Because I’m a political tragic, I had Parliament TV on in the background when Kelvin bewilderingly chose to shit all over ACT Party MP, Karen Chhour.
I disagree vehemently with ACT MPs and their dangerous conflict policies, but as a human being, Karen Chhour is no Sam Uffindell, she has not had a life of privilege and nor does she ask questions from a ludicrously sheltered life of wealth, she has had an astonishingly hard life made deplorable by state intervention, her Maiden Speech was a harrowing tale of abuse and redemption through hard personal resilience, you can see why she has come to these perspectives…
ACT thinks this can’t really take place while there is such a focus on race and culture in the organisation delivering that protection.
As I said recently, when Grainne Moss stood down as Oranga Tamariki chief executive, ethnicity and culture should not be how we decide what is in the best interests of children.
Oranga Tamariki should be colour-blind and open to whatever will ensure a child’s wellbeing and safety.
It’s not a one size fits all thing, and having legislation that tries to make it that way doesn’t work for our children.
If that means placing a vulnerable child into the home of a family who desperately want to love and care for them, rather than doing everything possible to place the child back into the family that made them vulnerable in the first place, then that should be the solution.
As someone who has experienced three elements of placement – non family who wanted me, family who didn’t and extended family who did – I can tell you, as a young person you’ll take love, compassion and stability wherever you can find it.
That’s why ACT believes Oranga Tamariki needs reform, just not in the way that reform looks likely to be done under this Government.
…now we can disagree on how this all gets implemented, but she ain’t no Honkey from Cracker town going on about Māori privilege eh?
She’s a Māori woman who has faced the grim reality of the State, and at the very least, her perspective deserve to be respected.
Which is not what Kelvin did.
Bloody Kelvin.
There are a few different Kelvins.
There is the humble servant to his community whom he does tirelessly serve in his electorate.
There is the funny, personable Kelvin who is full of clever insights when he’s talking to small groups.
Then there is the Kelvin who is painfully shy when on camera to the point you cringe.
And then there’s reading poetry on Election Night 2020 Kelvin where he almost goes on the spectrum of misreading the room.
When he said…
“cross the bridge that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi from her Pākehā world into the Māori world”.
…I actually choked on my coffee.
There was no reason nor need to denigrate Chhour’s identity in answering her legitimate question about Oranga Tamariki and his doubling down was just as bewildering…
“no good looking at the world from a vanilla lens”.
…ok. Ok. Ok.
So much dumb all at once, the only redeeming feature in all of this is that Kelvin clearly reflected on it over right and immediately apologised the next day.
That’s the only redeeming feature here.
The true irony in all of this, is that ACT’s actual policy would be disastrous to Māori and would spark a race war if ACT tried to implement it all.
The $7billion they intend to cut out of welfare and the closure of the Ministry of Māori Affairs alongside eliminating the Māori seats are all policies that will trigger mass protests the likes we haven’t seen, and ACT are active about promoting these conflict policies.
Chhour has every right to question the State on social service providers that have scarred her childhood, and her Party urgently needs to be challenged on their conflict policies that I absolutely believe could spark civil disorder, but denigrating her identity to do it as Kelvin did only handed ACT self righteous ammunition to fire back with.
Bloody Kelvin.
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What a mini typhoon in a takeaway long black. Anyone that becomes an ACT MP deserves all the opprobrium they get.
Māori are mainly working class like Pakeha and other Tauiwi, but all have their share that identify with the employing class. Donna Awatere was another one that ended up in this wrongest of wrong parties.
I am no Kelvin fan after he meekly supported head office pouring resources into the West Auckland end of Tai Tokerau to ultimately deny Hone and Internet Mana. However, it is never wrong to attack ACT in my view.
It is not wrong to attack ACT policies.
It is wrong to personally attack an ACT MP and bring into disrepute, her right to ask a question solely based on her not meeting the standard of racial identification demanded by the Maori elite.
Big difference.
