What if Colonisation isn’t the only explanation for the many challenges facing Maori? What if it is simply one among many explanations? Where does that leave our politicians, policy-makers and academics? Where does it leave our teachers and journalists? Where does it leave Maori?

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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...