The Reality of Racism in New Zealand

The Reality of Racism in New Zealand

It is safe to say that most people want to live peaceful, happy and productive regardless of race and to do that race/ethnicity should be irrelevant.

And yet we are being increasingly divided, forced to take sides, as either black or white when in fact life is mainly grey. Without some measure of compromise between races, society as we know it couldn’t exist.

We seem to have developed a section of the population in New Zealand which believes in “Critical Race Theory”.

So what is Critical Race Theory?

Critical race theory seeks to link racism, race, & power and Critical race theorists challenge the very foundations of democracy. They argue that social life, political structures, and economic systems are founded upon race, which (in their view) is a social construct.

Critical Race theory (CRT) is a huge issue in the United States of America and many would say that it does not affect us here in New Zealand but I disagree.

The recent Labour government passed much legislation that was undemocratic and race based. The reasons for this were being stated as redressing historical wrongs of institutional racism against Maori.

And when we compare what is happening currently in New Zealand to the situation in the USA in relation to CRT we can see the same effects here as in the US.

A classic example of this being the “He Pua Pua” report

How is CRT affecting us?

CRT advocates incorporate its key elements into policies, training programs & manuals and standard operating procedures with their efforts are being advanced under various euphemisms such as cultural competency training and diversity, equity, and inclusion.  There’s this revolving language system that they use to confuse, avoid, and obfuscate. They’re using it because they refuse to defend their race theory on its own merits because even they know that it’s indefensible politically.

In fact the recently defeated Labour government was guilty of taking New Zealand down a path of race based co-governance by unelected tribal elite on the basis of a “mythical partnership” requirement of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I say “mythical” deliberately because when you read the Treaty document there is no mention of partnership or anything that remotely resembles a partnership requirement.

But as a result of their reliance on the mythical partnership requirement that Labour government made many changes to legislation and proposed more, that have and may continue to significantly alter the fundamental principles upon which our country has been governed and on our democratic rights.

The Ardern led Labour government denied that the He Pua Pua report was in any way government policy, yet they took action in different ways that seem to respond to the recommendations within the He Pua Pua report as shown below:

Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training – To get staff to address these issues, government departments required them to undergo compulsory cultural competency training.

Changing Educational Curriculum Requirements – There was a push to expose the broader public to the supposed racial biases imbued in New Zealand’s history curriculum. As a result changes were made to the curriculum for it to be heavily oriented to the history of Maori in New Zealand, with so much of that history relying on sometimes unreliable oral accounts. The themes of what is to be taught are, at best, an extremely incomplete view of our history.

It is asserted in the new curriculum that Maori chiefs did not cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty but rather entered into some kind of “partnership” with the Crown. This latter-day reinterpretation of the Treaty is simply stated as a fact, without any acknowledgement that the assertion is hotly contested, 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.

This is such a fundamental matter that to simply assert that a partnership was created between the Crown and Maori chiefs totally discredits any claim to objectivity which the new curriculum might have had. There are a number of assertions made as if they were uncontested and verifiable fact, when at best they are based on supposition and centuries-old oral tradition.

Free Speech Disciplinary Measures – The Labour government took steps to clamp down on our democratic rights to free speech, by committing to change legislation on “hate speech” and “racist language”, among other measures even though this was already well covered under the Bill of Rights.

Funding Critical Race Theory Programs and Research – The government spent $55 million on what they called the Public Interest Journalism Fund and although this was supposedly to support the mainstream media through the economic downturn resulting from the international Covid 19 pandemic, one of the requirements of eligibility for that funding subsidy was that all applicants had to “actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Protection [their capitals] under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Maori as a Te Tiriti partner”. All applicants had to show a “clear and obvious” commitment to the Treaty and te reo; no exceptions.

It was stated that applicants were likely to be regarded favourably if their journalism proposals “met the definition of Maori and iwi journalism” or “reported from perspectives including Pacific, pan-Asian, women, youth, children, persons with disabilities [and] other ethnic communities”.

“Maori and iwi journalism”, incidentally, was defined as being “made by Maori about Maori perspectives, issues and interests prioritising the needs of Maori”. But that’s not journalism; that’s advocacy. The two are quite different and may often be at odds.

Lady Tureiti Moxon, the chairwoman of the National Urban Maori Authority and managing director at Te Kohao Health was quoted in a NZ Herald article as stating that the ACT Party’s proposal to treat 17-year-old offenders as adults is a continuation of the colonial racist violence that has been meted out upon Maori since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” She finished by saying: “The Government needs to share power and control and support ‘by Maori, for Maori’ solutions.”

She spoke about the Crown sharing power and control with Maori and supporting by Maori for Maori solutions.

So let’s first address the issue of sharing power and control as this is something that is right at the forefront of the current electioneering cycle. The current government has made many changes to legislation on the basis of race and justified those changes by claiming they are a requirement under the Treaty of Waitangi.

And I say to her, as I have said to many others over recent times, this is rubbish and a simple reading of the treaty document shows this to be the case. The Treaty consists of three sections that basically say that;

        1. Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown

2. The Crown guaranteed the chiefs and the tribes the possession of their lands and the chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes and the other chiefs granted to the Crown, the rights of purchasing such lands.

3. In return for ceding sovereignty; the Crown guaranteed in return for the cession of their sovereignty to the Crown, the people of New Zealand shall be protected by the Crown and the rights and privileges of British subjects would be granted to them.

