By Chris Trotter*
Rawiri Jansen, co-director of Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, the National Māori Pandemic Group, is warning of “a perfect storm”. This daunting description was prompted by the disturbing news that, to date, only 9% of Māori and 13% of Pasifika have received both shots of the Pfizer vaccine.
Certainly, the prospect of the Delta variant of Covid-19 rampaging through New Zealand when, say, upwards of 85% of the Pakeha population has been fully vaccinated, but 65% of the Māori and Pasifika population has not, is fraught with danger. The tragedy currently unfolding in the United States, where the Delta variant is cutting a vicious swathe through that country’s unvaccinated population, is not one New Zealanders wish to see unfolding on their own shores.
Avoiding such an outcome has, however, been made extremely difficult by “official” New Zealand’s zealous embrace of racialised politics. The acute risks associated with this race-based approach were on full display during TVNZ’s Q+A current affairs programme of Sunday, 15 August 2021. The show’s presenter, Jack Tame, spoke tremulously of the possibility that Pakeha New Zealanders would “swamp” the full-scale vaccination effort scheduled to get underway from 1 September 2021. Though he was careful not to come right out and say it, implicit in his concern about “equity issues” was a vaccine roll-out that prioritised Māori and Pasifika over Pakeha. How this option could be made to work without requiring Pakeha to wait for their jabs, is one of those questions just about every person in authority is too afraid to answer.
An important factor in the success of New Zealand’s elimination strategy against Covid-19 was Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s constant reiteration that every citizen was a member of “The Team of Five Million”. This was “progressive” nationalism at its best. Ardern’s formulation spoke directly to every New Zealander. “You are Us”, it said, “Whether or not your ancestors arrived here 800 years ago, 150 years ago, or last week; you are a valued member of the team. Your health and safety is no less or more important than any other member of the community. This government is here for you. This government will protect you.”
Crucial to the effectiveness of the Prime Minister’s strategy was her willingness to turn a blind eye to the check-points erected by a number of Iwi to guard against any repeat of the deadly flu pandemic of 1918-19 which killed a disproportionately high number of Māori New Zealanders. With the full co-operation of the Police, the Government conveyed to Māori everywhere the vital message that, within the team of five million, many different ways of keeping communities safe will be tried and tested – and that’s okay. Just so long as the job gets done.
The great tragedy of the 18 months since the first nationwide lock-down is that neither the Government, nor the Ministry of Health, nor the DHBs, have built upon these early improvisations. Had Māori been encouraged to develop and roll-out their own plans for the vaccination of their people, just as soon as an effective vaccine became available, then the chances of securing a high Māori up-take would have been dramatically improved. The Māori Battalion, of undying fame, may have been a separate military unit, but it was also an integral part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
It has been an outstanding feature of the New Zealand state that, until very recently, it had mastered the art of both acknowledging the special status of its indigenous people while, at the same time, locating them unequivocally within the circle of citizenship. That this art quite often defied logic and science in no way detracted from its practical success. New Zealand’s No. 8 Wire constitutional and ethnic arrangements may not have been elegant – or even rational – but they worked. Until, that is, the official acceptance, and extremely rapid uptake, of the “colonisation” narrative caused them to stop working.
It is simply not possible to maintain New Zealand’s ‘two peoples, one nation’, solution in the face of an ideology that casts 85% of the population as “baddies” and the remaining 15% as “goodies”, and then invites the state to develop its policies in accordance with this uncompromising Good versus Evil dichotomy. As exemplified in Jack Tame’s concerns about Pakeha “swamping”, adherents to the colonisation narrative will look at the mass vaccination of the Team of Five Million and, rather than seeing a positive sign that New Zealand is moving closer and closer to being able to open-up to the rest of the world, they will see only more evidence of Pakeha privilege and systemic racism.
