Labour lackey gunning for Maori Party

Remember Gregory Fortuin? The sickeningly leftwing former Race Relations Conciliator hand picked by Labour who resigned after he offered to mediate in the political dispute between factions of the Alliance at the time. This was in 2002 when the Alliance split between Jim Anderton's Progressive Party and the Alliance. Fortuin foolishly thought that being a quasi-judicial public servant meant no conflict of interest in helping the government's coalition partner!

He's a professional bureaucrat, now a member of the Families Commission, but he can't keep his mouth shut.

He's interfering in politics again, maybe it's something he learnt from his beloved ANC - which is well known for how corrupt it works within South African politics.

Fortuin is predicting, foolishly, that the Maori Party will win all of the Maori seats and in his article in the New Zealand Herald is all for it. This wont win him friends in Labour.

This identity-politics defined simpleton thinks that because it is the "Maori Party" it represents all Maori - because, of course, a race can only have one political view.

He calls for "sustainable constitutional arrangements that will endure no matter who's in government or whatever happens to our demographics" which is fine, except he doesn't say what this means.

He goes on about nation building and:

"What we need is harmonised diversity; many strings on one guitar making music together. The challenge is to develop the single hymn sheet"

No talk of individuals, and individual diversity. No. He can't think outside group speak.

However surely what is more telling is that this Families Commissioner is endorsing a political party. Good to see public sector neutrality in New Zealand - somewhere.

Greens and the dole

Ah remember the days when Sue Bradford was a professional protestor. Once heading the "union" called the "Unemployed Workers' Union" (which since I was a kid I always found oxymoronic - you're not a worker if you're not actually working), which was simply a leftwing protest group.

Now of course she defends the "right" of people to receive an income confiscated from other people. According to the NZ Herald, she doesn't like the suggestion by the Maori Party that the unemployment benefit be scrapped. Tariana Turia said "I'm opposed to the dole. I have to be very frank with you - I don't think it is healthy for the spirit of our people, to be getting money for doing nothing".

Indeed, although make work schemes may only be slightly better - they are at least paying people for doing, what may be lowly productive work, but still work.

By contrast, defender of the demanding welfare recipients Sue Bradford describes the Green Party policies which are pretty simple:
- Government to create jobs (presumably by taking money from those with jobs);
- Nobody be "forced" to work for a living;
- Increase welfare benefits (so you get more for not working for a living);
- Forcing taxpayers to pay for the voluntary sector.

The Greens believe in more state dependency, they believe that you should be forced to pay for people to live and those people shouldn't be forced to do anything for it.

Bradford clearly thinks people on benefits are useless saying abolishing the dole would mean "we will see family breakdown, child poverty, crime, begging and homelessness at levels way beyond anything we can conceive of at present". Family breakdown doesn't happen at record levels? Beneficiaries are criminals we are paying off to not rob us? Which of course means Sue wouldn't actually do anything herself to help these poor people - she wants you to be forced to help them, in exchange for them doing nothing.


Tariana Turia, to her credit, has seen the poverty of ambition and aspiration this has produced for two generations. Although the Maori Party is full of statists, and lacks any common philosophical thread (other than a primary concern for Maori), it does have the advantage of being, somewhat, open minded. Although let's not use the railways for jobs shall we?

The Greens think, cynically, that they can get the vote of unemployed Maori, because they will protect the dole and increase it, and so that would be cool then right?

No. Even at the last election, when National campaigned against the Maori seats, National won more party votes than the racist, identity politics laden Greens, in every Maori seat. That tells you how enthused about the Greens Maori voters are.

What will happen to the Maori seats?

So let me get it clear. Let's assume National forms a government after the election. There are several configurations, but the following appear possible. However, what will happen to the Maori seats under these options?

1. National majority government: Maori seats stay until Treaty settlements process concluded. So no change over that term.
2. National coalition/confidence & supply agreement with Maori Party (or Greens): Maori seats stay.
3. National coalition/confidence & supply agreement with ACT: Who knows?

