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| Too Big To Fail: Forty-three years after the 1981 Springbok Tour protests, Maori defenders of te Tiriti, by their own efforts, and using their own resources, are poised to descend on the capital with upwards of 100,000 followers at their back, and no force in front of them even remotely capable of turning them around. |
THE ORGANISERS OF THE Hīkoi mō te Tiriti are predicting record-breaking numbers. As the advancing column of runners, marchers, and cars approaches the capital, its numbers are expected to swell into the hundreds-of-thousands. If these predictions are borne out by events, then the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti will, indeed, be the largest protest demonstration in New Zealand’s political history.
Although no single demonstration associated with the 1981 Springbok Tour came anywhere near 100,000 participants, the 56 days of the Tour, and the months leading up to it, indisputably witnessed in excess of 100,000 protesters on New Zealand’s streets.
Significantly, the convulsions of 1981 and the record numbers participating in the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti are not unrelated historically. The lessons drawn from 1981 by an entire generation of progressive activists have, in the intervening 43 years, resolved themselves into a seemingly unstoppable ideological narrative. That narrative now constitutes the driving-force behind the movement toward decolonisation and indigenisation.
The nationwide campaign to end sporting contacts with Apartheid South Africa began as a fight to see the guarantee of human equality embodied in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights upheld by the New Zealand Government. The Republic of South Africa had been suspended from the UN in 1974 for its refusal to observe the principles enshrined in the Declaration. Playing Rugby with a side purporting to “represent” South Africa was, accordingly, condemned by many New Zealanders as morally indefensible.
In New Zealand’s churches, universities, professional associations and trade unions, this opposition to the 1981 Springbok Tour was deeply entrenched. In the New Zealand of the early-1980s, however, the nation’s demographic structure more-or-less guaranteed that a very large percentage of the population would remain unmoved by the arguments of the Tour’s opponents. Rugby was hugely important to New Zealanders, more than half of whom, according to the opinion polls of the day, were anxious to “keep politics out of sport”.
These New Zealanders had a powerful champion in their country’s National Party prime minister, Rob Muldoon. Presenting himself as the defender of the “ordinary bloke”, he cast the Tour’s opponents as, at best, snobbish intellectuals, and, at worst, subversive communists. In this he could rely upon the nation’s news media, both private and public, to take such accusations seriously. The instincts of most publishers, broadcasters and editors in 1981 were deeply conservative. Many of them regarded protest demonstrations as potentially dangerous attempts to apply extra-parliamentary pressure upon the nation’s democratically elected representatives.
Contrast Muldoon’s strong opposition from the top in 1981 with the way in which the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti has been treated by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in 2024. National’s leader has been careful not to openly criticise or condemn the Hikoi – with whose bitter criticisms of the Act Party leader’s Treaty Principles Bill he claims to be in at least partial agreement. Luxon and his government have also been careful to affirm publicly the right of New Zealanders to engage in peaceful protest. No thought in 2024 of portraying the Hikoi participants as enemies of anything so retrograde as the “ordinary bloke”.
The behaviour of the mainstream news media in 2024 offers an even stronger contrast with the way events were covered in 1981. From the moment the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti began its long journey to Wellington, the nation’s largest media operations have presented it as something akin to the living embodiment of the nation’s best and truest instincts.
At least one editorial leader-writer has depicted the Hikoi as a powerful and much needed corrective to the “colonial” attitudes embodied in Seymour’s bill. The possibility that 100,000 angry citizens massed outside the New Zealand Parliament might constitute a serious threat to the safety and security of the country’s democratic institutions does not appear to have given the nation’s journalists pause. Or, if it has, then the prospect of Members of Parliament – especially ACT MPs – being sorted-out and set-straight by the people is not one that bothers them unduly.
Clearly, much has changed since 1981. Certainly, the three Treaty principles set forth in Seymour’s bill (the language of which carries strong echoes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) would have been warmly endorsed by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders 43 years ago. How, then, has this extraordinary transformation: from multiple demonstrations against the denial of human equality, to a nation-spanning hikoi denouncing its legislative affirmation; been accomplished?