BS – Maori always dwell on the misfortune of others especially friends, whanau, etc as a laugh. This is just another Tory dirty politics beat up -why didn’t Reti or Hipango comment on the matter instead of every right wing political and medi9a ignoramuses.
Agree Nikorima, where were Reti or Hipango. Bob is here fighting the Maori cause, or far right cause or agree with anything anti Labour cause?
Truth is, Bob is the proverbial bully and thug, Reti is above such hatred.
Nikorima. “ Why didn’t Reti or Hipango comment on the matter?” Because they are just as obnoxious as he is, or were too shocked,
Kelvin should be demoted to the back bench to come to his senses. His Leader should then promote some of the Labour talent in Carcus…
He may give us another poetry reading just to show he can be forgiven as he is really an idiot not responsible for his actions
Trevor. And with Arden having just made her debut as a model on the cat walk, Andrew or somebody could become a pop singer – and score free scones from the model – a couple of the newbies be lion tamers, Jackson the circus clown, and the way cleared for Act and the Nats to romp in.
Pip,compared to Key’s catwalk mince Ardern is a megastar!!!
Act and Nats are bit parts , bahahahahahaha!
Trevor. Another poetry reading ? The Dylan Thomas of Kaitaia ? Why are we waiting ?
It also highlights the reflexive ‘them and us’ worldview of elitist identitarian ideology and accompanying self righteousness. A real life Māori woman with a genuine life of personal struggle can be rhetorically thrown under the bus to, er, protect Māori?
In woke world a member of an oppressed identity that doesn’t think or vote in ‘the right way’ looses their oppressed identity card like ‘superficially black’ Kwasi Kwarteng. As Kelvin brought up the subject of ‘racial positionality’ it’s notable how ‘white-presenting’ he is and how english his name sounds relative to Karen Chhour. So who has the lived experience of a ‘vanilla lens’?
Identitarian ideology burning down the village in order to save it.
Tui. “Davis” isn’t an English name, it’s Welsh, and if Kelvin were to spend a sabbatical in lovely misty Wales, he might be able to come to terms with his own heritage, learn how to be a nicer person. Unresolved family issues frequently underlie racial prejudices.
Good points Tui.
Agree and why all the identarian lib democracies are exploding at the moment. Communities are only successful with shared values and narratives. We either all go there together or we divide and conquer and everyone loses.
I thought it showed how ideology driven Kelvin (and Labour ) have become. When you are ideologically driven it clouds your thinking. He is seeing everything through a Maori = good, Pakeha = bad lens.
Kelvin was both arrogant and incredibly dim.
@Anker agree 100% and elitist lens of
Māori that-doesn’t-agree-with-identitarianism = Pākehā-adjacent = somehow-a-lesser-Māori
Given Kelvin later doubled down, I wonder if his subsequent apology comes from personal introspection or frantic calls from LINO’s PR consultants?
IMO Kelvin has always been dim
Anker. Davis wasn’t just seeing two ethnicities through a simplistic lens, but he was also dismissing Karen for being the wrong sort of Maori, according to him.
This makes him doubly racist, not just an old-fashioned bigot. This isn’t the healthiest position for a children’s teacher to be holding, and it’s surprising that it hasn’t been raised with the Education Review Office, the faceless persons amazingly replacing the Commissioner for Children, the conscience of Oranga Tamariki.
Anker. Consider whether this is a ‘ freedom of speech issue.’ The current govt is opposed to freedom of speech. At the UNO Ardern earnestly said that (a) we like to support it, but that (b) it is ‘ a weapon of war’, which needs to be curbed, a contradictory position. The Act MP asked a discomforting question about Oranga Tamariki, so instead of answering it, Davis tried to shut her down, with a foolish and clumsy personal attack.
At the Parliament covid protest, the major political parties refused to engage with the demonstrators.
They didn’t want to hear what they might have to say, to the extent that they turned the hoses on them, and bombarded them with loud music to try and make them go away. I think that Ardern actually said on television that she/the government was the sole repository of truth, that only in her government would people find truth, which frankly, is becoming as nebulous a word as transparency now is, and not a word, or concept, which politicians should be taking it upon themselves to define.
