ACT Party leader David Seymour wants apology over Māori Party joke
ACT Party leader David Seymour wants an apology after Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi joked about poisoning Seymour with karaka berries.
Waititi made the joke during the Māori Party’s annual conference at the weekend, telling the audience he would use the karaka berries that made up a necklace he was wearing to poison Seymour.
“I’m genuinely concerned that the next step is that some slightly more radical person doesn’t think it’s a joke,” Seymour said.
Waititi, speaking of the necklace on stage at the event, said: “These are making my neck itchy … These are karaka berries, and they still got the poison in them, ka pai?”
“There you are, re-indigenise yourself with some native seeds … I hope that wasn’t livestreamed, because if our man carks it, we know what happened: [co-leader] Debbie poisoned him”.
There was laughter in the room at the remarks.
Let’s be clear, Rawiri is a dick and he’s as funny a stand up comedian as Kelvin Davis is a spoken word poet…
Election 2020: Kelvin Davis’ convoluted, bizarre election night poem
Kelvin Davis regaled, or befuddled, party faithful on Saturday night with a lengthy pseudo-poem hailing his leader “Whaea Jacinda” and deploring nefarious blue ogres of the opposition.
…clearly joking about killing politicians in the current febrile landscape that is ripe for political violence is fucking stupid and it allows Seymour to play the high ground, which is equally fucking ridiculous because push beyond this theatre of the offended and you have the naked reality that ACT’s policy platform is radioactively far right and if implemented would see a race war erupt in NZ.
Look at ACT’s policies…
- Cut and freeze the Minimum wage
- Interest back on all student loans
- No Kiwsaver subsidy
- Cancel winter energy payment
- Dump all climate crisis legislation
- no more best start payments for families with new borns
- cut welfare payments
- no tax credits for research and development
- cuts to working for families
- $7b a year cut in public services
- Abolish Maori seats
- Abolish Human Rights Commission
- Abolish the Ministry of Māori Affairs
- Abolish the Ministry for Women
- Abolish the Ministry for Youth
- Abolish the Ministry of Pacific People
- Abolish the Ministry of Ethnic Communities
Let’s be very clear, ACTs call to strip the Treaty out of every law would start a race war.
Game it out:
- David Seymour cuts a deal with National in 2023 and launches its purge of every Maori political win since the Treaty was signed.
- Shutting down every co-governance arrangement would provoke absolute outrage within Māoridom and spark a vast number of immediate legal cases which would jam down any legislative process as every single decision made after Parliament passed the law ending co-governance would become challenged. Political protests would erupt around the country and local councils would find local resistance as Māori groups universally set up occupations of shared governance assets.
- Likewise, abolishing Māori seats would ignite enormous protests, many of which would quickly escalate into violence. The UN would criticise NZ snuffing out indigenous voting rights and we would face global condemnation.
- The New Government would then attempt to find anyone within Maoridom who would willingly negotiate new Treaty ‘provisions’ with them. No one within Māoridom would willingly negotiate these and so the New Government, while dealing with increasingly violent weekly protests in the street, would announce that they are universally negotiating these new provisions on behalf of Māoridom. The news that not only has the New Government ended co-governance and abolished the Maori seats but are also now redefining the entire Treaty by themselves inspires all out violent protest and the New Government respond with increasing use of special terror laws and paramilitary Police to keep a lid on the escalating fury within Māoridom at the loss of their political rights.
- Increasingly global media attention is scathing towards the New Government.
- Donald Trump calls the New Government ‘wise’.
- While ending co-governance, abolishing Maori seats AND renegotiating the entire Treaty on their own, the New Government then announces that the Waitangi Tribunal is being ended. This causes an eruption of anger within Maoridom that manages to eclipse the current rage and entire regions are now in open revolt.
- Before the New Government are even in a position to remove consultation processes, Maori customary rights and any Māori funding, the country is plunged into a full blown race war which the New Government are not able to control.
- Vast chunks of the military refuse to open fire on a public demonstration after the New National/ACT Government order them to.
David can be as much of a smug intellectual as he likes, and he can pretend to be offended by Rawiri but selling raw meat racism to angry white males with policy promises that would lead to a race war isn’t clever politics, it’s fucking dangerous and it’s fucking ugly.
One of the things voters need to understand, is that when the right hold up co-governance like a Maori Health Authority, it’s not a seperate hospital for Māori only right?
I made this point in April of this year on Waatea…
OPINION: What does Chris Luxon see when he thinks ‘Māori Health Authority’?
Hand on heart, I’m not sure Chris Luxon understands what the Māori Health Authority is.
He keeps saying he doesn’t support a ‘separate’ health system and that all the Māori Health Authority will do is create more bureaucracy.
The way Chris sells it, the ‘Māori Health Authority’ would be a separate hospital, with a perpetual Haka and powhiri out front that only serves Māori while turning away Pakeha. He seems to envisage a premium health service for Māori while everyone else gets a second class system.
The reality of course is far less exciting.
…Morgan Godfery picks this point up and smashes the Rights argument…
Morgan Godfery: The Māori Health Authority isn’t separatist. It’s necessary.
