Waitangi Day 2022 – a stocktake of where we are
Treaty settlements:
The most important understanding Aotearoa New Zealand should take from our current reality is that the big majority of Māori whanau are worse off today than they were before the fourth Labour government gave the power to the Waitangi Tribunal to begin investigating historic breaches of the Treaty in the 1980s. The reason Māori are worse off now is because the working class is worse off, and Māori are disproportionately in the working class.
The working class are always the shock absorbers in the economy and Māori are therefore always disproportionately impacted.
In the same breath as agreeing to compensate for historic breaches of the Treaty the David Lange/Roger Douglas government unleashed a raft of economic changes which stripped away protections for families and communities and gutted the welfare state. In alliance with the rich they, and the National government which followed them, smashed the unions and drove hundreds of thousands of working New Zealanders into poverty. It was classic class warfare and the rich won and are still winning all the way to a country whose defining identity is poverty and inequality.
Treaty payouts:
The total paid out in treaty settlements since the process started in the 1980s is now just over $2 billion. It represents less than three percent of the value of land and assets stolen from Māori. (The last of the big settlements, the largest in fact, will be with Ngapuhi which is yet to start negotiations)
And for useful comparison, never forget that John Key’s National cabinet, after a 10-minute discussion around the cabinet table, agreed to pay up to $1.7 billion to the wealthy investors in the collapsed South Canterbury Finance.
Iwi leaders and capitalism:
Not a single dollar of Treaty settlement money was passed over to Māori from the government without iwi being required to set up capitalist structures to receive and administer it as part of our capitalist economy. This was a vital pre-condition. The resulting tensions within iwi are palpable and the ironies abound. Most Māori would never dream of sending their elders into a rest home but Ngai Tahu has done very well from its holdings in Ryman Healthcare which farms the elderly for their life savings and government subsidies. Iwi leaders are no different from traditional capitalists in this regard. What trickles down to Māori whanau is not much and neither should it be expected to be much. Most iwi are able to distribute some education scholarships and offer a small range of payouts and benefits but these will never be able to make a significant difference in the daily lives of most Māori. And Māori who are not connected with their iwi are out in the cold altogether.
Iwi leaders – the heads of these capitalist enterprises – have become the group governments like to consult with. John Key was notorious for ignoring everyone else and Labour is not much different.
Partnership and co-governance:
Aotearoa New Zealand is feeling its way forward in developing a more respectful and honourable relationship between Pākehā and Māori with the Treaty as the stake in the ground – a critical reference point. There are some positive examples emerging, not just through guaranteed Māori representation in local government, but in areas such as management of Te Urewera and innovative models such as that proposed to deal with water after capitalist exploitation of fresh water has brought us to crisis point.
None of these innovations is an attack on democracy despite huge amounts of scaremongering by some farmers and the predictable ACT/Brash brigade. Handled well and led well the public will see these are enhancements of democracy – bring the 15% Māori populations into the democratic tent.
Unfortunately, no-one in the current government, aside from Nanaia Mahuta and David Parker to some extent, are prepared to front foot and drive meaningful change. The most likely result on water will be that significant water reforms are abandoned in much the same way Ardern threw in the towel without a fight on a capital gains tax.
The most critical issues facing Māori and the working class in 2022 are housing and taxation:
Housing:
The latest figures to September 2021 give the state house waiting list as 24,546 with half of that number being Māori whanau. This Labour government has been building state houses at less than twice the rate the state house waiting list has been increasing. This is great for middle-class landlords who can continue to charge impossible rents, knowing the government will continue paying them an extra $2 billion each year in accommodation supplements because rents are unaffordable.
A housing campaign this year will be built around the central demand the government build state houses for desperate families – disproportionately Māori. If you haven’t signed this petition to help get the ball rolling then don’t pretend you care about housing.