The big idea driving the shift, both here and overseas, in the 1970s and 80s was that white people are blind to their own racism. In biblical terms, Europeans are very good at drawing attention to the mote in other peoples’ eyes, all the while ignoring the whopping great beam that is in their own.
How is it, demanded the Māori who’d marched alongside Pakeha anti-tour protesters, that you could become so incensed by the racism of white South Africa’s apartheid system, but had so little to say about the racist foundations of your own nation?
You took our land, built a happy little colonial state on top of it, and left us to contemplate your generous legacy of ruin and loss. The strategies we adopted for our own survival, most of which reflected our need to avoid te Riri Pakeha – the anger of the white man – you interpreted as evidence of our easy-going good-nature, and patted yourselves on the back for presiding over the “best race-relations in the world” The treaty our ancestors signed in 1840, in which the British Crown promised to protect the autonomy and resources of our tribes, your Chief Justice casually dismissed, just 37 years later, as “a simple nullity”. You’ll understand, then, if we look at you Pakeha and see nothing but a bunch of bloody hypocrites!
It was a list of charges to which the progressive Pakeha Left had no convincing answers, other than to hang their heads in guilt and shame, and promise to do all within their power to right the wrongs of colonisation, and restore to the maximum extent possible the rights of Aotearoa’s indigenous people.
That they chose to do this through the courts, rather than through Parliament, is a reflection of the fear and loathing many anti-tour protesters, university students in particular, took away from their encounters with supporters of the Springbok Tour. That these people were racists went without saying, but the vicious sexism experienced by female protesters came as a nasty shock. Male protesters were equally stunned by the homophobic slurs hurled at them by rugby supporters.
Obviously, from the progressive perspective, National Party voters could not to be trusted to do the right thing. But, sadly, neither could the party of the working class. Far too many Labour voters had been willing to abandon their democratic-socialist ideals for a game of footy. Long before Hilary Clinton came up with the description, New Zealand’s progressives made it their business to ensure that the important business of decolonising and indigenising Aotearoa was kept as far away as possible from such deplorable citizens.
A lot can happen in 43 years. New Zealand jurisprudence can be radically reoriented. The National Party can atone for the sins of Rob Muldoon by initiating the Treaty Settlement Process. Apart from its votes, Labour can give up expecting anything from, or doing very much for, the New Zealand working-class. Te Tiriti, itself, can cease to be regarded as a simple nullity and become New Zealand’s foundational constitutional document. From around 10 percent, Māori can grow to 20 percent of the population.
Significantly, the convulsions of 1981 and the record numbers participating in the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti are not unrelated historically. The lessons drawn from 1981 by an entire generation of progressive activists have, in the intervening 43 years, resolved themselves into a seemingly unstoppable ideological narrative. That narrative now constitutes the driving-force behind the movement toward decolonisation and indigenisation.
The nationwide campaign to end sporting contacts with Apartheid South Africa began as a fight to see the guarantee of human equality embodied in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights upheld by the New Zealand Government. The Republic of South Africa had been suspended from the UN in 1974 for its refusal to observe the principles enshrined in the Declaration. Playing Rugby with a side purporting to “represent” South Africa was, accordingly, condemned by many New Zealanders as morally indefensible.
In New Zealand’s churches, universities, professional associations and trade unions, this opposition to the 1981 Springbok Tour was deeply entrenched. In the New Zealand of the early-1980s, however, the nation’s demographic structure more-or-less guaranteed that a very large percentage of the population would remain unmoved by the arguments of the Tour’s opponents. Rugby was hugely important to New Zealanders, more than half of whom, according to the opinion polls of the day, were anxious to “keep politics out of sport”.
These New Zealanders had a powerful champion in their country’s National Party prime minister, Rob Muldoon. Presenting himself as the defender of the “ordinary bloke”, he cast the Tour’s opponents as, at best, snobbish intellectuals, and, at worst, subversive communists. In this he could rely upon the nation’s news media, both private and public, to take such accusations seriously. The instincts of most publishers, broadcasters and editors in 1981 were deeply conservative. Many of them regarded protest demonstrations as potentially dangerous attempts to apply extra-parliamentary pressure upon the nation’s democratically elected representatives.
