This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.
Journalist Graham Adams recently drew parallels between David Lange in the Fourth Labour Government and Jacinda Ardern in the Sixth, arguing that just as Lange was a hostage to the Rogernomes in his cabinet, Ardern is a hostage to the Māori in her caucus.
The parallel Adams is making is not as strong as he suggests but he is raising an important issue of the Māori caucus and policy in the current government.
Genuine Rogernomes were never a significant group in the 1984-1990 caucus. Rather, three of them (Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble and David Caygill) commanded the key Treasury portfolio which they used ruthlessly to implement their vision (backed by a totally committed Treasury). The majority in caucus had no alternative and the Rogernomes made sure that what little opposition there was, was gunned down. (After all as in the Stalinist tradition, if the Rogernomes were right, anyone who disagreed with them deserved to be executed.)
They outmanouevred David Lange, described by Adams as ‘one of the most tragic figures of our modern political history’. Despite his political gifts in public communication and having his heart in the right place (i.e. on the left side of his chest), he lacked the infighting skills necessary to deal with the Rogernomes. This is well illustrated by Jim Bolger who, while initially blind-sided by Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley, hauled them back. Bolger had the political savvy – his political background was Federated Farmers – and he also had better connections especially with Bill Birch. Lange had neither, so he had a limited ability to build up an alternative coalition in the way that Bolger did.
Today’s Māori caucus are different from the Rogernomes. There are more of them – fifteen with Kelvin Davis, Nania Mahuta, Peeni Henare, Willie Jackson, and Kiri Allan in cabinet – proportionally more than in the population. What I don’t know is how cohesive they are, for while they may express common pieties, they may not have a commonality when it comes to the policy or political crunch; Māori can express very diverse views among themselves. Adams identifies two key promoters of a Māori vision: Jackson and Mahuta. Neither is near the Treasury portfolios, although there is a view that the Treasury is less powerful than it was thirty years ago. (Their current minister is one of the most powerful in Cabinet.)
While Ardern has Lange’s communication skills, she is less isolated. Her strong connection with Grant Robertson is reminiscent of the Bolger-Birch one or Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. Add Chris Hipkins and there is a very powerful troika, although it has been preoccupied by the Covid Crisis.
Most members of the Labour Party have an inherent affinity with Māori, reflecting their commitment to the least well-off. One can celebrate the – often over-hyped – special spending on Māori trying to deal with past failures.
But it is too easy to lump non-Māori politicians in with the Māori caucus – as Adams does – when they are supporting Māori more generally. I have no doubt that Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little is committed to settling past grievances just as his Labour and National predecessors were, but that does not align him with any Māori caucus vision.
Little’s handling of the health portfolio may seem odd. The proposed health sector restructuring aims to further centralise the system, but the separate Māori Health Authority is a decentralisation with no comparable institutional arrangements for anyone else (which is likely to cause considerable problems). Presumably, Little is responding to a 2019 Waitangi Tribunal report, Hauora (Health), which pointed out that the health system has not been successful with Māori health delivery. But one might argue this is also true for Pasifika health and that we have not always been up to the mark over women’s health either. These are largely issues related to the provision of primary care and we can do better. Nobody in an operating theatre asks whether their surgeon is Māori or not; all we care is that they are a bloody good one. There have been exaggerated claims for what the Māori Health Authority will deliver. We shall see.
Adam focusses on the three-waters restructuring; that it is proposed that at the top of the various new agencies, half the positions will be appointed by local iwi. Again it seems likely that a Waitangi Tribunal report – the 2019 one on the national freshwater and geothermal resources – is influencing the thinking.
Personally, I have no trouble accepting that water is a taonga under the second article of Te Tiriti. However, the restructuring is not about water but about the infrastructure to deliver it. It does not automatically follow that property rights to water gives rights to its infrastructure. One would think it absurd that because the land was improperly transferred the buildings or the forests on it are somehow ‘owned’ by Māori. In contrast there is a realistic case that iwi are entitled to some share of the property rights in water resource consents in their locality. Basically the three-waters restructuring is very confused; this is but part of the muddle.