They’re there to represent the will of the people, not to impose their own will upon the people.
The abolition of the Commissioner for Children is simply another form of self-interested censorship. I only viewed Davis’s performance this evening, and noted that other Labour MP’s like Willie Jackson didn’t seem particularly perturbed by it. But because it has evolved as the racist issue which it is, and worse, because Davis, just like Ardern, tried to claim ownership of a truth, in this case as to what constitutes a good Maori, he has had to back track as his position is untenable. That’s it.
NZ needs to start looking after the children we have in NZ, without importing hundreds of thousands more children so that their parents can toil away at a NZ restaurant or supermarket for big business interests or join the DBP queue after falling pregnant here and splitting up.
Seriously how awful is it, that so many Kiwi children/teen murders have some Oranga Tamariki connection but they just keep bringing more child dependants into NZ when everything is dysfunctional here for local kids – schooling going downhill, health care going downhill, OT going down hill, crime and meth use increasing. Someone has to say, STOP, we can’t look after anymore foreign children, we need to start improving the lives of NZ children which are now worse than foreign children.
Oranga Tamariki need to prioritise qualified workers who know what they are doing and are well supported, not incompetent paper pushers that are on the war path to remove children from pakeha foster parents and spend copious amounts of time fighting legal battles with media, to pretend they are right.
In addition, OT need to make sure that ALL foster parents are suitable first, so they don’t have to remove the children who are doing well for some woke race statistic somebody dreamed up in their perfect world. Of course after seeing how foster parents are treated in race based NZ, would any normal person want to work with OT and foster a child?
OT workers need support but you get the feeling, like many places in NZ, the good workers are leaving and the bad ones are protected with OT self centred culture.
Good overview as usual save nz. Labour has become obsessed with itself, are they being hypnotised or has Treasury and the Business Roundtable under a new name, passing Labour wrapped up in their shroud round and round like playing Pass the Parcel. In that way their feet will never touch ground again. So if they seem like airheads you know why they are so insubstantial. Soon they will start booking seats on the rockets going from Mahia Peninsula and will return as full aliens.
Karen Chour supports policies that will plunge Maori into complete and utter hardship. She approves of benefit cuts, holding down wages, getting rid of state housing, and privatising health and education.
I don’t know why anyone is running to her defence. She can get stuffed as far as I am concerned. Like Paula Bennett, Simon Bridge and all those others who crawl up from the gutter, they turn their back on where they came from and vote for policies that hurt people from their background.
I don’t think it is helpful in the present situation to villify people who should behave better as in the case of Karen Chour. There are words that would apply to her if all said about her is right, and after consideration, which is hypocritical and callous. If she is Maori or pretends to be concerned about Oranga Tamariki but doesn’t have that caring, committed to social support and compassion that should underline criticism, then she is a callous hypocrite.
If Kelvin Davis takes umbrage at criticism of what repudiated practices that Oranga Tamariki is still carrying out, he is at best a fool and failing his kaupapa to Maori. At worst he has become one of the denizens of the machine society which doesn’t care about people and believe that they are all worthy of consideration if not respect, children should be nurtured by their parents, and parents given every assistance along with their family. And with this good people approach, encouraged to help their children to grow tall, happy, and wise, in their own culture and understanding the wider national and world culture and how to achieve using their gifts and skills within it and to actually shape it to its best form.
Totally agree Millsy.
These onion Maoris don’t deserve any respect at all. If they were true to the Maori heritage they certainly wouldn’t be any where near the Act party or the Nats for that matter.
Interesting how her leader can slag everyone else off but they can’t take it themselves. I fully support Kelvin Davis because it’s bloody frustrating when all these onions do is oppose oppose and be virtuous while screwing their “whanau”.
If they are so fucking successful after sucking off the government tit in their childhood why aren’t aren’t they backing those very same institutions.
You may be right but it doesnt make his blatant racism and disrespect any more acceptable. Should we only have standards if its with people we agree with.