Contrast Muldoon’s strong opposition from the top in 1981 with the way in which the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti has been treated by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in 2024. National’s leader has been careful not to openly criticise or condemn the Hikoi – with whose bitter criticisms of the Act Party leader’s Treaty Principles Bill he claims to be in at least partial agreement. Luxon and his government have also been careful to affirm publicly the right of New Zealanders to engage in peaceful protest. No thought in 2024 of portraying the Hikoi participants as enemies of anything so retrograde as the “ordinary bloke”.
The behaviour of the mainstream news media in 2024 offers an even stronger contrast with the way events were covered in 1981. From the moment the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti began its long journey to Wellington, the nation’s largest media operations have presented it as something akin to the living embodiment of the nation’s best and truest instincts.
At least one editorial leader-writer has depicted the Hikoi as a powerful and much needed corrective to the “colonial” attitudes embodied in Seymour’s bill. The possibility that 100,000 angry citizens massed outside the New Zealand Parliament might constitute a serious threat to the safety and security of the country’s democratic institutions does not appear to have given the nation’s journalists pause. Or, if it has, then the prospect of Members of Parliament – especially ACT MPs – being sorted-out and set-straight by the people is not one that bothers them unduly.
Clearly, much has changed since 1981. Certainly, the three Treaty principles set forth in Seymour’s bill (the language of which carries strong echoes of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) would have been warmly endorsed by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders 43 years ago. How, then, has this extraordinary transformation: from multiple demonstrations against the denial of human equality, to a nation-spanning hikoi denouncing its legislative affirmation; been accomplished?
The big idea driving the shift, both here and overseas, in the 1970s and 80s was that white people are blind to their own racism. In biblical terms, Europeans are very good at drawing attention to the mote in other peoples’ eyes, all the while ignoring the whopping great beam that is in their own.
How is it, demanded the Māori who’d marched alongside Pakeha anti-tour protesters, that you could become so incensed by the racism of white South Africa’s apartheid system, but had so little to say about the racist foundations of your own nation?
You took our land, built a happy little colonial state on top of it, and left us to contemplate your generous legacy of ruin and loss. The strategies we adopted for our own survival, most of which reflected our need to avoid te Riri Pakeha – the anger of the white man – you interpreted as evidence of our easy-going good-nature, and patted yourselves on the back for presiding over the “best race-relations in the world” The treaty our ancestors signed in 1840, in which the British Crown promised to protect the autonomy and resources of our tribes, your Chief Justice casually dismissed, just 37 years later, as “a simple nullity”. You’ll understand, then, if we look at you Pakeha and see nothing but a bunch of bloody hypocrites!
It was a list of charges to which the progressive Pakeha Left had no convincing answers, other than to hang their heads in guilt and shame, and promise to do all within their power to right the wrongs of colonisation, and restore to the maximum extent possible the rights of Aotearoa’s indigenous people.
That they chose to do this through the courts, rather than through Parliament, is a reflection of the fear and loathing many anti-tour protesters, university students in particular, took away from their encounters with supporters of the Springbok Tour. That these people were racists went without saying, but the vicious sexism experienced by female protesters came as a nasty shock. Male protesters were equally stunned by the homophobic slurs hurled at them by rugby supporters.
Obviously, from the progressive perspective, National Party voters could not to be trusted to do the right thing. But, sadly, neither could the party of the working class. Far too many Labour voters had been willing to abandon their democratic-socialist ideals for a game of footy. Long before Hilary Clinton came up with the description, New Zealand’s progressives made it their business to ensure that the important business of decolonising and indigenising Aotearoa was kept as far away as possible from such deplorable citizens.
A lot can happen in 43 years. New Zealand jurisprudence can be radically reoriented. The National Party can atone for the sins of Rob Muldoon by initiating the Treaty Settlement Process. Apart from its votes, Labour can give up expecting anything from, or doing very much for, the New Zealand working-class. Te Tiriti, itself, can cease to be regarded as a simple nullity and become New Zealand’s foundational constitutional document. From around 10 percent, Māori can grow to 20 percent of the population.
