by Amy Brooke
Will this election help to claim back New Zealand?
An emerging trend which should cause us concern is the refusal of defeated parties to accept the verdict of the majority, but to keep pushing back, inveighing against the so-called “tyranny of the majority”. Apparently far from accepting that their views or causes are anathema to the majority, they would rather, as losers, apparently see the the tyranny of the minority imposed instead.
This is pretty well what has been happening since Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party first came into power and started imposing racist policies on the country, sowing divisiveness and dissent by prioritizing the interests of a small minority of influential, well-placed part-Maori dissidents over the interests of all others.
Much of this was helped by former Prime Minister John Key’s underhand signing of the country up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – although he should have well known that we have no indigenous Maoris in this country. Talking to our earlier historians, such as James Cowan, the ancestors of today’s Maoris were quite open in their references to those whom they knew well had come before them.
It is simply not possible to claim Maoris were indigenous to this country when all of today’s part-only Maori are descended from tribes which proudly boasted about the names of the canoes which brought them here.
They were immigrants as much as all of our colonial ancestors, from whom most of today’s part-Maori are also descended — if not from Chinese or other ancestry. But apparently lacking any respect for this fact, they have found it more lucrative — this strident minority only — to keep claiming “our people” are disadvantaged — whereas in fact the majority of part-Maori are in the same boat as everybody else, by no means disadvantaged or prospering less because of a partial genetic inheritance.
An underclass of part-Maori under-achievers highlighted in prison statistics, for example, are not disadvantaged because of race. Other factors come into play here such as cultural attitudes, lack of family support and stability, and the deliberate promotion of a grievance industry among the young by highly politicized leaders looking for recruits and, ridiculously, blaming colonialism for poor thinking and a lack of personal responsibility. Factor in a long-standing reliance on social welfare handouts with an attitude of entitlement — by no means lacking among other New Zealanders who may also have an aversion to work with similar results.
The meagre support for the Te Pati Maori party, sitting at about 2.6% of the vote, before any special votes are factored in, has put paid to any claim it speaks for part-Maori throughout the country. In fact those of Maori descent are found in all of the major parties. Despite an opportunistic claim by John Tamihere that part-Maori have special interests above all other New Zealanders, this is not and should not be the case.
The only way forward for this country is a peaceful one, not that promoted by Ardern’s and her successor’s government, with an ideological commitment to ignoring democratic principles by granting superior rights and special, never-ending funding to those opportunists whose hands are permanent held out, causing resentment also among other Maoris to whom the trickle-down effect does not seem to apply. It is largely the wealthy iwi who wield undue influence over decision-making, particularly because of their tax-payer raided payouts.
And now we are encountering a relatively new phenomenon as a result of ACT party leader David Seymour calling for a referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, which contains in fact no principles, and certainly did not claim an utterly impossible partnership between Queen Victoria’s government and scores of leaders of scattered, cannibalistic tribes. In essence, in return for the tribal leaders ceding authority to the Crown, Maori and non-Maori were guaranteed equality under the law and the right to their material possessions. To many Maoris this came as a great relief, largely putting an end to incessant tribal warfare.
Many would now argue it is high time for the Treaty of Waitangi, like so many other treaties, to be relegated to the dustbins of history. It has been reinvented in its provisions, elasticised and falsified to gain advantage for extremists who do not believe in democracy, and who believe they are somehow special above all other New Zealanders. Jacinda Ardern’s government, far from promoting social cohesion, encouraged this. But why, given she must have well known it was leading to the destabilising of our society, an aim particularly dear to Marxists?
Inevitably this has caused enormous divisiveness especially with Chris Finlayson’s and John Key’s folly in opening up of the foreshore and seabed right around our country to the possibility of it being claimed by Maori interests, aided by judicial activism. Politician of both major parties have done New Zealanders no favour with their constant kowtowing to pressure from such minority groups, rather than safeguarding the rights of all.
What now may well be perceived as an implied threat comes from Green Party leader James Shaw, stating that ACT’s proposed referendum “could lead to violence”… that “there could be violence and social disruption.” On what does he base this scaremongering? Without evidence, such a claim may well be interpreted by some as simply mischief-making.
While gang-related violence has increasingly taken a hold on this once far more stable country – with judges now required to take so many supposedly mitigating facts into account when sentencing those committing violent crimes – it is hoped that National’s proposed war on gangs and requiring criminals to face up to personal responsibility and serve an appropriate term of imprisonment – rather than be soft-soaped into home-detention – will help redress these iniquities.
The Electoral Commission, too, has questions to answer. It has come as very unwelcome news to many individuals that when they deliberately cast their vote for a minor party such as New Conservatives whose policies they supported, but which did not gain an electoral seat, nor cross the 5% threshold to gain parliamentary representation, their votes were not simply discarded, as apparently used to be the practice. Inexplicably, their votes were taken instead and proportionately bestowed on the very parties for whom they quite certainly dd not wish to vote!
Since when did this change come about? And why was the Electoral Commission making a political statement by substituting Aotearoa for New Zealand, in its tediously cartoonised television advertisements? New Zealanders have already overwhelmingly rejected the use of Aotearoa, so comprehensively promoted by Labour. It was as inappropriate for the Electoral Commission to foist it upon the public as have so-many other government departments obeying the edicts of the ideologues employed now as civil servants, advising and pressuring the government, rather than providing objective and neutral advice,
Time indeed to claim back our democracy…