Te Pati Maori's populism veers towards danger

When Te Tai Tonga MP Takuta Ferris complained about non-white immigrants campaigning for Labour "against Maori", was he saying the quiet bit out loud, or was he just being a racist moron?

To their credit, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi disavowed it, but they should know that their own rhetoric about “superior genes”, and Oriini Kaipara’s celebration of the proportionality of her Maori heritage is going to lead towards this. It isn’t the exclusionary racist blood and soil nationalism of the actual far-right, but none of this would be uncomfortable in a far-right ethno-nationalist party.

TPM did once state that it wanted to curb immigration until the supply of housing met demand, but later withdrew that policy. 

The win by Te Pati Maori (TPM) of the Tamaki Makaurau by-election is hardly surprising, although that success is tempered by a low turnout, it reflect TPM’s underlying strength. Its populism. It's that populism that can lead into trouble for TPM, but also lead it towards nurturing dangerous narratives among its members and supporters. 

Most of the media has too much unconscious bias in favour of the Maori national renaissance that it, by and large, neglects to see what a key part of TPM's success comes from. Populist rhetoric, policies and behaviour that promotes a strong emotional response from Maori, especially it would seem, rangatahi wahine.  The decision to get Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to lead the haka in Parliament was entirely strategic. It made her world famous (I even caught it being mentioned, approvingly, on the Gutfeld! show on Fox News - which is, by and large, MAGA central for US evening talk shows), which for TPM lifted them up for a new generation.

The term populist politics is almost universally used as a pejorative, because it largely plays to gut instincts and emotions, rather than a depth of thinking and reflection. Populism tends to thrive on an "us against them" narrative, which TPM hones very effectively. So much more rhetoric from TPM, from statements to their attire in Parliament is about differentiation, and as much as it may irritate some older people, especially non-Maori, that's the point.  It's very easy to accuse National and Labour for being parties that bend to the wind and are weak on principles, but TPM isn't scared of being controversial. It thrives on it, because it literally doesn't care what the majority think.

It starts by its claim of being unashamedly Maori, but it drifts further into claiming it is the most authentically Maori (because it doesn't need to accommodate the "colonialists", like Labour). 

Populism is all about a simple framing of what is wrong, and a simple framing of how to fix it. We’ve seen this before, as NZ First was built on it. The clue is in the name.  NZ First had at its core anger at what was seen as a “betrayal” of the country ("us") by “them” – being the Lange/Douglas and Bolger/Richardson Labour and National governments. Betrayal to foreign investors and concern over immigration, essentially a xenophobic fear that foreigners who own businesses or foreigners that move to NZ are only in it for themselves and not for "ordinary New Zealanders". 

NZ First was a response to a belief that neither major party put New Zealand first, and “sold out” the country to foreign investors, who bought privatised state businesses, and were “buying up land”. Furthermore, new immigration, particularly from Asia was “alienating” the local population, including Maori. After all, the 1996 General Election saw NZ First win a clean sweep of the Maori seats.  It was a brief time when the dominant policy narrative was on free-market economics (although this had only minor impact on social policy areas like health and education), and NZ First could cater to this disenchantment differently from how the hard-left Alliance did (which was essentially the socialist wing of Labour having broken away). 

Of course what NZ First did in the 1990s was scaremonger about immigrants. TPM isn't too far away from doing the same thing, as fear of immigration resonates with Maori who see it as another wave of newcomers that dilute their proportion of the population.  Those immigrants tend to be wealthier than average Maori, more highly educated, and have children that do better than the local population at school and university. They also are less likely to be engaged with the criminal justice system. In short, because many immigrants are successful, well-behaved and peaceful, they feed narratives among some as to "why don't Maori do the same?".  At its worst this antipathy towards immigrants is seen in violent crime and abuse towards them, and there are plenty of anecdotes of migrants facing racial abuse from Maori as much as other New Zealanders.  Ferris's outburst last week hardly negates that.

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) was built on the belief that Scotland could be independent from the UK and be better off, but it did nurture unabashed Anglophobia. Furthermore, it also promoted the idea that not supporting the SNP was traitorous to Scotland. Of course, the SNP was undone by actually having power and performing poorly, as there is only so much patience for constantly scapegoating Westminster as the source of your ills, when you get significant power to make your own decisions about what you do with your budgets. TPM almost certainly wont face that sort of scrutiny, which makes its own rhetoric potentially more dangerous. TPM knows that without radical and unlikely constitutional change, it will never lead a government at all.  It can always blame the failures to meet the expectations of its voters on the "colonialists".

As much as TPM wants to be seen as inclusive and welcoming of all, its core belief system can easily be interpreted as highly divisive and hierarchical.

Four years ago Debbie Ngarewa-Packer wrote in the NZ Herald outlining the party's division of New Zealanders into three groups:

- Tangata Whenua (us);

- Tangata Tiriti (supporters of "us");

- Everyone else (racists).

