So Te Pāti Māori opposes one-person one vote liberal democracy?

 What to make of this?

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The MP of Waiariki, thinks that to implement the Treaty of Waitangi, Parliament should have 50% representation from Tangata Whenua and 50% representation from Tangata Tiriti. Presumably his reason for doing this is because it "isn't fair" that a majority, in a liberal democracy, without constitutional limits on power, effectively mean the tyranny of numbers. This is a view that on the face of it, I sympathise with.  

Anyone who thinks a democracy can protect the rights of people under any jurisdiction, in itself, is a fool. So he has a point... perhaps if liberal democracy in New Zealand actually protected individual rights (which include the right of any group of individuals, such as Iwi, Hapū or Māori in general to organise on voluntary grounds), including property rights, then Waititi and his supporters could avoid fearing some sort of backlash, racist or otherwise, against living your life peacefully.

However my fear is that he doesn't really just want to be left alone, but actually wants to wield power much more widely, (although I am open to being proven otherwise, as he is far from being a conventional politician).

It's important to know what it means to want a 50/50 Parliament with half of the representation being Māori and the other half Tangata Tiriti, because according to his colleague, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, it isn't the population being split in two, it's the population being split in three.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this is simply a nationalist grab of power that has nothing to do with liberal democracy, you need to understand it isn't just about race, it's actually about political belief as well. You might assume Tangata Tiriti are the people who are entitled to live in Aotearoa because the Treaty of Waitangi established a framework to enable peaceful co-existence between Māori and settlers, but apparently not.

Writing in the NZ Herald, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (list MP), claims the population of New Zealand is classified into not two (!), but three types of people:

• Tangata Whenua (people of the land. Māori);
• Tangata Tiriti (people of the treaty); and
• Everyone else.

Ngarewa-Packer wrote rather obliquely what she meant by all three groups in that same article.  It's worth quoting to get the gist of her meaning:

Tangata tiriti are people who don't argue the existence of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as our founding document. They promote the partnerships it intended, moving away from transactional engagements, preferring lifelong relationships.

They are secure in themselves and know we are equals, one as tangata of the whenua (people of the land) and one as tangata of the tiriti (people of the treaty). ...

Tangata tiriti understand te tiriti didn't create special rights for Māori - we already had Māori social structures and systems of lore in place....

They're comfortable loudly declaring they're recovering racists, and they teach anti-racism, extremely secure in knowing their place side by side with tangata whenua ushering in a new Aotearoa.

Tangata tiriti accept and appreciate the reason they live in Aotearoa is because te tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua. This doesn't denounce their own culture, it strengthens their stand on the whenua they've chosen to live on. 

So it's not just about not being Māori, you have to buy into a whole ideological set of beliefs and views to earn the status of Tangata Tiriti. This includes accepting the reason you get to live in NZ is because the Treaty gives you citizenship on the land you've "chosen" to live on. 

The fact you may have been born here (or indeed your parents were as well) and may be born of any mix of ethnic or migrant origin is irrelevant to her. Identify as Māori, and you have an automatic right to live in Aotearoa, but if not, you have "permission". It's not "blood and soil" nationalism, but it certainly isn't "equal".

It is akin to granting someone a residency visa,  you should be grateful "we" let you stay, but your entitlement to stay depends on you behaving.

Part of it is that you need to embrace the Māori nationalist version of "original sin". No matter your background or your thoughts or deeds, or being English, Pasifika, Chinese, Jewish, Indian in descent you are a "recovering racist". You must admit it, and preferably evangelise to others about your and their racism, and of course your "privilege". Although it's unclear if being distantly descended from settlers in the 19th century who occupied land taken from Māori is more privilege than having fled Vietnam on a boat in 1976.

So that's your path to being Tangata Tiriti, although it's far from clear how that could be policed.

Of course, like mild nationalists, the definition of the "other" group is more by inference. It's everyone who doesn't support this view of the New Zealand constitution or the rights of citizens or politics. If you don't think you are racist, don't think you have NZ citizenship as of right, rather than permission, and don't buy into Māori-only seats at local government, then you're the others. You're not Tangata Tiriti, you are racists and possibly white supremacists ("white" being quite a wide definition presumably). There isn't much tolerance in the Ngarewa-Packer world for debate and discussion about the role of the state and individuals.