Taxation:
Māori pay higher tax rates than Pākehā. This is because the working class pay the highest tax rates and again because Māori are disproportionately in the working class they, on average, pay higher rates of tax when GST and income tax are considered together.
GST which is a tax on the poor. Workers are hammered because they have to spend all their income while the middle class and the rich can save some and therefore lose less in GST. (The lowest income 10% pay 14% of their income in GST while the top 10% pay less than 5% of their income in GST)
Unlike the middle class and the wealthy, workers pay tax on every dollar they earn and every dollar they spend. There will be significant campaigning around tax this year and every reader of the Daily Blog should be prepared to pitch in and help.
What will make a difference for Māori and the working class in 2022:
If campaigns on housing and tax can get off the ground and gain momentum they will force Labour to act and implement radical change.
It won’t be easy. Labour are wedded to what their middle class focus groups are saying – in fact they are joined at the hip to the corporate and the comfortable. It is only radical action which will force their hand for the better. Be prepared to do your bit in these campaigns in 2022. We have to be serious – this is a crisis for Māori and workers – only radical solutions driven by active campaigning will make any difference.
See you on the streets in 2022.
If we look at the 2021 Ngai Tahu financial report summary we see an entity with assets worth $2B, a income of $300M and $150M in operating expenses.
Yet they received income tax rebates of $1.4M on tribal expenditure of $66M (from the $150M gross profit) which gardened $6M in revenue.
If any organisation but a Maori charitable trust presented this $300M turnover with an operating costs of $150M and with earnings before tax of $150M but not paying taxes. Would the leftist be up in arms? Sure $55M went into tribal expenditure which raised $6.6M in taxable revenue (remember the $1.4M tax rebate on the income of this expenditure) but that leaves near $95M tax free.
Most of the earnings are not for distribution to the tribal members but for reinvestment, $149M worth. Virtually all of the earnings after operating expenditure was reinvested. Not sure where the other $50M odd for reinvestment came from (rising property prices?).
So sure ask the tax payer to fund Maori welfare. But surely Maori must look at the own elite and wonder, when will this IWI owned largess trickle down? At what point does the reinvestment stop and the 72,000 members get a larger slice of the annual S150M?
https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/investment/ngai-tahu-annual-reports/2021-annual-report/
Full report here
https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NT-2021-Annual-Report.pdf
Gerrit, have you looked at Sanitarium, another company with ‘charitable’ status!
And there are lots of them, the real problem is that they have charitable status.
Ngai Tahu are just the same as any business under the capitalist model.
The model is the problem.
Michal Not true – Ngai Tahu are not same as any business.
They have received some capitalist money to make up for losing much of their land over which rhey had domain. The settlers brought the cash economy and capitalism with
them and only respect money, so if Ngai Tahu want to live and manage themselves in the present they need to work with the money/capital they have and be careful not to let it be devalued and be careful about disposing of the land they have left, and take care that their resources aren’t devalued, polluted etc. They may make mistakes, they need to work within business law, but they aren’t an ordinary business with its often narrow, short0term money extraction horizons.
Bon point!
A very accurate summation.
This is the legacy of NZ being settled by the middle classes who have now imbibed too deeply of American libertarian doctrine. Sad really.
Could that caption be – A stockade is where we are at present. Present – a gift from capitalism and neoliberalism. Thank you for your kindness, you new furriners but we have our own ‘isms’ and are hand-making new models to sell at the farmers’ market, so you can put yours up your fundamentals.
Have fun you-all!
Well done John, that is a brilliant stocktake. Of course, it will go down like a lead balloon in this fools paradise aka New Zealand.
The sooner we take to the streets en masse against neoliberalism the better, but what are the chances?
The left are too disparate to unite and the only protesters these days seem to be minority Right wing nutbars.
I may be wrong but I understood that as regard to Treaty Settlements Maori did better under National .
I agree with XsXed 3 Waters started as a opt in or opt out plan until they saw how many wanted to oped out now
They finalised lots of Treaty Settlements. That is not doing better. The money was no bettter.
