In New Zealand, the most trusted professions according to the IPSOS Global Trustworthiness Index are doctors, followed by teachers and scientists. Politicians, ad executives, and government ministers are generally considered the least trustworthy. Other professions with high trust ratings include members of the armed forces and police.
In the light of this generally very poor rating for our politicians in the trustworthiness stakes, I was watching Mr Hipkins deliver a speech to the house, in which he was promoting his Labour party’s intention to deal with the Maori party in any negotiations post the next election should he be required to do so to make a majority to govern.
In his speech which started with him giving an introduction in Te Reo, he mentioned many statistics regarding privilege, and related them to Maori specifically. Most of his comments were aimed at making him look as if he and his party were sincere in their views about Maori being disadvantaged not privileged.
He quoted statistics about: life expectancy; likelihood of dying from cancer; higher rates of childhood hospitalisation; Treaty requirements of partnership; Non Maori having nothing to fear from Maori getting ahead in NZ and when Maori thrive we all thrive.
These statistics are all true, but I am sure that Chippie knows there is much more that needs to be included if they are going to be used to promote the theory that Maori need to be given special privileges to get ahead.
Let’s just take a very short look at some of the claims made about Maori:
The five most common claims that have been made in general 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.
The Maori party and many others (including Chippie now) have challenged our current democratic systems of government; based on an erroneous interpretation of a requirement for a partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi, and I believe this is nothing more than a grab for control of our country based on ethnicity and disrespectful of the valuable contributions of the many other cultures that have settled here.
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 I believe 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 efforts 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.
I am sure that if Chippie had taken the time to do, even just a cursory study of the facts around his claims he would have found that the majority of them relate directly to the issue of personal choices by those that make up the numbers of his complaints about privileges or the lack of such.
But of course that wouldn’t look anywhere as convincing as using selective quotations of the facts that support your intended claims. No lies just a clear use of selected facts to cover the real truth behind those facts.
His speech included much reference to co-governance and he stated that the Treaty was a bold promise and a partnership, a structure to work towards.
The Treaty itself is simply a contract signed by many that ceded sovereignty over New Zealand to the Crown and in return the Crown guaranteed that all citizens would be granted the the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property with the Crown being given the exclusive rights to purchase when the owners decided to sell. It also granted that the people of New Zealand shall have all the rights and privileges of British subjects granted to them.
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.
There is no mention of a partnership in the Treaty document and they don’t seem to realise that the public of New Zealand (normal people) have very real concerns about the push for co-governance of this country which is seen as nothing more than an attempt to prioritise part-Maori interests, above those of all other ethnicities in NZ.
What we’re seeing with the push for ethnicity based decision making, is manipulation of facts for political and financial gain. The 'mythical partnership' is being used to try to secure privileges that no other group in New Zealand enjoys, despite the fact that over 260 ethnicities call this country home.
Whilst I agree with the principle of Maori being able to have input or engagement this should never be achieved by way of race based statutory obligations.
The claim that we have nothing to fear from Maori getting ahead is in itself true but the fact of the matter is that the methods being promoted for them to get ahead “Co-Governance under a Partnership” are such that they will give control to a very small percentage of the population and by doing so severely disadvantage the non-Maori majority of the population.
The claim that when Maori thrive we all thrive is again a clever use of selected facts to support his contentions.
For Maori to thrive they need to have the economic conditions to enable them to do so and the will to make use of their own efforts in that economic climate to achieve advancement for themselves and their dependants just the same as any other ethnic group.
The most important thing to be remembered in this claim is that they will only succeed if they are prepared to work at it the same as any other ethnic group, they won’t achieve betterment by sitting on the couch with their hands out looking for welfare.
There are many Maori in NZ that have achieved a good standard of living and provided a decent future outlook for themselves and their families, but all of them have one thing in common, the desire to work hard to achieve an improved standard of living, the same as many other ethnic groups within NZ.
Maori along with the other ethnic groups within NZ society should have an equal right to representation but this right in no way should ever give them a greater level of representation than any other ethnic group.
The fear is not about Maori thriving it is about the result of those methods used to thrive, which would be akin to implementing a system of apartheid, a system of government that NZ’s have fought against for many years.
Co-governance is not about the Treaty it is solely about control and getting the monetary benefits that go with having control. It’s about a small percentage of the population (approximately 17%) getting fifty percent of control based on their ethnicity and the others (approximately 83%) getting the rest.
We are told repeatedly by the Maori political party (Te Party Maori) and other so-called tribal elite from Iwi that this is the only way forward to honour the Treaty. But in fact this is nothing more than moving from the democratic system of government we have had since the signing of the Treaty to a system of racial discrimination where equality in government has no place as it will be replaced by a person’s ethnicity.
This push for Co-Governance has got nothing to do with honouring the Treaty; it is all about gaining control and getting snouts in the trough of public funding.
When the Maori signed the Treaty in 1840 they ceded sovereignty to the Crown. This is now disputed by the small band of radicals that are pushing for Co-Governance but the facts are that their own people have many times stated that sovereignty was ceded by the signing of the Treaty.
There has been some debate over the years about what, exactly; Maori believed they were signing in 1840 and whether Maori did cede sovereignty to the British Crown when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi or, as is now contended by some, did they not?
Sir Apirana Ngata prepared an English translation of the Treaty in 1922 that argued that the Chiefs had “cede (d) absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the Government of all their lands”.
The standard translation used by the Waitangi tribunal in the early 1990’s had been made by Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu. Here is his full translation of the Treaty:
“The first: The chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.
“The second: The Queen of England agrees to protect the Chiefs, the Subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures. But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent.
“The third: For this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the Government of the Queen, the Queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand (i.e. the Maori) and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.”
Sir Hugh and the Tribunal in this time were in no doubt that the chiefs had ceded sovereignty to the Queen.
The so-called elite Maori have recently tried to dispute this, but after 170 plus years of acceptance this would seem to be a futile attempt to change history, or even deliberate trouble-making, in trying after all these years to upset what has been accepted by both Maori and others for so long.
If ever there was a declaration that we are one people and that Maori have the same rights and duties of citizenship, surely it is Sir Hugh’s translation of the Treaty’s third clause?
We have operated under a system of democracy which has been based on the principle that all persons are equal in the eyes of the law and entitled to equality in the political and governmental processes but now we have this section of the population which to divide the country based on ethnicity.
If we are to have unity/equality it won’t be through Co-Governance. Co-governance doesn’t unite us—it divides, inflames, and festers. We don’t need more committees and cultural vetoes; all we need is one law for all.
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.
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.
So Chippie may be wanting to get back into power and prepared to sell out the voters of NZ with his talk of a menagerie of Muppets making up a coalition government post-election, but his just proves the reason why most NZ’s feel that politicians are one of the most untrustworthy of professions.
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By Andy Loader, Poke the Bear