The whole ideological foundation of this is not one that treats the smallest minority as the individual, and individuals each with indivisible rights and freedoms, but one that collectivises everyone into groups, each with different rights.

Now I have quite some support for Māori wanting control over their own affairs, including their property and to run their own institutions, as long as it shrinks the central government role (and taxation alongside it), it's all consistent with my philosophy. I really don't care if Waititi or Ngarewa-Packer and others want to live their lives in peace with businesses, schools, hospitals etc. I don't care about your race or background if you want to do that, I want a state that simply protects us from each other.

but I do care if the purpose of this is to create an ethno-nationalist defined autocracy, where some citizens are more equal than others. Even if the Tangata Tiriti category is magnanimously expanded to just mean everyone who isn't Tangata Whenua, it still destroys equality before the law and government. A government which gives more weight to your votes because of your ancestry is a racist government, it doesn't treat people as individuals, it treats them as members of collectives, and that's a path that leads to tyranny.

It's certainly not a view held by any other political party in Parliament, I should hope.

Fear unbridled government? The answer isn't a coalition

When Geoffrey Palmer wrote "Unbridled Power" his concern was primarily about the lack of constitutional limits on government in New Zealand, and how Cabinet would dominate single party government which itself would almost always dominate Parliament.   Jonathan Milne has taken the latter tack in his latest article in the NZ Herald.  His hypothesis is that small parties will do badly this election, and that there is a real chance of something "dreadful" - one party government.

Of course he might think he looks like he is making a rather generic point about the advantages of coalitions and minority governments compared to single party majority government.   Yet he hardly hides his colours at all.  He doesn't pick on Rob Muldoon "banning inflation", spending billions on Think Big and bribing voters with national superannuation, he doesn't pick on Norman Kirk for creating big government businesses, expanding the welfare state and greatly expanding subsidies for government trading departments.  He wouldn't.  You see he isn't exactly an economist, or a historian or a political scientist, he's a leftwing reporter.  What other explanation is there for this comment:

The controversial free market reforms of the Rogernomics era were pushed through by the all-powerful fourth Labour Government without warning or by-your-leave. Similarly, there were few fetters on the National Government when Ruth Richardson presented her slash-and-burn Mother of All Budgets. No presidential veto, no senate or upper house sitting in oversight, and no small coalition partners to soften the hard edges of these governments.

All governments are "controversial", but you'd only say that if you thought that.  Except Jonathan is naive.  In 1987 Labour asked for a mandate to continue the reforms, got one and continued.   "Softening the hard edges" is the sort of comment one would only make if you disapprove, and those who disapproved were Jim Anderton and Winston Peters, and their bands of socialist, nationalist and xenophobic state worshippers they founded.

I opposed MMP in 1993 primarily because I had seen the previous two governments implement the most politically courageous policies in modern history.   Governments that cut subsidies, cut public spending, including cutting benefits.  They restructured government departments, made thousands redundant and privatised in the face of venal xenophobic hysteria.  Farmers, state sector workers, beneficiaries, pensioners and unemployed people were unhappy at the time, not a state of affairs most political parties are keen to promote if they want to be re-elected.  Contrast that era to the smile and wave of John Key, and Helen Clark's middle class welfare, and cash thrown at various interest groups (and craven acceptance of support from Winston Peters).

Even at the time of the 1984-1993 governments, the "hard edges" had plenty going the other way.  The fourth Labour Government opened up the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process, created bureaucracies for conservation, the environment, womens' affairs, youth affairs, Pacific Island affairs, and sowed the seeds for the Bolger government to pass the RMA.  Foreign policy saw New Zealand effectively step away from being aligned with the United States in the Cold War.   Education and health care remained firmly within the grip of the state sector and the rent seeking unions that dominated them. 