100% Martyn
If Davis was in a National Party government, he would have been fired for that piece of nasty, racist rhetoric.
And still David Seymour and the ACT Party are the coalition certainties when National needs them?
From Martyn’s article:
The true irony in all of this, is that ACT’s actual policy would be disastrous to Māori and would spark a race war if ACT tried to implement it all.
The $7billion they intend to cut out of welfare and the closure of the Ministry of Māori Affairs alongside eliminating the Māori seats are all policies that will trigger mass protests the likes we haven’t seen, and ACT are active about promoting these conflict policies.
David Seymour’s dog-whistling to the White Orewa crowd, to emulate that other National and Act politician Don Brash’s Iwi-Kiwi campaign speech and attack ads.
Racist, pale, stale NACT males, would be better off in the Jim Crowe Southern States of the USA, or in the apartheid regimes in South Africa.
ACT and National polis may come from difficult backgrounds, but they pull the ladder up after them like Paula Benefit did, when they get into power
You’re fucking joking Andrew.
Kelvin Davis made an error, a political error and a personal one. All of a sudden the plaintiff little biddable puppy turned pitbull. I watched it as it happened and wondered what it was all about.
Maybe Karen Chhour has made a mistake too. Ostensibly it’s not of the loud, in your face type of mistake. It’s the old ‘lying with the dogs and getting fleas’ scenario.
Peter. Kelvin made an error, but he also showed his anti-pakeha prejudice, and a politician antagonistic towards a large chunk of the populace shouldn’t be Minister of Children and he should step back from that role.
Karen Cchour is a really genuine woman.and her question was as sincere as you can get these days in politics.
When Davis felt under attack trying to defend something not easily defensible, he like many before him in the Labour Party recently (Mallard, Hipkins, Robbo etc) resorted to playing the man. Unfortunately for Davis, his prejudice was showing and he let slip more than he intended.
Reading comments on MSM, I think Davis woke a lot of people up to the fact that Labour is supporting an elite Māori racism. Its one thing when the Maori Party do it because they dont matter but quite another thing when the Governing Party does it.
Most NZers believed Ardern when she said He PuaPua means nothing, its not policy. They also believed that the activities involving “Co Governance” and Māori Health were entirely about us educated and well-off people being mature enough to start to raise Māori out of the hole they have fallen (or been driven) into.
I think in combination with various issues that have gone on lately, the virtuous pearl clutchers were saying, how rude, how UnPC, how utterly racist. And some are even beginning to wonder if there is more at stake here than simply raising the bar for Māori.
This is why Kelvin apologised and Ardern fronted the media to settle it down. Trouble is, that once contempt for you has been made clear, it cant be ‘not seen’. Like the parliamentary protestors or anti mandaters, people dont forget that their leaders hold them in contempt.
And this is what this is about. Davis showed contempt for all Vanilla Kiwis (interpret that as you will) and he showed contempt for any Maori who dont see things his way. He also emphasised that Maori’s are different to other Kiwis and that we are not one people whichis a message most apolitical NZers dont want to hear.
Fantail. I wonder how many tax payer dollars were spent compiling He Puapua, a lengthy document, which apparently now “means nothing.” Really ? Who believes that ?
If Kelvin Davis is apparently not racist, then apparently racism is no longer the two-way street which it is, apparently or not.
elite Maori racism – wtf – I don’t see it as prejudice, more frustration – a with us or against us moment – he obviously thinks Chourr is a fuckin traitor to Maori and should get with the tikanga or fuck off. she should have pukana’d the mofo and had her ACT members surround her in waiata and told him fuck off straight back – lol – but yeah – we doing it the Westminster way hence the poor me rhetoric and cry cry.
I think this is deliberate by Labour and Davis.
In one sense it’s a dead cat – we are all talking about the racist statement by Davis instead of Tamihere using charity money for his own electioneering. Why isn’t someone being arrested?
Its also a play for Maori votes , trying to out Maori the “Maori are genetically superior” Maori party.
