New Zealand politics in 2024

2023 was a year when New Zealand voters most adamantly said they wanted change. The near personality-cult around Jacinda Ardern had well and truly eroded, as the rhetoric around the government of “kindness” (implemented using the monopoly of legitimised violence of the state) and the budget of “wellbeing” (implemented by taking money from current and future generations) seemed increasingly empty. The government so committed to ending poverty had presided over the fastest increase in personal wealth by homeowners in modern history and its primary response was to tax landlords who didn’t want to rent out their properties for fewer than ten years without selling them.  It presented itself as a victim of external forces, whether it be Covid or inflation which NZ was constantly told was due to the war in Ukraine, even though many of NZ’s trading partners had lower inflation.

Although there was a brief flurry of excitement about Chris Hipkins, appearing to recalibrate Labour on “what matters”, voters were largely unconvinced. Hipkins follows Mike Moore and Bill Rowling in leading Labour to landslide defeats, albeit for different reasons. Jacinda Ardern is nearly invisible in the country that was hailed internationally for keeping Covid out, and she is now hailed internationally by those who never visited NZ, and she is now at Harvard, whose President Claudine Gay is surrounded by scandal around claiming that if a student of Harvard advocated for genocide against Jews, it would “depend on the context” as to whether it breached its policy on harassment and bullying. Claudine Gay is also now facing accusations of plagiarism in her earlier work.

The former Prime Minister of kindness hasn’t been approached for comment on what she thinks about the head of her new gig’s ambivalence about anti-semitism, but then again why would she abandon her career of highly-paid talkfests?

Meanwhile the 2023 election saw a threeway split in positions. While 27% were willing to give Chippy a go, 15% thought Labour had been far too timid and voted for the Greens and Te Pati Maori to advance a much more radical socialist, intersectionist, ethno-nationalist set of reforms including more tax, more spending, much more transfer of power from the state and Parliament to Iwi, and radical central planning around provision of health, education and the economy, let alone expansion of the welfare state to a universal benefit. 

The Greens and Te Pati Maori saw the changes as being that Labour didn’t do enough to address what it said it was doing about key issues such as climate change, poverty and Tino Rangitiratanga.  He Puapua was seen as a step along a journey of major constitutional change that would see Iwi standing side-by-side with Parliament and the “colonising” Government sharing power. Te Pati Maori successfully sold this vision to voters in almost all of the Maori seats, but Labour couldn’t sell the path of radical change to the general population, especially when questioning or criticising the path of more co-governance was simply labelled as racist and ignored.  

Fortunately around 55% (including some of the minor parties) voted in the other direction, with a mix of centre-right incrementalism (National), classical liberalism (ACT) and a touch of conservatism and nationalism (NZ First), with a couple of bones thrown at traditionalists.  It’s a historic switch in electoral support for Labour to lose 46% of the votes it gained in 2020 as a proportion of votes cast.  

The 2020 election was extraordinary, Labour got an unprecedented majority based almost entirely on having kept Covid 19 out of the country and life being relatively normal (albeit with foreign travel restricted for all but select politicians, officials and others chosen by the Government) compared to countries enduring extended lockdowns. Labour took that as a chance to embark on a series of radical reforms that ultimately saw its undoing. As it borrowed and spent to at first save businesses from collapse during the pandemic and then stimulate the economy, it went on to literally pay people money for nothing, and then blame inflation entirely on outside factors. As it increased benefits in order to address poverty (due in no small part due to a persistent housing shortage that can be blamed on governments of all stripes over the previous 25 years). it was no surprise that as baby boomers reached retirement age, a shortage of staff would emerge, as a generation withdrew from the labour force (bolstered by National Superannuation and inflated housing prices) and a growing number simply opted out of paid work altogether. Since 2017 the statutory minimum wage had been increased by just over 44%, even though prices in that same time had increased 25%. 