Most importantly, from being a noisy and morally aggravating adjunct to the anti-apartheid movement in 1981, Māori defenders of te Tiriti, in 2024, by their own efforts, and using their own resources, can descend upon New Zealand’s capital city with upwards of 100,000 followers at their back, and no force in front of them even remotely capable of turning them around.
This essay was posted exclusively on the Bowalley Road blog of Monday, 18 November 2024.
38 comments:
Unstoppable? Too big to fail?
Then your mention of the progressive movements creation of modern day electricity starved, life expectancy shortened, broken South Africa is very apt!
Don't get carried away by predicted crowd numbers Chris. Invariably they are a lot smaller than promoters claim. If for example they are 5 deep on both sides of a road for a kilometre, that is only 10k people. And there will be a lot there like children who aren't voters or even know what they are there for. Then there are the rent-a-mob who turn up to any protest against a right-wing government.
The real test is public opinion. Currently the anti-legislation protesters(most of the them can't tell you what the bill says) are only a minority - only a bit more than the combined Green/ Maori Party vote at last election. If that doesn't shift, then ACT is onto an electoral winner and Labour will go down.
There is a theme in your posts which is summed up in the assertion that -
"the progressive Pakeha Left had no convincing answers, other than to hang their heads in guilt and shame"
This is contrasted by your view that those protesting South Africa in 1981 -
"as a fight to see the guarantee of human equality embodied in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights upheld by the New Zealand Government."
This idea of guilt and shame, and on the indigenous side one of your correspondents hinted towards envy, is assigning motivation and emotion to others, and essentializing this to all. Whereas, your protest was one of universal justice and human rights as the sole reasoning. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights just, but the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples not seen as relevant.
I find it shallow that personal guilt is a result of historical institutional injustice. It might be of surprise, but we do not live in the past. The Treaty is, as Judge Eddie Durie so eloquently expressed, a living document. I am not the first to suggest that it is a blue print for the future. One in which addresses justice today. Redress is an expression of justice. Empowering Maori to deliver the health, education, welfare and well-being to Maori should not be contentious. Denying this is a strange expression of insecurity and control that does not sit well with many Maori and non-Maori.
What was being protested in 1981? The empowerment of people that had been unjustly disempowered, that self-determination was denied and control was by others. That this disempowerment was cloaked in the concept of race made this even more morally reprehensible. It was not "majoritarianism". The rejection of the white South African 'home-lands' project shows that.
It is possible to have higher motivations than guilt. It is notable that this is tagged to 'progressive Pakeha left', this is curious. A collective guilt to a multitude of differing origins in time and space. Those of Pasifika heritage or other non-Pakeha backgrounds, or the increasingly populous of mixed heritage seem to have different motivation than the 'progressive Pakeha left'.
Maori that have Pakeha as well as Maori heritage have been given a genetic get out of guilt free card from this Pakeha guilt. Last I saw Chris Finlayson was not left, nor is the occasional contributor to this blog Wayne Mapp, or any other the other National parliamentary members that have engaged in good faith to progress issues of the Treaty. This column contests the conservative right seeking atonement rather than seeking justice. The sins of the father? Muldoon was 10 leaders ago (11 if your American and count non-consecutive twice).
"New Zealand’s progressives made it their business to ensure that the important business of decolonising and indigenising Aotearoa was kept as far away as possible from such deplorable citizens", this denies generations that have grown up with the vision of shaping our future in line with te Tiriti and indigenous rights. I have suggested in past posts, there are few working-class New Zealanders that do not have Maori partners and children, friends and co-workers. The continuing view that it is somehow a top down support of Treaty / Tiriti rights simply does not stand up to scrutiny.
So funny. Luxon and Seymour "discuss" the treaty bill while a bemused Peters looks on. https://x.com/i/status/1856587019583140175
I find it remarkable how we, the public, were treated like mushrooms by all and sundry when these"partnership"/ co governance principles appeared from nowhere and snuck through without us mere mortals being consulted on such a massive constitutional change. That it will not work seems irrelevant to these shit stirrers but then again it's just another step to full racial takeover anyway.
Yet this morning I read the Heralds headline, "The deepest betrayal". Jeez zus, spare the bullshit theatre palease. It's us, the proles, the workers, Joe Average, whose been betrayed by this attempted coup. We, the great unwashed, should be marching on parliament to demand an end to this never ending horse shit of Maori victimisation gravy train we fund no less!!!
