As last Sunday was ANZAC Day, at the 7.30am Mass at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Takapuna that I customarily attend, the congregation was invited to stand at the end for a recorded trumpet rendition of the Last Post and Reveille, followed by the singing of our national anthem, “God Defend”, the first verse in te reo, and then two verses in English.
Sadly, it is so seldom that we ever sing the second verse that we are in danger of failing to remember three important aspects that I highlight below in bolded type:
Men of every creed and race,
Gather here before Thy face,
Asking Thee to bless this place,
God defend our free land.
From dissension, envy, hate,
And corruption guard our state,
Make our country good and great,
God defend New Zealand.
“Our free land” implies that we value freedom – as indeed a clear majority of us do. In turn, that imposes on us all a duty to preserve our freedom – I suggest, above all else. No more strongly each year than on ANZAC Day when we remember with gratitude the sacrifices of the heroes who died in horrendous wars to preserve the rights to freedom we enjoy today. Therefore, ANZAC Day should also be the day of renewal of resolve to preserve our freedom.
Never more so than this year, 2021, when we are saddled with a government composed of committed socialists, first installed in 2017 as a minority by an utu-driven populist who thought he had a score to settle with the party that had achieved the highest number of votes; then re-elected last year on its own account as the consequences of a massacre by a crazed Australian terrorist and a worrisome pandemic that originated in a mismanaged Chinese research laboratory.
A government, moreover, led by a relatively young single mother who, when she first entered Parliament as a List MP in 2008 was also president of the International Union of Socialist Youth who had assured her international “comrades”:
“We as young socialists believe in a social democratic system which secures a redistribution of resources.”
Read this article by Dr Steve Elers, of Massey University, to see why there is a threat to your freedom.
If that doesn’t convince you, then go here for what Dr Muriel Newman, of the NZ Centre for Political Research, says about New Zealand being turned into a totalitarian state.
From dissension, envy, hate…” Where to start?
- The dissension being caused by extremists for or against the notion that the Treaty of Waitangi imposed a 50/50 governance partnership on the then colony of New Zealand (described as Nu Tireni in the reo version signed by Maori chiefs, now being referred to by this government and its acolytes as Aotearoa). Dissension that has degraded into racism in a country hitherto largely free of this curse. See my comments on He Puapua below.
- The envy inherent in almost daily calls by beneficiaries for a greater share of the taxes paid by fellow-Kiwis willing to work for their living (and I hasten to exclude from this criticism anyone prevented from seeking employment by reason of age, infirmity or disability). When welfare dependency becomes an inter-generational lifestyle, we need to strive more actively to dump a government that condones this lunacy, and replace it with a more disciplined administration that will crush it.
- The hate of our freedom of speech evident in this government’s professed intention to amend our laws covering what it terms “hate speech”:
Guard our state: I make no apology for repeating what I wrote last week, what Ardern said in New York at a private dinner arranged by billionaire Bill Gates:
She told the audience that under her administration New Zealand had taken a lead and embedded the United Nations Agenda 2030 into our legal and regulatory framework:
“…my Government is doing something not many other countries have tried. We have incorporated the principles of the 2030 Agenda into our domestic policy-making in a way that we hope will drive system-level actions… I believe that the change in approach that we have adopted in New Zealand is needed at a global scale…”
Not just contradicting any idea of guarding our state, e.g. protecting our sovereignty, but actively condemning it to subjugation to globalist ambitions of unelected apparatchiks of United Nations, many of whom represent countries that are either dictatorships or who do not share our passion for freedom and democracy.
Now to He Puapua:
Read here what Dr Muriel Newman says about the current New Zealand government’s intentions to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Firstly, have a look here at what the UN itself has to say.
I’ll be grateful to anyone who can point me to a definition of “indigenous peoples” in that mass of woke verbiage. The most popular definition I can find in dictionaries of repute is: “people who originated in a country or region”. This raises a question, posed only in pursuit of polite enquiry and with no intention of racist disaffection:
How can a people such as Maori who define themselves and their tribes (and proudly and commendably so) by the names of the canoes in which their voyaging Polynesian ancestors crossed the Pacific to find a home in the islands we now know as New Zealand, be described as “indigenous”? First settlers, yes. But indigenous? Hardly.
I am aware of vague myths about pre-Maori settlement of our islands, and until some firm evidence appears I will continue to regard them as myths. Just as I will continue to regard myself as a later settler native of New Zealand, having been born here (in Te Awamutu) of Irish ancestry, thus earning the unique status of Pakeha, a reo word that acknowledges the Maori dimension that is such a distinguishing mark that sets our country apart in this world, and so deserves recognition and acknowledgement.
I hope that the rewriting of New Zealand history that the Ministry of Education is undertaking respects the absolute necessity for accuracy and accords Maori their proper place as first settlers (many of whom lost the use of their tribal lands in deals of dubious integrity). I hope it does not gloss over unsavoury activities of tribe over tribe, tribe over colonists or colonists over Maori, in conflicts that were products of the times in which they occurred, however wrong present generations regard them. We can only learn from our history if there is no argument about its authenticity
And while respecting that Maori dimension, I hope that more of us, regardless of ethnicity, including the Polynesian and Asian cohorts that have joined our communities more recently, can agree with that wise observation of the famous Maori scholar Te Rangihiroa (Sir Peter Buck):
“I am binomial, bilingual, and inherit a mixture of two bloods that I would not exchange for a total of either.”
A final thought, typically and originally Kiwi: everything in moderation – especially moderation.
Plus two of my own :
- Nothing exceeds like excess
- (Especially for the extremists among us): extremism is going too far.
Next week: A new word to replace “woke.”
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