For her, that essentially say that unless you embrace the TPM view of the world, you are an outsider. She says that Tangata Tiriti are "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 the Tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua... Tangata Tiriti are people of the covenant that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi. When you find a tangata tiriti that has a heart for the covenant it’s like meeting a long lost friend, the kind you know our tupuna fought to help treasure and protect. They want to make the burden light, hold up their side of the promise, clean up their own mess. They don’t want to lead our space they want to own their own, removing barriers of discrimination and clear the way to let us through, so we can live united in peace."

This is extraordinary stuff. Tangata Tiriti are original sinners who have to recover from their sin of racism and to "clean up their own mess". They only get the right to live in Aotearoa because their citizenship comes from Te Tiriti, not birth-right nor citizenship granted by a liberal democracy. Te Tiriti is like a Biblical text that grants "peace", what happens if you dare disagree?

Tangata Whenua can't be racist, presumably, which gives Takuta Ferris some reason to think he could say what he said.

Ngarewa-Packer, whether she knew it or not, was singing from the populist nationalist playbook. There are Maori (“us”), there are those who embrace our political-philosophical-cultural opinion (“Pakeha allies”) and the enemy. It’s a hierarchy that elevates its voters, as the indigenous people who are simultaneously superior to all others in Aotearoa, but also oppressed and marginalised. The scapegoat is the “colonialist” state.

TPM doesn’t really care about immigrants being upset with it, because its base isn’t keen on immigrants. TPM also doesn’t care too much about non-Maori being upset with it, not least because it sees Pakeha opponents as simply anti-Maori racists (seeing those that ridicule or denigrate Te Reo and claiming Maori just abuse their kids and waste their lives on benefits as being what many Pakeha “really think”) that fuel its base. It ought to care about calling those Maori who don’t support it “not really Maori”. That smacks of the Orwellian nonsense of Marxist-Leninists who claim that workers who don’t support the “workers’ party” are actually traitors to their class.  The idea that Maori who are not with TPM aren’t really Maori is toxic nationalist racism.  It resembles the nonsense concept of Third World Democracy which formed the basis for the one-party states of many post-colonial African states being dictatorships. 

Clearly TPM's populism is working for it. 

However, as much as Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer want to promote an image of inclusion and simply wanting Maori to manage their own affairs (which is entirely consistent with a genuine libertarian view of humanity), it's difficult to reconcile that with populism driven by nationalism which by definition deems them and their supporters as special, and others as redeemable sinners (and redeemable only if they concede to the TPM world view). 

When TPM President John Tamihere tells Maori that they are living under a government "worse than Nazi Germany", he is feeding not just fear, but hatred and a justification to use all means necessary to overthrow the government.  Of course no sane person could possibly equate the government to the Nazis, unless it was to rabble rouse and generate passion and anger.  After all if you are fighting Nazis, is anything out of bounds?  

This is not isolated rhetoric. Claiming the government is "pure evil" is akin to this, along with claiming the government is "erasing our future". This is absolutist eliminationist rhetoric which is alongside the claims of far-right white supremacists of the "Great Replacement Theory" that there is a programme to wipe out people of European ancestry.

Liberal democracies thrive when people with differences of opinions on how to address contemporary problems debate with some respect and acknowledgement that all are entitled to their views and expression of those views. They don't thrive when politicians seek to balkanise the population into a battle between "us" and "them", no matter what historic injustices have occurred by past generations.  Particularly when they push a narrative that paints opponents as evil people who want to wipe their supporters out.

TPM leaders may think that all it does is change how people vote, but if it bleeds into changing how people interact in daily life, including giving succour to those who think they can commit or threaten violence against opponents, then it is dangerous divisive rhetoric that is every bit as racist and unhinged as any far-right ultra-nationalist movement. TPM isn't there yet, but the danger that it emboldens such thinking is very real.

The by-election without much choice

It's hard to get too much enthusiasm for the Tamaki Makaurau by-election. The Maori roll and seats have become more politicised than ever before, as they are no longer an exercise in ensuring a core level of Maori representation in Parliament, but rather an expression of Maori nationalism.  It used to be that the Maori seats would attract candidates from across the political spectrum, but no more. Of course Parliament now has 33 Maori MPs, most not being from the Maori seats, because Maori participation and representation for many is not exceptional. All parties in Parliament have Maori MPs.  The case for the Maori seats to ensure representation is weak, it is particularly so with MMP, as Maori voters (as all other voters) have the same impact in determining the proportionality of MPs in Parliament. 

As the by-election is for the electorate MP (of course) the range of choice is much more limited than at the General Election when voters enrolled in the electorate can pick any of the registered parties for the list vote. In 2023 this made a bit of a difference.