Reports of increasingly aggressive crime including ramraids were far too often dismissed or minimised, at least for those who were the victims of it, as it appeared that crime increasingly did pay.  Meanwhile, much needed reforms to the water sector had layered over them a complex governance structure that was to see Iwi, in four groups, deciding half of the members of boards, who would determine the members of another set of board, that would govern fresh, waste and stormwater infrastructure across the country.  This was all apparently because Te Tiriti now meant Iwi would have governance rights over whatever sectors the Government said it should – and infrastructure was now part of that.  It wasn’t enough for territorial authorities that own the infrastructure to consult with Iwi, not enough for there to be Iwi representatives on councils through exclusively Maori wards (which are democratically elected), but that Iwi would have equivalent powers to local government. Although some of the backlash against Three Waters was ill-directed mindless racism, the core issue – why should the future management of ratepayer owned assets be half governed by Iwi (who were already at the table of local government)?

Other completely unnecessary measures also gave the impression of a government less concerned about inflation and crime, than it was on social engineering and seeking to look as if it was addressing what it thought was important, when much of the public were concerned about the cost of living and threats to their families.

The aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque attack generated calls, particularly from parts of the Muslim community, to toughen laws on hate speech, primarily around religion. This raised concern that proposals advanced by the Ardern Government would constrain speech around ridiculing religions as “hate speech”.  Ultimately this was suspended, but it helped fuel a mix of genuine concerns around freedom of speech and conspiratorial concerns about a much more sinister intent.  Jacinda Ardern’s tone-deaf but well-meaning claim during the pandemic that if information “doesn’t come from us, then you can’t believe it” sounded straight out of the playbook of a dictatorship. No liberal democracy can or should claim it has the monopoly of truth, because it simply does not and cannot. 

The Public Interest Journalism Fund came from criticism that it was funding journalism that supported the Government’s policies, which although in some ways unfair, did include funding that specifically indicated a philosophical approach to some issues that was controversial, particularly around Te Tiriti. The lines between government and activism became blurred, including by the “Disinformation Project” which was clearly endorsed by the government, but which itself had its own ideological line.

The Disinformation Project of course has its own blind spots. It’s regular reporting of research by Byron Clark, former supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a breakaway communist led terrorist faction of the PLO) and the communist Workers Party of New Zealand, who was particularly focused on what he called the “far-right” didn’t ever reflect on the perspective someone clearly from the far-left would have on what is “extremist”. 

The 2021 controversy over the so-called “Listener 7” who claimed Matauranga isn’t science, and the long list of academics who sought to humiliate and denigrate them was also part of this dominant discourse in academia, media and politics. It was seen as an attempt to “cancel” and “close” debate on the topic, which extended to Dr Richard Dawkins in the UK, and responses claiming racism and colonialism emerged.  The debate around transgender rights, and the visit by “Posie Parker” supported by a coalition of womens’ rights activists and social conservatives saw similar discourse emerge, with a vehemence of anger and hatred.  All of this rubbed of on Labour, with a strong indication that there were opinions that brought “consequences” around employment and being accepted by academia, media and even business as having “correct” views on controversial topics. 

It's a side point that many of the same people who wanted “consequences” for challenging trans and Te Tiriti discourse run frightened when supporters of the Jewish community and opponents of Hamas condemn their Hamas-inspired rhetoric and slogans.

The majority of the voting public took in a mix of the narrative around the government, the cost of living crisis and concern about a lack of delivery (and performance personally about a growing list of Ministers who simply failed to meet standards of behaviour that should be expected of them).  ACT voters were dominated by those who had had enough of the growth in spending and taxation, and the politics of intersectionality and identity. National voters were primarily concerned about performance and lack of delivery, including the money wasted on expensive schemes seen as “out of touch” with what voters cared about. NZ First happily hoovered up the Covid 19 vaccine sceptics and opponents, but also returned to opposition to Maori nationalism and separatism and hitching onto other culture wars for convenience (see trans-rights).

There is now a National-led government that appears to clearly want to stem the growth in the state and, at the very least, return its size to that seen in 2017. It has clearly reversed some policies and is winding back reforms such as the centralisation of tertiary vocational training, the separate Maori health authority and Three Waters. Although some of the discourse around the government is catastrophism and projection of deranged phobia around its objectives (claims it wants to “erase” Maori or trans-people are unhinged nonsense), it is promising as a National-led government that actually is changing direction, which seems in part driven by ACT and NZ First both wanting to make their mark on the government. This should not be a surprise, as National did not win 40% of the vote, and is more dependent on both minor parties than it had been in the Key/English era.  There is also a generation of younger National, ACT and NZ First politicians who are fed up with a centre-right government simply pausing the advance towards more government and more compulsory collectivism.  

