A RESPONSE TO SEYMOUR’S SABOTAGE OF THE RIGHT MĀORI HAVE TO THE EQUALITY OF ACCESS TO VACCINATIONS
Today Te Whānau o Waipareira was attacked by the Leader of the ACT Party for supporting it’scommunities in difficulty.
He did so with the full knowledge that the first Delta death occurred amongst our community withone of our Māori nannies passing away three days ago. The first Delta death in Aotearoa.
Seymour stumbled upon his Māori Ngā Puhi ancestory late in life and used it to advance his political ambitions. Today he trampled it into the gutter.
Today he willfuly sabotaged a vaccination programme where Māori were seeking equality of accessto vaccinations. Nothing more and nothng less.
Mr Seymour demonstrates his entitlement, his privilege and his disdain for vulnerable New Zealand communities. Today he demonstrated he will use us as a brown political football to kick around and drive hate. Today he destroyed good will and good faith amongst the team of five million.
Today he practiced the worst form of politics in the worst possible time of our nationhood story.
Today Mr Seymour not only causes hate, but runs the possibility of causing death should Deltaexplode in our under vaccinated Māori communities.
As a Maori, how do I not have the same access to vaccinations as any of my other brothers and sisters currently? There are no barriers whatsoever in booking a vaccination. Covid-19 doesn’t care about ethnicity and neither does the ministry of health? If you want to get vaccinated, book an appointment.
You’re quite right. The entire commentary of Tamahere & his Maori party cohorts is racist dog whistling at it’s worst.
Worse still is the patronizing dependency they & these Govt policies engender. Most of us have brought up kids: we know that the longer we treat them as special needs children the longer they will take to realise their independence & reach their full potential.
What ever. It’s 90% vaccination rate and that’s that. Make it happen, nubs.
The interesting thing is that Tamahere’s hissy fit. Gave Seymour much more exposure than if Tamahere had shut his gob.
Again, the goal is 90% vaccination. Have you got that?
Agreed. No one in the health authorities have prevented Maori or Pacifica from getting a covid jab. There has been no inequality of access to vaccinations the message get vaccinated has been the same to all groups. Perhaps JT can suggest why there has been lower uptake amongst Maori? I would suggest poorer levels of science education and Billy Tahika. The team of 5 million needs everyone vaccinated and pragmatic response is extra special effort and messaging to get higher maori vaccination rates.
Seriously the goverment should be running a covid vaccinaton lottery where the jab gives you a chance to win millions. This has been an effective strategy in USA to get the vaccine hesitant onboard.
Perhaps you need to acquaint yourself with what’s called “supply and demand.” When it is assumed that everyone is the same, that makes it impossible for supply to meet demand.
Vaccines like every other medicine has to be prescribed by trusted doctors. Each will have there own flock and some will lose faith in medicine.
Tamihere’s statement that “Seymour stumbled upon his Māori Ngā Puhi ancestry late in life and used it to advance his political ambitions” is not true.
In fact, Seymour very rarely — if ever — mentions it unless he is asked.
When Moana asked (at around 54sec in the video below): “So your mum is Ngapuhi?” …
Seymour said: “Yes, that’s right…”
Generally he doesn’t say anything about it.
She asked him if his Maori background influenced him and he said: “Yeah. Absolutely.”
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=550321678978639
I understand why Maori were getting preference for vaccinations, but average New Zealanders of all races including Maori won’t understand why and will not be offended by this because it’s pretty simple to book a vaccination without a code.
All this will do and all continuing to talk about it will do will be to give Seymour and Act free coverage and free promotion, and his poll numbers will only go up because there’s a huge sector of the traditional left who believe in universalism and despise these kinds of policies, the kinds of people of all age groups and ethnicities who’d usually vote for Winston and his populist brand of universalism and currently have nowhere to go will like that he did this and the more outrage about it the more of those people will hear about it.
Just ignore the fool.
Nasty and unnecessary. By Seymour.
Even though I believe that Maori have every opportunity ,the same as main stream to get the vaccine. But there is hesitancy by many, and the xtra effort being put in is worth the effort.
Shame on Seymour for his actions.
Terrible politics Richard but most of ACT’s policies are.
I guess all that money spent by the Government starting in MARCH and targeting Maori to get Vaccinated was a waste of money then.
Tamahere got a chunk of that money!
So why was Maori uptake so bad???