Even more counter productively, the first instinct of the colonisation narrative’s adherents will be to demand that Māori and Pasifika (who always seem to end up being parenthesised in these debates) be vaccinated first, rather than be exposed to the Delta variant unvaccinated. Hard to believe though it may be, this approach requires the authorities to look upon the New Zealand population not as a single entity of five million human-beings – all equally vulnerable to Covid-19 virus – but as a collection of racial/cultural communities to be prioritised for vaccination in accordance with the seriousness of their historical sins.
Always left unstated in these outrageous, racially-charged discussions about who should go in front of whom, is the likely reaction of those being asked to accept a lower priority. The anger and resentment engendered by such a policy do not seem to enter the political equation. Not even when the quantum of the group being asked to wait is greater than the quantum of the group being promoted to the front of the queue. The assumption is always that if moral suasion does not ensure compliance, then coercion will.
It is in this dangerous assumption that the essence of the problem with the colonisation narrative lies. It presupposes the rectification of historical injustice by judicial fiat. Rather than seeing the state as a body of self-governing citizens, the adherents of the colonisation narrative see it as a kind of court, whose uncontestable judgements must be obeyed – on pain of severe punishment. In a country where the Māori Renaissance was kicked-off by crucial judgements in the Court of Appeal, or the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal, this is not, perhaps, surprising. It would, however, be a huge mistake to forget that this nation’s highest court is Parliament, and that the balance of power within the People’s House is determined by the people themselves – by majority.
It is to be hoped that Jacinda Ardern and her government will resist the racially-charged demands of the colonisation narrative’s adherents, and continue to deal with the Covid-19 Pandemic as a problem afflicting human-beings – not racial groups. Also to be hoped is that the Government will, at last, display a readiness to devolve the responsibility for achieving the only rational vaccination target – 100% – to those groups most likely to engage successfully with their communities. These may include Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust, or the Congregational Church of Samoa, a local Marae, or a nationwide trade union organisation. God knows, they could hardly do worse that the Ministry of Health and New Zealand’s DHBs!
Democracy’s direction of travel is always downwards and outwards. Only authoritarians draw decision-making inwards, and send it upwards.
Racism is always and everywhere the creation of elites. “Perfect storms” are invariably unleashed upon us from above.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
56 Comments
Surely early on it was realised that vaccination was the only pathway for any nation out of this pandemic to at least regain some sort of parity to previous lifestyles. Therefore the selection of locations and recruitment of staff surely could have been addressed at a much earlier stage. I had my second jab last week and the efficiency of that was vastly improved to the first. My point is for a small nation, NZ should have got underway in volume and requisite education much earlier and thought about how to do so much earlier, and that would have swept over all and sundry regardless of race accordingly. Well at least the availability would have that is.
The MoH is explicitly tracking this, and they even have a page about it, updated 6th August: https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/vaccine-rollout-track-…
Here are the relevant key points from the above document:
As at 01 August, relative rates for the Māori and Pacific eligible populations over 16 are low, however uptake for Māori and Pacific people aged 65 and over is by and large equitable.
Broadly speaking, the younger the age group, the less equitable the uptake for (Māori in particular which is likely to reflect)
adherence to the Sequencing Framework and age banding
potentially lower uptake of younger-age Māori with underlying health conditions and disabilities.Differences in Māori and Pacific vaccination rates by age is likely to reflect events that have been held specifically for Pacific populations (eg Hawke’s Bay’s vaccination of a large number of RSE workers and border workers, disproportionately working-age-Pacific)
Or in other words, when accounting for age brackets, Maori at younger ages still have lower vaccination than non-Maori in younger age brackets. So there is still some inequity there and room for improvement.
For the 55-64 and 65+ age groups, Maori appear to have the same, or better, up-take than non-Maori. So that's very good, since they're the most vulnerable group from age and from general co-morbidities.