So far so good with most measures taken. It is obvious that Fair Pay Agreements had to go, along with the labyrinthine replacement to the RMA.  It’s particularly encouraging from an individual freedom perspective to see the removal of the tobacco prohibition measures, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth of neo-puritans on the left some who rightfully campaign to legalise cannabis but can’t see the inconsistency of prohibiting sales of tobacco to a growing number of adults.  We will wait to see what will come to replace the RMA.  

What I really want to see is for charter schools to flourish, to expand in number and for the thumping fist of the bureaucratic and professional union monopolies weakened in the control of the education system. I want the RMA replaced with private property rights. Nicola Willis has promisingly indicated willingness to cut core spending of many departments to 2017 levels, and for tax cuts.  

Of course, it wont be a libertarian government, but it looks like being a government that will turn back at least some of the spending and some of the regulation, and even some of the philosophical culture of the previous government. A government that is more interested in productivity and growth of private enterprise, rather than confiscation and distribution of the proceeds of production, and regulation and control of private individuals and their property. 

I can only hope that the calibre of Ministers will be on a significantly higher level than that of the Ardern/Hipkins era, and to be honest it wont be that hard. Nobody should pretend that it is easy to address crime or healthcare, because the fundamental reasons for both of this are long-standing and difficult to confront, but this government ought to focus on some key issues that it can start to turn around.  Educational choice and performance, and the barriers to enabling more housing.  If only it can adeptly take on the inevitable barrage of criticism from academia, media and the Opposition, who are eager to call it out as racist, misogynist, transphobic, white supremacist, neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist and every other blanket collectivist pejorative that can be lazily thrown around. Hopefully the front bench will have the testicular fortitude to respond intelligently and confidently to critiques, but more importantly give minimal reasons for criticism based on performance.

So in 2024 the National Party appears revitalised, and despite the critics, Christopher Luxon has emerged as Prime Minister, it is too early to tell whether the man as PM can prove to be greater than as Opposition Leader.  However, National might actually look like a government that isn’t conservative (in the sense of not changing) about Labour policies.

Labour is scarred, having few seats outside the main centres (Palmerston North and Nelson hanging on), and about to embark on a battle between the hardliners who think it lost for not being socialist enough (although if that were true, then those voters would have gone to the Greens and Te Pati Maori in sufficient numbers to give Labour a chance at government), and those who wonder how it could moderate its image and gain the confidence of voters again. For now, it looks like Labour will spend some time in the wilderness.

The Greens are buoyant because they have done very well indeed, winning two more electorates in Wellington, demonstrating very clearly the yawning gap between many Wellingtonians (including public servants, students and those working for industries supporting government) and the rest of the country, but maybe also the arrogance of Labour which thought it could parachute whoever it chose into two relatively safe seats, and win.  

ACT has a right to be pleased, because it will now have a more influential role in government than ever before. Hopefully it will be a greater success than Rodney Hide implementing Helen Clark’s vision for a greater Auckland Council, and it should enable ACT to stamp its mark on key issues such as education, gun regulation and freedom of speech.

Nobody rules out Winston anymore, as he pivoted and succeeded in being the voice for those who felt like their views, whether on Covid or Te Tiriti or on trans-issues, NZ First became the new conservatives, and a voice for those who felt unheard. The test for Winston Peters is whether he is seen as putting enough of a mark on this government to keep support for the following election. 

Finally Te Pati Maori will feel vindicated in reviving radical nationalist socialism with its support for the destruction of Israel and indifference to Russian irredentism. At best it showed Labour’s arrogance in assuming it still could own Maori voters, but at worst in indicates the outcome of many years of the promotion of intersectionality and structuralist theories in parts of Maoridom and by the state more directly. Labour funded and supported this philosophy while in government, and those who support it have found an authentic voice in favour of it – but it is not a position a majority of Maori, let alone voters in NZ, share.

Have a Happy 2024.