Only Libertarianz explicitly has as its policy (I can't find it on the ACT website, so am happy to be corrected) to abolish the Maori seats and Maori electoral roll, so Maori votes can be counted as with all others, in both electorates and the party vote. So that's where good National Party policy came from in 2005 and has gone again.

Oh and if you think it is racist, then ask the Royal Commission on the Electoral System which saw implementing MMP as rendering the Maori seats as unnecessary, with a 4% party threshold that could be suspended for Maori political parties (hmmm).

How should Maori Party voters vote?

Yes yes, they shouldn't, I know - they should vote Libertarianz, but seriously it’s not really me to help out those who I think are voting for statist collectivist racially based party, but the thing is that MMP does it for them, and Maori Party voters figured it out last time anyway. They have something supporters of virtually all other parties have – a party vote that is best NOT given to the party they support. Why?

The magic of the overhang. You see last election the Maori party won 4 electorate seats, but only won just over 2.1% of the party vote. Typically, a party is entitled to its share of the seats in Parliament according to the party vote, as long as the party wins either 5% or one electorate seat. Yes, I know most of you already knew that. However, the Maori Party won more electorate seats than it won proportionate to the party vote, which means an overhand. The Maori Party has one more seat than it would’ve got had it won one electorate seat and then just had its party vote counted.

So what does this mean? Well for starters the size of Parliament crept up by one, which meant that the number of seats for a majority crept up too.

More importantly it shows that the party votes for the Maori Party were as good as wasted – and indeed many Maori Party voters, probably unconsciously – reflected that, since in all seats won by the Maori Party, Labour won the party vote.

Maori Party voters got the best of both worlds, from their perspective. represented by a Maori Party MP and Labour list MPs.

What it means is that voting for the Maori party on the list is pretty much futile if you believe the Maori party will win more electorate seats than it is likely to get as a proportion of the party vote – which is highly likely.

For those of us who believe in less government it means, ironically, that we can either encourage those who vote for the Maori Party on the electorate vote to vote for a party that supports private property rights and less government (Libertarianz or ACT) or encourage them to, vote for the Maori Party (stopping Labour getting their vote. You see if the Maori Party wins many more party votes then the overhand disappears, there are less MPs in Parliament representing the Maori seat voters, which probably means less Labour MPs – a good thing from my perspective.

If National (or ACT or Libertarianz) were clever they would accept and welcome Maori Party supporters vote Maori party in their Maori electorates – but seek the party vote wholeheartedly. For whilst there may be an overhand, the party vote would be held by someone other than Labour.

Perverse? Yes, but that is what the electoral system allows. I once saw an ACT video pre-1996 proposing that National voters vote National in their electorates and ACT for the party vote, for the very same reason. Of course any major party actively pursuing this would be incentivising the other major party to split into Labour- electorate and Labour – party vote, parties, an absurdity, to create an enormous 65 seat overhang of constituencies.

So remember that this election, the Maori Party has every chance of winning more seats than its party vote would entitle it to do, which no doubt is what the Maori Party would want. The bigger question is whether the Maori Party listens to its supporters who will, undoubtedly, predominantly vote Labour on the party vote – or whether it will support National. The latter, surely, would be enormously risky for the Maori Party, but more importantly, if successful, such a partnership would be much much riskier for Labour.

Would Maori Party supporters dare risk a party vote for one other than Labour? Which political party has said it would repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Bill, and defend Maori private property rights? It begins with L - and it isn't Labour.

Maori Party campaign - what's it all about?

Not PC has blogged about how some of the Maori Party policies look a lot like some Libertarianz ones. That being less tax, particularly introducing a rather large income tax free threshold. Not bad on the face of it, but what else is the party campaigning on? Is it a new vision for Maori, distinct from what Labour offers, or is it just recycled socialism with a strong nationalist flavour (yes I avoided the obvious misuse of both words)?