I say this for no other reason than I do not want to see NZ as another failed state road kill like so many in Africa in the name of personal gain for an elite that fancy themselves as lords of the universe based on their so called culture!
Excellent thank you Chris - and somewhat frightening. I agree that much has changed but has the majority of the great unwashed changed that much? Opinion polls suggest there are more in favour of Seymour’s bill than against it.
Living in Oz in the late 70s early 80s I was relieved to have not had to experience the tour but was very disturbed on returning to find how polarised and rigid attitudes were.
Nowadays it seems like everyone is a racist, at least if you’re white (and maybe other hues as well?).
The narrative seems to be that in pre-European times wonderful kind peaceful Māori lived in a utopian garden of Eden and that that dastardly captain Cook opened Pandora’s box and the wicked whites destroyed everything.
This is patently untrue as history and science tell us - but wait those are merely a white construct and cannot be trusted.
How did we come to this?
I went to school and worked with Māori people. I was aware they were Māori just as I was aware someone might be atheist or Presbyterian or Indian. I made no distinction. We all got on, and lived and let live. Now I must hang my head in shame as an unconscious racists and renounce democracy, the Enlightenment, and all the developments of western civilisation.
I don’t buy it! I suspect most of us among of the great unwashed are of a similar mind.
I would be extremely surprised if they get 20,000
This a protest organised and funded by the taxpayer though the Waiperera trust, TPM, PIJF, and the education system..
Most of the population will be angered rather than frightened by what's going on
Could it be that I entirely agree, Chris, and have dutifully quoted the absurd estimates of the organisers all the better to bring them back to earth when the actual numbers struggle to attain even a fifth of their hopes? What a wicked thought!
I always know that I am on the right track, thematically and argumentatively, The Barron, by the rising tone of indignation and the sheer volume of your responses.
Judging by the above comment, this latest post of mine promises to reach its intended audience in record time and with maximum effect.
There is, after all, no better thumbs-up than The Barron's thumbs-down.
"Empowering Maori to deliver the health, education, welfare and well-being to Maori should not be contentious." No it should not, but what IS contentious is that ALL taxpayers foot the bill.
I have yet to hear, from The Barron, a call for a separate Maori taxation regime to provide the the funding to empower Maori their separate health, education, welfare and well-being. Taxation that also funds 15% of the "commons" (roads, bridges, tunnels, air and sea ports, public transport, etc., etc.) as represented by volume, their use there off.
There was a very brief mention earlier in the year of Chinese money going into one of those Trusts. I assume the media aren't too keen to look under that stone but wouldn't surprise me if our current turmoil is part of wider geopolitical planning.
"....so incensed by the racism of white South Africa’s apartheid system, but had so little to say about the racist foundations of your own nation?"
I'm from the "protest" generation. I vividly remember the anti-apartheid campaign, and the Springbok tour protests. To our shame, we criticised countries such as South Africa, while failing to look over our shoulders at our own polity, which had a Maori electoral system. Such a system is a priori racist, yet many of us failed to see it.
Nowadays, advocates of this system claim that it's justified, because it gives Maori a "voice" which they would not otherwise have. This isn't true, of course, and the system remains racist, as is every other by-Maori, for-Maori organisation and agency which has been established.
Other NZ citizens aren't stupid: they see this for themselves, even if they're intimidated into silence by Maori - and leftwing voices' - anger and antagonism. When they get an opportunity to speak anonymously, that's what they say. Hence the drubbing the previous government received at the last election.
Now, we expect our politicians to recognise realities and speak courageously. As David Seymour is doing. And Luxon and Peters aren't.
Many of us now realise that everything which has happened as a result of the ToW Act in 1975 - along with the Act itself - has been kicking the can down the road. And here we are. Time to stand firm and make it clear that we're all NZers, with equal rights. As we can now see, the conciliatory approach hasn't worked and will not work in the future.
Guilty without guilt. Thumbs up? Look to the diditus medius for more explicit response.