Adam’s biggest concern is with a 2019 report He Puapua, prepared by a group of technical advisers, which advocated a shared authority and jurisdictional arrangements for Māori. The government was reluctant to release its findings ‘because of a concern that it would be misconstrued as government policy’.
The report’s analysis is muddled because it does not address the fiscal issues, which are clearly identified in Article One of Te Tiriti as a government responsibility. My view of a constitution is that when there is no issue involving military power – as in Mao’s ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ – the foundation comes from the taxing and spending powers.
Nor does the report consider the fraught question of what exactly is a ‘Māori’. At one stage the Minister of Māori Affairs seemed to suggest that anyone with a Māori ancestor was Māori. That is a genetic/racial definition. My view is that it should be a matter of self-identification, but that fluidity makes a self-determination policy very difficult. It is easy to be pious about self-determination – He Puapua does that well – but what does it mean in practice?
Whatever its strength and weaknesses, He Puapua is not government policy. That would require it, or the practical content of its recommendations, to be adopted by Cabinet. Typically that involves consultation with the government departments which were not involved in the drawing up the report. Very often there would also be a wider public consultation before Cabinet considered it.
What Adams may be concerned with is the Rogernomics propensity to have almost secret reports, with a strong ideological flavour, suddenly rammed through Cabinet and Parliament without effective consultation. There is no reason to expect the Ardern-Robertson Government to parallel the Rogernomic blitzkriegs.
Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.
72 Comments
This is a very concerning policy direction, the suggestion that you can be Maori or any other race by self determination is a nonsense. This will be determined largely by picking financial advantage. The issues around three waters and He Puapua need to be taken to an election so voters have chance to debate and understand the issues, any less is undemocratic. The segregation of the health system and approximately 500 million to do it is absolutely the most stupid waste of money at a time the health system badly needs the resources to deal with a pandemic, I see now they are looking at putting in ventilators and new ICU beds 18 months after the pandemic began WTF are they thinking.
the suggestion that you can be Maori or any other race by self determination is a nonsense
This has been New Zealand's approach to ethnicity WRT the Census for a long time. It makes sense - if you don't identify as English but you have English ancestors, should you be classified that way?
I for one agree with Brian - 'Māori' who identify as such should be counted as Māori. The bigger issue is those (like my wife) who have Māori ancestors but do not identify as Māori are captured as Māori by the census, which asks people what ethnicities they identify as, but also whether they are from Māori descent. This separates those who identify as Māori but who aren't ethnically. The flip side of this, however, is that we have this anomaly where Māori descent people are apparently counted as identifying as Māori (happy to be corrected). Then we get statements such as "15% of the country are Māori" being used to argue issues that only really impact those who identify as Māori.
Case in point - vaccination. My wife is ethnically Māori so being vaccinated counts in the vaccinate Māori statistics. However, she would not respond to Māori-centric vaccination campaigns, which cater to those identifying as Māori.
It would require a careful historian to prove this was 'common' however it certainly wasn't unique to Māori. This is the theme of a classic English novel: "" The foremost theme in 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' is regret. Henchard's drunken decision to sell his wife and baby daughter ....""
Disagree with you here. I remember studying Thomas Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge in stage 1 English Literature at AU in 1967. The main theme in the novel, like other Hardy novels (e.g."The Return of the Native"), is how the new rational and more scientific ways of carrying on business (in the novel by the Scotsman Farfrae), were displacing the old tradition-bound ways of doing business (in this case Hardy focuses on the agricultural business).
Another main theme was Hardy's belief in a bleak form of determinism called 'cosmic fate' if I remember rightly. This theme is present in all his novels but most predominately in "Tess of the d'Urbivilles". He believed the free will played no part in one's fate.
The 'regret' in "The Mayor" was just an element of the melodramatic narrative that carried the main theme. Don't believe in all Google says.