The media have portrayed the election as a two-horse race, which is realistic given the General Election, but in 2023 plenty of voters chose other parties for the party vote.  Over a quarter chose other parties.

Tamaki Makaurau voters picked Labour for the list vote at 42.8%, even though the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp won the seat by 42 votes. Te Pati Maori only received 29.8% of the party vote. 

The Greens came third with 11.9%, National fourth with 4.7% and NZ First fifth with 3.4%. Add in ACT getting 0.9% and there are 9% of voters in 2023 that voted for the current governing parties. It's hard to say they have much of a choice this time.

Hannah Tamaki ran last time and will have a limited following. Sherry-Lee Matene is little known and Kelvyn Alp, who was charged with distributing an objectionable publication (being a recording of the Christchurch mosque attack) is best not mentioned at all.

So what we actually have is a spectre of Peeni Henare, Labour list MP, trying to win "his" seat back by pandering to the far-left student activist nationalist rhetoric touted by the rather clueless Marxist nationalist Oriini Kaipara (who claimed that TPM was "repealing" legislation and wanted to look on her phone to find the party's contributions to Maori).

Henare said "We are faced by the worst government this world – and this country – has seen in a long time" like a slobbering idiot who blanks out the Nazis, Khmer Rouge and the Taliban and countless other examples. 

Kaipara and Henare both want "Iwi-led" supermarkets which of course is possible now, but they are both economically illiterate. 

However, most of all, both major candidates hold a view of the country, economy and Maori that is led by a philosophy of nationalist Marxist collectivism with a stronger state. They offer nothing to Maori who are entrepreneurs, who don't want to be tethered to the State or Iwi to govern them and their choices, and certainly nothing to Maori who don't want to give succour to Hamas, or who don't want to be a part of the tankie collective of haters of Israel, Western liberal democracy and capitalism, by giving a free pass to Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, and any groups engaging in "liberation" (totalitarian terror movements).

I am betting Kaipara will win, because the Greens, who are ideological allies of TPM, are not standing the candidate, and Peeni Henare is inauthentic.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of voters on the Maori roll want more Government, they want more cultural nationalist chest beating, and really have little interest (or concern) about the Marxist anti-capitalist, anti-Western authoritarian cheerleading that TPM undertake.

That's because, whether you like it or not, a key indicator for many Maori is pride is who they are according to their ancestors, culture and the use of Te Reo.  There is a clash of cultural views on this, and as obnoxious as TPM can be on some issues (which resemble "blood and soil" views of nationalism and a willingness to judge those who disagree with them as needing to emigrate or not being "real Maori"), what it does is demonstrate a cultural pride that works just as much as ultranationalists gain support in other countries.

TPM is not a party of ultranationalism, it's a party of socialist nationalism (and no I don't mean THAT), akin to the Scottish National Party, and it makes Maori feel good about themselves for what they are, not who they are.  It constantly rabble rouses Maori into thinking they are being oppressed, silenced and suffering (worse than the Nazis according to TPM President John Tamihere - a grifting shape shifting used car salesman type if ever there was one), all because of a conspiracy of Pakeha white supremacism.

TPM also know they will never ever ever be in a position to be in power to prove that is wrong (unlike the Scottish National Party which has spend much of its political capital in being incompetent and corrupt). 

So on we go. I hope Henare wins, as it denies TPM one more seat and reduces the overhand in Parliament by one seat, not because he is deserving.  From the looks of it, none of them are deserving, but the winner at the very least gets to say she (or he) isn't the fascist candidate.

No to another mega-Ministry

One of the ideas getting traction within the Government is the idea of merging the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) and the Ministry of Transport (MoT) into a mega agency. The “logic” behind it is threefold:

• More integrated policy thinking that will not only enable more housing to be built, but also the infrastructure to support it;

• Diluting the de-growth and pro-central planning culture of MfE (which most recently decided it was appropriate to submit on the Regulatory Standards Bill);

• Saving money (through administrative rationing).

This is a mistake, because its theoretical basis is rooted in some assumptions that don’t bear close scrutiny. Working backwards the notion that mega-departments are more efficient is largely a chimera. The larger the bureaucracy the slower it works and the less responsive it is, and it more difficult it is to retain specialised knowledge and experience as it gets swamped within multiple layers of management. Treasury likes mega-agencies for two reasons:

• Fewer managers is said to be more efficient;

• Fewer agencies makes them easier to monitor and hold accountable.

Unfortunately, this ignores the behavioural responses of public servants to this sort of structure. In a large department it becomes harder to get the attention of the top layers of management. In some cases that can help, because clever and competent public servants can get on with their work unbothered by the chief executive or deputies, but that also means the less clever and competent have their work not subject to the same scrutiny. The Adam Smith Institute in the UK has called for the UK Home Office to be broken up for exactly that reason. The incremental savings of a few fewer managers (which is disputable when you look at the structure of MBIE – New Zealand’s existing mega-Ministry – which has large units, with branches under them and sub-branches) is lost when there is significant failure both in delivery and public policy.  