Er... upwards of 100,000 ? As I write this today perhaps 10,000 have gathered in parliaments grounds..and as for "using their own resources"..A more accurate description would be "using taxpayer funded resources"
Maori have made the most of the Carkoi and with help of modern technology, in the form of mobile phones, with which they have no trouble using, will saturate the news to their satisfaction. There is no doubt in my mind that pre 1960 predominately pakeha administrators, starting with the government and including their departments paid lip service to the so called shyness that many Maori and pacific people showed in their unwillingness to use the Pakeha services. I can understand the older generation feeling alienated and left out of the good stuff of Pakeha society. I went to college in CHB in the sixties and at a guess half the pupils were Maori. They attended the same classes I did and I'm sure they were as bright as me or brighter, but many didn't have the confidence to push their education because for many, good job opportunities didn't come their way. It's not like that any more. Those who choose not to get educated haven't got those same excuses. Apart from the old, Maori have no reason to be missing out on proper education and health care and if cost is a factor it's the same factor for many pakeha and other ethnicities as well. IMO Maori have to take some responsibility for their problems but they don't seem to a lot of the time. The Treaty principles Bill is feared because of the six months of discussion that is coming. A discussion that will question any perceived right to sovereignty, and any idea that they deserve, in 2024, any extra privileges beyond being treated in the same way as any other NewZealander, apart what is agreed and negotiated in a Treaty settlement. The more that is discussed the more people will see it as a sensible thing. We need to discuss and distinguish between rights and privileges when looking at the so called gains made by Maori in the last fifty years. Do we advance together as a nation or do we continually beat our backs because our colonial past and use the blame game and victimisation to perpetuate restoration and separation for ever.
Agreed CM re numbers. TVNZ are saying 35,000 and given their anti Government stance and anti Treaty Principles rhetoric plus their propensity to overstate numbers in any protest against the Coalition Government maybe 10/15,000 is more accurate.
It sounds like there were about 30,000 there; nowhere near the 100,000 predicted.
It is quite wrong to generalise about what Maori want, what they think of this Bill, and the extent to which so-called Maori sovereignty resonates with them. All we know are the views of an active, vocal minority.
Seymour's Bill does NOT propose to "do away with" the Treaty. It is a historical document, an important historical document. What it does do is to try to define what the Treaty means in 21st century New Zealand. Anyone with any sense must see that how the Treaty should be understood and applied today is a legitimate topic for discussion and debate by ALL New Zealanders. It is up to our legislature to make policy, for we live -- so I've understood -- in a representative democracy [well, moderately democratic at any rate], which means these sort of decisions are to be made by elected representatives, not the courts or an un-elected Tribunal.
Yes, a considerable force. It took me three hours to get to work; walking to the station, waiting, hemmed in like a refugee for a carriage, waiting stalled for another half hour. An impressive mobilisation, the question is, what next? Does Te Pati Maori have the skills - or the motivation - to build on this support? Most of the crowd looked like lower paid working people. I think their economic and social deprivation is a part of their reason for turning out today. Has Te Pati Maori the political capacity to represent and organise these working people? Remains to be seen.
The sad thing is that you have indeed realigned what is considered your intended audience. It is certainly no longer those of the Political Review. I doubt it is those that marched alongside you in 1981 or rallied to New Labour with you.
You more often than not seek solace in the old Hillary Clinton quote of 'deplorables'. Working class has rarely been your audience, but it would appear you seek to be spokesperson for an envisioned underclass of dispossessed Pakeha. The not so silent majority that reject expertise and institutions and replace it with anti-intellectual "reckons". Almost as if you can minipulate a voting majority you can negate the need for any factual basis and undermine the very institutions that protect civil society.
The intended audience? Those you used to eloquently evaluate.
Barron: "generations that have grown up with the vision of shaping our future in line with te Tiriti and indigenous rights"
I don't believe that that "vision" is widely shared, now or in the past. Far more prevalent is the vision of universality as far as human rights are concerned - that prevalence is what powers the opposition to the TPB referendum.
All too typical of the woke intellectual to ignore reality in favour of ideology.
Hmm, some quite anxious commenters here. The hikoi protest was in fact larger than anyone predicted. I will go by the Police estimate of 42,000. More significantly, it mostly people under 40. Possibly around 5% of all Maori under that age. Which is impressive indeed.