Not likely to lose Labour any votes in the Ryder electorate as the identarians will still back them, thinking adults already won’t.
Is that you Mike?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/07/mike-hosking-apologises-to-john-tamihere-on-air-after-allegations-of-defamation.html
This has probably been said already. But the criticism of Oranga Tamariki, which is behaving so unacceptably to parents and children so it can’t be brushed aside, is an obvious example of a wider problem with this neoliberal mess that Labour led us into. The government sets up agencies and then loses control and oversight of them – they are virtually privatised with gummint having a spiders web control.
Spiders however are cleverer than left-wing politicians and more practical at carrying out their vital activities. I think we have lost this bunch of pollies, can we send them to some foreign country that does recycling? Perhaps to Ukraine or Russia where they are getting through bodies of all sorts in fast rotation?
Labour are getting as far gone as the Greens in terms of banning freedom of speech and championing authoritarianism.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was blasted for comparing free speech online to “weapons of war” in a recent speech to the U.N. that critics called “authoritarian.”
https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.foxnews.com/media/new-zealand-prime-minister-condemned-calling-regulate-free-speech-weapon-war-un.amp
UK also banned free speech, and they are now becoming a divided basket case with less tolerance and more terror and violence, not less https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom – comedians need security, now that some wokeo might knife them or mobs will stalk them – and they all feel they are in the right.
Between the left wing nut job wokeos and the right wing nut jobs, fun has been cancelled. Along with common sense and fairness.
.
A truer word was not said in jest.
Wokeos. Wokies. Wokistas. Wokesters. Is there a prevalent noun?
All you need to know about Kelvin is that he is the deputy leader of the labour party and during a sole labour majority govt he’s not the deputy PM.
During election 2017 he came to Christchurch during a rally, called everyone in Christchurch racists at the beginning of his speech and then said vote for labour lol.
As someone from a mixed race family that attitude disgusts me, unless you’re fluent in Maori and know every aspect of maoridom you’re a plastic and just a white person but to white people you’re not white. His disgusting elitist snobbery was a middle finger to the majority of Maori.
Poor Maori and poor white people who go through the decisions parliament and govt aren’t represented or listened to by either, only rich Maori and rich white people who have no knowledge of what it’s like to be at the bottom or experience the boot of the govt get listened to and that’s why they are focusing on bloody cultural window dressing aspects not the f***ing cruelty of the departments.
Maori hate the Maori elite because the Maori elite look down on them.
The most crazy part of his disgusting insult to a woman who unlike him has experienced the system, was denying her cultural identity and her whanaus mana and ancestry (when Kelvin cries about his being taken from him) , doesn’t answer the question which was about a conflict of interest and basically belittles someone who didn’t have the time or whanau to learn about her culture during her horrible childhood.
He also assumed his snobbish view of Maori was the one acceptable view and everyone who disagreed with him weren’t Maori as if Maori aren’t people with indivudal opinions and beliefs.
What a piece of shit.
Again. He’s deputy leader of labour but not deputy PM.
Tells you everything.
As I said before, Karen wants to chop welfare and public services. If you stand with her, you stand for the reduction of welfare. Simple.
Maori cancelled by woke Maori for being the wrong look for Maori. Doesn’t seem very tolerant to me.
MEDIAWATCH: WAIT, WAIT, WAIT – the woke cancelled a Māori event organised by Māori students because it was offensive to Māori language week?
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/09/21/mediawatch-wait-wait-wait-the-woke-cancelled-a-maori-event-organised-by-maori-students-because-it-was-offensive-to-maori-language-week/
Wokeos. Wokies. Wokistas. Wokesters. Is there a prevalent noun?
What exactly did he say when he “called everyone in Christchurch racists” at the beginning of his speech.
Was it ,”Kia ora koutou katoa. All people in Christchurch are racists”? Or did he say something else and the scramblers in some people’s heads translated his words as him standing there saying, “All people in Christchurch are racists”?
Even the NZ children are racists if they protest about climate change.
