The Rort That Is The America’s Cup – Rawiri Waititi

Tax and rate payers of Aotearoa have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two decades on a Cup and a sport that only a small minority of New Zealanders participate in.

As accepted by way of interviews and responses, Grant Dalton accepts that the America’s Cup is about billionaires and big money.

None of us can forget our when our heart and soul as a country was seized by outsiders in 2000 when two born and bred New Zealanders; Russel Coutts and Brad Butterworth chose to exit their country in favour of a better dollar value from a different country.

We have all observed the high-powered legal teams that are deployed to rort the Americas Cup rule book in regards to every challenge. Justice is demonstrated to be the manipulation of power by the rich.

Once again, we have the Americas Cup act as a beacon of light for those that know the price of everything but the value of nothing, and those that understand dollars but have no sense.

When the Americas Cup gets distilled to how much money rather than how much mana, we have truly lost our way.

One hundred million dollars on offer to any code in this country is an offer that no other code from JAB to the All Blacks would refuse. But it was.

The privileged, entitled, rich, top end of town, fully funded in previous endeavours by Aotearoa Incorporated have shown their true colours. If the hand-out from Government isn’t big enough they will sell their souls to the highest bidder.

To suggest the top end of town have been brutalised financially by Covid is a nonsense. In fact, with quantitative easing practiced by central banks around the world, the rich have become extraordinarily rich, in fact more so than any other period following the second world war.

Do the big boys down town have plenty of money to sponsor their own cup? You bet they do! They’d just rather not use it.

One week of Covid subsidies to the business community in this country added up to more than all of the Treaty of Waitangi settlements paid out over the last 30 years. Just one week.

As Co-Leader of Te Pāti Māori, it would be a sin not to mention a number of other anomalies in regards to the way in which funds are distributed to Māori Creative Arts or Māori sports.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) receives $16.3 million. The Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) receives $5.4 million each year.

Te Matatini received $1.9 million.

Of the three organisations, only Te Matatini reached its target audience of 65,000. Te Matatini is also the only one of the three with a required online / television audience target of 1 million views and achieved it all. It receives one-seventh of the funding provided to NZSO but is required to achieve higher audience participation rates.

And lets talk about the America’s Cup who received $250 million from the Auckland ratepayer and the New Zealand tax payer for the last Americas Cup Challenge. $250 million!

The sooner the Americas Cup is banished from our shores, the better. Invest the $100 million on offer into our poor, our homeless and the real people that require it.

The rich have had enough play in the water. Time they pay for their own boats from now on.