The UK already has had experience merging Transport, Environment and Local Government, from 1997 until 2002. Transport was split out again because the cultures of the agencies clashed internally, slowing down progress and making it difficult to get institutional focus on major reforms.  

Australia by contrast does have a mega-agency responsibility for transport policy at the Commonwealth level, in an organisation called DITRDCA (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Culture and the Arts), which struggles to retain institutional knowledge in any segments of its activity. However, as a Federation, many of the functions in those sectors are carried out by States and Territories, so it is less of a day to day concern. Similar mega agencies do not exist at the State level.

The benefit of smaller agencies is that they can be nimble and responsive, and can pivot quickly when policy priorities change.  They can readily collaborate and work together with each other, if there is clear project leadership across agencies. The idea that collaboration within a large agency, with managers and branches with their own interests is necessarily easier than between smaller agencies is largely theoretical, because it depends on the individuals. Bear in mind MoT implemented radical restructuring of ports, airports, land transport funding, the governance and delivery of urban passenger transport all as a small agency, stripping down its functions over the years.  It's not clear what radical reforms MBIE as a major agency has done, and it is abundantly clear that DIA, with its de facto oversight of the water sector (i.e. next to none) did little until the Ardern Government saw it as a way to bail out local government and start to implement the principles of He Puapua (which remains on ice). 

On the second point, the idea that a key reason to merge agencies is to dilute the culture of the one you don’t like, or which is corrosive to government policy is not a good way of diluting the poison, because it spreads the poison across a wider field. The answer for the Ministry for the Environment is not to merge it, but to cull its responsibilities and split what remains among other agencies.

The Partnerships, Investment and Enablement business group should be abolished because Government should not be seeking to “tangibly shift mindsets and change behaviours in New Zealand through effective partnering and engagement within the public and private sectors”. The culture of MfE is anti-development, anti-growth and it the behaviours that need changing are those ones.  

At best the Environmental Management and Adaptation business group should be placed within the Department of Internal Affairs to work with local government, specifically regional councils on their statutory function, and the Climate Change Mitigation and Resource Efficiency business group should be part of MBIE, which has oversight of economic regulation of natural resources.  

It is so obvious that the next time a Labour-led Government takes power, almost certainly with the Greens, that a Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and the Environment would be rebranded into a Ministry of Sustainable Development or the like. The culture that would be dominant will be the one inherited from MfE and will seek to decimate private provision of housing, as well as turn transport policy into one big behavioural change programme that treats active travel and public transport as being good, at any cost, while treating private motoring and the movement of freight by road as being malignant. 

One of the legacies of Labour Governments is that they implement structural reform of Government that National Governments rarely reverse.  Don’t forget the optics of splitting MfE (“integrating environment across policy”) may not be great and of course the Opposition will cry that it is about decimating the environment, but the public largely will not care (other than the ones who vote Green anyway). Splitting MfE into Internal Affairs and MBIE will dilute MfE’s culture because it divides it. Merging it with MHUD and MoT keeps it intact, despite pleas from some that it will dilute the priority of the environment, it will place it in the centre of two agencies seeking to resolve issues that are, in part because of the prioritisation of the environment through the RMA that stops stuff being built.

The MHUD is essentially an oversight agency for Kainga Ora, as well as the regulator of rental housing and other accommodation. The synergies with the MoT are weak, especially given MoT’s functions range from monitoring the land transport funding and regulatory sector, through to the economic functions of all transport modes. There is little that MHUD can bring to aviation policy, and indeed most of the transport policy issues affecting MHUD are undertaken by local government. 

If there is a case for a merge, then MBIE makes more sense for MoT than MHUD, because MBIE does look after network industries in infrastructure, such as energy and communications, but that was tried before in the late 1990s and ultimately abandoned. 

So the idea of merging agencies should be put in the bin. There is a better case for reviewing their functions and determining whether some should exist at all, and if so, who is better placed to manage them.  Putting climate change policy in the DIA or MBIE is likely to be preferable than having it dominating housing and transport.

Merging MfE, MHUD and MoT smells of something that the Greens or TOP (remember them?) would advocate. MfE is by far the agency with the most dominant culture, and it is one that is philosophically antagonistic to the Government it is meant to be serving.  It should not poison housing and transport policy with that culture. 

The Government should run a mile from it.

Does Dame Anne Salmond really want to debate the Regulatory Standards Bill?

