He Puapua – Fear of a Brown Planet
There are times in politics that my eyes roll so far back in my head that I am staring at the world behind me upside down.
Calling He Puapua ‘a secret agenda’ is disingenuous to the words ‘agenda’, ‘secret’ and ‘a’.
The feral Cameron Slater level paranoia that has erupted on the Right in NZ over He Puapua is one such moment of eye rolling absurdity.
The idea that a barely read wish list of indigenous hopes and aspirations that could live up to the promise of the Treaty would ever get fully implemented is Trump like in its delusion of imaginary white fears.
An upper house 50-50 split between Pakeha and Māori to decide Treaty Legislation has been an idea I’ve been arguing for years now!
For a majority MMP Government that can barely build houses to suddenly transform into a super hero for Indigenous rights who manages to overnight re-write the entire constitutional framework of NZ by stealth is so farcical in its possible threat delivery that you may as well imagine a child with a water pistol up against a laser guided Jet fighter.
He Puapua is a wish list of hopes and aspirations, it is not a secret blueprint for the takeover of a country by radical Māori, to attempt to frame it as such is bordering on QAnon conspiracy fantasy.
This is a fight between National and ACT over who gets to blow this dog whistle loudest.
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Its a barely read wish list because its only recently been released, perhaps you should have included a link to the document in question so your readers can have a look for themselves – https://www.nzcpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/He-Puapua.pdf
It has a flaw in it that appears to be contradictory to a maori world view, and unbelievably, contradictory to The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does this a couple of times. It’s difficult to say why without alerting the wild dogs. These people are neither harmless or stupid, but some of them might’ve had to have been practical. Let’s say that they know about it, and it’s there as a temporary and pragmatic patch, not a deliberate move. If it’s still there post draft then conflict will start again. Other than that, it would be unreasonable to not support the intent of this document. It reads like a methodology to bring the spirit of the Treaty into real life. It doesn’t build houses or fill stomachs but it does mostly provide a way forward for pakeha to be the best version of themselves in a political partnership, and reinforces current pakeha systems of governance over former colonies in transition.
And that is why many Maori like myself are against mass immigration. Our (Maori) issues become irrelevant and watered down despite us once being the majority and the land owners. And them we get tramped on, assimilated and our rights as the tangata whenua and the Treaty partner get continually used as a political football. And we have now become a so called minority group in our own country. Unlike the Chinese and Indians and many others we don’t have a mother country to go home to, where our language and cultural practices thrive and are valued, this is our home. And now we have all these immigrants with a deep sense of entitlement demanding things like repatriation and decent health services we are yet to receive. Because of Covid policies we haven’t been able to attend or hold tangihanga or see our deceased love ones or practice our culture. Yet we now have all these people travelling to Indian and other places now expecting our government to spend thousand to get them back home. This in my view is not right nor is your opinion that we as a mere 15% have a right to be who we are or ask for anything we believe we are entitled to.
Here’s a thought:
Perhaps when the present governor-general retires she should be replaced by a pair of co-governors, one championing the tangata whenua, the other the rest of us, like the two figures supporting the New Zealand Coat of Arms.
Feeling trump facts.
And the feeling that white people do it better, can’t ever be questioned. Oh that ideology has a name, what was it again – oh that’s right, liberalism.
Time to move on folks, Time to give democratic socialism a real crack.