It is easy for me on the small government end of the spectrum to dismiss this party as Marxist racists, but there is something more to it - have no bones about it, I don't like parties based on race, and many in the Maori party have Marxist roots, but is it all bad?

Well the NZ Herald report on the launch indicated that the party is committed to the Treaty being part of a constitution. Tariana Turia said "Certainly we would like to see in future a constitution that is underpinned by the Treaty and we don't think you can have a constitution for this land without the Treaty being a significant part of it" which raises more importantly the issue about what it really means. However, the party realistically sees republican status a long time away so isn't focusing on it.

Of greater importance is overturning the Foreshore and Seabed Act - which from a libertarian point of view is about applying private property rights to those areas. That's another debate, and I am unsure if the Maori Party really understands private property rights, but that doesn't mean that it isn't open.

However then it wants to entrench the Maori seats - pure self interest, and pure democratic separatism. The Maori Party knows it may struggle to get 5% of the party vote if the Maori seats disappear after all.

It's worth noting how the Maori Party condemned the Ruatoki raids, given the evidence the Police held at the time, and I have noted before its support for Cuban communist agents. Both suggesting a radical leftwing side that is far from supportive of individual freedom. Note also that for a while it refused to judge the

It previously supported court action wanting more money for welfare recipients.

It previously treated US action in Iraq as equivalent to Islamist action.

The NZ Herald published a Q & A with Tariana Turia. Her big drive is clearly Maori, she couldn't care that much about everyone else with statements like "my vision is that our people are restored to being strong and independent people so that they can contribute to their own well-being" as quite objectivist as that is on first appearance - it's still "our people".

However, it is very clear that Turia knows that welfare does a lot of harm

"I don't like the word welfare and I think what we want to do is encourage our people to be independent of welfare. We don't want welfarism to be their goal in life. We want them to be independent people, not having to rely on state agencies, but restoring that same courage that our tupuna had to stand on their own two feet and make their way in life. That's what we want for our people. Our main focus is on whanau ora - the well being of family and what it takes to make them well, healthy, independent, standing on their own two feet."

That in itself is encouraging - of course Working for Families is all about that, but is Maori Party policy consistent with this?

She further says "One of the things we want to do is unbundle all of the money that's being spent on Maori people and we want to know how it's being spent and what the outcomes have been." That is a start too. It should reveal how appallingly wasteful state monopolies are.

Yet this same woman once said that it was impossible for Maori to be racist.

She said that all Maori deserved an apology, presumably because they are all victims.

The same party says that banning gang patches (which i approve) is like how Jews were singled out in Nazi Germany.

So what a mismash. A bizarre collection of a desire for Maori to be successful individuals, but also clearly separatist. A view of the world which suggests that Africans can't be condemned as much as non-Africans, that Nazism was just another period of oppression and that Cuba is just another form of self determination.

There is some recognition that welfare doesn't work, that violence in Maori communities is damnable and that education and self esteem are answers, but it is too much rooted in the power of the state. Perhaps most sad is how much the Maori Party is rooted in its own nationalism. It isn't explicitly racism in that it denigrates others, but it lifts Maori as a priority above all others - which, of course, is what the Maori seats do.

Maori voters clearly see something in the Maori Party, more as a clear alternative to Labour - one not addicted to the arrogance of power, but actually interested in making a difference, but it is a difference rooted in the left, state power and nationalism - itself a rather banal concept. Identity politics is tribal, and it is what sadly causes far too much conflict - the idea that your ethnic identity is paramount when you consider how to treat others.

It seems most of all to be pragmatic, not guided by ideology at times, except when it is anti-American, sceptical about Western values and avowedly nationalistic about being preferential towards Maori. For that it wont ever be a party that can grow beyond the Maori seats. For now, as long as the Maori seats remain - as long as the National Party thinks it needs the Maori Party, to weaken Labour - this will remain an unfortunate part of New Zealand politics.