Dame Anne Salmond is upset at the use of pejoratives to describe some opponents of the Regulatory Standards Bill. I can understand not liking the use of terms that are explicitly or implicitly abusive, as it is hardly helpful. She doesn't like being called "Victim of the Day" by David Seymour, although his piece on her was not personal.   I struggle to see why an article that largely is about rebutting her original piece is initiating "an online campaign of intimidation" as she claims. Indeed the comments responding to Seymour's post have plenty criticising him as well as supporting him.  She may think I am part of a campaign of intimidation, but she claims debate is fine, so let's have that. She has a wide platform as a public figure, so, as with other critics like Metiria Turei and Willie Jackson (past and present MPs), engaging publicly on an issue means people will support and oppose. 

Let’s remember this is an academic that once wrote that unless you can read the original language any text is written in, you are not entitled to have an opinion on it.  She talks of wanting to “silence” critics but is adept at finding reasons to tell those she criticises effectively that they are not entitled to express an opinion on Te Tiriti.  This is someone who claims the Regulatory Standards Bill expresses a “contempt for liberal democracy” who expresses contempt for people commenting on Te Tiriti if they are not sufficiently fluent in Te Reo. 

Her criticism of the Regulatory Standards Bill strongly infers that those advocating it don’t believe in “public goals and values” (she means the public goals and values she supports).  She opposes it because it lacks a strong democratic mandate, on the basis that most voters didn’t vote for ACT.  Has she ever said the same about Bills advanced by the Greens or Te Pati Maori? 

She opposes the principles focusing on individual rights and private property, which at least she’s explicit about. I’d argue that opposing such principles is “dangerous” in itself, and is the source of much of the harm seen today.  What is fundamentally wrong with respecting people’s autonomy over their bodies and property, and having a society based on that? (leaving aside how inconsistent ACT is in defending this - which is fair criticism. ACT is no libertarian party, and never has been).  

She claims that having an ideological oversight over the legislative and regulatory activities of all government agencies is a “naked power grab”. Power for whom? The Regulatory Standards Board has no power to do anything other than to report, as it would be up to the elected government of the day to respond to it, or ignore it.  What is she really afraid of, that the governments she supports would be asked to justify why they are overriding individual rights and property rights to implement policies she supports?  

If individual rights and property rights are so “dangerous” then she should have no fear whatsoever of a government she supports implementing the policies she supports saying “individual rights are secondary to us banning, compelling or taxing people for this “public purpose””. Sunlight showing the very clear trade-offs between individual rights and the politics of collectivists. 

It takes nothing away from the Executive or Parliament, it is not a constitution upholding those rights and being able to veto policies that degrade them (if only!).

However, Salmond’s real view on this is that it is sinister, because she doesn’t think ACT has honest intent (because she opposes the reform of the pay equity legislation applied retrospectively).  That’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man.  She thinks ACT wants to undermine liberal democracy, which is a serious accusation.  Bear in mind she claims the Government is waging a "war on women". 

Is this the rhetoric of someone who wants fact based debate, or someone happy to jump in, boots and all, into the world of political pejoratives?

She claims on LinkedIn that (the Regulatory Standards Bill) "rhetoric used to support this bill talks about ‘equality,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom, ’trying to force indigenous and other New Zealanders to abide by libertarian understandings of these words – thus stripping them of their rights and freedoms"

Really? How does anyone "force" anyone else to abide by the meaning of any word? How does this even make sense? 

She says there are not enough checks and balances on executive power but claims this Bill will be an example of this, even though it can only come into power by being passed by a majority in Parliament. It can of course be repealed likewise.  This is simply wrong.

The “worst” effect she claims is that the bill “attempts to tie the hands of the state in regulating private activities or initiatives that create public harm”. This isn’t actually what is in the Bill, but an interpretation.  Lot of people claim “public harm” from activities that generate private benefit, ranging from what people consume or do with their bodies through to businesses they engage in with consenting adults.  =Of course, the Bill simply states as a principle that legislation should not take, impair property unless fair compensation is given for that.  =All the Bill requires is that this be reported on, and then Parliament decides whether to do so, or not.  

Then she talks about the "accumulation" of wealth and power by the “few” at the “expense of the many”, which is political agitprop. Of course, globally she is one of the “few” as are most people in New Zealand, who have incomes and wealth exceeding that of the majority of the global population.  She continues with rhetoric of “over-emphasis on private property and individual rights”. She thinks that is what happens in the US, a country with eminent domain over private property to enable private development (an egregious violation of property rights), a country with a long litany of laws against individual freedom ranging from what one can ingest into one’s body, through to the endless need for permits to undertake mundane trading activities.

Salmond appears not to have read the Bill.  If she has, she hasn't understood it.  Maybe she simply imputes sinister intent to ACT, by claiming it is all "doublespeak"?

It's easy to see why David Seymour would get frustrated, with rhetoric of that of Marxist student activists. This Bill does not attack the “fundamental rights of New Zealanders” as Salmond claims and puts up zero evidence for.  What it would do is subject the policies she supports to the scrutiny as to why individual rights and property rights should be reduced to achieve the objectives she may be in supportive of.  Governments could then ignore that or respect it.