While CT discusses the political landscape in this article, he avoids another aspect of the situation. Health, at least those bits of it we can influence, are a matter of choice. Our own personal choice. Nowhere in any of the vaccine information have I seen anything that suggested that vaccinations were for non-Maori only. While it may be true that many Maori are living in remote areas with limited resources to get themselves to a vaccination centre, that remoteness is in itself a protection, but they would also not be unique as there will be a few non-Maori in the same circumstance. And sooner or later DHBs will need to formulate strategies to get vaccinations to the remote communities, for everyone. But at the end of the day currently getting vaccinations is largely a choice for most, so to the call that Maori are not getting them, the question must be why are they choosing not to? And as in all things, are they then responsible for the consequences of those choices?
When I got mine, I noted people from every culture in NZ presence being given the needle. None were being turned away, although they did need an appointment. So please don't tell me the program is racist.
Agree. It is a personal decision. But the Government has the responsibility to reach all the people with the message.If that means that they have to take extra efforts to reach some groups, so be it. They have to attempt that too.
Like Air NZ's safety messages using ABs, may be the Government can rope in the ABs to make some video to pass on the message to all of NZ ?
I don't see how this could be any more manufactured and hypothetical. For the average NZer the chances of actually caching COVID under current government policy are so tiny it boarders on hypothetical (visiting some locations might have measurable risk but nothing ever comes of it) and once detected its Level 4. Everyone's going to get a chance before anything changes and that's before we get to the lack of evidence for long term efficacy.
This stupidity is what we get for tolerating politicians too weak to challenge the narrative. No one dares questioning the point of leaky vaccines and perusing elimination. Don't get me started on masks on buses in Level 1.
Don't get me started on masks on buses in Level 1.
Why? The whole point of masks in busses on level 1 is that we don't know when COVID is in the community. If someone has it and is on a bus, them (and everyone else) wearing a mask will likely cut down transmission. If we go from a case of 7 other bus passengers being infected (delta is very contagious) and themselves spreading in the community, to 3 other bus passengers being infected and spreading in the community, that's a big win, given our only effective weapon to stop community spread at present is a level 3-4 lockdown, likely lasting 7-21 days.
Give me you best guess on probability of the first if and then put all the ifs and likelys all together for the average bus trip in NZ (not just in Auckland, the lack of any confirmed occurrence of transmission in NZ makes this difficult, I guess). Compelling people to wear masks for hypothetical risk is just classism. Supply and recommend masks on MIQ linked routes (and sick people) if you want, I don't think will be many port workers catching buses.
The inconvenience and complacently will affect compliance and you end up with retirees in Chirstchurch being uncomfortable travelling on buses without any determinable risk or people not washing hands after putting the mask away. Not to mention the harm it does to public transport adoption in NZ.
It's not a hypothetical risk. If someone has the delta variant of COVID on a bus while they are infectious, it will spread. Masks if worn by everyone should reduce the spread.
Just like we wear seat belts to protect against the hypothetical risk of car crashes. On any individual car journey, you are very very unlikely to need a seat belt. On the journey when you need one, you will be glad you wore it.
Same with a mask. Except COVID affects the entire community if spread happens, and level 3-4 lockdown is our best weapon at present if community spread happens. So the consequences of it spreading amongst passengers on a bus is far worse than the consequences of someone not wearing their seat belt and getting in a crash.
If we could know precisely when and where to wear masks, and when and where not to, then sure, I'd agree. But people can be infectious with COVID without knowing it. That's the problem.
The inconvenience and complacently will affect compliance and you end up with retirees in Chirstchurch being uncomfortable travelling on buses without any determinable risk or people not washing hands after putting the mask away. Not to mention the harm it does to public transport adoption in NZ.
These concerns sound like hypothetical risks.
