Free speech champions now pearl clutching over Rawiri Waititi – why shouldn’t Māori have their own Parliament?
Oh the pearl clutching from the very same Free Speech cheerleaders over Rawiri Waititi’s recent commentary is Israeli level over reaction minus the death toll.
Tone policing Māori over righteously angry rhetoric by those who are leading the assault against the Treaty is Trumpian in its self delusion.
Look at the naked anti-Māori attack on the Treaty!
- They will repeal 7AA of Oranga Tamariki to green light a tsunami of Māori baby uplifts!
- They are trying to ram through a referendum on Treaty Principles that will eliminate the need for the State to work with Māori!
- They are attempting to rip Māori representation away from local Councils!
- They have killed off the Māori Health Authority!
- They have slashed Māori funding in the budget!
- They are trying to remove all Treaty references in the law!
- They have attacked any bi-lingual moves!
Boomer Cracker Settlers have gone all in on the race baiting and are now sad sad that Māori have risen up and protested back.
What a pack of easily triggered snowflakes these Boomer Cracker Settlers have suddenly become!
I also think claiming the protests on budget day are illegal is driven by an enormous fear inside National that the culture war race baiting is generating a level of social unrest that could become an economic weapon if Māōri really did consider Budget day a Māori strike.
The entire political agenda of National is to underfund public services so they can privatise them while ensuring Unionism never grows.
What National have done is unify Māori so that Māori can simply stop working and the system grinds to a halt.
As the Census proves, 20% of NZ is Māori and 1 in 3 are under 25. The age of the Redneck Settler Boomers is coming to an end, the future is young and brown and that future will not be told they are second class citizens in their own country.
A Māori Strike on Budget day should terrify the Right because they’ve managed to generate a solidarity the middle class Unions could never spark.
2023 wasn’t an election, it was a grudge fuck against Labour by an embittered post Covid electorate who were economically insecure, alienated by woke dogma and heart broken that all Labour could do with a once in a generation MMP majority was ‘good first steps’ rather than transformational leaps.
It has resulted in a Hard Right Racist Government bound together only by a shared glee in bashing beneficiaries, workers, renters, prisoners, the environment, gang members, drug addicts and the disabled.
They all have a particular dislike for Māori and have used attempts at co-governance to fulfil the promise of the Treaty (which is our collective obligation) as a weapon with which to cement into place 19th Century White Settler Privilege and call that ‘democracy’.
The NZ Political Right have mistaken anger at Labour as a mandate for culture war vengeance and they have conflated Majoritarianism as Democracy!
In a modern liberal democracy, you acknowledge the power imbalance created in society and you resource to ensure those power imbalances are compensated for!
In a liberal progressive democracy, it doesn’t matter what role you play in the complex super structure of our society and economy.
It doesn’t matter of you are a garbage collector, a dr, a nurse, a drain layer, teacher or tradie – if you all stopped doing your jobs the system can’t work.
Everyone deserves to share the collective harvest of civil society with public services and policies focused on the public good enshrined in the intrinsic civil liberties each individual has.
Wealthy individuals who become mega rich thanks to the landscape generated by those values are required to pay more back into the system they have benefited from beyond the bare necessity of ruthless accountancy practices.
The Political Right are screaming that imposing Qanon talking points as social policy, destroying workers rights, Tobacco deaths for tax cuts and taking $555million from the poorest families are all acceptable because they have the Majority so fuck everyone else!
They promised cancer patients their life saving drugs but gave the money to the rich instead FFS!
They stripped $3billion out of climate change budgets.
They took between $90million to $300million out of Māori budgets!
They are ramming corrupt fast track powers through!
But it’s the call by Māori for their own Parliament that has the right in a tizzy?
Against this nakedly anti-Māori agenda, Māori are calling for their own Parliament because they have been pushed there by this Government’s racist agenda!
It’s like the Right have lit this fuse and are now complaining about the fire they’ve started!
Personally I have zero problem with Māori establishing their own Parliament. Right now Māori have their own King and it doesn’t impact my life in anyway. If Māori want their own Parliament, they have every right to call for one. It won’t have any actual powers but it can be a strong representative platform.
