OPINION
John Porter
Bay FM
Hello, it’s John Porter on Bay FM and today I’m asking: Do you agree that Maori should have sovereignty over New Zealand?
Because that is the publicly proclaimed agenda and goal of Maori activists, leaders and their separatist supporters.
Find that unbelievable? Well, look at what Maori separatists have achieved so far, all under the guise of co-governance!
- Pae Ora Act – Established co-governed health and proposed the Maori Health Authority be given the power of veto
- Water Services Entity Act – establishes 50/50 co-governance of the country’s entire water infrastructure and iwi given the power of veto, therefore actual control
- Resource Management reform – with veto power for Maori over development projects and processes
- Local Government Act – removed the opportunity to hold referenda on the establishment of Maori wards
- Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation) Act – Unelected Maori representation in local government established
- New History Curriculum – rewrites significant parts of New Zealand’s history and leaves the unpleasant Maori truths out
- Matauranga Maori – inserted into the science curriculum
- Local Government and Electoral Reform – recommending legislative changes that differentiate democratic rights based on race
- Requirement of compliance to the undefined principles of the Treaty of Waitangi into almost all legislation
- Expansion of Te Pae Oranga – Te Pae Oranga programme for people who have committed minor offending and Labour invested $70m in thirty more iwi community panels or community justice panels.
Those are just a sample of the more “public” advances the sovereignty agenda has achieved.
For nearly forty years the Waitangi Tribunal, the judiciary, academia, and successive Labour and National Governments (usually for political convenience) have gradually altered and manipulated the meaning of the Treaty, based on flawed and self-interested interpretations.
The most damaging is the, widely promoted by separatists’, fallacy that the Treaty created a ‘partnership’ between the Crown and Maori. That invalid claim of partnership is the genesis for the introduction of co-governance arrangements introduced, quite often surreptitiously, that we are grappling with today.
The originating document of Maori activists’ quest for Maori sovereignty by 2040 is the Matike Mai Report of 2016.
Matike Mai was commissioned by the Iwi Chairs’ Forum (there’s that very powerful group again) following the signing of UNDRIP in 2010 by the National Government and was framed to clarify priorities for Maori self-determination and the pathways, including legislative, towards Maori sovereignty.
Matike Mai was to prepare the framework for what eventually morphed into the He Puapua Report.
The He Puapua document is a roadmap to Maori sovereignty by 2040. It proposes both a general government chamber (where Maori can sit) and a Maori chamber (for Maori only). What is never mentioned is; the Maori chamber would ultimately have final decision-making authority (via veto) in “Aotearoa”.
He Puapua is based on lies and deceit and was being implemented without an electoral mandate by an amoral Labour Government.
But I believe the most functional “coup” the activists have achieved is the implementation of the PIJF by Ardern’s Labour Government in 2020. Ostensibly to support news media through the Covid-19-induced downturn! Yeah Right!
As a part of the PIJF a publication A Tiriti Framework for News Media was produced. It specified a number of controversial political concepts that must be addressed in any reporting paid for out of the fund, such as:
- For news media, it is not simply a matter of reporting ‘fairly’, but of constructively contributing to te Tiriti relations and social justice
- As a result of colonisation, we live in a society that perpetuates racism and inequities
- As tangata whenua o Aotearoa, Maori have never ceded sovereignty to Britain or any other State
- He Whakaputanga/Declaration of Independence (1835) and te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840) asserted and continue to assert Maori sovereignty, and were signed by hapu and the Crown.
Almost exactly twenty-five years ago one politician very learned in treaty issues, Sir Doug Graham, said this in Parliament – “Once the Treaty had been confirmed, sovereignty, as it is commonly understood, passed from Maori to Britain. If Maori are still sovereign as some claim, then Maori have effectively terminated the Treaty and have no rights under it. They cannot have it both ways.”
Says it all doesn’t it?
Even the Human Rights Commission started to skew the facts by proclaiming –“The proven effectiveness of Maori leading their own solutions has been demonstrated numerous times in Aotearoa.”
Interestingly, John Key’s Government, in 2009, determined to allow the Tino Rangatiratanga flag to fly alongside the New Zealand flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. My goodness, weren’t Key, English, Finlayson et al. overly generous to the Maori leaders?
I do not believe they did not know the Tino Rangatiratanga flag is the emblem of Maori self-determination, sovereignty, independence and autonomy!
The Tino Rangatiratanga flag is now regularly flown at international cricket and women’s rugby, and at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in New Zealand 2023, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag took centre stage at every match.
Is this simply corporate “virtue signalling” or further evidence of the incremental creep of Maori sovereignty?
We are living in revolutionary times. It is a coup, engineered by a small number of tribal elite thanks to successive governments’ willingness to make politically convenient decisions that will, unless stopped, ultimately sacrifice New Zealand democracy for totalitarian tribal rule.
Donna Awatere, a 1970s activist for Maori causes, was accurately attuned to Kiwi apathy. Observing, “Pakeha politicians will continue to remain blind to virtually every aspect of the nationalists’ project, and that it is this, the Pakeha’s racist refusal to take Maori sovereignty seriously that offers its promoters their best chance of success.”
“Nah, it’ll never happen,” you say. Well, here are three very valid reasons why it might:
- Pervasive and persistent apathy by far too many people
- A complicit MSM that persists with slanted and distorted reporting of facts relating to the treaty
- A National Party that lacks the backbone to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and place democracy and equality at the forefront of its thinking and actions.
Oh, and by the way; Who do you think the separatists expect to fund Maori rule of New Zealand?
Why us, and of course the apathetic suckers who refuse to acknowledge what is happening right before their eyes!
As Plato said, “The price of apathy towards public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men.”