A fuse could be lit on January 20th that erupts Waitangi Day

The manufacturing of a race war over at Democracy Project highlights how frightened many in the Settler movement are at the sudden galvanisation of Māori anger against this hard right racist Government.

All eyes are now on the Māori King this Saturday to gauge how serious the backlash against this Government will be.

A fuse could be lit on January 20th that erupts Waitangi Day.

The sudden spasm of anti-Māori policy rammed through by the new Government has ignited  the Māori King’s unprecedented call for a national hui while setting the stage for an explosive Waitangi Day as well as once again raising voices demanding an honest accounting of New Zealand history.

One such voice is  Auckland lawyer and educator, Roimata Small, whose recent column in The Post demands more education of the treaty and the manner in which Colonisation caused intergenerational social damage that has never been healed or remedied.

She outlines the basic historical facts of what colonial Governments with no interest in living up to the promise of the Treaty have generated…

The Tohunga Suppression Act criminalised Māori healthcare and science. Education laws suppressed te reo Māori as children were hit for speaking it in schools. “Child Protection” laws facilitated the removal of Māori children from their homes, and crime laws empowered the police and courts to arrest and imprison Māori.
 
The Crown’s land acquisition practices of getting agreement from only some owners and paying Māori a fiftieth of the resale fuelled discontent. The Crown waged war against “rebel” Māori then confiscated vast areas as punishment, often including land of “loyal” Māori. The Crown used the Native Land Court to remove most Māori owners’ rights so it could easily buy up land from the others.
 
Māori lost 97% of nearly 66 million acres that had been owned at 1840. The Crown promised land sale profits would fund schools and hospitals. Māori land funded the infrastructure of Aotearoa, but often infrastructure didn’t reach Māori communities.
 
Fast-forward to recent decades, Treaty settlements returned a small amount of land and money. While positive, settlements do not address the laws affecting Māori lives. This is why Māori consistently push back against these laws, asserting tino rangatiratanga.

…this new Government’s intention to push for a redefinition of the Treaty Principles will be injury to insult and the enormous pushback on such an attack on the fundamental obligations of the State to uphold the promise of the Treaty will spark a level of protest unseen previously.

Protest becomes unquenchable when the issue is so righteous.

Allowing ACT, NZ First and National push such incendiary issues is a failure of political leadership by Christopher Luxon and his weakness will set back race relations in 2024.

Our history is being ignored to cement into place 19th Century White Settler Privilege and  pretend Māori will simply accept that.

I don’t think Māori will accept that, and nor will any decent fellow New Zealander.

A Treaty is to be honoured, not settled and this fundamental difference in approach demands a political response far more engaged than implementing petty bigotry against Māori to appease the right wings’ reactionary vote.

The shockwave of naked racism that emboldened so much race baiting this election highlights how the Right wil always use Māori as a political punching bag for votes.

As New Zealand faces the absurdity of a referendum to redefine the principles of the Treaty and is about to have the Māori Health Authority disbanded, the question for the Left is how to work together strategically and tactically to stop the Right from winning by race baiting.

I believe the answer lies in our existing MMP system and requires a new Rātana alliance.

The Rātana movement into politics in 1923 helped seal gains for Māori and Pakeha with Michael Savage in 1936.

Savage was gifted a potato, a broken gold watch, a pounamu hei-tiki, and a huia feather as symbols of the new alliance.

The potato represented loss of Māori land and means of sustenance, the broken watch represented the broken promises of the Treaty of Waitangi, and the pounamu represented the mana of the Māori people, if Savage was able to restore those 3, he would earn the right to wear the huia feather.

It is time for Labour to earn the right to wear that feather.

What was fascinating about the Māori electorates this election was how tactical Māori voters were, once again proving why they are one of the smartest tactical voters each and every election.

Overwhelmingly Māori in the Māori electorates voted Labour Party vote and Māori Patry candidate vote and this has generated the focus on the power of the MMP Overhang the Māori Electorates generate.

If there was a Rātana 2, the Labour Party and Māori Party could strategically work together and push a tactical voting plan that calls for voters in the Māori electorate to all give their candidate vote to the Māori Party candidate and their Party vote to Labour.

This would end up creating up to 7 overhang seats in the Parliament which would cement an enormous block that could (with support from the Greens) become an unbeatable tactic that would ensure victory.

If this new alliance could demand better material conditions for those on the socio-economic bottom, working class aspirations and Māori aspirations could combine to finally deliver the promise to Rātana made in 1936.

If Labour want to wear that huia feather, they must rethink their MMP tactics and strategy.

 

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