Why is that controversial, unless you think it doesn't really matter if individual freedom and private property rights are eroded for "the common good"?

Feeding "our" children

The debate about the compulsorily funded school lunch programme is being characterised by opponents of the government, as one of mean-hearted people unwilling to feed "our" children.

Advocates of the school lunch programme claim:

• There are children going to school without breakfast and without lunches, and they will perform worse at school than had they been fed...  this is true, but not just for the reasons advocates of state feeding of children claim.

• Simply providing food for the children who are in need (and whose parents can't or wont pay for it) is bad, because it makes those children feel singled out because of the negligence of their parents/guardians unlike that of  children who would not get such meals. this is likely to be true, but neglect to note that is likely to be the case more generally anyway.

• If "we" can't feed "our" children, then what are "our" priorities anyway? 

Of course all kids should be going to school having had breakfast and provided lunches, who would argue against that?

The Government is dancing around the key philosophical argument around this, and despite lazy attempts to portray it as a "culture war", it really isn't. It is an argument around both the role of the state and individual responsibility, and it is obvious that there are people polls apart on this.

On one side is what is, in essence, a socialist position, that it is not only morally right, but there is a moral obligation for politicians to force taxpayers to pay to feed all children at school. The argument being that this provides for the best outcomes for children, and demonstrates a kind and caring society.

On the other side is what is both a conservative traditional, but also a classically liberal position, is that the primary moral obligation to feed children arises with those who chose to take responsibility for them - the parents/guardians.  There being two reasons why the feeding doesn't happen.  First, is if there is genuine poverty, this still obliges the parents/guardians to seek support from the existing welfare system or charitable services to put their children first, and of course people are free to support such services if they want to show kindness to those in need.  Secondly, if parents/guardians put their own needs and wants above those of their children, such as simply feeding them, then it is better to address this neglect, either through education or punitive measures.  

Those on the left diminish or do not believe that compulsorily funded state meals for children undermines parental responsibility, even though it fairly obviously does by feeding all children at school (as the predominantly middle class moans in recent weeks demonstrates). Their belief is that the utility of children being fed (and of course the argument is on the detail of what they are fed, and cost is not an issue for those who simply think the state should take the tax it needs to do what they want) outranks any other consideration.

Those on the right do not believe that the utility of feeding, essentially children from low-income families, does not justify forcing taxpayers to pay for feeding all children, and are suspicious of what happens next. Will taxpayers be forced to pay for "free" school clothes, "free" school transport  for families living close to public transport that goes to the school they choose) or more? All of this would mean less responsibility for parents to think about the needs of their children, and more taxes for everyone to pay.  Most would agree that it is ethical to help parents in need temporarily, and for there even to be assistance, whether charitable or not, for kids who don't get fed, but that isn't a universal meal programme.

Of course as a libertarian the idea taxpayers should be forced to pay to feed other people's children is morally unacceptable. If you want to help people with feeding their children, then feel free to do so, indeed that is the kind and caring thing to do.  There is no kindness in letting politicians raid money from other people, including those who disagree vehemently with the concept, to pay for a scheme organised by politicians and officials, rather than actually making a contribution yourself. 

A state big enough to feed children for one (some say two) meals a day, is big enough to parent them even more, and the record of the state as parent is woeful. 

Some conservatives think the socialist objective of free school meals is a plot to undermine the family, and make people more dependent on the state. I doubt that, although the willingness of so many to simply grow the state without any concern for the scale of its presence disturbs me.  The more of people's money that simply gets taken for other people to spend as they see fit, the less agency you have over your life, and the less accountability for it.  Whereas the more you have, the more options people have to advance their lives and those of their loved ones, and support those they want to.

What I think does matter is the issue of parental neglect.  After all, if parents can't do something as basic as provide a meal for their children above their own need for food, what else are they neglecting?  

Most parents dedicate their priorities to their children. They think of their children 24/7, they think of what they need and do what they can to provide. It's concerning if parents fail either by their own lack of competence or more insidiously, lack of care.  

More importantly, let's define what the problem actually is?

For decades the state didn't feed children at school, and did this generate a systemic problem that was distinguishable from the children routinely neglected by their parents?

Are there parents/guardians in such abject poverty that they haven't got a few dollars to provide a bowl of cereal with milk and fruit each morning (compared to everything else they buy)?  There probably are some, and in particular this probably happens over short periods for some families when there is unemployment or an emergency (e.g., having to move home, refridgerator 

If so, those people should be helped and targeted, because it doesn't just affect food, it affects everything else needed to raise those children adequately.

Are there parents/guardians who consistently neglect their children? Then they should be identified and appropriate carrots and sticks used to change their behaviour (both rewards and sanctions).