Farfrae is designated a Scotsman because the Scots were considered the most entrepreneurial people in Britain from the 17th century onwards, well into the twentieth century; and particularly so in the 19th century which was where Hardy set his novels. In fact, it's now generally accepted that it was the Scots who more than other Britons sustained and furthered the growth of the British Empire and that they certainly came up with the most inventions during the Industrial Revolution.
"There is no reason to expect the Ardern-Robertson Government to parallel the Rogernomic blitzkriegs."
Um, Three Waters, anyone?
With zero public idea about who gets to clip which ticket, what happens to the fraught interface between the Stormwater bit of the 3 and wider catchment issues, what happens to the existing TLA service infrastructures and employees, what boundaries the 4 entities actually end up with, and so on.
With the added frisson of fake consultation, and a legislative track that spans the holiday period where serfs, I mean Citizens, are preoccupied with fishing, surfing, feeding the multitudes, cooking, drinking, keeping the kids from each other's throats, and worrying about whether the bank account will stretch to buying the gas needed to get home....
Sounds like a blitzkrieg to me.
Well there is the water itself but the infrastructure for same in the 19th century was primitive, undeveloped. bore pumps, long drops. Cannot possibly imagine that the draughting of the treaty envisaged & sought to embrace, in its terms, the infrastructure paid for by ratepayers and spent on their account by their elected councils over the following years. If that is to be the precedent then our roads & streets must then follow suit, bridges, as all of that could thus be viewed as infrastructure sitting on what was once land that the treaty could at any time claim in the future regardless of anything else. The government simply has no mandate for this.
Easton conveniently chooses to claim He Puapua is not Govt policy while ignoring it's ongoing practical implementation delivering racist separatism by stealth given illegitimate undemocratic effect by eg mandated Iwi representation on local authorities, the separate Health Authority (passing over the racist medical school selection processes of the last decade endorsed under both National & Labour Govts & preferential DHB treatment acknowledged to be provided to Maori), Police pandering & direct Govt funding of private property trespassers, race based criminal gangs & vigilantes stopping NZdrs going about their business, the theft of ratepayers assets under 3Waters, $120M to bribe Maori to get vaccinated...there's a long list, facilitated by the Govt funded MSMedia propaganda service.
For all the academic & political self serving revisionism, the fact is that ToW does not include any "Principles" (these are a contemporary opinion starting with Justice Cooke & developed in the Royal Commission on Social Policy in the 1980’s & included by Palmer into the SOE Act without democratic reference to the NZ electorate) Nor does the ToW require co-governance: Article one of the Māori text grants governance rights to the Crown while the English text cedes "all rights and powers of sovereignty" to the Crown who cannot enter into a partnership with it's subjects – and who are all equal in their “rights and privileges” under the ToW.
LD
Good idealistic stuff.
Incidentally, I would like to know your opinion on the absentee overseas Chinese owners of townhouses next to mine but who choose to work and live in Australia. One townhouse is rented to a Maori family and the other to a Pacific Island family. What do you think of this situation?
My kids are five generations removed from the last "full blooded" Maori ancestor in my wife's family. Whilst happy that they can trace themselves back to a Waka, they look European and identify as New Zealanders. I have lost count of the times that they have been advised to try for Maori Scholarships. We don't need the money and I feel this would be taking from those with higher needs. New Zealand Society needs to develop policies based on need, not on race, whilst acknowledging that there are Treaty obligations to be upheld. As an aside - I think Kiri Allan is very impressive and I wish there were more like her in Parliament.
Defining what it is to be, or how to define being, Maori is very much a Pakeha concept and quite foreign to Maori. Maori have a sense of identity and geneology much stronger than Pakeha, which may explain why so many with mixed ancestory (pretty much all of us) identify so strongly with the Maori side. I was brought up with stories and waiata about uncles and aunties, their photo's are all around our Marae. We have a family cemetary, we are all shareholders in large blocks of land. We all whakapapa back to the same few ancestors which we can recite from memory going back many generations and that is how we introduce ourselves. That is tangata whenua.