The strength of the hikoi shows that democratic states rest on agreed understandings. That majoritarianism is not a blank check, that the minority also have rights. In our case it is the understanding that one party can't just unilaterally rewrite the founding treaty which is between two parties, thinking the other party will stay mute. While I think Jenny Shipley overstated things by saying this could start a civil war, it is worth recall New Zealand has actually had a civil war on treaty issues.
The Good Friday settlement in Northern Ireland has partnership as the essential element, that Northern Ireland cannot be governed on the basis of simple majoritarianism.
Rather than Seymour starting a constitutional debate, he has set it back many years. It will be many years before passions are calm enough to have a reasoned debate on New Zealand's constitutional future. I think most probably it will take place with serious intent around the Treaty bicentennial in 2040.
To: The Barron @ 2:25
My audience has always been those fearless New Zealanders, of whatever race, class, or gender, who identify with and defend the democratic and egalitarian ethos that has always defined the political soul of this country.
That you do not subscribe to this ethos has, over many years, been made abundantly clear, The Barron. Of your obsession with ethnicity, and disdain for democracy, very few readers of Bowalley Road are in the slightest doubt. Which is why I say that the best indication of what they are likely to support, is what you oppose.
Eventually, The Barron, I hope you will come to understand, as David Mitchell's SS man does in the famous sketch, that you are one of the baddies - and do something about it.
The minority do, indeed, have rights, Wayne, but they do not include the right to shut down democratic debate and dictate the evolution of their society.
The "tyranny" of the majority may, or may not, be a bad thing - it is arguable. What is not arguable, however, is that a society dictated to by an intimidatory minority is in anything other than mortal danger.
All struggle is class struggle. (Karl M)
Yes - the crowd was never 100.000.
This Hikoi of Hate drew a crowd smaller than a Rugby Test Match, or a Cold Play concert. Even if we stretch it out to 50,000. this is only 0.05% of New Zealand's population.
Wayne your quote
"In our case it is the understanding that one party can't just unilaterally rewrite the founding treaty which is between two parties, thinking the other party will stay mute. "
Of course Act are not rewriting the Treaty are they. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 did. An Act to provide for the observance, and confirmation, of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by establishing a Tribunal to make recommendations . They interpreted the Treaty to what they understood it to mean, but the general public wasn't invited. Whoever made those decisions did that unilaterally and were not elected but were appointed. Most NZrs including me had no idea what the ramifications of that would be. Seymour is saying, were those decisions correct, lets back up the truck and have a second look. Not much wrong with that in my opinion.
Police estimate is always conservative but put it at 42,000
Gerrit - the wealth of this nation was built on that which was Maori. The Treaty settlements account for a small fraction of what Maori had under English customary and common law. The gold from the Clutha alone would bankrupt NZ several times if the wealth was to returned.
Simple understanding of the Treaty shows Article 3 requiring equity, delivery to Maori has not been equitable. Article 2 gives Maori the self determination to deliver.
David - Universal rights are not about freezing a society in iniquity, it is about resourcing the disempowered for them to be empowered.
The assertion that the Act bill does not change the actual Treaty is repeating one of Seymour's glib comments. Chris' history of the development of the principles is also incorrect.
The first point is that the Treaty did not disappear from NZ law when Prendergast and Richmond made their nullity ruling. It continued to be a factor in the domestic courts and Privy Council. In the case of 1986 case of Te Weehi v Regional Fisheries, Judge Williamson recognized customary rights, which date back to Anglo-Saxon law and the Treaty of Waitangi rights. At this stage, the Tribunal had been reporting on claims. The Lange government required a way of legally complying with the legal readings of the Treaty and the Crown obligations. The Courts derived from the Treaty, international law, legal principles (such as duty of good faith) and existing law to come up with the Principles. These are explicitly legal views based on the actual Treaty.
You cannot separate these from the text of te Tiriti or legalize what is not derived from te Tiriti. This is not rewriting the Principles, but unilaterally breaking the Treaty by removal of the legal status.
I have previously listed the principles that Courts have seen as within the Treaty. I have yet to hear an substantive argument that the Courts have got it wrong.