For quite simply, Maori are more political diverse than that represented by one political party - it should never be "I am Maori, therefore I vote Maori Party". Yet is that not what the Maori Party is advocating?

National Treaty Settlement policy - support the Waitangi Tribunal

National's Treaty Settlement policy is back to the past, before 2005 that is, with a promise to conclude settlements by 2014. If this was full and final then that might be a cause to celebrate, but it is just an aim.

It seeks to "Appoint independent settlement facilitators to chair negotiations, keep the process moving forward, and ensure both parties act in good faith." a small step forward, although you may wonder who represents taxpayers in all of this.

However what's most disconcerting is its faith in the Waitangi Tribunal. The Waitangi Tribunal is little better than a kangaroo court, but it wants to provide "more support" to it.

This is a nonsense, as former Waitangi Tribunal member - ex. Labour Cabinet Minister Dr. Michael Bassett might testify:

"the industry doesn’t want the Tribunal process ever to end. After 23 years, no decision has yet been made to close off new historical claims. The major parties dither. Labour wants the party vote of Maori; National isn’t sure they mightn’t need the Maori Party’s support after the coming election. Both major political parties know that what is happening is wrong, and that ordinary Maori in whose name the claims are made, aren’t getting a cracker out of the money being spent on lawyers, researchers and Tribunal staff."

Previously he wrote "Existing claims must be settled as quickly as possible. Stopping fresh historical claims means that full and final settlements already made have a chance of working longer term. The Waitangi process was never intended as a permanent career for lawyers and under-employed “researchers”. It was to assist ordinary Maori whose interests, sadly, are too often over-looked."

National could do worse than listen to a man intimately involved in this process for years, but no - it wants power - it wants to broker a deal with the Maori Party to break Labour's stranglehold on the Maori vote - it will do that by continuing to feed the new Maori state funded aristocracy. National may not do a deal with NZ First (largely because it expects the party to disappear), but it will do one with the Maori Party.

I'll leave the final verdict on that to Dr Bassett:

"When politicians settled on land grievances as the cause of Maori problems they made a mistake. It would have made better sense to examine welfare and the huge damage it has done to Maori society. The Waitangi Tribunal should be scaled down. The industry is of no use to 99% of the people it’s meant to serve. "

Sadly the Maori Party seems unlikely to agree.

Anderton, Bradford and Sharples let off lightly

Not PC has pointed out that the mainstream media continues to be on the Winston Peters feeding frenzy:

"while Helen Clark campaigns on "trust" that she's already demonstrated she's lost ,and John Key promises to "change" New Zealand when he's already promised not to make any change that will in any way make a difference -- while all this happens, New Zealand's media is still fiddling around with Winston Peters, his dancing monkey, and the question of which dog ate whose homework, and in which motel Brian Henry might have been when it all happened".

Meanwhile, the paid "professionals" known as journalists have completely let it slip by that the leader of one party supporting Labour, a co-leader of a party that may support either Labour or National, and the MP of another party have all publicly backed a group of Cuban spies convicted of conspiracy to murder.

Yes, Jim Anderton, Pita Sharples and Sue Bradford have declared their credentials to be blood red. They repeat the nonsense that Cuban dissidents are "terrorists" and that these Cuban spies were fighting terrorism when they dobbed Cuban refugees into the Cuban police state. THAT should be a small scandal, it SHOULD be getting scrutiny that a senior Cabinet Minister has aligned himself to a police state.

However, for the cherubs who are reporters in the mainstream media, that is too complicated - you see they would have to explain how Cuba is a police state, how Cuban dissidents help Cubans flee and spread propaganda to encourage Cubans to rise up against their dictators, and then explain the judicial process faced by the Cuban Five.

Not as interesting as Winston though is it? Three MPs (and by implication three political parties) are sympathisers to those aligned with a communist dictatorship and nobody gives a damn.

What's choice?