School Strike 4 Climate Auckland disbands for being ‘racist’ after guidance from BIPOC community
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/06/school-strike-4-climate-auckland-disbands-for-being-racist-after-guidance-from-bipoc-community.html
There are questions that need to be asked… if Kelvin cares so much about Maori embracing their identity, why has he done far less than Muldoon did to promote organizations that foster Black Power?
lol at all the pakeha telling everyone what it is to be “Maori”. it’s about identity, belonging and acceptance – not some half baked idea of a borg collective one nation hegemony. Davis was basically telling Chourr to fuck off and have a good look at herself. good on him.
What are yah? The whole matter was asking for Labour to answer why it hasn’t got onto
cleaning up the foul behaviours they were practising under Oranga Tamariki. Stop being a simpleton yokel.
Is the ACT party not so okay with “free speech” after all? It was just Kelvin Davis giving his opinion, right?
Now we have Karen Chhour playing the Maori, female victim, and her deputy leader wanting Davis politically cancelled for his comments. Sheesh.
It is not the first time Kelvin Davies has disappointed me – but we need to remember that the inexcusable treatment that Karen Cchour received as a child was administered long before Section 7AA was added to the Oranga Tamariki Act; and also that the Act does not ‘absolutely require’ children with Māori heritage to be placed with Māori families. The current Royal Commision into Abuse in State Care has clearly identified the State has not done a good job for many in its care, including Māori. Oranga Tamariki is required to ‘consider’ the Treaty in making decisions; surely we would want them to consider ethnicity in all their placements – but we also need to acknowledge that there is a special relationship between the State and Māori, hence this specific inclusion in the Act. Like many Laws it is those that seek to empower and embolden themselves with the law and then build bureaucracies and platforms to administer them that become the problem.
If Māori can provide a solution to the abuse received by those Māori in State care, the sooner they get on with it the better. The State cannot be proud of how it has tried to de-Māori Māori and we need to move to remedy that.
Kelvin lost me when he got upset that his forbears a 150 years ago lost their chiefly fortune. And is pissed about not having a personal inheritance today! Like kids in other cultures havent suffered financially from the vagaries of war, politics, holocausts, bankruptcies, stockmarket crashes, nigerian fraudsters, etc and got over it.
Kelvin has never been comfortable, in front of the camera, and as deputy leader like the camera uncomfortable. Labour has plenty of talent, unlike the winging traditional farm fence twangers, who twang out of tune by their over taught fence wires and their out of tune with the electorate.
Election the Labour Green and Patie Maori, will pull together for the coalitions third term.A.C.T, LUCKY IF THEY HAVE FOUR IN THEIR RANKS AT THE OPP BENCHES,as for the farm fence twangers, WELL HERE WE ARE, Luxon, back benched after the xmas break with the new femme fatale sitting right of him becomes appointed leader
Truth,never fear.
Why the knowing hide bomber.
All this BS banter about racism is so woke-tedious. People say dumb stuff every day without an intention to be offensive. Davis publicly apologised promptly. Get over it. He’s a low profile politician and no one was traumatised over it. Assuming any other ill intent is dumb. Just like his poem. Nothing to see here except wokey woke politics. To borrow a giggle from Countryboy, “thunderbirds are go!”
Davis is a Maori politician and is not low profile he is L
Currently, the third-ranked member of the Sixth Labour Government, Davis serves as the Minister of Corrections, Minister of Tourism and Minister for Māori Crown Relations, in addition to an Associate Minister of Education portfolio (Māori Education).
Born: Kelvin Glen Davis; 2 March 1967 (age 55); …
About:
Kelvin Davis (politician) – Wikipedia
Davis was elected as Labour Deputy Leader two months before the 2017 election, becoming the first deputy of Māori descent in the Labour Party. Currently, the third-ranked member of the Sixth Labour Government, Davis serves as the Minister of Corrections, Minister of Tourism and Minister for Māori Crown Relations, in addition to an Associate Minister of Education portfolio (Māori Education).
Low profile as in he usually keeps his head down. I’m aware of his position. He says dumb stuff sometimes is all
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