MEDIAWATCH: Andrea Vance destroys ACT
Sometimes Andrea Vance is so devastating in her criticism, it makes her one of the best political commentators in New Zealand…
Why David Seymour’s Treaty debate is not an honest conversation
OPINION: The big lie is often very difficult to dispel.
Repeat it often enough and it becomes a truth. So it was for the relentless efforts of former US president Donald Trump to convince millions of Americans that Joe Biden seized power in a stolen election.
The case for Brexit was built on lies. That the country sent £350 million (NZ$735m) a week to the European Union, starving the National Health Service, was the most infamous.
These deceits created a deep-seated suspicion that is corroding the foundation of democracy.
Enter David Seymour. The ACT leader wants to have a “mature” conversation about his proposed Treaty Principles Bill.
In fact, the grown-ups have been debating and discussing the Treaty for decades.
It is part of New Zealand’s patchwork constitution and has evolved since 1840 through the courts, decisions of the Waitangi Tribunal and pieces of legislation.
Existing principles were established over 50 years through various court decisions and legislation.
They developed in response to the Crown’s failure to uphold the Treaty by stripping sovereignty and stealing land and taonga, and as a way to restore the partnership.
By capitalising on the grievance culture that has oozed into politics, Seymour now claims those principles give people different political rights based on birth.
He argues, using co-governance as an example, that this means Māori have an outsize influence in certain decisions.
There has always been a base for old-fashioned racism in New Zealand politics. Seymour fans the flames by tying the Treaty to an undercurrent of Pākehā unease about the renaissance of Māori culture.
And that’s the basis on which Seymour wants to have this debate. Through the warping lens of resentment.
As part of this debate, Seymour has drafted his own principles, which he wants to put to a referendum. (Spoiler: it won’t happen. His draft bill doesn’t have the numbers.)
Opening a national conversation with dishonesty seems like a dangerous idea.
Seymour’s draft bill is yet to be released, but the principles he campaigned on are a distortion of what the foundational document actually says.
They don’t even mention Māori — problematic when they are derived from an agreement with, and about Māori.
These principles wilfully misinterpret what was a power-sharing agreement through the lens of liberal democracy.
ACT wants to both rewrite history by pretending Te Tiriti was a democratic charter and essentially rewrite the text by erasing the unique Māori rights that it guarantees.
Yes, we do have equal rights.
But different rights enshrined in the Treaty (and customary law) also exist for Māori, such as the protection of certain taonga, valued resources and intangible cultural assets.
It was also promised that the Government would not interfere with a Māori right to be Māori. Māori are now reasserting that right by ensuring their culture and perspective count in decision-making and public life.
ACT — and its supporters and indeed many other citizens — might not like what was agreed.
They might believe it is anachronistic in today’s world.
Or they might just be irritated by a bit of te reo on the telly.
But it was agreed. And that’s not really what Seymour is debating.
He wants to undo the Treaty. To reshape it by altering the essence of the principles. To strip away enshrined rights, while pretending they never existed.
But he doesn’t want to say that, because to most voters, that’s unpalatable.
And that’s the big lie. This is not an honest conversation.
…exactly!
Janet Wilson makes the same scathing analysis when she asks why National is enabling this ACT Party race baiting…
National opts to deepen the divisions with Māori
OPINION: In between parliamentary protest, the beseeching in select committee to keep Section 7AA in the Oranga Tamariki Act and hysteria in the House, one event just over a week ago defines the parlous state of the Government’s relationship with Māori – the Ngāpuhi leaders’ walk-out from the National Iwi Chairs Forum hui with the Prime Minister.
Ngāpuhi chair Mana Tahere said the Government was “running roughshod over Māori” and the delegation could no longer sit in silence. And the Iwi Chair Forum (NICF) went further, passing a motion to exclude the Government until “circumstances have appropriately changed”.
To give this some perspective, this isn’t a group of radicals mouthing off; the NICF is a conservative pan-iwi forum whose very job is to communicate with the Crown, which makes its walk-out the litmus test that turned the paper red on race relations, indicating just how acid the relationship has become.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, National was happy to have voters believe that the cause of these faultlines in relations – the Treaty Principles Bill, repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, the general assault on the use of te reo – was the price a party on 38% of the vote had to pay to achieve a coalition.
That they were the moderates.
At Waitangi this year, in his now infamous cut-and-pasted speech, the Prime Minister vowed that the Treaty was “our past, present and future”.
“We must aspire to go forward not as two sides, but together as New Zealanders because there is more that unites us than divides us,” he exclaimed.
Less than six months later it’s less union, more division with National’s intention to step into the contentious arena of foreshore and seabed law, thereby defining this term not as one where there was tax relief, or the inevitable interest rate cuts were due to their careful management, but for a decline in Māori rights not seen in at least two decades.
…when the real issue is two Ministers of the Crown colluding with corporate interests to limit customary Māori rights…
The real coastline issue: Stop confiscating Māori property rights
…and it gets sold as ‘da Maaaaaaaaaaares is stealing da beaches’, you know the level of redneck cracker settler bigotry is at an all time high in this country.