 There is no mention in the Treaty of a co-governance or partnership role as a part of the Treaty requirements. A ‘partnership’ between Maori and the Crown is constitutionally-impossible nonsense.

Any such partnership would be a fundamental subversion of democracy. Maori are claiming now that their involvement in decision making should not be on the basis of one person one vote, but instead they are demanding a co-governance role with 50:50 representations.

It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into a partnership with any of its subjects. The true position is that the Crown is sovereign but owes duties of justice and good faith to the Maori descendants of those who signed the treaty.

This duty of justice and good faith has finally been seen to be done through the process of the settlements of grievances under the Waitangi Tribunal and rightly so, yet still we see a section of the Maori people trying to claim non-existent rights under the Treaty.

Since 1995 there have been 86 settlements with a total value of approximately $2.6 billion yet very little of that settlement money seems to have benefitted the Maori at the bottom of the food chain but the so-called elite seem to be well provided for.

Lady Moxon claimed that there had been continued colonial racist violence since the signing of the Treaty and again I say that this claim is nonsense at best and deliberately provocatively racist at worst.

The reason that the Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi was to gain protection for their people in the first instance (particularly given that inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 members of the various Maori tribes) 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 the 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.

Yes there have been some cases where they have suffered injustices but most of those have been redressed through the Waitangi Tribunal process.

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.

Notwithstanding the fact that there is no requirement for co-governance in the Treaty document as I stated earlier, my next question for Lady Moxon would be simply to ask whose taxes would be expected to fund Maori to govern themselves under such a proposal, if it was ever to come to pass?

The current proposals that revolve around a 50/50 sharing of governance between Maori and all other races in New Zealand is nothing more than a system of Apartheid with governance being controlled on the basis of race alone.

If we are to truly go down the path of Maori self-governing with the other races being combined then this should also apply to funding and assets with Maori getting a share of the current assets in proportion to their numbers and then supporting themselves on the income generated from their numbers.

But I suspect that this is very far from their minds when they talk about co-governance. I believe that they are in reality talking about having their cake and eating it too (i.e. getting 50% of the funding from the whole of the population and then spending that 50% on just the Maori members of the population) under their “By Maori for Maori” proposals.

If we are truly talking about the reality of what is being claimed then we should look at giving Maori their fair share of all of the infrastructure & assets and the allowing them to take full control of their people with a separate system of governance based on their numbers.  

This is the only fair way to go about splitting the control, but of course this type of proposal would be roundly condemned by those who are making the most noise about co-governance because in reality they know full well that if this were to be the way the country was to go then they would run out of funds before the first hurdle was even approached let alone gotten over.

The current claim for co-governance is actually that there is a want for control, with or without any form of equitable treatment, but that non-maori should just shut up and keep funding Maori dreams on this mythical 50/50 co-governance basis.

The reality of co-governance is that if Maori were to truly be given the control they desire and then be required to fund their dreams on the basis of their numbers it would very soon be realised that they would not be able to do so and the numbers wanting to be considered as Maori would I believe, seriously decline.

The so-called Maori elite that have been pushing hard for co-governance over the last couple of years will rapidly find that the gravy train stopped and they have been left at the station.

Against a backdrop of this high-profile push for co-governance, 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.

But it must be stated that the fact that although this small number are very much over represented in the criminal statistics and in the prison populations, this is not as a result of racism but a result of their own poor lifestyle choices.

There has been much talk about a “by Maori for Maori” solution as the answer to these problems yet we only have to look at the health system to see the folly behind that belief.

New Zealand spent about $500 million dollars setting up a separate Maori Health Authority under the recent Labour government and this was said to be going to fix the problems that Maori supposedly had with provision of health services and the claimed “systemically racist” system with "unconsciously biased" doctors and health service staff.

The claim that this was introduced to reduce inequity in the health system is not, in fact, supported by any data on historical inequality in the access to healthcare.

Maori, and to a lesser extent, Pasifika, have been getting extra help accessing health care. For more than 40 years ministers and health boards throughout the country have bent over backwards to encourage Maori to take a greater interest in their personal health. Eat more carefully; give up smoking; be less promiscuous with their sexual partners; see their GPs at regular intervals; take their prescribed medicines; keep hospital appointments when they are made for them, rather than top the list of “Did Not Shows”.

Since 2000, most Maori health services for those on the Maori electoral roll in both rural and urban regions have been provided by seventy-seven Maori Health providers. They have been funded by the state but completely managed by iwi throughout New Zealand during this time. They were created twenty years ago to provide a “by Maori, for Maori” health service as a solution for the Maori health problems.

While some of the hauora have provided an excellent range of public health measures and personal health services, others have not been so successful. However, this network of hauora have not had the breakthrough in improving Maori health statistics that had been hoped would occur with a “by Maori, for Maori” service provider. The reasons for this are debated with Maori claiming inadequate funding was the cause and the funding agency stating failure to reach agreed health targets, poor management, and incorrect spending priorities were to blame.

 Without clarity around the causes, there will be a repeat of the failure of the system of the last 20 years, where services have been provided by Maori, for Maori, but have not significantly improved Maori health as was hoped.

However, the cause, as shown by the World Health Organisation, 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.

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 fact is 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 years.

The same is the case 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.