For Jonathan, stopping governments doing all they want is a good thing.  Which of course would be all very well, if what they wanted to do is more.  However, Jonathan's opposition to single party government is not that, indeed he rejects it because of history when governments were deliberately pulling back from spending money they didn't have, and telling people what to do.

He showed a childish thrill to think of the Greens and National working together on transport policy - because two conflicting ideologies must produce the best results.   He mentions NZ First, ACT,  Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and the Maori Party, as if he misses them having influence (remember the positive influence of NZ First after 1996?).

Somehow he links Brian Tamaki to Peter Dunne, and then concludes while the Greens might not be good on "roading policy", one party government is "far worse", and his only evidence is the reforms of the 80s and early 90s.   That's just being rather vacuous.

Frankly, if either National or Labour were committed to privatisation, commercialisation, cutting government spending and winding back the state, I'd say bring on one party government.  However a Labour-Green-Maori-Mana government would be a four headed hydra of disaster, which would easily spook foreign investors and send more aspiring New Zealanders abroad. 

Unfortunately Jonathan hasn't really bothered to check what the two main parties have on offer.  National is hardly driven by a desire to engage in major reforms, it is instinctively conservative.  Labour is hardly seeking to engage in radical reforms, although is at least masochistically more interesting than National.

So no Jonathan, one party government after this election wont be perilous or dreadful, it will be "meet your new boss, same as old boss".  Politicians wanting to boss people around, spend their money while saying "it's good for you".  The only difference with a coalition is that the flavour changes.  Maybe if National needed ACT, and ACT gained 10 seats, there might be something more radical - presumably that's when Jonathan gets upset because that's not what he meant.  You see to him, like so many reporters in New Zealand, government should be there to fix problems, not get out of the way.

A republic, any republic

Asking if you want a republic, particularly when dreamt up by former communist Green MP Keith Locke, is a bit like asking if you want something to eat, and not knowing if you'll get a gourmet meal, fast food, some expired food from a supermarket bin.

A republic in and of itself it not necessarily a good thing. Not PC akins it to accepting a kidney transplant from a bureaucrat, but I think it is more like a trojan horse. It looks like something good, but you don't know what's inside, or why you got it. The motivations of some advocating a republic should be cause for worry.

You see a republic can range from being a constitutionally limited one, that is meant to constrain the role of the state, like the United States, or it may be a corrupt dictatorship, like the Republic of Tajikistan. I don't expect Keith Locke wants a "People's Republic" although he has been cheerleader for this in the past, but I also don't expect he wants to emulate the United States.

So whilst a debate on this is good, indeed very good, be wary of those who push a republic for the sake of a republic. If a republic appears in the coming years, it is a once in a lifetime chance to fundamentally change the constitutional structure of New Zealand and ringfence the role of the state - and equally to constitutionally demand an expansion or entrenchment of it.

Have a guess to what extent Keith Locke wants to constrain the role of the state, and to what extent he wants to expand and entrench it.

Then ask yourself if you really think that those who will advance a republic will predominantly share that view, or will they advance a republic should tightly define the state as an entity to protect individual rights and freedoms.

I doubt it is the latter, and as a result, whilst I would advocate for the latter, I'd prefer the status quo to any vision of a republic Keith Locke has.

Prince Andrew should choose

Are you part of an apolitical constitutional monarchy or are you a common citizen who should have to work for a living?

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At the moment you are neither.

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If you are the former, then smile, hold your views and let the elected representatives of the people and their duly selected officials do their job. Go to York and do "duke" things. For all of their many many faults, they have more authority than you do. You have had a reasonably notable military career and have an honorary role going to meetings for the Department of Trade and Industry.

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If you want to get into politics, then distance yourself completely from your mother and brother, and go on - but don't expect to have any taxpayer funded privileges that come from your title. I am not saying you are wrong, I am simply saying you should not use your position of constitutional privilege to criticise the duly elected government or engage in foreign policy without its explicit permission.

Greens oppose apolitical state sector

Transit has for some time now allowed foreign countries to fly their flags on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on various occasions, particularly national days. This policy was reversed last year to avoid controversies with the relevant press release stating "The New Zealand flag will be the sole flag flown on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. It will be flown on both flagpoles and will fly at half-mast on occasions of national mourning as directed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage".