One of the single biggest factors for children failing are parents who neglect them materially and emotionally, and these are directly linked. Parents in material hardship do all they can to provide for their children, whether working or seeking charitable help directly or from family, friends and neighbours, and that should all be encouraged. It is entirely appropriate for people in need to seek temporary assistance. However those that do not do this, are either incapable of being parents or are simply negligent.

The kids in need should be helped, but the posturing over this programme, which papers over cracks that neither side in politics is keen to address (as the hard left regards personal responsibility to be a conspiracy and the hard right fears the state being a parent), is appalling.

It should be gradually wound down and replaced with a targeted programme organised by the schools themselves, out of their own budgets.  

Wellington is in a funk

The general election has knocked Wellington for six and has put a great deal of public servants and more than a few in the consultancy-industrial complex in a funk, because philosophically and culturally, the change in government has shown up the gulf between them and the government. It has also demonstrated two major issues:

• The dearth of strategic and intellectual grunt in much of the public sector;

• The ideological chasm between many of the (largely young and relatively new) public servants, and the Government they have vowed to serve.

I moved back to Wellington last year after a considerable absence, and I noticed quite a few changes, and there have been a lot more since the election. Not in the sense of the urban form (that hasn’t changed dramatically), nor infrastructure (setting aside the leaks everywhere), but rather in the culture and capability of the public service, and those who provide some degree of heft in fundamental public policy analysis are in short supply.

I spent ten years in the Wellington public service before leaving it (and the country) to be a consultant.  When I first joined it was clear there was a significant cohort of senior and leadership talent in parts of the public service in particular that were formidable in their intellectual capability, commitment to ideological neutrality and interest in an evidence based approached to public policy. Sure there were differences, but overwhelmingly there was one key factor, a deep understanding of what they did and did not know, and what they could not know.  I saw this in The Treasury and the economic sector-based departments, such as what was then the Ministry of Commerce (since morphed into MBIE) and Ministry of Transport.  There was a bit less in the Department of Internal Affairs, but it was still there.  The more social policy-oriented agencies were somewhat different. Health, Education and Environment had less experience of structural reform, and still believed they could be the repositories of all that is best practice in their sectors.  The departments responsible for oversight and regulation of business and the productive sectors knew differently.  

They all knew that, by and large, they had no idea how much of the economy worked in any detail.  These were people who looked at the likes of the telecommunications sector and wouldn’t even pretend to know the details of the technology being used, because it mostly didn’t matter (unless it was related to something the government had to do, like auction radio spectrum for mobile phone use). Nor did they pretend they knew what the cost or price of inputs were, if markets were competitive or not falling between the cracks of the role of the Commerce Commission.  After all, history is replete with examples of how neither bureaucrats nor most politicians have the faintest idea about what changes in technology or markets will come next.  There were bureaucrats who knew that.  I recall sitting in a meeting room in 1997 with a manager at the Ministry of Commerce, who got the IT Department to set up a demonstration of a free application called Real Audio which was streaming radio programmes from across the world.  He said at that moment “this is the future and it will disrupt everything we do in broadcasting, it’s a matter of time”, this was when politicians were mainly fretting about the use of dial-up internet to access pornography.  That manager was right of course, but at the time the Ministry of Commerce was responsible for broadcasting policy, alongside telecommunications, IT and energy policy. Broadcasting is now within the purview of the Ministry of Culture, Heritage and the Arts, which is not an organisation with a primary culture of business and innovation. 

The beginning of change in that culture happened under the Clark Government, which was much more pro-active and wanted to “do more”.  However, that Government did get plenty of advice around the limitation of the public service to actually know what was best for particular sectors (except of course the social sectors, which acted much more as intermediaries between the strong professional producer sector interests and the government, especially since more than a few people in the social public sector would switch employments with the professional producer lobby). While the Key Government paused that change, the Ardern/Hipkins Government put it into overdrive, and the Luxon Government will be seeing the signs of it.