Jacinda one Waitangi Day; “with togetherness we overcome”
Ah, Prime Minister, can your turn your fertile brain and apply that to housing?
A Ghost home list would be good. Lets get squatting!!!
If we are to ever understand why Maori protest the betrayal of The Treaty’s promises, it is on Waitangi weekend, as an equivalent social betrayal brings the same cultural destruction to people all across the country.
Just as the machinery of colonialism inexorably dispossessed Maori of their land, New Zealanders today are being similarly dispossessed by neo-liberalism.
And in the same way that Colonialism pushed Maori to the edges of our towns and cities, and into penury, developers and property speculators are doing the same thing to the rest of us now. But, with no treaty settlement to point to, and without the wonderful Iwi and Hapu communalism that sustains Maori, we’re powerless against it.
Maybe we should all declare ourselves Maori and join them in demanding the Treaty’s promises be kept.
Excellent!
Yes John Minto. Thankyou.
Telling it like it is.
Outlining what’s required to change it.
Signed on this cool website for the petition, which footnoted: ‘and providing an extensive apprenticeship training ground for the next generation of tradespeople (carpenters, joiners, drainlayers, roofers, electricians, painters and related building trades)’
Apprenticeships provide the real world training which is not available online. I would add mechanics.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/460983/pm-s-waitangi-day-speech-with-togetherness-we-overcome
Drum roll – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iuD3pSgBcw
then
We Shall Overcome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoK3Y-NZI1A
Funky version with gusto.
This should be our presentation to Labour and the cabal at the top when PM Jacinda makes speeches about togetherness as it is their lack of thought and commitment to we the people on low to middle incomes who are left to do the overcoming of the disease that pervades the nation – smugness with bouts of wild delirium and complacency, don’t you know. It isn’t right.
The only way Maori can recover their equal partner position in NZ is for every Maori citizen to have two votes, one for the specifically Maori seats awarded for their place as the original people in NZ and another vote because they are also equal citizens in our country. Any other arrangement – such as the current arrangement – must be a criminal avoidance of the main purpose of our treaty. Remember democracy means “people power” (from the original Greek). Whatever antics you allow in elections etc. if the people are not in charge you have a plutocratic oligarchy, never a democracy. And if you want equality you have to take the money and property back from the rich who have stolen it – there is no other way. Capitalism is just the Feudal System in a party hat. Take off their hats and kick the bums out.
wow that’s worth a spin, plus would make up (in a small way) for all that tohunga suppression and killing off one beautiful language…. (i’m sick to death of “ka mate”, there are many other haka out there not written by a murderous cannibal bearing an uncanny resemblance to bill gates)
As with the affluent virtue-signalling Woke, your piece involves the excision of poorer Pakeha & Asians [who comprise more than 50% of the lowest income quartile] … along with a highly paternalistic Noble Savage Romanticisation [bordering on Sacralization] of Maori & the attribution of eternally virtuous motives … a strong tendency towards crude, abstract ID politics (despite your occasional critiques) … and a remarkably cavalier attitude towards the fundamentals of liberal democracy.
It’s clear that in health & housing, lower-income Pakeha & Asians are now being systematically transformed into second-class citizens despite not only comprising core supporters of the Left but also being the very least likely to have inherited wealth from colonisation. The scapegoating, use & abuse of poorer non-Polynesians by an affluent White Middle / Upper-Middle Class.
Like the Woke, you are essentially Fake Left.
What are you going on about, make it coherent.
It’s perfectly coherent … spare me the bad faith bullshit.
When addressing your ideas in reply to someone on a communal thread then you need to state who, whose statements are being considered and addressed and critiqued. It’s not always obvious. Michal is confused and I’m not sure – is it John Minto’s assertions? People who put comments and are serious about discussion of whatever problem, should do this automatically so that the background to the answer is understood.