Maori Party candidate for Hauraki-Waikato Angeline Greensill (and former Mana Maori Party candidate) says "It’s choice to be young and Maori".

Actually Angeline, you can't choose your age, or your genetic history.

Choice is about freedom, it's about being able to choose your own destiny for your body and your property. It's not about initiating force, and it's not about preferring one race over another.

Engaging young Maori people in politics is fine, until you are advocating more government and initiating more force against others - and the Maori Party is.

Maori Party allies itself with Cuban communists!

No, this isn't Trevor Loudon investigating the past of some Maori Party MPs.

It's a press release from Pita Sharples.

Dr Sharples, who I thought of as being a man of some moderation, has said this of 9/11:

"The United States is the world leader in the so-called War on Terror. But in Cuba, for example, 9/11 is the day the people remember the Cuban Five. Those five men have been imprisoned in the United States for ten years for trying to stop terrorist attacks on their homeland that are launched from the United States"

Hold on "the people"? How does HE know this? Cuba bans all independent journalism, it strictly controls all information and a monopoly on the media. So who ARE the Cuban Five, and what did they do?

Well they are Cuban government agents, who infiltrated Cuban exile groups in the USA, as well as engaged in espionage against US military facilities. One informed the Cuban government of an operation whereby Cubans fleed on small planes, that ended up being shot down by Cuban fighter jets. They were convicted of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder and using false identification papers. These convictions were overturned on appeal, resulting in a new trial, which upheld them again, and were again upheld on subsequent appeal.

The men infiltrated this group, which the Cuban communist one party state claims is a terrorist organisation, which Pita Sharples agrees with. In fact the group assists Cubans trying to leave the country, it drops propaganda leaflets and encourages dissent in Cuba.

You see Dr Sharples - Cuba is a dictatorship, a one-party state.

Dr Sharples supports the Cuban view of the world though:

"I am delighted to support the establishment of a NZ committee for the release of the five Cuban patriots announced yesterday" said Dr Sharples. "They can certainly include my name on their list"

“The alleged crime of the Cuban Five was to try to infiltrate the expatriate groups of anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, who had been organising and carrying out terrorist raids against Cuba for many years, while the US ignored the protests of the Cuban government."

Excuse me? Terrorist raids? Says who? Oh yes the Cuban communist regime, which regards any protest march, any independent newspaper, any action by its citizens to defend themselves against the police state to be a "terrorist raid".

So - the Maori Party swallows Cuban propaganda - the Cuban Five case is at best controversial, but to treat Cuba as morally equivalent to the USA, and New Zealand, is despicable.

Then Dr Sharples adds insult to the NZ military saying this:

"when our New Zealand SAS troops confronted their enemy in Afghanistan, it was not clear to me who was maintaining homeland security, and who was fighting terrorism"

So is he really saying that the Taleban were just "maintaining homeland security"?

Is the Maori Party really the Marxist Party I once suspected it to be?
Does the Maori Party really think the Taleban are just the Afghanistan Tangata-Whenua?

So what if the Maori Party rejects Labour

John Key will do a deal, he'll sell out National to a neo-Marxist authoritarian racist political party and the result will be more taxpayers' money to organisations that this party thinks are important, and the Maori seats (and local authority Maori seats) will remain. This party that only now acknowledges that the situation in Zimbabwe is bad, but carefully doesn't blame Mugabe or Zanu-PF, that hitches itself to the Barack Obama groupies (ignoring that he votes for higher agricultural protectionism), will be embraced by National.

After all, it needs policies to come from somewhere other than Labour doesn't it?

Maori Party worships at the Obama altar

Tariana Turia has said:

"Obama’s message for change is the same message that the Maori Party carries, and his hope for a brighter future is a message we embrace as well"

Except:

1. He doesn't lead the "African-American Party" but a non-ethnically defined party;
2. He is not a Senator of an ethnically defined constituency (which is not to deny that seriously gerrymandered constituencies exist in the USA, as they do);
3. He hasn't, as far as I know, sought to change the US Federal Government to set aside Congress seats on the basis of ethnicity.