I’ve always argued for an Upper House about our Chamber that should be 50/50 and discuss Treaty related legislation, but I’m a politics geek.
A Māori Parliament would be symbolic and a valid means of gathering and focusing Māori aspiration, it isn’t a Government with all the powers of a Government, it’s a democratic infrastructure for representation!
While we are starting up a Māori Parliament, let’s also bring back universal student union membership at Universities and universal union membership for every migrant worker.
The answer to our ranker is more democratic infrastructure, not less!
Democracy demands deeper values than mere majoritarianism!
The drive to have a Māori Parliament should be seen against the backdrop of racism this new Government have manufactured.
Why should Maori have their own Parliament? The John T party is such a circus that the status quo appears better structured to accommodate all comers, it and does so already, irrespective of genetic anomalies.
Various indigenous peoples around the world have their own assemblies and Councils. The Kingitanga, Ratana etc. does not affect others largely until the likes of this CoC Govt. attack Māori.
Allowing referenda for whiteys to strip Māori Wards from local Govt. is blatant and the Natzos and Act are going to get it back in spades.
AGREE 100%
Fine with Maori having their own parliament and their own area or areas where they can have complete autonomy and jurisdiction – these can be also be coupled with funding their own hospitals / roads / social services etc from their own taxes as well.
Let’s just pull the pin and split the country between the ‘genocidal colonists & ‘friends’ and those Maori who no longer want to be a part of a unified New Zealand.
Other countries have indigenous parliaments, e.g., https://theconversation.com/the-voice-how-do-other-countries-represent-indigenous-voices-in-government-212875. No big deal.
“They all have a particular dislike for Māori ”
they have a general dislike for anyone that they consider is beneath them, particularly the poor. Sprinkled with fear. They’ve had this since at least the 1500s.
The problem with that James Brown is who would use the cycle ways.
Anyone who can coordinate their left and right limbs , Marco ? You ?
“The government is always going to win a showdown between order and anarchy.”
it’s all a bit anarchy these days. didn’t luxon promise de-centralization. lol
Last Thursday our people raised tino rangatiratanga and whakaminenga flags on the State Highway bridge which passes over their awa and whenua. A week later those flags remain flying, and they may well remain there permanently. That indicates a deep seated community commitment to the principle of mana motuhake. It is not decided what form tino rangatiratanga should take, although many will have strong opinions on that. I think it fair to say that a “Maori parliament” which is a carbon copy of the colonialist parliament would have limited appeal. Most favour a radical departure from the current colonialist system of government, which would also constitute a return to the natural organic forms of governance which preceded the colonialist era and which have been maintained on marae throughout that era. This issue is bigger than the parliamentary Pati Maori, and it is bigger than the colonialist parliament as a whole. People can stop jumping up and down, and start thinking dispassionately about what form of government they want to replace the Westminster system in our motu.
The only power imbalance is your team didnt get enough votes in the last election. Now we have to put up with your grizzling for at least 6 years.
Geoff, the Westminster system is largely an unwritten constitution. Look at an example of a written constitution, that of the US whose preamble reads:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
This is the Enlightenment background plus the principle of toleration which underscores the liberal democratic tradition. These are the values upon which we agree to be ruled by a government freely chosen by us all in a fair procedure.
There are advantages to a written constitution, and there are reasons why New Zealand does not have one. To be specific, if the Realm of New Zealand’s actual and present constitution was written down in plain language there would be a national riot, while if New Zealand had a written constitution on a liberal democratic model the colonialist regime would lose its trump card, which is the ability to remove all democratic institutions through a sovereign decree.
You write “we agree to be ruled by a government freely chosen by us all in a fair procedure”. If that is the case (it isn’t really – I for one have not agreed to the British monarch’s claims to sovereignty over Aotearoa, and I have not agreed to the rule of any government established the sovereignty of the British monarch) then it follows that we must also have the right to reject that government. It makes no sense to claim that we “freely choose” something which we are given no right to reject. Westminster does not give us democracy. Only rangatiratanga can.