Waatea News Column: The true cost of damaging race relations is more than the current $1m legal bill

The cost to date of all the legal issues this Government’s anti-Māori and anti-Treaty agenda has sparked from various Iwi forces is now just over $1million dollars.

For a Government that promised to slash unnecessary costs, splurging a million to defend an antagonistic race baiting political agenda promoted by the extremes of the electorate seems remarkably hypocritical!

It’s not the money value however that measures the true damage of this current Government’s race baiting performance art.

A couple of months ago,  the Political Right manufactured a culture war attack on Auckland University by claiming Māori space for students was, and I quote, ‘KKK’, ‘Separatism’ or ‘Segregation’.

ACT, NZ First and National all made those claims against a space inside Auckland University that had been there for 40 years! What was revealed this week was that after the Political Right made these absurd allegations, staff and students received death threats!

When University Staff and Students can receive death threats because the Political Right are playing political theatre with dangerous rhetoric, you appreciate the true damage of this anti-Māori agenda goes well beyond the dollar value the Crown is having to spend to legally defend their anti-Treaty agenda.

First published on Waatea News.