Abolish the Human RIghts Commission (but give everyone Tino Rangitiratanga)

It was 26 years ago that the Free Radical published an article calling for abolition of the Human Rights Commission (sometimes called the "Human Wrongs Commission" on Radio Liberty at the time).  The main reason for that was how egregiously the entity had been in dealing to what it claimed was unjust discrimination - such as a Wellington hairdresser that charged less for men's haircuts than women's, the Nelson strip club that charged women half price for admittance, the golf club that held a married couple's tournament (discriminating against unmarried couples!) and even weighing in on a political party's proposal to give welfare to a married couple if one spouse remained at home to look after their children.  This all seemed like pettiness pushed by a bureaucracy that was looking for issues that, fundamentally, were petty.

A lot has changed since then, the Human Rights Commission has gone from seeking to stop people being rude to one another, to being the taxpayer funded advocacy for a highly politicised, radical and controversial interpretation of human rights, and indeed of New Zealand society.  The Human Rights Commission is the public sector wing of advocates of a far-left vision of a post-liberal democratic, post-capitalist, post-modernist Tangata Whenua Republic of Aotearoa, where not just your ancestry, but your claimed identity determines who governs you, and the rights you hold.  Whether it be a state within which half of the power is held by Iwi who appoint representatives to the new people's assembly (the logical end-point of co-governance), or two nations in one, whereby Maori are governed by the laws set by their Iwi and everyone else is governed by a state that has limited power over Maori. At least, that's one way of interpreting the radical vision of the Human Rights Commission. It's inconceivable that when the Muldoon administration created this body in the 1970s that it would be seen as the taxpayer funded arm of Nga Tamatoa.

It's helpful to know exactly what the Human Rights Commission has been spending your money on

The Human Rights Commission has produced a 162 page report called "Maranga Mai!"  (don't forget the exclamation mark) which:

combines evidence-based literature and research with the first-person testimony of recognised experts in the field of anti-racism about the impact of colonisation, white supremacy and racism on tangata whenua and communities. This methodology centres and amplifies Māori voices, memories and experiences, the value of which lies in documenting lived inter-generational and cumulative insights of how Māori have experienced colonisation, racism and white supremacy

It is unsurprising that the authorship is collective:

The Tangata Whenua Caucus of the National Anti-Racism Taskforce (2021-2022) and Ahi Kaa, the Indigenous Rights Group within Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | the Human Rights Commission (the Commission), worked together on the development of Maranga Mai!

RNZ does give us a clue as to one of the key contributors, reporting that:

Co-chair of the anti-racism taskforce, Tina Ngata, said the country's constitutional arrangements such as the electoral and justice systems were based on centuries-old racist ideologies and were the root of racism here.

Now Ngata is a far-left activist who appears to see everyone and everything through the lens of structuralism - the "system" from her perspective, is designed to protect patriarchal colonial capitalism - apparently. She is also quite the romantic for life pre-colonisation.  I'm no fan of the view that colonisation was "good" overall (neither because British colonialism may have been better than others, nor the idea that Maori may not have modernised without colonisation), but I'm also no fan of fantasies of a fictional golden age of isolationist nationalism of pre-modernity. Medicine in ALL societies 200 years ago was primitive, and pretending it was "better" than today, for anyone, is deranged stuff.  Ethno-nationalism is often based on myths of a glorious past eroded by the "other".

It's a philosophy that sees malignant intent or neglect in political and legal systems that are deemed to have been designed for and to preserve identitarian privileges.  In other words, ANY system of governance cannot be based on objective principles of reason, rights and justice, systems exist only for those in power.  It is exactly the philosophy of Marxist-Leninists, that you need to destroy the system (and society, and culture, and art) of a capitalist society to liberate the oppressed proletariat. For structuralists, you need to destroy the system of the "racist, patriarchal, colonial settler" system to liberate the oppressed Tangata Whenua.

Taxpayers have paid a group of far-left radical to essentially assert that liberal democracy (one-person, one vote), albeit not constrained by any explicit constitutional limits on power is "at the root of racism", as is the common law based justice system, which has at its roots proof of fact and application (for crimes) a presumption of innocence.  It isn't about people being racist or laws being racist or government policies being racist...

Talking about a revolution...

Hence the recommendation of "Maranga Mai!" essentially for revolution as follows:

To eliminate racism throughout Aotearoa will require nothing less than constitutional transformation and we urge the government to commit to this much needed change. (emphasis added)

So a department of state wants a revolution.  It's a political manifesto. Not only that, it wants a constitutional transformation to be implemented by the government elected by a bare majority, it isn't calling on the general public, it isn't calling on Parliament (representing more than the majority government), but on the government. Pause for a moment to think where and when it is that radical constitutional transformation was implemented without broader public consent, but the Human Rights Commission is uninterested in a nation-state that is governed by the consent of the governed.

