involved and they should be commended for those efforts.
The opposite is seen when we look at the lack of achievement from those in the normal state school systems, and we see that most of the students failing miserably in those systems are lacking in support from their own families.
So from these two examples we can rightfully say that the full immersion schools do work but in my opinion the main reason they work is down to the commitment and efforts put in by all those involved not just due to decolonisation.
The problem is that any challenge to the so-called decolonisation ideology is immediately labelled racist and this is deepening the social divide in our country.
What we need instead is to work together, remove social barriers and provide opportunity for everyone to access first-class education in whatever way that is suitable to them.
Claim:
Maori health leaders have made claims of institutionalised racism within New Zealand Health System:
The five most common claims that have been made by them in this regard are as stated below. These have all been fact checked and found to be incorrect. These claims are:
The poor Maori health outcomes documented in the Waitangi Report 2575 and the Te Whatu Ora report are statements only of poorer health outcomes, with no documented, factual evidence presented regarding the causes.
In fact it has been well documented by the World Health Organisation that the social determinants of health have an important influence on health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries. In countries at all levels of income, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health.
World Health Organisation - Social Determinants of Health (SDH).
The following list provides examples of the social determinants of health, which can influence health equity in positive and negative ways:
Research shows that the social determinants can be more important than health care or lifestyle choices in influencing health. For example, numerous studies suggest that SDH account for between 30-55% of health outcomes.
In addition, estimates show that the contribution of sectors outside health to population health outcomes exceeds the contribution from the health sector.
Addressing SDH appropriately is fundamental for improving health and reducing longstanding inequities in health.
The Waitangi Tribunal, when starting the investigation into the report on Maori health, refused to publish their findings into the reasons that this health service delivery system failed, stating it was “sensitive”. (Waitangi Report 2575).
The system of the last 24 years, where services have been provided by Maori, for Maori, have not significantly improved Maori health as was hoped.
However, the main cause, as shown by the WHO, is that the primary determinants of health are not found in the health system, and never will be. They are found in the social determinants which lie outside of it.
The fact that the Maori health leaders are aware of the primary importance of the social deprivation determinants on health, and yet persist with blaming “systemically racist health system” when this cannot be relevant in the seventy-seven “by Maori, for Maori" health providers who have been responsible for most rural Maori primary health requirements over the last twenty four years.
While it is the right thing for Maori Doctors and Maori leaders to advocate for better health for the Maori people, it is not right that they lay the blame for all short comings in Maori health on "racism".
The Waitangi Tribunal is aware of the reasons for the lack of success of the current “by Maori, for Maori system,” but refuses to release their findings claiming they are “sensitive”.
When we study the claims of institutionalised racism within New Zealand, we find that in most cases the answer lies with the personal choices of those involved and the effects resulting from those personal choices.
This is backed up by the statistics that show that the vast majority of Maori are employed in jobs that provide products and services, pay tax, are not in prison or serving a community sentence or order, and are not gang members.
No matter that the Treaty Grievance industry members may claim otherwise. Again they mostly make these claims so as to prolong their ability to benefit from the gravy train that has developed around the Treaty of Waitangi and the Waitangi Tribunal.
We have constantly been told that it’s colonisation and an unfair system that means that Maori die younger than Pakeha. If we are to believe this rubbish as truth then we must overlook the fact that Maori make choices in life like smoking, eating junk food and doing drugs that take years off their lives.
The so-called Maori elite would have had us believe we must overlook all this and give even more special privileges to Maori because their crazy interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi demands it. And every one who speaks out against their racial policies is in fact a racist.
Today, we are dealing with the results of a couple of generations of the hand-out mentality. Low achievers, and especially their advocates, many of whom are on the public payroll and are part of the huge industry that now farms disadvantaged people, assert loudly that closing the inevitable gaps that have opened up requires even more special privileges.
They seem to naively believe the fundamentally flawed, but heavily promoted narrative which concludes that Maori somehow have special vulnerabilities which arise from outside forces they cannot control; that contemporary society fails to meet their needs. They are not receptive to messages and opportunities in the same way as other races because the trauma of colonisation carried from one generation to the next.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” If we let our guard down and become complacent we automatically become vulnerable.
Claim:
Representation of Maori people in NZ:
We are constantly being harangued by members of the Maori Party and other so-called Maori elite who support their view, about how they are the true voice of Maori and they want to explain the brutal impacts of colonisation on Maori in New Zealand.
They claim to be the true voice of Maori in New Zealand and they hold 6 seats in the New Zealand government yet they could only achieve 3.08% of the Maori vote in the recent 2023 election.
There are a total of 17.3% of the population that identify as being Maori yet the Maori party were only able to gain 3.08% of the total and given that there are supporters who have no Maori ethnicity then to claim that they are the voice of Maori in NZ is a very long stretch of the truth in anyone’s imagination.
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By Andy Loader, Poke the Bear