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8 April 06
Sovereignty
Marchs On
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To
be successful, political movements need effective long-term
strategies. This week observers would have witnessed two
tactical steps in long-term march of New Zealand towards Maori
sovereignty and a separate Maori nation.
The
first of these steps was the launching of the Maori electoral
option campaign on Monday. This four month long campaign,
budgeted to cost $4.5 million, is held following the census
every five years. It targets those who claim to be Maori
inviting them to choose whether they want to be registered on
the Maori electoral roll or the general roll. If all Maori
voters on the electoral roll registered for the Maori option,
there would be 13 Maori seats in our Parliament. That would be
more than sufficient under our MMP system for a Maori Party,
if it was able to win all – or most - of those seats, to
permanently hold the balance of power.
The
Maori option campaign has been called ‘state sanctioned
separatism’. To have a racially divided electoral system
still operating 140 years after the Maori seats were created
to rectify an historical voting anomaly is an anathema in a
modern civilised society.
In
the 1860s, temporary voting measures were introduced to ensure
that men, disenfranchised by private property ownership
requirements, were able to vote. These measures gave the vote
to miners and also established four Maori seats for Maori men
whose land was in collective ownership.
While
the miners’ temporary voting rights were eventually
abolished as planned, the Maori seats stayed on. The
eligibility for voting on the Maori roll was based on the
legal definition of Maori - as having at half or more of Maori
blood – a definition that remained in place right up until
1974. In that year the Labour Government introduced the Maori
Affairs Amendment Act, which changed the definition of Maori
to anyone who has Maori ancestry, causing an outraged Allan
McCready, the MP for Manawatu, to state in Parliament:
"It appears now that anyone who rides past a marae on a
pushbike can claim to be a Maori"!
This
change has opened the door to anyone who “feels” Maori
being able to claim they have Maori ancestry and gain access,
not only to vote on the Maori electoral roll, but also to
enjoy an array of other special privileges including sharing
in the spoils of the Treaty settlement process.
The
second event to assist radical Maori in their march towards
sovereignty has been the release this week of the United
Nations report on New Zealand Maori by the Special Rapporteur,
Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who spent ten days visiting New
Zealand at the request of Maori last year.
For
years now, the United Nations, regarded in many quarters as a
driving force of international socialism, has been helping to
mobilise the world’s indigenous peoples, supporting them in
their campaigns for independent nationhood status. By
producing anti-government reports, which paint a bleak picture
of the status of indigenous peoples in their homeland, the UN
has helped to strengthen national sovereignty campaigns.
This
UN report (click here to view
the report) is no different. In fact, in response to its
release, the head of Maori studies at Auckland University,
Professor Margaret Mutu, stated that: “The New Zealand
Government, and all governments before it, do not want Maori
to fully participate economically and socially in this
country”. The fact that this grossly fictitious comment
reported by Radio New Zealand remained unchallenged is typical
of the PC agenda that now underpins the reporting of Maori
issues.
In
his report, Professor Stavenhagen was highly critical of the
New Zealand media, claiming that they portrayed Maori in a
negative light (how he could come to that conclusion given the
plethora of pro-Maori taxpayer funded media outlets is rather
puzzling). He indicated that the media should be prevented
from being able to be critical of Maori through the
establishment of a watchdog body. That is presumably UN-speak
for censorship.
But
he didn’t stop at the media, he appeared to want to shut
down frank and open debate: “Representatives and leaders of
political parties and public organisations should refrain from
using language that may incite racial or ethnic
intolerance”.
The
report claimed that: “Having been dispossessed of most of
their lands and resources by the Crown for the benefit of
Pakeha, Maori had to accept sporadic and insufficient redress,
only to be faced with accusations they were receiving undue
privileges”. To rectify this historic grievance, the report
suggests that the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process should
be binding on the Crown. He further recommends that the Treaty
itself be entrenched in a constitution, which would recognise
Maori rights to self-determination and sovereignty.
The
Professor states that he received considerable of evidence of
the historical and institutional discrimination suffered by
the Maori people: “Disparities continue to exist between
Maori and non-Maori with regard to employment, income, health,
housing, education, as well as in the criminal justice
system”. But rather than taking the view that the increasing
crime rate amongst Maori is a result of the breakdown of the
Maori family, social dysfunction and personal choices made by
the young people themselves, he concludes that the answer lies
in more state funded initiatives for Maori: “There appears
to be a need for the continuation of specific measures based
on ethnicity in order to strengthen the social, economic and
cultural rights of Maori”.
The
report claims that the education system is letting down Maori
children and rather than the answer lying in a strategy to
lift our educational performance as a whole with more parental
involvement, greater school choice, and a reduction in the
bureaucratic burden on schools, he sees the solution in terms
of more resources for Maori and the development of
‘culturally appropriate teaching materials’.
Sadly
for New Zealand, the UN Rapporteur has bought into the myth
that Maori are victims and that the only solution is Maori
self-rule. The reality is that Maori are an amazingly talented
race of people. They are great orators, artists, sportsmen,
academics and entrepreneurs, with a special warmth and
presence that sets them apart. The very best thing that their
leaders can do to help them succeed is to get government out
of their lives and out of their way so they can flourish in a
country that is committed to equality under the law and a
future of equal opportunity for all.
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