Consider this scenario: port worker catches COVID, doesn't know it and is infectious. They visit a mall while infectious. They infect 1 other person through fleeting contact (we've seen this happen in Australia with delta). That one person happens to routinely use buses, which they do for the next 2-3 days, and on some of those journeys they are infectious. Those bus journeys still happened because the port worker has received 1 or 2 vaccines (which don't totally stop transmission - and we know the visitor from Australia had received 1 dose of Pfizer and still infected his wife), and so they don't develop any obvious symptoms, and their regular screening test happens to occur just before they became infected, so isn't picked up until their next routine screen 7-14 days later. Meanwhile this bus passenger has spread it to several others in the community, and we go into level 4 lockdown because of "unexplained COVID transmission in the community without a clear link to the border".
Even if masks on the bus don't totally stop transmission, reducing the initial infections from 'patient 0' on the bus can dramatically reduce the total infectious load on the community and shorten the lockdown duration by weeks, because of the way exponential growth works with a virus that has a R0 of 5-7 in an unvaccinated population that aren't taking much in the way of COVID precautions.
Your idea of "only wear masks on known vulnerable routes" doesn't take into account the above scenario, which is quite plausible. Asking everyone to wear masks on public transport is not an unreasonable request.
Also a reminder that we still don't know the root cause of the Americold COVID infection and subsequent cluster in Auckland from last August.
When I said "you best guess on probability" I was asking for a number or ratio, within a couple or more orders of magnitude as certainty is impossible here (I would think it's well higher than 1 in a billion). If you can't assign a number to the risk (this is relatively trivial for seatbelts), calling something hypothetical is entirely appropriate. We are talking level 1 here. I can invent scenarios for anything if you like but they most likely wont happen.
You missed the Stuff? article when the retiree counted the number of people wearing masks on the buses is Christchurch and servery of mask usage on buses. No rational person would consider themselves at risk on bus outside of a port town or they would be too risk adverse to get on the bus in the first place.
No rational person would consider themselves at risk on bus outside of a port town or they would be too risk adverse to get on the bus in the first place.
It doesn't really matter what someone who considers themselves to be rational thinks. What matters is the actual risk, which someone who considers themselves to be rational, but who is not actually intimately involved in epidemiological modelling, cannot accurately judge. That's why we listen to advice from people who are involved in epidemiological modelling and those people were saying for months that we need masks on public transport even in level 1. Eventually the government listened.
Also Christchurch is a port town, so....
If you can't assign a number to the risk (this is relatively trivial for seatbelts), calling something hypothetical is entirely appropriate.
Ok, here's a number: it's highly likely we'll have a delta outbreak in NZ similar to Sydney somewhere in NZ by the end of the year, according to experts. That means at least 1 outbreak by the end of the year. That could be tomorrow. It could even have been 3 days ago and we just don't know it yet. It could be spread by people on public transport.
Given the costs involved in an outbreak (level 3-4 lockdown, for likely 7-21 days), it's a very small price to ask people to wear masks on busses. Apparently a price too high for many.
You could have led with: I trust the experts and narrative and I think you should too. I would have disagreed with you on this issue but you would have typed less.
Edit:"it's highly likely we'll have a delta outbreak in NZ similar to Sydney somewhere in NZ by the end of the year, according to experts. That means at least 1 outbreak by the end of the year."
I don't think your a numbers person. If your willing to make this assertion what else is not backed up.
I made a choice not to use a new line comment brevity.
I think what you really meant to say is the risk is "unquantifiable" or "very very low", not "hypothetical".
I'd agree that it's (largely) unquantifiable and very very low - I've not seen anyone put numbers on it, which seems to be something that you are demanding be done and if it can't be done it must mean it is too low to worry about. That doesn't make it "hypothetical".
Experts say the risk is high enough that it's worth wearing masks on busses. I don't have any reason to disagree with them, and as I outlined, there are plausible scenarios where COVID can spread in the community in unexpected ways, even on bus routes that don't seem to be high risk.
We already have experience in NZ of trying to do contact tracing of bus passengers during an outbreak and it was proved to be very difficult. That resulted in QR codes being created for individual busses, and no doubt fed into the advice that people wear masks on public transport.
Just because a lot of people are complacent or believe the risk is not as bad as what the experts say it is so they don't wear masks, doesn't mean the experts are wrong.
