A Woke Crab under Every Rock

A new Government Department has recently been set up to address ‘gaps’ identified by the Ardern Government in the way the country is run.

Called “The Ministry for Everything That Does Not Already Have a Ministry (Except of Course for Men)” and led by James Shaw, the department has issued a set of helpful Guidelines for families wanting to visit the beach this Summer.

• White folks should lather-on copious quantities of sunscreen. Not just SPF4 either, which would let you get a healthy tan just like in the old days, we’re recommending now 70+. Make sure to carry a beach umbrella everywhere with you too. All of this ensuring that sun just cannot get through and that you don’t end up with brown skin like our privileged minority here in Aotearoa. That would constitute ‘cultural appropriation’ and, with some white folks being more brown than brown folks, it would make it harder for us to discriminate against you. Thanks for your understanding!

• When exploring the beach and rock pools with your youngsters, please refrain from ‘hate speech’ when interacting with coastal flora and fauna, for example:

• Do not refer to little fish in rock pools as ‘cockabullies’ – it’s highly offensive as makes them sound like manspreading mansplainers. Just think; how would you like to be called a cockabully!?

• Discourage children from applying outmoded colonialist language, for example when describing a group of crabs as ‘a family’ or a lot of fish swimming together as a ‘school’. We’re trying our hardest to dismantle these things in our version of the real-World and don’t need pesky parents undermining such efforts.

• Discourage children from using sticks to write their names in the sand or from building sandcastles. This behaviour can be interpreted as a ‘land grab’ and likely to ‘trigger offense’ to indigenous peoples, already deeply traumatised by colonialisation 200 years ago.

• Beware of potentially rapid sea-level rise due to our Global Climate Change Emergency. If it seems a bit warm on a Summer’s day and your ice-creams are melting too fast, immediately head for higher ground.

• An interesting ‘factoid’ to share with your kiddies, and to enhance their education, is a variation on the ‘there’s more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the World’. This would be to tell them ‘there’ll be more dollars extorted from you in your lifetime under the guise of climate change than there are grains of sand on this beach’. Doesn’t matter what size beach, either.

• Be COVID Safe. Beaches are notorious COVID hot-spots, and with masks and vaccines more or less useless against new variants, we’re now recommending that you put a plastic bag over your head. The tighter the better.

We do hope that you enjoy your last Summer at the beach. With almost 600 over-lapping iwi applications to take charge of NZ’s foreshore and seabed in process (200 to the High Court, and the balance for direct negotiation with the Minister of Treaty Negotiations), expect to be stuck at home for all Summers henceforth.

While these guidelines have raised some questions, Minister Shaw was unavailable for comment. It’s understood to he’s had to fly back to Glasgow, as he left his toothbrush there while on his most recent mission to save the planet.