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This was a wise step, Transit should, after all, be apolitical. So its most recent decision to refuse to fly the Tino Rangitiratanga flag is correct. Green MP Metiria Turei's response is nothing more than grandstanding. She claims it is pure prejudice. What nonsense. Transit New Zealand is a New Zealand government Crown entity, if it flies flags of political movements it will need to also fly flags for any political party or organisation, and ceases to be apolitical. Turei is quite racist and patronising to claim that the Tino Rangitiratanga flag represents "Maori". Some Maori may support it, but others do not. Turei, like the collectivist she is, believes Maori are a political group, with one set of views. The flag does NOT represent Maori, nor does she.

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The public sector should be strictly apolitical. The Tino Rangitiratanga flag is highly political. The only "cultural division" here is between those, who like the Green Party, Chinese, Zimbabwean and Russian governments, think the state sector should be politicised, and those who believe the state sector should be beyond politics to the extent possible. So should the Auckland Harbour Bridge fly a flag for free market capitalism too Metiria, or is that unacceptable because it isn't your preferred race?

Prince Charles wont go to Beijing

The Daily Telegraph reports that Prince Charles is refusing to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, this wouldn't be important really except in two respects:

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Firstly, if Charles was in the capacity of a private citizen, then good for him. There are good reasons to boycott the Beijing Olympics, notwithstanding the low value that the Chinese communist regime places on human life and ever lower value on freedom. Supporting independence of Tibet is less of a reason, as an independent Tibet per se may not mean a great improvement in freedom there. Nevertheless, the Chinese record is abysmal enough to support independence for Tibet. I don't object to the sentiment or boycotting the games that the vile Communist Party of China and the state it controls will use to paint a rosy picture of how wonderful China is - ignoring how it treats those who disagree, or get in its way.

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However, the issue is moreso one of the role of a future constitutional monarch, which, notwithstanding accident, Charles will become. The truth is the man is completely unfit for the job. He has laid his cards on the table politically, which, regardless of what views they hold, is utterly contemptible. One can always guess the views of Queen Elizabeth II on politics, she has probably been more comfortable under Conservative administrations than Labour, although Thatcher probably was too liberal and radical for her liking. However, these are matters of hearsay and conjecture, entirely. Not once has the Queen ever expressed a political view of her own. Nor should she. Whatever her views, and she obviously has them, and is entitled to have them, they do not tarnish her role. Charles on the other hand appears to be some sort of muddled up centre-left econut who sympathises with numerous religions.

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He supports numerous charities, which is, in itself, hardly a problem. Patronage of charities, that do not have a strongly political agenda, are just part of the role. However, he has created several foundations to advance his personal agenda, such as "The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment" to advance his views on architecture and "The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health" to advance his advocacy of unconventional medicine. He has championed climate change and is seen as supporting the likes of Al Gore, hardly an uncontroversial figure. His support for organic farming is well known as well. The big question is when does he cross the line between pursuing personal interests and pursuing political agendas.

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What happens if a government was ever elected that was negative towards support of organic farming or alternative medicines? What if one was skeptical about man-made climate change? How about one that maintains friendly relations with the People's Republic of China?

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The decision about whether or not he goes to the Beijing Olympics should be a matter not only of himself, but of the Queen and Cabinet. Clearly, refusing to go will send a negative message, unless it is for non-political reasons.

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Of course the real solution is simply to let the constitutional monarchy expire when Elizabeth II does. It is time to move on, for the British royal family to be left with whatever assets they hold to manage or mismanage as they see fit, without a single pound of taxpayer's funds. They would remain some sort of tourist attraction no doubt, with pomp and ceremony, but that would be all. Who would be the head of state then? Well that is another matter - but you could do worse than having a written constitution, with a democratically elected President essentially ensuring that the government of the day does not breach its constitutional role.

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Meanwhile Charles should pull his head in - he must be apolitical - his inherited privilege and influence are such that he is not entitled to anything more.