The election of Tamatha Paul as MP of Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter as MP for Rongotai provides a sign of what has happened to the Wellington public service in that time.  It's a far cry from Richard Prebble being elected in Wellington Central in 1996, and the time when it was seen as a marginal seat between National and Labour. No more.  The public sector has seen retirement of many men and women who were part of both the Muldoon era of extraordinary central planning, and the Lange/Palmer/Moore/Bolger era of dismantling central planning and instituting more direct accountability in the public sector for results, and in taking political and bureaucratic decision making away from trading enterprises, ranging from the Post Office to the Railways and Electricity Department.  Those people have retired, moved away or passed away. Some remain from the 90s, but are increasingly pushed aside by the well-meaning, but shallow culture around promoting “new perspectives” around “diversity”, which does not include depth or breadth or critical thinking (not in the post-modernist sense) in public policy.  The Wellington public service grew enormously in the past six years, drawing upon enthusiastic graduates, predominantly coming with support for the Government of the day, bringing with them a leftwing ideological framework, which are not just the traditional enthusiasm for state-intervention and suspicion and cynicism about private enterprise, but rather the wholesale cultural revolution in how they think about the state, society and stratification of the country into people categorised as oppressive, oppressed or allies of the oppressed. MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer characterised it as being Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti and everyone else (the racists). So a combination of left-wing enthusiasm for state intervention, regulation, spending and taxation, with an suspicion around the interests and the views of significant portions of the public, including those of more senior civil servants, because of identity factors (e.g. race, sex, gender).  None of that would matter one iota if they could put that to one side and be highly competent public policy analysts, but that competence is wanting, and it’s clear from plenty of people engaging with the well-meaning, but lacking historical knowledge and being weak on analytical capability.

As a result the mood today in many government departments, particularly the more social and environmental policy oriented ones, is one of fear and depression, as a workforce of relatively young public servants, most of whom did not vote for this government, struggle to cope with being asked to implement policies they don’t agree with. Some act professionally, and it is to the credit of some that they seem to have delivered the Government’s “First 100 day” plan. Few are obstructive, clearly one or two are choosing to leak, but many of them are moping about, worrying about becoming unemployed and are openly, to their like-minded colleagues, unhappy about the choice of voters.

When I was a public servant I was generally not happy with any government that was elected, on a lot of issues, but when it came to the sectors I worked in (and there were a few), I put it all to one side. People knew what my politics was, but I also knew what high quality public policy was as well.  You serve Ministers, you seek to achieve their policy objectives, you analyse alternatives and you implement what Ministers want.  You give free and frank advice, and they either take it, or they continue to do what they want to do, and you can simply say they were told, if the consequences don’t turn out how they wanted. That’s not the mood in Wellington now.

Of course it will change. Although there is significant scope to scale down the numbers of people doing policy in government in Wellington, the scope to scale down the depth and breadth is small, because there is a distinct lack of talented, capable and clever people, who put aside their personal political biases in favour of evidence-based policy advice.  Most importantly, there are few who will admit to Ministers “we don’t really know how to do that” or “we don’t know how that part of the economy works” or “we don’t have the knowledge or experience on that issue Minister”.

I’ll take one example in a field I know something about. “The Aotearoa New Zealand Freight and Supply Chain Strategy”. I’m frankly gobsmacked that a lot of people clearly pulled together something which smacks of the sort of central planning NZ had done away with in the 1980s. The idea that MoT is steward of the freight and supply chain system is so laughable as to be a joke.  There is no remote hope that the Chief Executive of MoT, let alone almost any of the staff, would know how to arrange the consignment of freight from any producer to customers or outlets.  There is relatively little about productivity and competition, yet 62 pages has been dedicated to a “strategy” which has as its main challenge not labour shortages (which have been a major issue), but climate change. Nine immediate actions are proposed, all of which are either about more planning or lowering emissions. It’s a manifesto for central planners.  Nobody was willing to tell Ministers that “we don’t know much about any of this, and we have no visibility into how businesses and transport firms arrange and price their services, or invest in capital”, or if they did the response was “find out, collect data”!

Where does this lead a public service that ought to be focused on delivering on an agenda that many of its staff disagree with?  It's not easy, particularly as getting talent to work in Wellington is tough nowadays.  However the government appears willing to lean down the state sector (albeit not enough), which should provide ample opportunities to send blinkered ideologues with mediocre intellectual grunt to a new life not serving a government they hate. 

There are three strategies that might help as well:

1. Cull activities in Ministries and Departments to enable competent people to focus on the priorities of the new Government. This has already started, but the competent people need to be placed on high-profile, high-risk projects of reform and delivery. This require line-by-line scrutiny of the work programmes of each Ministry, Department and agency, to strike out what isn’t needed. Then offer redundancies to those no longer needed.

2. Don’t be afraid to restructure. Who would trust the Ministry of Education to implement Charter Schools any more than you would have trusted the Post Office to implement a competing mobile phone network or the Railways Department to implement a competing trucking firm? Treasury likes consolidation, but smaller, nimbler agencies can be more responsive, and incentivised to be focused.

3. Push for cultural change in the public service. This means focusing once again on accountability, transparency, delivery and efficiency, and recognising the limits of knowledge and capability. Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit” concept would be a helpful one to promote.  Encouraging understanding of concepts around markets, competition and the "law of unintended consequences" and to be concerned about capture by interests, whether they be business, producer unions or lobbyists, even those with purportedly "altruistic" motives.

4.      Better link the public/consumers to the supply of the services provided by the state to them.  Give them incentives to perform.  This used to be done by setting up SOEs, but the scope for that is largely spent.  

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.