Pita Sharples does say "His success is an inspiration to the Maori Party, and to all people of colour seeking to change the way politics is conducted all over the world".

Change what and how, into what? Robert Mugabe changed the way politics was done in Zimbabwe, from whites only racist democracy to non-racist tyranny. Bokassa changed politics in the Central African Republic by declaring it an Empire, spending 40% of the country's GDP on his coronation where he dressed like Napoleon, and ended up shooting at schoolchildren who protested because they couldn't afford the compulsory French style school uniforms he specified.

"People of colour" are hardly the only bearers of tyranny, but they are not necessarily torchbearers of freedom and prosperity. Besides, who doesn't have colour? I know the Maori Party is leftwing, but it is quite something to endorse Obama. I presume it is not just because of his skin colour, although the implication of the press release is predominantly that.

You can't beat the sick inducing fawning of Hone Harawira though "He’s African-American, he has the appeal of Martin Luther King, the backing of the Kennedy clan, the rapturous support of millions of Black Americans". Yes we know he is African-American, but he is a minnow compared to Martin Luther King and having the backing of the untouchable super wealthy family that raised money to fund terrorism in Northern Ireland is hardly a virtue.

Harawira continues:

"and his oratory continues to soar above the cynical point-scoring of candidates whose rhetoric has exhausted and alienated Americans. In a country torn by division, and wearied by an unwanted war, Barack Obama is fresh, enthusiastic, optimistic, and positive. He has already broken barriers and challenged conventions. He has excited people wherever he has gone, and engaged millions in politics for the first time in their lives. I only wish i could meet the man and say "I love you Mr Obama"" OK I added the last bit. His rhetoric is exhausting, and Pamela Anderson has excited people wherever she has gone.

Come on Hone, go over and campaign for him, loudly and actively - the end result will benefit New Zealand, the USA and the world. Especially since Obama's policy on trade in agriculture is contrary to New Zealand's (except Sue Kedgley's).

Maori Party wants more welfare

It's supporting taxpayers funding both sides in the Child Poverty Inaction Group case.

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Pita Sharples has the audacity to say "Of course, I believe every taxpayer in this land would prefer that this case hadn’t needed to come to court, to involve the international experts and the expenses that no doubt the Crown will incur in presenting their defence". Indeed, had the taxpayer not funded the socialist CPAG, it wouldn't. Furthermore if Working for Families is abolished (as Lindsay Mitchell rightfully advocates) and the proceeds used to cut taxes, then there wouldn't be any case, and then there would be no discrimination - except of course the tax system.

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You see for some reason (if I was in NZ, but it applies also in the UK), when I earn an extra dollar I lose 39c of it, but when most people do, they lose only 15c or 19.5c, some lose 33c. It's quite discriminatory, and I don't impose any greater cost on taxpayers, I don't live an unhealthy lifestyle, I don't have children, I don't interact with the criminal justice system, I don't own share in any businesses that receive subsidies. Yet I would pay a lot more than those who DO have a lot of children, who are beneficiaries, who interact with the criminal justice system (or whose kids do), and who live unhealthy lifestyles, and depend on others to pay for their housing.

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That's discriminatory.

Maori Party defends constitutional racism

The Maori Party unsurprisingly condemns the Business Roundtable calling for the abolition of the racially determined Maori seats, because without them, it may not be in Parliament.

It says "A recent Business Round Table report tries to rein in the resurgent political power of tangata whenua. It recommends abolishing the Maori seats out of pure self-interest, and definitely not for the good of Maori"

The Maori Party isn't self interested in defending the Maori seats? It never polls over the 5% threshold for party representation, and would fight to get maybe 1 or 2 electorates if the Maori seats were abolished (Maori votes changing the dimensions of general electorates like East Cape and Northland).