Of course you can have Maori ancestory and not identify with it.
I have been on a few local Marae and I appreciate the sense of community and belonging among the people I met there, they are special places. There are many people of all ethnicities who aren't fortunate enough to share this sense of belonging and place. The current education system puts a pressure on children to state their identity. I know my children have found this difficult. They are English (boo) but also French, German, Welsh, Irish and Maori. They have an ancestor who was a Maori Chief and an ancestor who was a British Colonial Officer. My Son asked if he should kick himself in the leg as his English side had oppressed his Maori and Irish side. I would like to see Maori, European, Chinese and Indian New Zealanders working together on the big issues to make a uniquely NZ society that benefits us all.
I would like to see Maori, European, Chinese and Indian New Zealanders working together on the big issues to make a uniquely NZ society that benefits us all.
Yes.
But how can we ever achieve this when every single given issue is obsessively tagged as Maori vs Non-Maori.
That’s media and vested interest spin from those that benefit from the division. There are loads of families that are a mix of ethnicities. People are far less segregated in reality than portrayed by the media. As I’ve stated before, only 4% of people who identify as Maori in the census actually voted for the Maori party.
"Maori have a sense of identity and geneology much stronger than Pakeha" That's a pretty general statement, perhaps NZ European just don't have the same financial incentive to make a big deal out of it. I can only record my direct ancestral line back just over 300 years (so far).
It is a very general statement but I'd reckon it may be true. However judging by their support in international sport both Maori and Pakeha have merely a mild sense of identity compared to Tongans. I can still remember waiting to get into Auckland airport at 1am in the morning because Tongans were dancing on the main road while merely waiting to greet their rugby league team. I see Maori and NZ flags but nothing like Tongans painting every inch of their house.
Judging by genealogy Māori and Pakeha seem fairly content to inter marry but I've met NZ born Kiwis of Indian descent who go to India to arrange their marriage.
It is best to follow all the major religions in saying we are all the children of God. Identity politics are often start as well meaning but they quickly become poisonous.
Your story is cute - though you are absurd in thought if you believe you and yours are unique.
Maori culture may be amazing and beautiful - but no more so than anyone else's. To suggest it is is straight out racism.
Much of modern day Maori culture is as broken and dysfunctional as the rest of society's.
Te Kooti is almost certainly correct in their statement but it wasn’t always the case. The enclosures act, highland clearances, industrial revolution and first world war all contributed to a disconnection between people of British decent and their land as it forced people into towns and broke up traditional family ties. This continued with the closure of mines and industry in Wales and Northern England which broke those communities as well.
You were one of the lucky ones then because the ostracism and abuse towards those who do not follow strict gender roles like my cousins had them be traumatized by the Maori side. What someone is is more than an ancestor but a person with their own gender and sexual identity and physical, mental abuse because they do not fit the strict "cultural" roles should not be tolerated in any modern evolving culture. Especially when it comes with a lot of biased and discriminatory practices that diminish the mana of whanau and strips them of any chance to connect to their heritage and culture. Better to have those today honoured for what they are then physically abuse them based on old roles held before landing in NZ and forced to migrate due to resource pressure. It is funny that cultural heritage does not extend earlier to previous islands and tribes. What was so shameful in the past that most iwi refuse to recognize the earlier migratory ties. Or is it that recognition of heritage & ancestors beyond the seas would dilute the claim to ownership of a land that was not the origin of the iwi but the landing points of human migration to NZ. Most cultures are proud to recognise a line going back millenia yet the Maori iwi leaders claim to not exist beyond a few hundred years. Pity because at the core root is the connection between all humans and scientific understanding has allowed cultures to celebrate the past and evolve to a future that is stronger and more alive than before (quite literally).