The Right consider being accused of racism is worse than being racist.
Let’s be clear, ACT’s Treaty Referendum Bill is dangerous and disingenuous…
1. All citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties
2. All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot
3. New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal
…The Bill sounds good until you realise what it actually means…
Lord Cooke’s ruling in 1987 was an attempt to create a framework that gave the Treaty meaning. He ruled, “the Treaty created an enduring relationship of a fiduciary nature akin to a partnership, each party accepting a positive duty to act in good faith, fairly, reasonably and honourably towards the other”, and this has been the framework for co-operation for almost 4 decades.
…passing ACT’s Bill would remove that obligation to work with Māori making the Treaty meaningless.
This is a direct attack on the Treaty and the very value of our Democracy
Let’s be very clear, what the right are arguing for here with this Treaty Principles Referendum Bill is not Democracy, but Majoritarianism.
The benchmark for morality under Majoritarianism is that 51% can vote to kill the other 49%.
Great if you are in the 51%, not so great if you are in the 49%.
A democracy worth its name understands the power structures within society and provides a democracy that actually represents the wider interests of everyone.
What ACT are doing here is stripping away Māori political rights by strangling off any obligation to work with Māori. It makes the Treaty redundant so attempts to pretend this doesn’t impact the Treaty is just a deception.
Majoritarianism is not democracy, it’s authoritarian.
Democracy uses the State to build people up, Majoritarianism demands the State punish those the Majority despise.
We need to fight for our Democracy and not the empty legitimacy of Majoritarianism.
Just because you have the numbers to do it, doesn’t make it right or just or clever or worthy of us.
It’s counter productive culture war revenge fantasies implemented for nothing more than political plunder.
David’s argument that ACT stand for tino rangatiratanga is so misplaced I wonder if David has ever met any Māori…
The Treaty: We don’t believe Treaty of Waitangi is a partnership between races – David Seymour
Over the past decade, no party has shown more courage in standing up for the freedoms of New Zealanders than Act.
There’s been the freedom of parents to choose a school that suits their children, charter schools. Our party has stood for the legal rights of licensed firearm owners, freedom of speech, the freedom of vulnerable people suffering at the end of their life to choose assisted dying, and the freedom of people to go about their business in the face of heavy-handed Covid measures.
Now in Government, we continue to stand up for New Zealanders’ rights. We are reintroducing choice in education, beating back the thickets of red tape and regulation so deadly to innovation and development, and ensuring Oranga Tamariki has the rights of each vulnerable child as its unconditional focus, among other initiatives.
In these and other examples, Act stands for the mana of the individual, the right to live life as you choose so long as you are not harming others. Put another way, Act has championed tino rangatiratanga, or self-determination.
…at a time when the Mining Industry and Trans National Corporations want to buy up NZ land and the privatisation thugs are looking to rob us blind, we need more safeguards to our sovereignty than David Seymour’s limp and brittle definition of tino rangatiratanga.
All he is doing here is reducing the concept of tino rangatiratanga into the shallow individualism of the Western tradition.
Individualism über alles is a petty trade in for what Māori already have.
David wants to downgrade Māori from citizens to consumers.
Māori communalism is as close to Kiwi socialism as we are going to get! David’s attempt to reduce tino rangatiratanga into individualism misses the Māori values where sharing and communalism is central.
All David is doing is forcing a Western Philosophical definition of the self onto Māori and then telling them to accept it!
How does replacing Māori communalism for a shallow western definition of the individual, justify dumping the Treaty Principles?
If anything, wouldn’t further atomisation of Māori culture help fray the unity and allow ACT to legislate it away?
Māori tino rangatiratanga is the sovereignty of the people, not the self interest of the individual, if this is all ACT is rolling up to Waitangi with as a justification for their race baiting referendum, good luck.
ACT’s Treaty Referendum Bill is dangerous and disingenuous.
Isn’t Vance supposed to be a journalist? Because this isn’t journalism.
I suggest she runs for office on those ideas and is forced to openly debate those ideas. LOL
We only have to look at the use of pakeha town halls and Maori Marae to se the difference in the meaning of community .During national disasters Marae step up and house and feed everyone no matter what colour they are .The pakeha town halls stand empty because there is no community to step up or the faciity to feed let alone bed down .Local councils across the Motu are currently dealing with hundreds of under used halls that are costing rate payers and are closed or falling down .Marae are mostly self supporting and I would think very few if any councils are supporting them with rate payer funding because the red necks would be squealing .
Well said Gordon. The organized community has gone.
Marae and VERY small towns seem to always have a few people who know how to respond and get others involved. Suburbia has lost many volunteers and competent people with initiative.
Many people just expect to turn up and be waited on, if they bother to turn up at all.
Even organisations like Playcentre struggle to get people who have a spare day a week and the obligation to help run it, supervise, clean, book-keeping, organise fund-raising events etc. is too much for many.
