Chhour’s anti-Māori agenda vs ‘Race Fanatics’: why the boot camps aren’t supposed to succeed and what identity politics eclipses
Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has told Children’s Minister Karen Chhour she does not understand the “essence of being Māori” in a tense and impassioned debate during a parliamentary select committee on Wednesday.
Chhour’s Oranga Tamariki bill, which would allow the Government to set up military bootcamps for young offenders and create a new “young serious offender” (YSO) sentencing category has been a source of heated criticism.
Opponents are concerned about the camps’ efficacy and the ultimate effect the “intensive” programme would have on young people, who often come from disadvantaged or vulnerable backgrounds. Several participants of a bootcamp pilot have been accused of reoffending.
But Chhour says the current system is not equipped to respond effectively to youth offenders and her proposal would bring about “more immediate, intensive interventions” that would lead to long-term changes for young people.
Kapa-Kingi, the MP for Te Tai Tokerau, raised concerns about Chhour’s approach to the boot camps, youth offending and the removal of section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. During the select commitee, she asked Chhour how te ao Māori would be incorporated into the process.
Never one to play race baiting dog whistles, David Seymour responded with the sort of nuance the debate calls for…
David Seymour calls Te Pāti Māori ‘race fanatics’ after Karen Chhour comments
…as charming as a car accident.
How someone wishes to identify and being comfortable in your own skin is one of the most important journeys of the human experience.
It ain’t for me as a Pakeha to weigh in between the Māori Party and Karen’s argument over how they identify as Māori, but I fear their identity debate eclipses the reality of race in New Zealand.
The first reality of race in New Zealand is that the Boot Camps aren’t supposed to work.
Boot Camps are a failure and it’s only being promoted for get-tough-on-crime rhetoric, they aren’t supposed to actually do anything other than make the Government look tough to an electorate frightened by youth crime.
In that race reality, Māori kids are horrifically over represented in a right wing red neck virtue signal of a policy that only exists to create the perception of suffering and unfortunately it’s young Māori bearing the brunt of this latest Boot Camp experiment.
9 out of the 10 kids placed were Māori.
The second reality of race in NZ is that Oranga Tamariki’s repeal of 7AA – again for purely political reasons by ACT as part of their anti-race agenda, is that the outcome will be a vast new wave of Māori kids uplifted into State care, which after the Royal Inquiry into Historic Abuse, should not happen again.
7AA placed upon Orange Tamariki an obligation when Māori children were uplifted that they be placed in Iwi Community Organisations and most importantly, the funding for that uplifted child would follow.
Removing 7AA means there is no obligation from Oranga Tamariki to work with Iwi Community groups when uplifting a Māori child and instead will house them within the State.
Regardless of how Minister Chhour identifies or how the Māori Party criticises her identity, the naked reality is we are seeing malicious and divisive policy passed that won’t actually solve the problem for the children involved and that is the ONLY issue here, not how people choose to identify!
Post the Royal Inquirer into historic abuse we have an obligation to never let that happen again, uplifting Māori children and placing them with proper funded Iwi Community Groups is a far better outcome than simply dumping them into a State care that has already been identified as an abuser!
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https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/we-can-reduce-youth-offending-heres-how-russell-willis/C3BUYP4LMRBHHOS4NBICBHVFOU/
“… to ensure all children succeed, we must address the root causes of disadvantage: poverty, housing affordability, unemployment and racism. It wasn’t always this way, and it can be different.”
Hard to grasp what practical solution ACT or National have got to do with any of the above issues, since they would only be of concern to “bottom feeders” and all of their policy goes in the opposite direction. The claim that it wasn’t always this way is debatable. We’ve done boot camps before, so why they trying again is unknown. Borstals closed somewhere around the late seventies, so he can only mean some imagined golden era starting 1980 thru 2000? Racial divisions weren’t always as out in the open as the last few years, and that might have gone some way to create an illusion of relative unity. Could just mean that it’s time to re-address youth offending. Not sure how designing it to be specifically maori will help while pro-maori organisations cannot or will not deal with gangs themselves.
I’m not reading about ram raids anymore so I guess they have stopped.
Did the threat of boot camps do this or something else?
Sorry Michael, just not getting reported any more.
One at our local garage/ dairy last night.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the fucking sycophantic media is the something else
Over over over and over, aside but yet more pertinent, if people, who our State supply care is incapable, of providing foo for their children, our business, of rush profit productivity, shall supply basic trash throw away Kai, that the Kai they provide in our schools, looks like.
Something to remember is that young people in violent or even dysfunctional homes are actually quite heavily chastised there – they are used to boot camp style approaches. So it’s nothing new for them. Lower income people already tend to be authoritarian with their children.
The idea is to get them to decide on something they could stand learning about and get them to set a small task and time to achieve it and help when useful and give them organised days and good meals and sleep and some time for music and perhaps learning some after dinner. Not late nights, restrict tv and films. bed about 10ish and see if they can settle into a new way. What they build or make must be locked away so it’s not damaged or stolen – that would be a big blow when they are trying. At home very probably nothing is theirs completely. It takes time and respect for their problems and acknowledgement quietly, when they succeed. The lazy people here are the governments over decades who have not helped grow our families like tender plants. We are still a bunch of yokels on the one hand or social climbers sending children to good schools where they are taught how to behave and achieve, not to think or learn the values of kindness, self respect, various philosophies, identifying them in our communities and discussing them.
Still happening Michael, one at our local dairy last night. They just don’t get reported by the media anymore.