You need to understand...

Apparently "The first step in the process is for tangata whenua to tell the truth about the impact of racism on their whānau, hapū, iwi, ancestors, communities and lives".  Of course people can say as they wish, but there's no room for critical thinking here. What IS racism in this context? It isn't just individual behaviour, indeed that isn't the main issue. The narratives wanted are just that...

New Zealanders need to understand that colonisation, racism and white supremacy are intertwined phenomena that remain central to the ongoing displacement and erosion of tino rangatiratanga. The cumulative effects of this are evident in the intergenerational inequalities and inequities tangata whenua suffer across all aspects of their lives, These serious matters are the focus of this report.

Colonisation happened, but New Zealand is no longer a colony. The non-Maori citizens are not "colonisers" but people with as much right to live in the country they are born in, or admitted as immigrants in as anyone else. Inferring anything else is racist, even if it doesn't meet the definition of the post-modernists.  

Similarly, the idea that white supremacy is somehow endemic is ludicrous and deranged.  However, the New Zealand state DOES erode tino rangatiratanga, for EVERYONE, by increasing its power and diminishing the freedom of citizens and residents to live their own lives peacefully.

However, that's not what this report is about, unsurprisingly if you look at the Executive Summary....

Detailing histories of racism and white supremacy in Aotearoa is pivotal to developing an accurate awareness of the past that is sufficient to change the future.

It's not really about history though, in calling for anecdotes of the past, including recollections of what dead relatives said, it's about inculcating a culture that combines anger and hatred, with shame, guilt and repentance.  There's no room for critical thinking, and disentangling assertions, assumptions and narratives to look for objective facts.

The elimination of racism in Aotearoa requires true and authentic acknowledgement from the state that indigenous and tangata whenua rights exist.

Shut up if you disagree...

Actually it requires acknowledgement from the state that individual rights exist, but it isn't enough, because for racism to be eliminated requires individuals to think of people as individuals, not groups.  The Human Rights Commission doesn't do that, nor do the authors of this report.

You can see it in the threatening and racist tone of this language:

Also, that the continued dismissal and violation of these covenants, and Tiriti responsibilities, by the Crown and settler society must cease.

So if you are not Tangata Whenua (bearing in mind that this is a state of mind more than anything else, as all nationalisms are a psychological state), you are a member of "settler society", and you "must cease" dismissing indigenous rights and apparently Tiriti responsibilities that, in fact, do not apply to those who aren't parties to Te Tiriti (as the parties are only the Crown and Iwi signatories).

The Human Rights Commission wants you to cease arguing about the concept of indigenous rights and to cease breaching Te Tiriti.  Perhaps it needs to revisit freedom of speech, or is that a white supremacist concept too?

There is the red herring:

The reliance on the Doctrine of Discovery, to validate the New Zealand colonial state, must also cease alongside a transition to recognise Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the rightful source of kāwanatanga legitimacy in Aotearoa.

There is no colonial state anymore, and almost nobody relies on the Doctrine of Discovery. 

Give us your money...

Tangible actions will be required to atone and provide restitution to tangata whenua, while laying a foundation for healing and constitutional certainty.

Don't expect your bank account to be immune from that, it's a direct demand for taking your money (if not your land) to provide restitution to people who you have never harmed, who may even be better off than you are.  

Racism was invented by white people

There's so much in this report that is revealing, not only of the Human Rights Commission, but of the Labour Government that commissioned this report and has not dismissed it as a doorstop take this quote:

The social construct of race is based on the ideological notion of white supremacy, which is driven in society by racism (p.36)

This is nonsense, as the identification of different races was recorded by humanity thousands of years ago. The ideological notion of "white supremacy" emerged as Christian Europeans in the Middle Ages ventured forth to proselytise, albeit it was primarily religiously focused - but as were the motives of Muslim imperialists at the same time, but methinks that the authors of this report don't care much for breadth of history of many parts of the world.  Genghis Khan, one of the great imperialists and racists was no "white supremacist", but that gets in the way of a narrative of exuding guilt and shame against the vast majority of New Zealanders, and in particular parroting the US-inspired hierarchy of oppression. The anti-concept of "whiteness" is cited throughout the report, without being defined.  Of course if race is a "social construct" (it certainly is a psychological rather than a usefully objective one), then what happens if it gets ignored? Well this report isn't interested in THAT.