Parliament is not about representing races, it is about representing the views of individuals who vote. It does so in two ways, by representing communities defined by location and by representing parties that people want represented in Parliament. The Maori seats balkanise the country into Maori locations and non-Maori.

They are racist, they have no place in a modern 21st century liberal democracy, and no collectivised mumbo-jumbo can disguise that they are racist. The Maori Party wants to entrench this racism, rather than let Maori stand tall as people, as individuals with a shared national/ethnic identity, that don't need to be treated differently from everyone else. It could embrace the opportunity for electorates with high Maori populations to have Maori MPs, but no - it wins out of the current system, and will defend it to the end, and call anyone opposing it to be selfish and racist - which is so ironic.

Don't forget the Maori Party is a Marxist Party

Lindsay Mitchell rightly points out the socialist nonsense of the latest Maori Party policy. Increase benefits, increase minimum wages, cut some taxes but find new ones.

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None of this should be news, it is a party of collectivism, that believes in the use of the state to achieve collectivist goals. I blogged some time ago about the Marxist leanings of the Maori Party, and how it is a mismash of conservatives and socialists basically seeking to compete with Labour in the Maori political sphere.

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Sadly it offers Maori nothing more than another form of statism, a more extreme and naive one. It is statism that has failed many Maori, and the Maori Party seeks simply more state dependency rather than setting Maori free.

The Waitangi gravy train - who will end it

No, it's not the vivid imagination of conservative punters. A former member of the Waitangi Tribunal, Dr Michael Bassett, is hardly a paragon of conservatism, being a former Labour Cabinet Minister. He has written in his latest column about the taxpayer funded claims process:

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"Both major political parties know that what is happening is wrong, and that ordinary Maori in whose name the claims are made, aren’t getting a cracker out of the money being spent on lawyers, researchers and Tribunal staff. The spinelessness that we have come to expect of politicians in an MMP environment assists the greedy, when it was the needy we set out to help in 1985."

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Of course you've been paying for the "jobs" involved in this process, he continues:

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"By the time I joined the Tribunal in 1994 hearings were awash with lawyers, most on Legal Aid, with the claims before us being funded by the CFRT or the Tribunal’s taxpayer funded resources. Virtually none of the costly process was paid for upfront by the claimants. They therefore had no incentive to be careful with taxpayers’ money, or even with the Maori money that many were eventually to receive from the CFRT. Rorting the Tribunal process has become the name of the game. A whole industry numbering somewhere around 1,000 people gathered around new grievances that keep being dreamt up.

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When politicians settled on land grievances as the cause of Maori problems they made a mistake. It would have made better sense to examine welfare and the huge damage it has done to Maori society. The Waitangi Tribunal should be scaled down. The industry is of no use to 99% of the people it’s meant to serve. "

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However, don't hold your breath. National of course nurtured this industry when it was in power, it will do nothing now as it anxiously seeks support from the flotsam and jetsam of anti-semitics and Mugabe appeasers in the Maori Party. The Waitangi Tribunal should be wound up, claims of state theft of land should be heard through the courts, for both Maori and non-Maori claimants. However, no doubt far too many who suckle from nanny state (i.e. you) will ensure the Maori Party holds us all to ransom for this industry - and of course call everyone who criticises this as racist.

Still going to vote National? I know Libertarianz would abolish the Waitangi Tribunal, but what will ACT push for? Wouldn't things be different if National had to rely on ACT and the Libertarianz to govern, rather than the racist party?

Maori party's despicable sophistry

A chap who shares part of my name has posted on SOLO about the Maori Party's attempt to place criminal gang members on the same level as Jews in Germany in the 1930s.

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The Maori Party has had a free run, because of the rather vacuous notion that it is difficult to criticise a party that attempts to define itself as being of a people rather than a philosophy. Except it IS a philosophy. It is nationalism, collectivism and with the possible exception of Pita Sharples on a good day, morally dubious. It has a highly privileged position in having part of Parliament defined on the same basis as it defines itself.