As for whether the 'people' should have been consulted by the judges doing their job, it is a bi-lateral agreement. The Courts are finding the Crown legal principles for operating within a bi-lateral agreement. People do not be consulted as to the way Anglo-Saxon customary law intersects with Maori tikanga and common law. There is a need for legal expertise to guide that.
Actually 50,000 is 1%.
So your short answer is Yes. All tax payers will pay for the Maori only initiatives.
That gold example is a perfect simile of the disconnect you show. Maori did not know off, understand the value there off, how to "harvest" gold, refine it or bring it to market, till colonisation. It was not till the Australian and Chinese gold miners arrived that Maori became aware off gold as a mineral and the potential value as a commodity. How can something be returned when it's wealth was not known to Maori? This fallacy that the riches discovered or industries developed (like dairy farming) by non Maori is somehow owned by Maori has to be the biggest con job going. Land had value to Maori only when occupied and any subsequent improved value is not the value we should compensate anyone for.
You say "equity, delivery to Maori has not been equitable". But at what construct and value? If a Chinese miner digs up gold in the Clutha what equity has not been delivered to Maori? Did not Maori have the same ABILITY to gain equity by mining the gold? Or are you saying that any improved mineral, land, technology (think radio waves) value and status be equally shared irrespective of investment and technology input by the non Maori party?
Hear hear, Mr Trotter!
Agree mostly with your comments Wayne, arial drone footage has the Hikoi numbers closer to an estimated 80,000. Jenny Shipley may have touched a nerve with talk of civil war, we live in nervous times.
"What is not arguable, however, is that a society dictated to by an intimidatory minority is in anything other than mortal danger......"
David Seymour and his parliamentary minions are just the puppets for a certain minority at the big end of town, the blog author's description above of this minority is apt.
A Maori statistician, Caleb Moses, based in Canada, has analysed the drone images sent to him by a friend in New Zealand, and, from an initial estimate of 83,000, subsequently revised his estimate downwards to match, pretty closely, the Police estimate of 42,000. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/data-scientist-uses-hikoi-drone-footage-to-estimate-crowd-size-of-at-least-40000/X6CH5PCT3RDB7PNL2IIOV4AP2M/
Your preference for kritocracy (rule by judges) over democracy is, once again, confirmed, The Barron. Very few of Bowalley Road's readers will be surprised. Even fewer, I suspect, will be impressed.
Obviously with 19th century globalization the world value of gold and methods of extraction become known and the right and ability to license miners. Of course Maori were the customary owners of the resources . The doctrine that allowed Britisn to claim the right to the resources was a mixture of Hobbd and Locke and a breach of the Treaty by extention of the scope of the Crown
As noted, the Treaty settlements are a drop in the bucket as to actually lose
It should also be noted, the Crown should be providing health, education etc. The delivery is shifted, Obviously the cot to the government is a Maori child educated in a state of integrated school run and governed by a Maori community rather than by a general community. It is showen this gets better outcomes.
A simple way to understand is to ask yourself did te Iwi Maori own or claim a resource in 1839? It doesn't matter if it is something the value of was not known or obvious (like radio waves). The next question is did they conceed those resources? If not, then there remains a claim or interest. Some is covered by Treaty settlements, others such as radio waves have agreement with the Crown for an allocation of t) he development. Others have Maori involved with co-management of the use of resources acknowledging shared interest.
Perhaps think of Thailand. The Thai state (under direct monarchy) had the rights over resources throughout the colonial period Like Thai gems, extraction then an now (under democratic constitutional monarchy) must have an arrangement with the Thai authorities.
I suggest I have asserted the need for checks and balances within a democracy This is protection against any autocracy, whether through exploitation of constitutional weakness or not.
I do not accept the claim that the courts are acting in anyway other than that they are designed to do. The claim of activism has not been shown, and Partridge 's examples weak.
I have never advocated "rule" by judges, I have upheld their position as expert interpretators of national and international law.
The courts have an undeniable independent role in democratic civil society. I find the obsession with undermining the courts without even one substantive example of the courts, through judicail reviews, have missteped.
The attack on the institutions of civil society should be able to be defended without silly labels.
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