Maori seats against the Treaty of Waitangi

It seems that whatever happens in New Zealand, we are told we have to reserve some special space for Maori as part of our “treaty obligations”. The Maori Party wants to have special Maori seats on the Auckland council for example.

Many people say the Treaty of Waitangi established a “partnership” between Maori and the Crown.

But most of the people promoting these ideas don’t seem to have actually read the Treaty. The three articles of the Treaty of Waitangi are:

Article the first

The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand and the separate and independent Chiefs who have not become members of the Confederation cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation or Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or to possess over their respective Territories as the sole sovereigns thereof.

Article the second

Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession; but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the individual Chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of Preemption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective Proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf.

Article the third

In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.

To summarise, the chiefs were to hand over all sovereignty to the Queen (Article 1), while retaining full ownership of all their lands and possessions (Article 2), and gaining the protection of the British Empire and the same rights as any other British subjects (Article 3).

Importantly, in Article 3 the Treaty established one law for all New Zealanders.

The Treaty never  suggests a partnership. In fact, it specifically precludes it, when it says the Chiefs will “cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty”.

Some people claim the Maori version was translated poorly, and the Chiefs understood this to mean something else. So, what does a literal English translation of the Maori version state?

The Chiefs of the Confederation and all the chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.

This is even clearer!

The Chiefs may however have had a different idea to the Crown about what this word “government” actually extended to. They may have believed the Crown would have had a more limited role and they would have had greater freedom to run their own affairs. If you believed this to be true, you could argue for a smaller government on the basis of the Treaty.

But I have never heard anyone argue for this. On the contrary, most activists appear to be socialists wanting to extend the State further, while giving special treatment to anyone with brown skin.

I am sure those who signed the Treaty would be disgusted.

We are one heavily interbred people. It is pointless to maintain a racial divide that becomes more artificial with each generation. Let’s embrace the Treaty of Waitangi instead, and have one law for all New Zealanders.

One law for all day

Rather than doing my own detailed Waitangi Day post, I’ll recommend Peter Cresswell’s post, as he has written it far better than I could (bar his proposal of a new constitution, which I believe is unnecessary).

If you really want to know what Waitangi Day is about, read the treaty. Too many people go on about racist concepts they have invented, ignoring that the Treaty actually says:

In return for the cession of the Sovreignty to the Queen, the people of New Zealand shall be protected by the Queen of England and the rights and privileges of British subjects will be granted to them.

The Maori version is even more explicit

Hei wakaritenga mai hoki tenei mo te wakaaetanga ki te Kawanatanga o te Kuini-Ka tiakina e te Kuini o Ingarani nga tangata Maori; katoa o Nu Tirani ka tukua ki a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani.

Literally: This is an arrangement for the consent to the Government of the Queen. The Queen of England will protect all the Maoris of New Zealand. All the rights will be given to them the same as her doings to the people of England.

The treaty established one law for all. That is what we should be remembering and celebrating today, the end of tribal warfare and slavery, and the institution of equal rights for all – the legal framework that has given us the country we enjoy today.

EDIT: See also my post on flying a Maori flag on Waitangi day

John Key attacked at Waitangi

I have absolutely no respect for someone who thinks physically attacking the Prime Minister is a sensible way of getting their views across. Do these people really want to be taken seriously or not?

There seem to be many Maori who think Waitangi is a Maori event, and the rest of the country (such as the Prime Minister) only get to have anything to do with it with their leave. But that is nonsense. The Treaty of Waitangi was between Maori and the Crown, representing British settlers (at the time). It is as much a European thing as it is a Maori thing, and it is something for us all to celebrate. That anyone would think they can do what they like on Waitangi because this is about “their” race is disgraceful.

I hope Mr Key finds out what group these men are associated with and formally refuses to have any dealings with them in future, dealing with other Maori representatives instead. And I hope they are prosecuted for assault to the full extent of the law.

Yes there are real concerns held by many Maori, and issues that they would like Mr Key to address. But this is no way to encourage him to address them.