So having a shot at Seymour is just cheap attempt at trying to gain profile.
Sad bastard.
Back in the day he used to be a good guy.
Now he is just a sad political animal.
Opportunity for David to get in the news again, he is definitely different.
Well the world would be a crappy place if we were all the same.
He’s very special.
Well I can’t speak for everywhere but here in Picton the local Marae was very quick off the mark vaccinating their people. They were also very generous extending vacs to the locals.
So maybe it’s not a race thing Mr Tamihere. Maybe it’s a function of the shit town you live in.
Sky’s falling down again is it ? No big deal. David S might be a bit naughty but he’s not depriving anyone of anything. Bit of a mystery why nobody is wailing cultural appropriation and bellowing colonialist privilege and why they’re a firebrand and somebody called me a cunt. Show’s over – time to get planting.
Most of you people just don’t get it. From the moment white people landed here and saw the opportunities here they have shafted the indigenous people. When you have “democracy” as 1 person: 1 vote, and numerical superior numbers by one particular group then it is all over for the minority group. White people seem to think they are fair to Maori. PIFFLE. National and Act are despicable in their policies in these matters.
Yes agree with ya garibaldi and that is why National and Act are not in power. Based on many of the comments above I can see why we have some many inequalities in our country. Looking forward to seeing if the new Maori Health Authority will make a difference it won’t be easy fixing the 150yrs plus of inequalities created as a result of a monocultural system with a one size fits all approach.
Agree with you garibaldi except for singling our Nats & Act. I think it’s more a colonial ‘we know what’s best’ attitude which pervades all parties (except Maori) and much of our bureaucrats thinking. Hopefully things are changing; we are currently experiencing a new style of leadership that the ‘old school’ are finding very difficult to cope with. I can only hope a sufficient number of electors find it refreshing enough for us to be able to continue along this path.
I have said this else-where:
When I think about it abit further I come to the conclusion that like Judith Collins David Seymour is nothing short of a bully. And that explains why bullies like Collins and him think they can get away with their actions with no repercussions of the consequences. No amount of denial and of course the traditional route of Blame-Games(that National are famous for)will redeem David Seymour of thls latest botch up of his.
Additionally bullies do always seem to look after Number One i.e themselves. Any caring of others just doesn’t enter their minds/mindset. They are only Doing This for the purpose of attention seeking for say political reasons/agendas or being the centre of attention especially by those that take whatever the bully says as Gospel. They care ONLY about THEMSELVES, OF THEMSELVES and how much publicity they can make in these attention seeking stunts.
He probably considered himself as invincible especially as he may have got abit over-whelmed with the increasing ranking of ACT over National in some polls. Lets say he had vision of grandeur and that he is more superior and should be listened to than anyone else eg the experts in the health sector and some Maori leaders like John Tamihere.
Though I am not Maori I feel there is hesitation by many Maori towards the COVID vaccines. I don’t know why but can only imagine the hesitation could be due to either mis-information by some anti-vaxxers or a deep seated distrust of anything Pakeha.
I do hope more Maori and P.Is please do get the vaccine. As a pakeha I have had my first COVID injection and the ONLY side effect was a soreness at where the needle went in on my left arm. I was supposed to have the second vaccine yesterday but due to Level 4 in Auckland I had to re-book for end of September.
To get the vaccine done gives me peace of mind and I hope others do so as well.
Take care NZ.
Very well said.
Could Te Whānau o Waipareira actions be considered to be racist? It was certainly race based, but that does not make it a racist action, so very debatable.
Were Te Whānau o Waipareira actions illegal or have they the legal right to do what they did? No one has suggested so far that their action was illegal.
Did Te Whānau o Waipareira act in good faith to try and ensure their community got vaccinated (a action beneficial to us all)? Undoubtedly.
Did David Seymour have the right to question Te Whānau o Waipareira action? Unquestionably.
Did David Seymour have the right to publish correspondence not intended for him or the audience to which he released it? Absolutely not.
Was David Seymour’s action in releasing the correspondence malicious and intended to sabotage the efforts of Te Whānau o Waipareira for his own political purpose? Unquestionably.
Has West Auckland been served well by the work carried out by Te Whānau o Waipareira during the Covid crisis? Undoubtedly.
Keep up the excellent work John T, your efforts and that of your team are truly appreciated by us Westies.
Comments are closed.