How sad to have such a small and short family history and remembrance. Most other cultures can trace back far more and connect far deeper with records spanning thousands of years. Pity then you have a small patch of cemetery instead of the earth and of that it is foreign to the origin of your ancestors. But you cannot even trace back where you came from anymore because it is so shameful to you. Across the globe many cultures mixed and evolved and here you are frozen in place, cut off from your origin, cut off from the future cultures that develop. It is sad because even our tribes can trace our paths traveling across the globe from many cultures but then they all evolved into new stronger cultures. Even those family who choose now to identify as Maori ethnicity still can trace further back than NZ and far further back than the Pacific. You have lost your past and so too is your future crippled by that. It is deeply sad.
With regard to the last paragraph, the stealthy amendment to Covid legislation re iwi checkpoints would seem to contradict that, as does the u-turn on allowing councils to opt out of 3 Waters. Douglas and Prebble wrecked Labour, and the Maori hardliners may do the same to this lot.
My daughter is a blue-eyed, blond haired, iwi-registered Maori, in a household in the top 5% of income earners.
I look forward to milking the govt for every cent of benefit, and enrolment preference as she gets older. Yes it's unjust but since it's the white liberals who have enabled it, their kids can choke on the fruit.
How do they make such an interview fair? We know that interviews to get into Ivy league universities are unfair. It sounds like INZ immigration process - some arbitrary decision which may vary depending on the mood of the bureaucrats involved? If a candidate is borderline will the interviewer be swayed by appearance? Incidentally the two Maori members of my family have no problem.
My experience only, MAPAS schemes such as those for medicine or law are high value and generally over-subscribed. The interviewer/s will want to establish 4 things - your whakapapa, the strength of connection to your whakapapa, your ability to handle the course work and what you will do with your medicine/law degree to benefit Maoridom/Pasifika. Having some Maori heritage on you mum's side that someone remembered is not getting you admitted to med school under an MAPAS scheme.
It's a very fair system, I have family involved in it. Many good young Maori doctors are now working in rural communities as a result. They were smart enough, they just needed help on admission.
It's a system that places doctors into parts of the country pakeha will not work in and who are trusted by their community's. it also shows that given that chance, they can thrive in academia. The same schemes are in place in Australia, Canada, USA and so on.
Your comment is resentful and bitter and I actually feel quite sorry for you.
Thanks that is a reasonable answer. The interview attempts to identify commitment to the future not connection to the past. Analogous to when I recruited computer programmers - had they got command of the appropriate computer language and did they seem dedicated.
I was never offered a bribe to get acceptance - hopefully I'm honest but also I knew I'd be found out.
I've always wondered about the foreign born Maori of say 2 or more generations.
Will they waltz back into NZ in 2030 (or whenever) and claim rights beyond that of my grandchildren who have ongoing lineage since the 1800's?
And who's ancestors arrived here with nothing and got given nothing in the land curve ups.
Interesting article about South Africa in The Economist of 25 Sept. Since the end of Apartheid, the income gap between rich whites & poor black has decreased. However, & counterintuitively, the average black is worse off. This is because the narrowing of incomes is owing to the "emergence of a new black elite" - "black economic empowerment has steered business towards black-owned firms". So "while the gross income of the top 10% of black earners has tripled, that of the bottom 50% has fallen".
I think a similar thing is happening here - the Govt in combo with Iwi is building a new well-paid Maori elite thru new power structures, while doing little to alleviate the poverty of the less well-off, whether Maori or pakeha.
I've seen a couple of recent propaganda pieces put out recently on behalf of the He Puapua agenda. One by a TVNZ reporter trying to get books by amateur historians banned from sale in local bookshops for their 'racist' content and now the more subtle approach in this article. Cue a couple of interviews with academics saying how reasonable He Puapua is, being based on something from the UN and to a way give back everything that the Maoris had taken from them.
It turns out that the majority of New Zealanders don't like having control of their water infrastructure assets taken from their local councils and turned over to the control of Iwi by royal Jacinta fiat.
