Waitangi Tribunal utterly misses the vaccination politics of NZ

1. Sorry mate, but this is the Waitangi Tribunal being racist and totally unrealistic. None of my Maori friends or relatives live in Maori enclaves. As far as I know all are married to non-Maori, live in regular suburbs in multi-cultural towns and cities and are focused on the same sorts of issues as most of the rest of us.

   I know specific circumstances when Maori students have been singled out for specific attention because they are Maori, and have resented it. We socialise together as people and could do without tribunals and extremist political parties deliberately fostering divisiveness in the New Zealand community or talking obscenities like genocide.

2. Recycling an earlier thread Martyn, on the back of an, unsurprising, tribunal ‘ruling’.
   Even if Maori were first in the vaccine queue and didn’t get the jab as quickly as non Maori, despite in this instance over 100million extra funding…the Maori Party and waitangi tribunal would STILL cry racism/colonialism for poor vaccination uptake.
   Forced vaccinations!….ohh my, now that would be headlines, quite rightly, so once again tax payers money gets thrown into the money pit that is Maori politics in NZ

   • I’m right. It’s an uphill climb when Maori leaders like Marama and her colleagues told Kiwis that white people hate them, after the terrible Muslim murders. Some may have believed this. With pandemics a feature of the foreseeable future, and climate change, and changing weather patterns, and unknown physical or other disasters needing the best possible response when they happen, each then being subjected to a Waitangi Tribunal claim or ruling may be a recipe for social disharmony. The Treaty was wrongly put in abeyance, but if it is now weaponised, God defend New Zealand.

     • Well said Gentle Annie.

3. What’s done is done. Decisions were made in largely unprecedented circumstances.

   A decision was made to jab oldies first, all oldies, regardless of ethnicity, because they were perceived as the most at risk group. And boy oh boy did the millennials or whatever they are start complaining that they were being discriminated against in favour of the elderly.

   As an oldie registered over 30 years with one medical practice, I never heard a word from them, because they only contacted patients – oops customers – who text, I don’t text, so they didn’t bother; they no longer email, write, or phone, and I dumped my fax machine last week. I got done ok, but there’ll be other older persons who missed out, or who were confused.

   The local jab centre, inside a noisy public suburban shopping mall, was culturally insensitive to me too, not being a refugee from Eastern Europe. Again I found an alternative, but I can see why others may have balked, or found it a challenging or intimidating experience.

   The whole process was new to everyone, but nobody was being discriminated against. There was nothing to stop Maori in any age group, or any sort of group, from being vaccinated as the process unrolled, and the Waitangi Tribunal are in error if they’re trying to say there was some sort of discrimination.

   And they need their heads read if they think that there was an easy or speedy way of of socially selecting Maori from all over New Zealand which is where Maori live, everywhere. What Hosking and his ilk may think is irrelevant.

   • This is what I notice too ‘ they no longer email, write, or phone and it seems to me our long-won advances of communication – telephone available to nearly everyone, bus and rail bringing us closer with the help of inter-island ferries, telegrams, etc. are being forced out by corporates who force us to go their way or no way. Democracy getting degraded. Now you have to carry your personal message system with you all the time for FOMO. Perhaps notification of when the Food Bank is opening to the next part of the queue.

     • Grey Warbler. The thing is, I don’t watch television. I’d love to, if it was like the early days, with ‘The Avengers’ and great British comedies, and DNTV2’s brilliant outdoors nature productions, ‘ Music Hall’ etc. The quality is awful, with reality dross, and as far as I know, no decent news or interview type programmes, so I missed out on whatever info about Covid was being televised. I quit National Radio when I quit the paid work force, listen to some of the Concert Programme, but not much. But I do devour news online, which many older persons don’t.

       So govt depending on the public media about the virus doesn’t necessarily work. My GP, or his nurse used to send out routine letters, chased me up to have stuff done, and they both phoned. He retired after being messed around by Compass, I think it was, and everything changed, bingo. I know patients from that practice who were texted, and I don’t know what else, but I’ve not only never heard from them, but have been self – medicating when I shouldn’t, for I have not yet found another GP.

       A medical specialist relative, ie, a real doctor from Otago University Medical School, not someone with ‘ health papers from the University of Waikato ‘ , told me that medical practices are now run like businesses.

