[...] The very real historical achievements of New Zealand’s progressive past could be recast as shameful exercises in conferring colonial privilege upon genocidal settlers. The only past worth celebrating was New Zealand’s indigenous past. The only culture unsullied by the bloody crimes of colonisation was Maori culture.

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Known principally for his political commentaries in The Dominion Post, The ODT, The Press and the late, lamented Independent, and for "No Left Turn", his 2007 history of the Left/Right struggle in New...