Too many cooks spoil the broth but a few good ones would be handy in times of crisis. Co-operation is not valued like it was. David Seymour doesn’t like that word. He thinks everyone should look after themselves. Mostly we do David, but it isn’t enough when your house is full of mud and you cannot find your children.
So the reality is way to close to the bone for you to handle so lets shoot the messenger because she does not send your your racist belief as the message
Good Ole Andy attacking the messanger and not the message. Hypocritical to call Vance out to debate ideas when there is a forum on here for you to do the same.
I suggest you debate her message and not come across as an idiot like Bob the first et al.
Andrea Vance is obviously not a Luxon groupie as seen in the Herald with the elderly twins. Although I must admit I don’t really trust her commentary most of the time
Andy Pandy wants sugar and candy. This is tripe. Passed my own judgment on myself?!
Stop trying to distract from the real debate, which is around the voracity of Seymour’s claims. Open debate should actually involve facts not bullshit.
The way I see it. Seymour is just being a less violent version of the Israel, Palestinian conflict. Wanting the same outcomes, of total ownership of the Palestinian peoples lands
correct
I would agree there John. Was interesting to read Prof. George Yancy writing the other day on that same parallel of the hate filled political tactic of ” othering ” to dehumanise a group of people.
Throughout our history too has always been the continuous actions and ( re ) making of laws in order to dismantle, subjugate and disempower a people. Superiority, Resource control and Land the objectives for starters.
Little Dave’s underlying motives, no different than those early NZ days to lead lies to dehumanise māori again.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-violent-othering-of-palestinians-has-political-roots/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons
I can’t help but see people self combust too when they read the 1911 documentation around the NZ Coat of Arms. It’s NOT a unicorn, a lion, a dragon … it’s a RANGATIRA in ” partnership ” with a European woman Zealandia . By Royal assent approved by George V no less !
Thank you for reminding us about that.
It appears people in 1911 were more enlightened and knowledgeable about our past and our future than David Seymour is. He has deliberately kept himself ignorant of his own history and while he uses his Māori heritage when it suits him (election time), he denies it the rest of the time. He refuses to attend events where his ignorance might be exposed.
Even when trying to read story books to children he has no personality traits which endear him or make him seem approachable. He’s hiding behind that stiff little facade he’s created to ensure no-one sees the real David Seymour, the frightened little boy.
Someone said he’s an alien and I think they might be right. Humanity has passed him by.
He gets too much say for the size of his party. We knew Luxon wouldn’t be able to control him. We don’t need dangerous rogue politicians in this little country.
The prick would do well to remember Maori were trading with AUS long before the pakeha came to the shore .Luxon and SEENOTHING would do well to look back and see what real trade and agriculture looks like hence the need for the massive land grab that has been going on for 200 years by pakeha and now is spilling out into the sea because they have destroyed so much land and every time it rains all the last year fertilizer ends up in the ocean .
Pays the benefits.
No doubt David Seymour went down to Taupiri to honor the passing of the Maori King Tuheitia and to show his repect to Maaori here in NZ ???
He has but was appropriately reprimanded for not attending the kings coronation earlier given his bill on the treaty and his fear of the backlash.
Our forebears signed the treaty with Moari. It is a living document, and it is up to all of us to honour it. I have never taken Seymour seriously since I heard him speaking with a false Canadian accent.
When this crap piece of legislation passes its first reading then i’ll start getting really worried about it
Till then I’ll carry on disbelieving all
Maori bashing has been the lowest hanging fruit since the invasion in 1840.
Blaming Maori for all the worlds problems has been the right wings go to election policy for a hundred years.
The right wing media profits hugely from Maori bashing .
The education sustem reinforces sterytypes in the class room.
Right wing talk shows and online blogs are full of angry right wing males condemning Maori.
The White majority are easily manipulated into voting in a hard right Maori bashing Government.
ACT did Nationals dirty work for them with their out right racist election agenda..
Nationals crocidile tears at the Maori King tangi was blatent fake.
But people buy this fraud.
Winston First with their one policy anti immigration rhetoric of course are on board for the ride.
Labour and the Greens silence leaves only the Maori Party to stand up to the racist rights agenda.
Maaori Bashing and Tax Cuts Policy are vote winner’s here in NZ.
Agree but its going to bite the bastards where it hurts come next elections.
And now National want to hand him the sea bed as well .While all this anti Maori shit is going on the Asian invasion is in full swing .Guess what the most common sir name of new born registered in the last couple of years is ?Hint it aint Smith
What’s the prize for getting it – a chocolate fish, pineapple lumps, or sushi or noodles?
a roti
Enigmatic huh – I add that it is cooked on a tawa.
a japati
naan?
gordon walker. Correct, apart from the Greenie /Left WCC , Islamising Wellington rather than learning Mandarin, although that may be part of the plan.
I have some sympathy for Andrew. Co-governance is preference if you are looking at a headcount and Vance assumes the truth of a few things she doesn’t prove. Add in the inaccurate use of the word enshrined and I wondered why I had succumbed to reading someone I ignore. If the rights were enshrined, it would be impossible for Seymour to bring his tedious bill. That’s the whole point. The rights are not enshrined.