       This may help explain why they won’t incur the expense of printing out a letter and paying for a stamp, and if they have cut back on auxiliary staff, then time spent on the telephone is non-productive time in terms of cost. I am an uneconomic unit !

       Some older neighbours turn the television on when they wake up, so I imagine that they’d be receiving information ok, but I’m not a masochist – and it gives me tinnitus in a way which playing loudish music doesn’t, and I’ve not tried to figure out why – more than happy to accept that it could be psychological…

     • Grey Warbler and Peter Kelly. I don’t have the stamina or the legal expertise ( unlike Wellington City Council pesky self -appointed Treaty “experts” ) to look at this lengthy ruling in terms of the Treaty, which is the context in which it must be viewed.

       The Treaty is a legal contract, and contracts cannot just be constantly varied to suit changing circumstances, or there’s no point in having them. Also Parliament is the legislative body in New Zealand, not the Waitangi Tribunal, and the government needs to tread very carefully here, they’re already on shaky constitutional ground blithely stating eg with their repression of free speech aspirations, that it will be up to the police to decide what is hate speech. Moral cowards. I have asked a lawyer relative, coincidentally, a contract solicitor, if they’ll look at this ruling in terms of the Treaty, but I might rescind that as just another waste of time.

     • Greywarbler. “ force us to go their way or no way. “ Yes. There was a time we paid our bills monthly. Most of mine are now direct debit, but not my lawn mowing person for over 10 years, part of a franchise. He started circling, “pay within 7 days”, on his account which is popped into my letter box; I always pay, tho’ mail can go missing, packages get stolen, but I’ve never run up a big account. I got other clients for him. When he upped his charges by 27% prior to Christmas, I decided to dispense with his services. He has a weekender property, and holidays regularly in Australia and continental Europe. I don’t.

4. Well said Applewood. I must do some research and find out just who are the people on the ‘Waitangi Tribunal’. For some reason I’m sceptical about their latest pronouncement. I believe the ratio of deaths of Maori to Non Maori is actually quite low. A few facts and figures would be more helpful than sweeping generalisations from the media.

5. Blame. Victim. An unsuitable stance for Maori to reiterate; a group that wishes to be strong, capable and upright. The Waitangi Tribunal are trying to take Maori forward and address wrongs, I understand that. But when the Maori Party gets entered Parliament and then its first important point is wearing a hat there, or the Maori Green Party Deputy Leader uses her prominence to shake her finger at disgraceful, dirty language, those leaders do not impress as having gravitas. If they are more concerned about rebelling about dress and language styles, they are not seen as reliable people to take up the heavy burdens landed society-wide requiring rules and changes with life and death consequences.

   Maori with rebellious instincts, were not likely to be able to control all in their agencies who would be involved in controlling Covid. The thing is, it’s an experiment being carried forward in real time under careful, sometimes hesitant methodology and stages. If people want to be involved they must work to the strict protocols so outcomes can be measured and compared on a level playing field. And statistics being correct and understood as having validity.

   It has been a constant theme that the Treaty of Waitangi is a dynamic agreement. And as it must change to accommodate modern Maori, in a bi-cultural working arrangement, it also has to accommodate pakeha. In this case the Treaty members have publicly gone for the grievance mode, which downplays the quality of their other judgments. Stop going after emotional satisfactions and the easy blame. This may be your Erebus moment; pakeha did not like being told by a pakeha judge that they were wrong. Who has the temerity and staunchness among the Tribunal to admit that they made the wrong call?

   • Greywarbler I think Davidson wanted to normalise the word ‘ cunt’, because she was offended on being called one. Her reasoning seems to be that if it became an ordinary everyday word, it would no longer be offensive or upsetting to be called one, hence she advocated changing our vocabularies to assuage her hurt feelings.

     My first reaction was what a sheltered and privileged life Marama has lead, if one crude word was enough to hurt her, and to warrant political action by a party leader. But it seems to have qualified her to be entrusted with addressing sexual and family violence, and if she succeeds there, then I will consider nominating her for a Nobel Peace Prize, but she does need to tone down one or two of her other aggressions.