Racism is a primitive collectivist fear of the "other", inculcated especially by those with power either by state, religion or other form of collective governance.  Those with power don't want to share it with others, so demonising or diminishing the "other" is key, and it may not even be skin colour, it is fundamental identitarianism.  You see it in Northern Ireland and the Balkans, where people who are indistinguishable from each other physically, "other" different sides based on religious, ancestral and other claims to identity.  It's all in their heads, like all forms of ethno-nationalism.  

Europeans were (and some are) full of their own supremacy against each other, but the notion of "us" vs. "them", with little regard for universalism was commonplace throughout humanity until it started to be challenged by Enlightenment classical liberal thinking, which ultimately saw the rise of universal individual rights.

Unless your group was involved in creating an institution, it is biased against your group

Of course there is the claim that because Maori are not involved in creating institutions those institutions automatically become institutionally racist:

Institutional racism is not always obvious because the underlying prejudice hides behind complex rules, practices, policies and decision-making processes. These are framed, written and confirmed in the absence of Māori. (p.37)

So even if you can't find evidence of institutional racism, it's there. Structuralism teaches you that everyone in power sets up systems of bigotry to prejudice those in power, and because a system wasn't designed by the collective of "Maori", it is institutionally racist. You don't need evidence. Post-modernism regards evidence and empiricism to be eve

Māori in Aotearoa live under a constitutional and legal structure that is foreign to them and which derives from England (p.37)

What does this even mean? Almost nobody in a nation-state has much power to determine constitutional and legal structures, and most people in NZ are not from England. The system has evolved over many years, the electoral system has parallels to Germany, the legislation is passed by a legislature where every adult citizen has a similar say in who represents them.  It is, objectively, no more foreign to one person than another, and many would regard most of the systems and institutions of state to be alien to them. It is only by seeing everyone through a collectivist lens of "us" vs. "them" that perceives "us" finding a system foreign which mustn't be to "them".

Of course the report isn't clear on what should happen to those structures.  However, it appears it is about passing control to Iwi, so they control Maori, not the state.

You can spend a long time going through this document to find all sorts of gems, such as the need to abolish prisons:

Decolonisation, and constitutional transformation based on Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga, necessarily involves abolishing prisons (p.92) why... because “incarceration does nothing to address the underlyingissues the person may be experiencing”

Because the man (it's mostly men) who raped you, or murdered one of your relatives or friends, should not, fundamentally, be somewhere to protect you. How dare you claim individual rights you white supremacist?  You need to think of the person who violated you or your family, because he is basically a victim.

You see...

Colonisation introduced an Anglo-Saxon centred notion of western justice based on the fundamental principle of individual responsibility. This approach minimises the personal and social circumstances of accused persons (p.89)

Individual responsibility, remarkably, predates both the Anglo and Saxon peoples, and remarkably remains central to justice systems across the world. The report blanks out that personal circumstances are relevant to some crimes, and are certainly relevant to most sentencing. However, of course, it doesn't fit the collectivist mindset, which (as in Maoist China) focuses more on the context of the person who commits the assault, rape or murder, than the act itself.

The Human Rights Commission presumably believes individual responsibility is foreign to Maori.

Of course the report wouldn't be complete if it didn't recommend expanding the powers of the Human Rights Commission. It wants legislation to...

Give full effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Reo Māori text) throughout the Human Rights Act 1993. This includes all institutional arrangements for the Commission

and (bearing in mind the Human Rights Commission has quasi-judicial powers)...

Include via preambulatory paragraphs definitions of racism, institutional racism, and white supremacy within the Act. (p.98)

The effect this would have on freedom of speech, and indeed on liberal democracy could be chilling indeed.

It's not all wrong though..