EDIT: See also
“One Law For All day”
“Maori flag on Waitangi day”

Maori Flag on Waitangi day

John Key has given the OK to flying a Maori separatist flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge and government buildings on Waitangi day, provided the iwi can agree on a flag and explain its meaning. The idea seems to be that as there are two flagpoles on the bridge, one would fly the NZ flag and one the Maori one, symbolising that Waitangi was an agreement between Maori and the Crown.

But this is nonsense. If you wanted to symbolise that, you’d fly the Union Jack and the Maori flag – Waitangi was an agreement between the British government and the Maori.

Note however that it was an agreement with the Maori of the day, NOT with the modern separatist movement. The Maori of the day agreed to a union, therefore the majority were NOT separatist and would probably DISAGREE with this Maori flag.

Or you would just fly the NZ flag, as we already do. The NZ flag already symbolises the fact that the British only formed part of the makeup of NZ, as the Union Jack is only a corner of the NZ flag.

Waitangi was when this country became one nation. To start flying flags representing separate groups undermines the entire purpose of the Treaty. We should be flying the flag of the country formed by the Treaty of Waitangi – New Zealand.

Maori history in school far from reality

Contra Celsum has an excellent post on Maori history, cannibalism and the like that I would encourage you to read. It should be the start of a series which may be interesting to follow.

Through school, the Maori culture is portrayed as being in harmony with nature. You are taught about (nice) Maori customs, the Maori pantheistic religion (which is state-funded religious teaching by the way), various Maori legends, Kupe and his voyage to New Zealand, Maori songs and language, and happy-clappy stuff like that. You are then taught about how the horrible Europeans came with muskets, stole the land, started the musket wars, and how Maori were oppressed. You generally only hear good things about Maori and bad things about the Europeans (as I recall from school, some years ago now).

But this is extremely biased, and that should be obvious to anyone. Every culture has good things and bad things in their history, if any culture is portrayed as wholly good or wholly bad you should know immediately that something is being hidden.

What you won’t learn in school is that the Maori burnt down more forest area than the Europeans ever did – the tussock grasslands of the South Island were forest before the Maori came along. You won’t learn how many species the Maori drove to extinction. You won’t learn about the widespread cannibalism among Maori.

You certainly won’t hear about how many Maori embraced Christianity as freeing them from their former culture of death. You certainly won’t hear how Maori tribes were commonly at war with one another (I understand the Maori had no concept of NZ as one country, it was ruled by many warring chiefs), and you won’t hear how despite the initial musket wars NZ has had internal peace since the coming of the British. But in order to have a balanced view of history you need to hear both sides.

If anyone speaks up and tries to tell the other side of NZ history, such as Maori cannibalism, they are hounded as being racist. This is a crazy situation, where it is not PC to tell the truth about history.

I’ll just finish with some insightful words from The Lads

If you are starving on an air-plane
‘cos you’re in economy
And if you have crashed down in the ocean
and you’re allergic to sea food
By eating me you could stay strong
And I could learn to hop along
Apart from this
Cannibalism’s wrong
…
Cannibalism’s wrong
Even if they deserve it, you can’t eat them ‘cos it’s wrong

Election result

Great result for the country, we finally have a change of government.

It was very interesting to see Clark announce she is standing down, it isn’t surprising she would decide to do that but it is surprising she would announce it immediately. Talk about trust, all these people who voted Labour because they like Helen Clark (and I have found many people in that category while campaigning) will be very disappointed. They obviously couldn’t trust her to stick round and do what she felt was best for the country, rather she just wanted the top job and when she didn’t get it she was gone. Now she’ll force a by-election in her electorate just because she didn’t get quite what she wanted (she is hardly going to stick round as a lowly MP), she obviously has little regard for all the people who voted for her wanting her as their local MP. We don’t always get what we want, and most of us were taught that when we were young with a good smack on the buttocks.

It is good to see National could rule with just Act, and although they may involve Dunne and the Maori Party too, having just the two parties would make for a simple government.