Yes, negligible or "very very low" that would be correct and more explicit. But when we are talking about hypothetical scenarios (no known chance of happening but "what if" (and there are more serious scenarios are more likely)) the narrative around them creates a perceived risk. I chose to call this "hypothetical risk" because it's exists only only from the hypothetical and has no real risk that we should be concerned about, sorry for the confusion.
There are much larger holes in our border than masks on public transport but it would effect the wrong social class of people (edit, see below) to fix them, I do believe that conflicts of interest and politics influenced the decision.
There are much larger holes in our border than masks on public transport but it would effect the wrong class of people to fix them, I do believe that conflicts of interest and politics influenced the decision.
Now *that* I agree with, assuming by 'class' you mean social class?
The obvious response to my hypothetical example of COVID transmission happening in a mall is "why is the port worker allowed in the mall without a mask on?" but I don't particularly want to open that can of worms.
Empirically, no community cases have come from the ports. Hypothetically, they could infect their niece or nephew who came over for dinner and then they end up on the school bus before anyone gets tested and so on. I would either recommend stopping looking at hypothetical cases or go all in on working out their absolute quantitative risk per year.
Keep in mind that the government was to let business people though the border with a shorten relaxed quarantine as a baseline for tolerable risk.
The initial parenthesis of this sentence should be here: Even more counter-productively, the first instinct of the colonisation narrative’s adherents will be to demand that Māori (and Pasifika, who always seem to end up being parenthesised in these debates) be vaccinated first, rather than be exposed to the Delta variant unvaccinated.
Elderly Maori & Pacifica were already given race based preference above other ethnic groups as they were included under Group 2 while others of different races were allocated into Group 3 timings. Whānau Māori and Pacific families can also be vaccinated together when one member of the family is eligible to be vaccinated.
I'm surprised anyone is surprised by the low uptake of vaccinations among any groups when two of the more visible public faces of Covid management — Drs Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles — wrote an open letter denouncing seven eminent professors from their own university for saying matauranga Maori is not science and that letter is signed by more than 2000 mainly academics and researchers.
So on one hand Wiles and Hendy want us to "follow the science" and then happily declare that science is misogynistic, racist and a tool of colonisation.
Furthermore, they claimed that science shouldn't be put on a pedestal. (ie, "Putting science on a pedestal gets us no further in the solution of these [Covid] crises.")
If prominent science academics are willing to wage war on science and scientific method maybe we should look at how the promotion of "Maori ways of knowledge" as equal to what has been (falsely) described as "Western science" are contributing to suspicion regarding vaccination.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdRwHTSKURHaalXZSNo2oluN9OjuDx…
I doubt anyone in the groups we're talking about are using the personal views of Siouxsie Wiles and Shaun Hendy as a reason not to get vaccinated. I'd say that probably 70% of people in NZ didn't even hear anything about that storm in a teacup.
For the record, I completely agree with the sentiment in the original letter by the 7 professors (although they didn't articulate their position very well) and IMO the open letter in response didn't really engage with what the original letter was talking about anyway.
Are you talking down the 2021 New Zealander of the year? Please respect that the virtue signalling required to reach these heights is considerable and unrelenting.
Anyone who has studied year 10 science will appreciate the scientific method, a cornerstone of science. These supposed leaders are walking away from this core tenet. Unfortunately they are making a mockery of themselves, 5th form school kids will be shaking their heads.
On the other hand any part of our society that falls behind on this critical public health programme should be part of the solution to this problem, I am in favour of Maori leading the solutions required for Maori on all levels. Funding should be equivalent to their percentage demographically but otherwise they should be allowed to drive the solutions. This is actually the scientific method in effect, if an approach does not work, do not repeat it hoping for another outcome without changing the parameters.
Funding should be equivalent to their percentage demographically
So no extra top-up in recognition of the decades of deliberate government policy trying to stifle them and their culture, which has lead to demonstrably worse social outcomes across the board?
