OPINION
Winston Peters has truly thrown the cat among the pigeons by challenging the foundational myth of “Aotearoa-New Zealand”: magic Maoridom and “indigeneity”.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told supporters at a public meeting in Nelson on Sunday that Maori are “not indigenous”.
“Here’s the rub if you are Maori. We’re not indigenous,” Peters claimed, according to a report by Stuff.
As I wrote some time ago for Insight, what does “indigenous” even mean? There is not even a clear definition: The standard reference, Oxford, defines “indigenous” as “originating in and characterising a particular region or country”. The National Geographic Society, on the other hand, defines “indigenous” as “an individual from a group that has lived in a particular location for thousands of years”.
On neither definition are Maori, who colonised New Zealand considerably less than even a millennium ago, remotely indigenous to the land.
In fact, they’re so not indigenous that their own legends tell us where they migrated from.
“We come from Hawai-iki. Where’s our Hawai-iki? We think it is in the Cook Islands. We think it’s in Rarotonga, but we’re not from here.
“And [if] you go back 5000 years, we came with our DNA from China […]
“We didn’t come 54,000 years ago, for example, like the Aboriginals in Australia,” the former deputy prime minister said.
Even the undoubted longevity of the Aboriginal occupation of Australia throws up challenges to the concept of “indigeneity”.
Not even the Aborigines originated in Australia. So, we have to fall back on NGS definition of living in a location for “thousands of years”. But this, in turn, brings up the question of just when a group ceases to be “exotic” and becomes indigenous. At what point in the last 60,000 years, did the newcomers from the millennia-long African diaspora, who crossed the Wallace Line and arrived in Australia, become indigenous, rather than exotic?
And why is that process denied to any other group arriving in Australia since?
Prominent Aboriginal Australian Noel Pearson conceded that indigeneity is indeed a process when he wrote that “The essence of indigeneity… is that people have a connection with their ancestors whose bones are in the soil. Whose dust is part of the sand.” With that in mind, Pearson could not avoid what he admits is “the somewhat uncomfortable conclusion” that conservative columnist Andrew Bolt, a first-generation Australian, “was becoming Indigenous because the bones of his ancestors are now becoming part of the territory”.
What, then, of those of us who are not, supposedly, “indigenous”, yet who have five, six or more generations of ancestors “whose bones are in the soil”, as Pearson says?
“If our story says we came from Hawai-iki or this place from the Pacific, then it means we’re not indigenous. I’m not trying to kid anybody, so why are we trying to kid each other? […]
“Every tribe will have in its ancestry where it came from, and it’s not New Zealand,” he said. “Why are we lying to each other? We should be believing in truths and not myths.”
So, why are so many New Zealanders lying to each other?
Money. Lots and lots of money. And racially-mandated preference.
In June, Newstalk ZB and the Herald revealed Te Whatu Ora – Health NZ has introduced an “Equity Adjustor Score”, which uses an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), deprivation level and ethnicity.
In the ethnicity category, Maori and Pacific are top of the list, while European New Zealanders and other ethnicities are lower-ranked.
Peters continued by claiming the Three Waters reforms are a programme designed “to transfer the water ownership from the heavens to one race in this country – Maori”.
But Stuff reported he said no “ordinary Maori” believed water belonged to them – instead it was members of the “Maori elite” that were “ramming this down our throats”.
NZ Herald
We know exactly the sort of Maori elite he’s talking about.
“I have not got any time for those people in this country who want to recognise one part of their DNA and spend all their time dumping down the other side.
“Kowtowing to the latest drivel that’s being taught at universities … the latest antisocial engineering programmes at university preaching this myth and tissue of lies about the Treaty of Waitangi … making it all up as they go along, absolute rubbish, and costing this country a fortune on misinformation and misdesigned policy, all happening right in front of your face.”
Stuff
We have the same dreary tribe of troughers here in Australia, too. Just like some unremarkably white chick who “discovers” an “indigenous ancestor” buried in the family tree, scribbles up her face and suddenly becomes Maori-er than thou, we have the “box tickers”. These are the invariably pale-skinned, blue-eyed, ordinarily suburban Australians who gin up some spurious “connection” and are suddenly proclaiming themselves a “proud Oooga-Booga man” and stiffing the local council three grand a pop for a “Welcome to Country” at the opening of the new local bus shelter.
Scammers and troughers, one and all.