The result was disappointing for the Family Party, but the change of government helps to soften that disappointment. As I said earlier, we don’t always get what we want, but I have no intention of quitting like Clark just because things didn’t go quite how we wanted. It is very hard for parties outside parliament to get in, and this just reinforces that fact. I would like to thank Jerry Filipaina especially for the excellent work he put into Mangere attempting to take that seat, it is very disappointing that that did not eventuate. Paul Adams also did an excellent job in ECB, being our highest polling candidate, but unfortunately missing out too.

I received 441 electorate votes, which I am very pleased with for my first time standing, far higher than the United Future and Kiwi candidates and close behind the Act candidate and Bill Woods. Although this was of course not anywhere near enough to take out the electorate, considering I never actually asked for electorate votes in my campaign (apart from possibly off-hand at one “meet the candidates” event), only asking for party votes, and was standing for a party most people had never heard of, I am very pleased with the result. It is a very encouraging level of support that I should be able to build on in future years should I stand again.

I would like to thank everyone who voted for me or any other candidate, or for the party, for your support. Unfortunately we didn’t gain enough support this time round, it is hard to get your message to enough of the country in your first election, but there’s always another election – try convince your mates to vote for us as well next time!

This new government will not solve the most serious issue in our country today, which in my opinion is our abortion-on-demand culture. We can lobby them for improvements, but to really fix this we’ll need more conservative representation in the next election. So the result is far from perfect, but is a massive improvement over the current situation.

With National in government, more representation from Act, and Helen Clark stepping down, I am certain we can look forward to a better country over the next three years.

National and Maori Party making deals?

One News has stated that at least one National candidate is telling voters if they won’t vote National, vote for the Maori Party. Winston Peters is chasing the Maori vote too, to try and get over 5%. This is concerning, because if Mr Peters gets over 5%, being ruled out of a coalition deal by National, it makes a change of government less likely.

No National candidate should be recommending people vote Maori:

• The Maori Party is likely to gain more electorate seats than they would be entitled to according to their party vote, just as in 2005, so even though they will have seats the party votes will be wasted.
• The Family Party has strong appeal to many Maori and Polynesian voters, and we could actually use these votes to get more candidates, to strengthen a National-led government.
• Failing that, at least the votes could have been used by National or Act to change the government.

If we want to fix the poor policies of Labour over the past few years, Maori voters must vote for The Family Party, or failing that National or Act. Voting for the Maori Party will waste votes, and a vote for NZ First is a vote for Labour.

GST off food supported by Maori party

The Maori Party is supporting our policy of removing GST from basic foods to encourage healthy eating among Maori. It is nice to see some support for our policy, and although the Maori party do not propose removing GST from rates, household electricity and the excise duty from fuel as we do it is nice to see some support for part of our policy.

Lack of healthy food is not specifically a Maori problem, and the beauty of removing GST from this food is that it helps all people to afford such food, regardless of race. The Family Party advocates taking a whanau approach to health issues, recognising that prevention of illness is best and healthy practices begin in the home. We then need to follow this up with efficient and timely healthcare when illness does occur. More details on our health policy are here.

Hat tip: Crusader Rabbit

Maori party oppose ETS

The Greens, our self-proclaimed environmental party, has agreed to the ETS, a scheme that won’t help the environment but sounds like it has something to do with it so could get them a few votes.

On the other hand, the Maori Party recognise that the ETS won’t do any good so will probably oppose it, and will hold out for something that actually does some good for the environment.

To quote Mrs Turia:

“We are told the Green Party and NZ First have signed up to it. I predict that the concessions won by them will seem like a mere thirty pieces of silver, once the full impacts of climate change start to be felt,”

Change that to “once the full impacts of the ETS on our economy start to be felt” and I would expect she is correct.

Good on the Maori Party. Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the solution the Maori Party are looking for, it could damage our economy for no reason as we don’t yet know whether climate change is a problem at all. But it really shows up the Greens as a bunch of hypocrites, possibly just using the environment to pursue their hidden agenda.

Hat tip: The Hive