I'd say that it is worse than this article suggests. Jacinta is on board with the turning over of publicly owned assets to Maori but now faces the reality that the He Puapua agenda is out in the open and is not popular with 83 percent of the population.
Now there is an attempt to front foot this by saying that it is
1. Reasonable to take assets from public ownership and give them to iwi without public consultation because this is what was done to Maori.
2. Not that big a threat to the well being of the general population because what is good for Maori is good for everyone, even if the general population are impoverished by the confiscation and redistribution of public assets for the private benefit of a few individuals.
I am entirely unpersuaded by this Chris Trotter article. I voted for the Lange govts because I believed that they were the ones who would redress the balance in New Zealand. I was foolish and didn't realise I was voting for the Neoliberal agenda, the sale of state assets for the benefit of a few individuals and the impoverishment of New Zealand.
The Adams article was bang on. I won't be voting for Labour and the country's impoverishment in the next election.
Good article with some great comments. I've got into trouble on this website before for casual racist comments & rightly so. I need to be careful here. We are too small & too insignificant to be any thing else than one country, one nation & one people.... with many cultures. It's the many cultures that give us our flavour & I do not like what I'm reading, seeing & hearing of recent times. Some how or another we all have to grow up & start working for the same land, otherwise the whole thing will crumble, like a pack of cards in the wind. This is not about utu or justice or us & them, it is about survival as a country on a very small planet called Earth. If we can't get there, together, then we're f........d! My concern today is that we're half way there already.
Time to ditch the Treaty of Waitangi, and get back to the original intention, which was to form one nation. Despite those who cling to the idea, 180 years of nature has long has made the idea of two distinct groups quite untrue.
There is more diversity within the supposed two groups than between them.
Maori do have a special place in New Zealand and the treaty rightly recognises that. I would like to see a coming together for a better future but not as a form of assimilation. I think we all want to see a more sustainable planet, cleaner water, better housing, health and education etc. We just disagree on how to achieve it sometimes.
Oh I agree waikato. Maori (those who wish) can form a special grouping. Up to them. And other groupings can form also.
But the legalistic approach is no longer relevant, indeed a hindrance. Time to remove the Treaty as it does not reflect our real current day makeup.
Whatever its strength and weaknesses, He Puapua is not government policy. That would require it, or the practical content of its recommendations, to be adopted by Cabinet. Typically that involves consultation with the government departments which were not involved in the drawing up the report. Very often there would also be a wider public consultation before Cabinet considered it.
No. It requires a national referendum because you're asking 83.3% of the country's population to provide affirmative benefits and asymmetrical rights to the 16.7% of the Maori population.
Worse a thin sliver percentage of that 16.7%. Most iwi leaders abuse their position and take the wealth that should be collectively distributed. Sure they say the collective matters when getting money but that collective drops immediately when the assets and wealth are being distributed. How many families are in deep poverty while the iwi leaders can count themselves amongst some of the most wealthy, holding large assets, graced with housing wealth and with large contract sums disappearing with little realized public support for the community and collective wealth to share. More artists are held back by constraints on using their culture in their artwork by being forced to consult with iwi on how they need to have permission before their art can speak their truth. How many cultures worldwide force artists to face a panel of nepotistic leaders before they can have permission to use and produce their art?
Although I expected to see racism, complete lack of understanding and my way or the highwayism, I am still pretty shocked to have read many of the comments here.
We have NEVER fully honoured the treaty and now the reality of that is confronting people, it's all, let's get rid of it, it doesn't apply now. I am pretty disgusted actually.
I would say most people commenting here assume the white, European way of doing things, is the default setting for the human race,
Beggars belief.
As far as I can see, their policies mention Asians little to none. Asians represent around 15% of the NZ population, while Maori represent 16%. This is quite different from other anglosphere countries like the United States, where Asians are an absolute minority (5% of the US population). The bi-racial NZ has long gone.
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