Now there is a LOT that can be done to liberate Maori, such as decentralising education, ending the next to peppercorn leases enforced on some Maori land, granting Iwi (and indeed all) property owners real property rights to use their property as they see fit.  There is plenty of content in the report that rightfully points out the acquisitive, oppressive nature of the state, such as the Public Works Act and the application of local body rates on Maori land, even if that land received no services or benefits from local government. There was legislation discriminatory against Maori, and legislation that generally undermined property rights and individual rights for all New Zealanders, and had egregious effects on Maori. That's what an overbearing state does.  

As a result the report effectively recommends to not levy rates on Maori land, which is fine of course, if you accept that local government should provide no services that support such land.  I doubt the Human Rights Commission wants very small local government though.

and there are seeds of freedom in constitutional reform...

Fundamental to the constitution reform the report wants is for Maori to determine their own lives and make decisions over their own resources.  This is libertarian, it is freedom and property rights.  There remain two questions though...

Is giving Maori this power actually power as individuals with the choice to act together, or purely collective entities? If it is the latter, it is just another form of government, I suspect it is the latter.

Why can this not apply to EVERYONE in New Zealand? Why shouldn't we all be able to determine our own lives and make decisions over our own resources?  The authors would be confused because they will think non-Maori have this, but they most definitely do not.  That's what liberal democracy in a mixed economy without constitutional constraints on government power generates.

Unfortunately, I doubt the vision of a series of far-left collectivist activists really is about liberating individual freedom and opportunity.

Don't be saying no...

The report concludes:

Several barriers stand in the way of fully realising constitutional transformation. The first of these is the inevitable safeguarding of the settler-colonial status quo and the economic privilege that has flowed from that for generations at the expense of Māori. The economic implications of constitutional transformation and addressing racism are significant, because “Many Pākehā won’t oppose racism if it means giving land back and supporting constitutional reform” p.102

The main barrier, surely, is not having the consent of those that would be governed. Especially if this means taking away people's own land, acquired legally and privately. It would be shades of Zimbabwe.

Note that the report effectively accepts that protest, legal or not, and indeed violence must be expected if its recommendations are not followed:

Direct action to respond to and challenge colonisation, racism, and white supremacy are important in the assertion of tino rangatiratanga, as Ihumātao and internationally, the Dakota Access Pipeline, have shown (see Smithsonian Institution, 2018; Meador, 2016). So long as the settler-colonial status quo remains, this will continue to be an effective method of resistance p.104

Direct action is a euphemism for any form of protest that can include trespass, vandalism and violence, the Human Rights Commission is almost endorsing a breaking of the rule of law.

What to do with it?

It's a political manifesto, which the Labour Government commissioned, and it should be debated. Political candidates should challenge and be challenged by the concepts and views expressed in it, and indeed there is nothing inherently wrong with reflecting on state-inflicted racism, both direct and indirect, on Maori, in New Zealand's history.  However, it seeks fundamental constitutional change which, on the face of it, would destroy liberal democracy in New Zealand and severely limit freedom of speech and private property rights. It is a call for ethno-nationalist separatism, which if it were to liberate Maori from the state, I would applaud, but it steers away from that.  For a report purportedly about liberation it calls for a lot of new state institutions and a lot of new taxpayer spending, it is a report wanting more statism, and to transfer state power to collectivist institutions that are meant to represent Maori.  Maori as individuals don't feature much here, except for anecdotes about experiences and feelings, as evidence of institutional racism (although evidence isn't needed apparently).

What it demonstrates is that the Human Rights Commission has been completely taken over by far-left ethno-nationalists who see it as a vehicle to achieve radical political change, rather than to implement government policy - unless of course, this reflects government philosophy, which it may well do.

It's easy to brush Maranga Mai! to one side as ridiculous, but it embodies a philosophy that is being inculcated across all levels of the education system and the wider state. It appears to be shared by the Labour Party, and certainly the Greens and Te Pati Maori.

The easy response would be to abolish the Human Rights Commission, which is what any libertarian would do, but it might be more clever to reform it, legislatively change its mandate to actually defend the rights of the individual to control over his or her body, property and life. Imagine if it produced reports that called for a restructure of the state so individual rights were paramount.

My expectations, however, are low. Hipkins will pretend it isn't important, but will continue to let the philosophy underlying it dominate discourse in education and the state and the state's media. National will barely touch the Human Rights Commission, as it did create it.

What is more important is to have debate and discussion challenging collectivist and post-modernist ideologies for what they are - philosophical positions - not factual renditions of events. 