…what really drives Pakeha fear of co-governance? The same fear that drives every colonial white descendent of injustice, that those we abused in the past will seek vengeance against us once they gain parity. Too often these fears justify ongoing control and with the rise of ACT and their far right agenda, those fears have real voice and a genuine chance of being implemented.
I don’t know how many times I need to keep pointing this out!
If this ACT madness gets anywhere near being implemented, this country will be plunged into civil unrest the likes we have never seen before in NZ.
That ACT are polling 10% shows how far the culture war polarisation that the woke activist base have fed has come back to bite us in the arse!
Less cancelling for pronouns, far more policy that makes life materially better for the poorest!
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Seymour’s got a point. There are those who’d see a poison joke as a call to arms – it’s not like this party leader person is a gifted Billy T James, he’s just a pollie who feels threatened by neckties and wears cowboy hats indoors. And if the pretend Minister for Children is pretending to be a poet again, somebody please wake me and tell me that this is all a terrible dream. It is easier to get into heaven than to be published in “ Landfall “ and Kelvin Davis will never make it into either and nor should he. I see his bitter shoulders as no more than a resting place for gulls.
I feel this Labour government is the most divisive in years but Maori do not seem to be making any real gains just a lot of depts with Maori names unfortunately this does not put any food on the table
So Trevor were National divisive when they signed us up to the UN Charter then started frameworks for co governance? That’s not being what-about-ist by the way, as I don’t think National were. They are of course being complete pricks now by pretending they didn’t get the ball rolling.
Someone else was making the same point about vaccines the other day saying the government had divided families. What!? The way you treat/react to your family members being tin foil doffers, genuinely phobic, just f’ing stubborn, or in agreement, is not on the government. That’s on us. There seems to be a lot of right of center folks who accuse people of not thinking for themselves but then blame the government for the way they treat their own family members.
Typical right wing snowflake, feelings trump facts.
Or is it more over like most of your kind, they forget how fubar it was under john the fetishist key for anyone who was not a greedy arsehole.
100 million dollars on the moon and Maori mental health says it all.
Totally wasted, won’t make a scrap of difference at all .
Seymour’s dangerous no doubt, but weirdly likeable/admirable with his consistent spin. Does he truly believe his own policies, or is he just playing the game? It irks me to feel this way. He’s definitely super sly. His 2IC is more obvious scum to me
We have a political system which allows all comers and that is a wonderful thing.
Seymour is more reasoned and less offensive than Waititi. Waititi is a common garden race separatist. An unfunny, unpleasant buffoon who thinks that because his ancestors were severely trespassed against 140 years ago, that he gets the right to call everyone else racist and to threaten people.
I dont think Seymour believes half of what he says and lots of it is nutty stuff to grab the further right vote. However he is not wrong about 3 issues, all of which are sinking NZ.
1. Co GOvernance and more importantly the undemocratic way in which it is being foisted on people.
2. Government waste and the massive economic damage being done (Its not just the woke commissions that need dealing too, its rotten in most govt departments and NGOs)
3. Non delivery of services and the massive damage being done to the entire country and social fabric.
Any NZer who understands the basics of economics , governance and democracy has to be very concerned about all these issues. Pity we dont have a decent alternative in Luxon who I think would be a mistake for the Nats to go into the election with. Its obvious by now that the JK fanclub have figured out that he is not the second coming).
I think they should do a Jacinda and shove in someone like Erica Stanford or Chris Penk (Both more palatable than Luxon) and come up with some decent policy.
Agree fantail
During the prison-riots/standoff Rawiri Waititi earned himself some mana. I remember even my mother being impressed with him and his ability to deescalate the situation – Rawiri Waititi is NOT the sort of politician she’d usually go for either!
Unfortunately Rawiri AND Debbie have both since spewed a lot of unhelpful comments, accusations and “jokes” that have been at times borderline racist.
As for Seymour, this is not the first time Rawiri and Debbie have come after him in a totally inappropriate manor. Perhaps they are trying to court the ‘radical-Maori-vote’ and are uninterested in the rest of us?
I think they have let themselves down BIG TIME lately. My message to them is; “PULL YA HEADS IN !!”
Outrageous race baiting Martyn, Seymour is renown for it. The ACT party is New Zealand’s white supremacy party.
How stupid is seymour?
He could not be wary if someone offered him a karaka berry to eat. What country did he grow up in?
If his Shona is a supporter then he and his base are thick as fuck.
Some papers that Professor Kidman has written/worked on:
Joanna is working on two Marsden projects
He Taonga te Wareware: Remembering and Forgetting New Zealand’s Colonial Past investigates how New Zealanders selectively remember and forget difficult and violent events from our colonial past
What Inspires and Sustains Young People’s Engagement in Social Movements?, led by A/P Karen Nairn, University of Otago, explores the ways that hope for a better future motivates young New Zealanders to engage with politics and new social movements
https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/Joanna.Kidman
The second one should reveal some important matters and indicate fruitful approaches for the Older People’s Engagement in Social Movements that will benefit the young – the direction that older and retired people should be addressing.
Perhaps TDB should have a study project that commenters could work on and get a grant to do so?
We are certainly applying ourselves to reveal and explain important matters to NZ.
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