The Newman Letter: The March to Maori Sovereignty

It has been disconcerting watching the political courtship rituals taking place in the corridors of power over the last few weeks, especially those made towards the Maori Party by National. While the National Party should be congratulated for investigating whether they could realistically form an alternative government, even a superficial look at the Maori Party's election promises would have revealed a radical sovereignty agenda that should have excluded it from any further consideration.

For those of us who support the abolition of race-based privilege and the principle of one law for all, the mere existence of the Maori Party in Parliament is an abomination. By promoting separatism and Maori sovereignty, they are working only for the advantage of Maori, not for the good of all New Zealanders. Indeed, the entry into Parliament of the Maori Party can be considered to be another step towards apartheid, and rather than shelving the call for the abolition of the Maori seats, center right parties should be strengthening it.

An overview of the Maori Party's agenda can be found on their website. It includes raising the minimum wage to $12.50 an hour, reinstating the moratorium on genetic engineering, introducing a Maori quota for radio and television, funding Maori housing, making Maori language compulsory in the public sector, teaching 'customary knowledge' in pre-school, primary, and secondary schools, and providing for the separate delivery of services to Maori.

Central to their strategy is the Treaty of Waitangi. The Maori Party want the Treaty to become the basis of a new constitution for New Zealand, creating a partnership between Maori and the Crown that would enable the development of a 'two-world view' - involving a Maori view and a Crown view - which would be used as the basis of a sharing of power and resources throughout the whole state sector.

This process has already started.

Last year, under the Official Information Act, I obtained material from Housing New Zealand, which exposed that a two-world view approach was being implemented - see Newman-On-Line: One Nation - Two Worlds. This approach prevented employees who did not subscribe to the radical re-invention of history that underpins a two-world view, from progressing in their careers. It is also the sort of thinking that has lead to the sacking of Josie Bullock by the Corrections Department, because she had the courage to speak out against archaic Maori cultural practices that dominate the workplace and treat women as second-class citizens.

The Maori Party website lists six key areas for progress including a five-year time frame for Maori self-determination through a Treaty-based constitution, entrenching and growing the number of Maori seats, fast-tracking more generous Treaty claim settlements, and reforming the entire state sector based on a two-worldview Treaty partnership perspective being incorporated into all legislation.

Specifically mentioned is their intention to re-draft the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act "to ensure that Articles 1 and 2 will guarantee Maori our mana and rangatiratanga and the ability to exercise power sharing on all issues that effect us as tangata whenua".

The Maori Party would like to see some $20 million ploughed into a scheme to re-educate New Zealanders about our history so that a "two-world view perspective can be included in the policies, management and operations of the public and state sector".

The Maori Party's strategy is based on indoctrinating the public - starting in the schools and imposing their propaganda on the public service. But some argue there are fatal flaws in the fundamental basis of their claims and dispute whether they are indeed the tangata whenua. They point to Moriori pre-dating Maori and a body of evidence suggesting the existence of people before them.

Further, the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed that all private property and goods could remain in the possession of the owners, both Maori and non-Maori alike, not forfeited to Queen Victoria. That version of the Treaty - which is consistent with the recently discovered "original" English version - did not give any special customary rights exclusively to Maori (for more information on these matters, see comments by researcher and author Martin Doutre on the website).

The reality is that a radical re-inventing of our history is taking place under our noses with taxpayers paying for indoctrination programmes in our schools, in the public service, and even on our television screens.

Here in Whangarei earlier this year we even had to watch while local and central government re-wrote the history of our city by changing the name of our mountain: the change was made to satisfy a powerful group of local Maori without any official supportive evidence and against the wishes of the community.

If we value our history and culture for what it is, and if we want to return to the sort of New Zealand where ethnicity does not confer privilege and where we are all equal under the law, then the march of Maori activism must be stopped - before it is too late. The abolition of the Maori seat power base in Parliament is long overdue.

If you feel strongly about this issue complete the poll and ask others to do the same.

PS. Last week's poll asked whether we should be subsidising dependency - 98% said no, 1% said yes and 1% did not know.

The Newman Letter is a weekly article from Dr Muriel Newman of the New Zealand Centre for Political Debate, a web-based forum for the lively and dynamic exchange of political ideas.

ENDS

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