The Haps

ACT’s Dr Parmjeet Parmar made an excellent point about the spate of attacks on bus drivers. It doesn’t help when bus operators like Auckland Transport don’t enforce fares. Instead of someone else’s property that you should respect, the message is ‘you’re entitled, this bus is yours, do what you like.’ Her point was covered widely over the weekend in articles such as this. It’s a very good example of ACT taking a values-based approach to New Zealand’s problems.

Wrong kind of viral

Te Pāti Māori MPs have, in the words of one widely viewed American commentator, made New Zealand a laughing stock. The problem is not the haka, it’s the fact that Te Pāti Māori, and others who should know better, believe reasoned debate and war dances are equal ways to do politics.

Of course we’d rather not be writing about Te Pāti Māori’s antics, so we won’t. Some of the commentary around the antics, though, is so unhinged it requires a response.

At the heart of the problem is the post-modern disease that Free Press rails against. Doing war dances, getting in people’s faces, well that’s just a form of self expression no different from reasoned debate. Worse, it’s Māori expressing themselves, is about what some commentators have said in the last few days.

Free Press is a liberal publication, we believe in universal human rights, free speech, and free markets. So perhaps we’re biased, but we believe there are certain things that are true no matter who you are.

We believe that there are universal truths, some ways of living are just better than others. They lead to longer life expectancies, less violence, better health.

No culture owns these better ways of living, and no culture is immune to barbarism either. It’s only 400 years ago that witches were burned at the stake in England. You can still go to the waterfront in Lisbon and see where the inquisition tortured people, or Paris where the French beheaded each other in fits of madness. Only a few hundred years ago, everywhere was barbarous.

You can study what kinds of rules help people overcome suffering to do better. Europe, North America, Asia, and India, and now green shoots in Africa, show the way.

A system of personal freedom under the law is what works. Governments should be subject to regular free and fair elections by secret ballot. Citizens and their representatives should enjoy freedom of speech. As people in each place have adopted these values, they’ve doubled their life expectancy, from 40 not that long ago, to 80 now.

We acknowledge many Māori have specific problems to overcome. Actually, most people do. But the fact individuals have problems doesn’t change the best framework for overcoming them.

The idea that Māori are completely different people, and that the system that’s doubled life expectancy around the world doesn’t work for us, is absurd. For one thing there’s just no reason to think that Māori would be the only people on the planet for whom liberal democracy doesn’t work.

For another, most Māori, like the seven in the current Cabinet, actually do believe in liberal democracy. We shouldn’t need to say it but the idea that all Māori think the same is not only incorrect but also, well, racist.

That all brings us back to the Haka. Te Pāti Māori don’t represent a Māori way of doing things. They represent a minority within Māoridom who believe they are truly different from everyone else on the planet without any evidence.

These are the basic facts that should form New Zealand’s public narrative, and our job is to keep articulating them until they do.

© Scoop Media