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Having said that, who doubts that, if he believes he needs to, John Key will sell out his principles and policies to the Maori Party for power. Actually sorry he wont do that anymore than I can sell out my ownership of the Isle of Man.

Tariana Turia's tribalist bigotry

According to the NZ Herald Maori Party MP Tariana Turia thinks all Maori deserve an apology. What for Tariana? What did I ever do to you?
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She, no doubt like many, thinks that Rudd's apology is actually about everyone individually apologising to all Aborigines, rather than what it SHOULD be, which is the Australian federal government apologising to specific victims of its own policies.

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Sorry Tariana, there is no collective guilt by people against another people. All Maori are not victims. If Maori want to sue the state for any wrongdoing by it against them individually then they should feel free to do so. However, I think that many New Zealanders could claim the same. The ones let down by socialised medicine, statist education, the non-inheritable superannuation scheme, the miserly socialist ACC scheme, the limp wristed law and order system, the mixed performance Police force, NaZis on Air jackbooted bullying of the past, criminalisation of people committing victimless crimes etc etc. The government could apologise for not delivering what was promised with the money collected by force from the public, and for its coercion against people's lives.

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That I'd like to see.

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Your ancestry doesn't make you special. You should be judged by what you do and your character, and both are sadly lacking. It has nothing to do with your identified Maori ancestry - that is irrelevant. It is that you're a mystic worshipping socialist nationalist statist, and you and your party perpetuate division, racial judgment and victimhood.

National backflips on Maori seats

I was slightly heartened by John Key's comment that, according to Stuff that (paraphrased) "the National Party would have no second thoughts about abolishing the Maori seats once the historical treaty settlement claim process had been resolved".

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Well only that the policy remains, except for the bizarre linkage between the seats and treaty settlements. This significantly incentivises the prolonging of that process. Why do those seats assist that process? The only people assisted by the Maori seats are the members of the Maori party

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John here is a new concept, it is called a principle.

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In New Zealand, as in all other liberal democracies, all eligible people 18 and over have the right to vote. This right should not have any limits or privileges. In a modern 21st century secular liberal democracy, race based seats have no future. Only one political party benefits from these, and it is racist itself. Only one political party benefits from winning constituencies defined in part by race, and by doing so gets a notably higher proportion of seats in Parliament from those race based constituencies (3.3%) than it would win based upon nationwide party vote (2.1%). MMP was partly advanced on the basis that it would allow party lists to comprise a more representative variety of people from different backgrounds, and this has happened.

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The Maori seats should go. It is NOT racism, it is NOT Maori bashing. It simply reflects that constituencies in the New Zealand Parliament should be based on geography - nothing else. It will mean National wont always win Northland (because most of the votes for that constituency are non-Maori), and it might never win seats in East Cape/Gisborne, but it wont mean Maori representation is over.

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However I suspect John Key wants to reserve the right to "do a deal" with the Maori Party after the next election, as he can't be sure of National getting 47-48% of the vote. No different than Helen Clark with Winston Peters and Peter Dunne - but how do we know John Key wont sell out National voters? We DO know Helen Clark does deals but tends not to sell out Labour voters (throwing a new bureaucracy, getting rid of tolls on a road and other baubles are nothing compared to what National might do).

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?

Hone Harawira's simple approach to life

From his column

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"One media commentator told me that the difference between CNN and Al Jazeera was that “CNN films the missiles being fired from American bases and Al Jazeera films those missiles exploding in Middle Eastern communities” – a simple but powerful analogy that was easy to understand."

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Yes, but who films the bombs being exploded in Middle Eastern communities by Islamist terrorists, or rockets fired by Islamists into Israeli territory? So CNN wasn't in Baghdad during the last two wars against Saddam Hussein?

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In fact, where did the technology come from to allow Al Jazeera to even operate, who conceived it, who built it? Oh Hone, take your Anti-Western bigotry and your crayons and go play.