Colonisation saw many atrocities committed, but it is over.  The non-Maori who live in New Zealand are not "settlers". Liberal democracy and rule of law are not invented to benefit Pakeha, and the only human rights are individual rights, for without the freedom of the individual, everyone is at risk of violence being initiated by the state, Iwi or any other collective that thinks it should govern you.

Set Maori free by setting us all free.

Does Winston really care about the constitution or is it baubles as usual?

So Winston Peters is doing what he usually does, after spending two years in the political wilderness he times a revival to tap the issue of the season, that the other parties aren't doing well at tapping, so he can ride his way back to Parliament with a bevy of people nobody has ever heard of before.

This time it is to tackle co-governance with Iwi, and the embracing of the Treaty of Waitangi in ALL aspects of central and local government.  Now I have some sympathy for that position, as important as it is to consult with Iwi and for Maori to be adequately represented in Government, New Zealand clearly achieves that, with Maori represented in both Parliament and local government on the basis of one-person, one-vote and a general consensus among the two major parties about the importance of including Iwi in consultation on issues affecting them. Winston is trying to do much more than address overreach of that.

He wants to tackle non-Maori fear of Maori cultural and linguistic growth, and dominance, whether it is seen in Maori phrases inserted into the ever declining audiences for television news (which frankly is a market decision, you can just switch it off), or the inclusion of references to Te Tiriti in more and more laws and government programmes.

Winston can tackle this because he is much more obviously accepted as being Maori (David Seymour is not so seen). He also knows he can guarantee that TVNZ, Newshub, RNZ and Stuff at least will seek to paint  HIM as being divisive, even racist and he can run rings around the fact he's spent his political career saying the media is unfair to him.

Winston has a couple of problems though:

1.  There is little evidence Winston did ANYTHING when in power, the three times he was a Minister, to slow down Maori nationalism. There was little of it to respond to when he supported National from 1996-1998, but from 2005-2008 and 2017-2020 under Labour, what evidence was there that Winston Peters ever did anything to push this back?

2.  He put Jacinda Ardern into power, notwithstanding that National clearly had the plurality of support as the major party in the 2017 election. It is disingenuous for him to be able to credibly claim that he knew NOTHING of the Maori nationalist aspirations of the Labour Maori caucus (or indeed the Greens, who were part of that coalition and are even more adamant of claims of Maori nationalist/statist based self-determination). However it is entirely possible Winston just took his portfolio, advocated for his pork-barrel Provincial Growth Fund, and the let the two parties on the left get on with it all. 

It might be welcoming to some to have Winston talk in a way that so much of the media would deem politically incorrect, but as he was with immigration, most of what he says reflects little about what he does. 

His other problem is that ACT not only polls but has multiple MPs to occupy this space. It might be notable that Winston talks mostly about the artifacts of the Maori cultural renaissance and the media expressions of it, rather than the more disturbing undermining of liberal democracy, such as granting Ngai Tahu a seat on Environment Canterbury, to sit alongside elected members with the same powers, or the efforts of Rotorua District Council to gerrymander Maori local authority seats that would represent a fraction of the number of non-Maori voters.  

There is a profound awkwardness of politicians, especially non-Maori ones, talking about these issues, because of a lack of philosophical conviction around what constitutional arrangements should exist for a free liberal democracy, and a lack of willingness to engage with views that claim that the underlying cause of poor socio-economic outcomes for Maori is not simply a legacy of colonialism and subsequent non-Maori settlement. The willingness of some Maori nationalists (especially now in Te Pati Maori) to go down the path of "it's us vs. them" should frighten most people, and if Winston Peters is more effective in having that debate that David Seymour (which I think he is), then so be it.

But don't expect a vote for NZ First to deliver anything transformational.  From 1996-1998 NZ First was a brake on a National Government continuing with free market liberal reforms, but not a stop. Similarly, from 2005-2008 and from 2017-2020 it was a brake on Labour Governments continuing with growth of the welfare state, but put a foot on the accelerator of economic nationalist interventions.  It was not a brake on Maori nationalism, because the policies now being advanced by the Government had their genesis in 2017-2020 (or earlier in the case of He Puapua).

There are reasons to be sceptical about ACT achieving much in this space, or National, but these pale in comparison to the reasons to be sceptical about Winston Peters.