A government report has just found that investment of $1B annually into Maori health measures specifically could create economy-wide savings/gains of $5B per year. If that $1B turned out to be more than their 'demographic percentage' should allow for, would you deny the funding, even though a 400% return on investment is pretty good?
Best to check out what the New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) - the combined industry and academic association - has to say about Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and its place in terms of scientific endeavour in New Zealand. If one understood the breadth of what mātauranga Māori encompasses, the original letter writers would understand there is no claim to competing paradigms (one over the other) in the first place. These are complementary knowledges.
Link to the NZAS statement (pdf file) is here;
"Had Māori been encouraged to develop and roll-out their own plans for the vaccination of their people, just as soon as an effective vaccine became available, then the chances of securing a high Māori up-take would have been dramatically improved."
smacks of apartheid to me
If you think this that is apartheid, you clearly have zero idea of what apartheid is.
Ignoring the cultural differences that exist among people would be a better description of it.
I have had it up to the eyeballs with people who cannot understand that our differences are more about culture than race, and acting according to a groups culture to achieve success is the outright opposite of apartheid.
The real divisiveness will likely arise when most Pakeha been inoculated and a third of non Pakeha have not and latter are seen by former as non compliant and causing lockdowns. Tame was struggling with being allowed to use “hesitant” by his GP Maori guest who didn’t like the term
Blame for differential take up has to be put on non Maori or person giving opinion is immediately seen as blaming the “victim”
I guess I'll be stamped as racist but
a) At my local DHB Maori people had a spot in a vaccination queue prior to everyone else, proof: https://www.facebook.com/huttcitycouncil/photos/a.203250123040890/43171…
Being whanau in this case mean just saying that you live with someone of Maori descent over 55 and hey you've got your shot. That rule didn't apply to other ethnicities. What is that policy based on apart from identity politics?
b) New Zealand is a multicultural society which means, we're privileged to be exposed (and respect) more than a single (e.g. Maori) culture. Part of this article talks about uneven vaccination rates and possible racism as a rationale, why isn't there a word here about 11.8% of the population who are of Asian descend? How come say Indian, Phillipino or Southen Chinese cultures (and vaccination rates) are not important to even mention? What about Middle Eastern & African ethnic groups?
Maori culture does indeed have a special place in this country, because it is original culture of this land. I really wish people could get this through their heads.
Strikes me people think the Western (essentially British) culture that makes up the bulk of people here, is somehow or other a default for the human race and every other culture is somehow or other, alien to this country, because I never, ever see it mentioned in the line up of 'others' that feature when people are trying to justify making out that Maori culture as somehow alien as well.
The ONLY home of Maori culture is here, all the rest, including the main one here, are represented where they come from
I guess it's because kiwi pakeha Anglo celts... Like Maori don't look outside of nz for an identity but every other group does. Does the pakeha population have "pakeha community" leaders?
Indian kiwis are seen cheering for India against nz all the time in cricket. People who say they are kiwis but do this don't have my respect nor do I consider them my countrymen. That applies to Europeans as well.
Great article Chris. Media has a great influence on the narrative being portrayed by this government. It is shameful that so much money has been paid to media by the government to support their ideology. Jack Tame’s show is a great example of money not well spent.
It's a weird wrong depiction that there are two groups in New Zealand. And the folk in each group is the same as the others.
The reality is we have a rich variety of people.
It's getting weird now with advocacy for political systems akin to apatheid.
I marched in 1981 against a racially based political system. I fear I will be soon marching again against that idea in New Zealand.
Indeed. I feel the further we go the more divided we are.
I can foresee our local version of Trump being elected here to "defend our group" in the future if things go the way they go. By "our" I mean any option is possible e.g. Maori to protect the culture/Caucasians to "defend" them against the minorities/Renters to make housing great again/so on.
Which is not something I'd thought was possible in the past.
PS: no offence - love, peace & unity to everyone.
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