     I gather that government action seen to be detrimental to Maori, can be said to be in breach of the Treaty. Whether the Covid response was such, I don’t know, especially if outcomes were not in response to government action, but were a result of individual choices. The proactive meddling of leaders like Brian Tamaki and anti- vaccination extremists, has to be considered part of the equation too – nothing’s simple.

     • Thanks Pip but there is still no reason for her to abandon the weighty problems that implode on people’s lives in favour of taking up an issue of hers and a group of like-minded objectors. If I heard that word I would like to punch the perp on the nose, but it’s a reflection of a incoherent, uncaring society. People who are given a prominent position have to choose their battles and some are more egregious than others.

       I have been reading about Danilo Dolci an Italian social reformer RIP. Our James McNeish helped him for a while, and wrote about him. He used to fast every now and then to break through the hard crust of indifference and misdirection of the PTB. He was concerned about the big things, and the right to work and reasonable living standards topped his list. He visited the area of Sicily and heard about a child who had died of starvation. It is said that he lay down on the floor where the child had been and announced that he would fast until something was done to improve the situation – action from the church, the local committtee, the major politicians.
       https://www.read-nz.org/writer/mcneish-james/
       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danilo_Dolci
       Those are the types of protest that I admire, beside them language is secondary and arises from lack of attention to what is primary importance, how people think about and treat others.

       • Greywarbler I agree with you – I’m explaining not excusing Davison, and the less said about her the better – the less that she says the better too.

         But small minds cannot grasp big issues – and this may be a systemic problem in politics now. The night the same sex marriage Bill went through, it’s advocate said that the most important thing in her life was same sex persons being able to marry. I very much doubt that she went around saying that to the homeless barefoot and hungry South Aucklanders whose votes she was after. Nearly all politicians too self-cantered – literally.

         What you’re saying about choosing your battles is the crux, and it is incredibly important when applied to dopey politicians funded by our money, and wasting it on petty or irrelevant grievances, and historical utu, when meanwhile, Rome burns.

6. Sadly this ruling by the Waitangi Tribunal has, in my eyes, greatly diminished their mana to that of being no more than a race based lobby group. It’s ruling appears to draw little from our understanding of the Treaty; it certainly does not attempt to relate its ruling to the words or spirit of the Treaty.
   I agree with Martyn, if anyone was disadvantaged by the vaccine roll-out it was as a result of ‘class’ not ‘race’.
   There certainly was no ‘genocide’ either intended or consequential; such rumblings are those of a serious sense of entitlement, and can only create racial division – I can only wonder what was Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s intention when she made such an ill founded claim.

7. I agree with the Waitangi Tribunal findings. Quite correct. Maori concerns are separate to class ones. Look at the indigenous people in every country still controlled by their conquerors. Ainu, anyone?

   Don’t know why Martyn is so big on cultural liberalism as an enemy. Not making headway in the main thing maybe. Never utter the word ‘woke’ again Martyn — we have fascism in the picture. What we lack is force for the people, and even Roger Douglas’s Labour is learning how to do that. Their next area is to evangelize ‘despite’ the focus groups. Use their moral reserves.

   But I don’t know Jacinda can do polemics, or anyone in the last 50 years at least. Though it is the heart of that party. What Labourite last roared? Just occurred, Norm Kirk. Not so far away since I remember him dying as an 8-year-old on a holiday to 90 Mile Beach.

   • @ sumsuch. Go you.
     Finally, a voice of reason and common sense. The least common of the senses, clearly.
     And I’m not so sure using the word ‘politics’ in even a general way in relation to ‘vaccinating’ is a wise move from a psychological POV either.
     Is that like politicising eating or sleeping? Will the very use of the word ‘politics’ when discussing vaccinating immediately make a large number of people already suspicious of the shambles that pretends to be our politics equally suspicious then of the vaccination process?
     And we non Maori should consider that without the Treaty, we’d have all probably been sold off to the likes of jeff bezos years ago. I bet we’d a been sold to the highest bidder as the republic without the bananas by the same scum bags who sold us out to neoliberal capitalism AKA a foreign owned bankster version of soft core fascism.
     Maori and non Maori AO/NZ’ers should grab hold of the Treaty then cling to each other like lost kids in the deep, dark woods because here come the monsters.

     • Countryboy, I agree with you about the Treaty being all that stands between us and total sell off.

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