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The Maori Party are on complaining about white rollout & it’s wonderful.

The argument is that this is all Labour’s fault because they didn’t vaccinate Maori first – could you imagine the race riots that decision would have provoked?

So the Maori Party are asking for policy that would spark race riots in a never never land of make believe while ditching vaccination mandates and masks because it’s their self sovereignty at stake.

Y-e-a-h.

The virus doesn’t care if you wrap yourself in the sovereignty flag, it will kill you regardless.

Yes there needs to be a Maori Health Authority that is resourced enough to empower Maori through the appropriate cultural lens but to take it further and state that vaccine hesitancy is a grudge against cracker flies in the face of medical reasons and public safety.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, let’s first appraise their suggestions before damning them for rhetoric that if spoken by anyone else would justify Police attention.

Te Pāti Māori’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response Policy policy proposes:

• Empower and resource Māori to lead our own COVID-19 response
• Establish an independent statutory Māori Pandemic Response Group
• Abolish government mandates
• Affirm autonomy to set tikanga for tangihanga
• Invest in holistic wellbeing
• Implement a Māori home isolation strategy
• Support whānau who are struggling and have been impacted by COVID-19
• Keep our international borders closed until Māori vaccination rates hit 95 percent

We can all agree that Maori led health providers are one of the success stories here. They have shown outreach capacity within their own community that is unparalleled to Pakeha dominated DHBs. They should be properly empowered and resourced.

The establishment of a Maori Pandemic Response Group makes sense and should be implemented.

You can’t abolish Government mandates, this is a public health crisis not a racist policy against Maori and attempting to portray it as such is disingenuous in the extreme.

While Tikanga for tangihanga must always and will always be set by Maori – again these restrictions are a public health issue not a racist crackdown on Maori funeral customs!

Investment in holistic wellbeing is great. Let’s do that.

Implementation of a Maori home insulation strategy is wise and good.

Supporting struggling Whānau is righteous.

I agree with keeping our international borders closed until Maori hit 95% vaccination rates.

So all up some great ideas, most of which I agree with but that’s not all they have said.

The Maori Party have disgraced themselves by using rhetoric that if used by any other politician would see them criticized and asked to stand down!

Rawiri Waititi said the party was fundamentally opposed to mandates because they were a direct attack on our constitutional rights under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“Their [government] latest mandate programme is a knee-jerk reaction to a failing system that has not been well thought out,” Waititi said.

“They have consistently provided a one size fits all approach. A narrow-minded approach that has vilified the unvaccinated people in this country,” he said.

“This has caused vaccination hesitancy and the division we see in this country.”

“Māori constantly find ourselves having to pick up the pieces of reckless government legislation that continues to marginalise and criminalise our people,” Waititi said.

“We are still recovering from legislation forced onto our people and for this reason we do not trust.”

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the government had failed to provide equity for Māori in accessing information, resources and vaccinations.

She said they had actively blocked efforts to protect our communities.

“I have witnessed the gaps with my very own eyes. Every piece of advice given by Tangata Whenua over the course of this pandemic has been ignored by this government. And they still don’t have a plan,” Ngarewa-Packer said.

“Their blatant willingness to ignore Māori health expert advice is committing us to beauracratic genocide.”

Describing this as a ‘beauracratic genocide’ while using the wild rhetoric of Rawiri  is deeply offensive and a direct play to the AntiVaxxer electorate.

The Maori Party are flirting with a segment of society who should be pacified not celebrated.

If they had simply left it at their suggested ideas this would have been a good addition to the debate but by framing  it in such divisive terms they are actually the fanning themselves fires of extremism.

Any other political party would be called out for such dangerous tactics.

AntiVaxxers are not a fringe group who should be rewarded politically.

There are already example after example of AntiVaxx lunatics screaming ‘genocide’ at School staff and MPs.

The Maori Party are playing a very dangerous game by using words designed to create fear and anger at a time when leadership requires calm legitimacy.

This isn’t that.

The panel is on. Dr Lara Woke from Auckland University and Shane Jones are commenting on the Maori Party’s extraordinary abdication of responsibility and the lack of insight is phenomenal.

Dr Lara Woke mouths the same criticisms against cracker without any political self reflection on what vaccinating all Maori first before pakeha would have caused while you can actually see the hands inside Shane moving his mouth as he pitched for business interests to reopen the North.

So Dr Woke is all ‘modern genocide’ while Shane is pimping for Shane.

There’s no reflection on the hyperbolic rhetoric or it’s impact in radicalizing or what would have happened to Jacinda politically if Labour had vaccinated Maori before pakeha.

It’s such an incredibly shallow critique, even for TV!

There needs to be a new live-streamed political podcast from far funnier people that’s available on Spotify and ROVA and Apple Podcasts and YouTube by the end of this month dammit!

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