Apparently the panel, with five Maori, one Pacific Islander, one Asian, and five non-Maori, is “…on the surface, stacked against more than three-quarters of the population”.  Makes me reluctant to even consider what might be going on below the surface!

“A government plan to dovetail New Zealand into tail-wagging Maorification must be resisted…the rabid property demands of Tuhoe – who want their own private fiefdom in the hills – are evidence of a brand of racial separation that has no place in New Zealand”.

Rather odd language from a newspaper that is usually a staunch defender of property rights.  It is well established that Tuhoe never sold or gave away their land in Te Urewera, and that Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finalyson, not generally described as one of the more radical figures in Cabinet,  favoured giving them back control of the land until sideswiped by John Key’s populist antennae.

“Economic growth and investment confidence should not be threatened or undermined by the potentially nation-fracturing agenda of a minority”.  I’m guessing they are talking about Maori here, rather than this NACT government.

This sort of divisive nonsense does NBR no credit, and serves no useful purpose.

p.s. There must have been something very strange in the coffee at NBR this week – in the same edition, Owen McShane informs us (while yet again railing against metropolitan urban limits and in favour of urban sprawl) that “EU bureaucrats invented the IPCC to punish our rural sector with ‘food miles’ and ‘bovine methane’. ” Who knew?

That’s not a worldview that I could ever sign up for, but nor is it one that gives cause for offence in an open democracy.

Unfortunately for them, Act supporters are at risk of being tarred with the racist brush, probably unfairly for the most part, given the latest outpouring of anti-Māori bile from their ‘leader’ Donald Thomas Brash.

A few months ago the best political theatre in town was the high farce of a former National party leader taking over the leadership of a party of which he was not a member, offering the MAD (mutually assured destruction) option of ‘make me your leader or I will call upon my rich mates to fund an alternative right wing party’.

Donald spoke of the renaissance of the right, a leap up the polls to 15% or more, of a new coalition that would put steel in the spine of the NACT coalition, etc, etc, etc….

In the real world of course Act continues to bounce along the bottom of the margin of error in the polls.  It has a much less assured grip on its security blanket electorate as some ambitious National party aspirants vie for the Epsom candidacy, and are unlikely to want to give Banks, that other former-Nat, the easy ride that Richard Worth allowed Rodney Hide in 2008.

Desperate times, so Donald reaches into his bag of dirty tricks and pulls out the race card, the same trick that worked (a bit) for him in 2004.  Māori, apparently, are a privileged lot who live off the fat of the land and enjoy enormous rights and privileges not available to non-Māori, and Donald doesn’t think it’s ‘fair’.

What seems to elude Donald Thomas is the reality of Māori featuring at the wrong end of all the statistics about health, education, employment, life expectancy, incarceration, housing, income – but then when did he ever let the facts get in the way of a politically expedient tall story?

For their own sake, you would think that a posse of Act-ites would lock their leader in a room with a couple of  Treaty educators, copies of some good social histories of New Zealand, a set of social and economic statistics, and maybe a copy of the new Wai 262 report.  Maybe if he worked his way through that lot he might get a clearer picture of reality – or could it be that he knows the truth already, but is willing to deny it and assert the opposite purely in the forlorn hope of political gain?

So I thought I’d take a look at Brash’s track record when he was an MP:

• 9 December 2004: Brash voted against the Civil Union Bill which provided for formal recognition of same sex relationships.

• 15 March 2005: Brash voted against various Bills arising from the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill which removed the discriminatory non-recognition of same sex relationships from various Acts.

• 22 February 2006: Brash voted against the Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Bill which removed the ability of Government to discriminate on the basis of age (in practice, to set youth rates) when setting the minimum wage.

• 15 March 2006: Brash voted for the Employment Relations (Probationary Employment) Bill, the precursor of the current Government’s fire at will law which removed employment rights for employees in their first 90 days of employment.

Seems the Brash “one law for all” dictum applies only when it preserves the privilege of straight, elderly, wealthy, white men.

Ian Dury, who was impaired by poliomyelitis, also wrote and performed a wonderful song Spasticus Autisticus, protesting against the patronising medical disability model that was prevalent at the time.  The BBC, in total ignorance of disability issues expounded by someone who was himself seriously impaired, promptly banned that song!

Anyway, from a hero to a zero, from the Blockheads to the Dickheads, here’s Larry Baldock’s  Dickheads!

From his Kiwi Party’s Constitution:

2.15    MEDIA:
The media play a vital role in a democracy informing citizens, facilitating public debate, and providing a forum in which differing voices can be heard. This important role carries with it responsibilities: to make a balanced and equitable selection of the facts of any matter to put before the public; to present information in an impartial fashion; and to ensure that every effort has been made to establish accuracy in reportage. Since the media has the power to shape social norms of conduct it has the responsibility to make a balanced selection of the facts of any matter to put before the public. It must therefore maintain high standards and make responsible, impartial and accurate choices when considering the content of programming and publications, especially in relation to sexuality, language, alcohol, drug use, violence, and inter-racial relationships. Government must ensure there are appropriate independent authorities with sufficient power to enforce these standards.

Translation:

Don’t go fucking with your own sex, boys and girls!  Because a Government-controlled media will persecute you when the Kiwi Party gets elected.  Oh, and just for good measure fuck only with people of your own race too.  We don’t want racial mixing and the dilution of good Christian white culture in New Zealand, and we will ensure by law the media will persecute you and the law will prosecute you if you do that too.

Thankfully, Larry Baldock’s Kiwi Party don’t feature in the polls.

Sadly, Ian Dury died young from cancer. Anyway, let’s celebrate diversity and disability.   Here’s Ian Dury’s classic song:

A highlight of my summer holiday is watching the tennis at the ASB stadium in Auckland. I don’t personally attend the stadium (the majority of the punters there seem to want to be seen, rather that being genuine tennis fans, and it is difficult to relate to them), but I rely on the TVNZ coverage on television.

Anyway, over the last few days the telecast of Te Karere has been bumped around from timeslot to timeslot to fit in around the tennis.

But tonight, a doubles match, involving New Zealander Marina Eracovic, was bumped after the first set, which she and her partner won, for ONE Network News, and then Masterchef UK and Coronation Street.

A very poor and racist look imo! If TVNZ are going to reschedule Te Karere to fit around the tennis, then surely they should reschedule ONE Network News (and the crap programmes that followed it).

Meanwhile, I wait until later tonight or tomorrow to see if TVNZ ever reschedule Marina Erakovic’s doubles match they so rudely interrupted for the Tau Iwi version of the news.

I am thoroughly sick of hearing failed National Party Leader Don Brash’s world view.  It is lamentably and consistently the “3 R’s”: Ronald (Reagan), Roger (Douglas) and Racism.

Brash covered all fields in his latest Return to Orewa effort, setting out the same divisive economic and racial agenda that back in 2005 lost him the chance of ever being Prime Minister.

He even went as far as to question whether the Maori Party should be allowed to exist.  While I have no great affinity with the Maori Party’s support for a Government that is reducing environmental protection, reducing workers’ rights and reducing social support for the vulnerable, Brash’s questioning the Maori Party’s right to exist is a step leap too far.  It cuts at the very heart of democratic principles, and suggests that people should be denied their democratic rights to organise as a political party.

What comes next? Ban the Green Party?

The upside of Brash’s speech is that it was to National Party faithful. While John Key is publicly relaxed, he will privately be spewing.  Brash set out in technicolour the agenda that some in National would like to move much more quietly towards – deregulation, privatisation, and denial of indigenous rights.

I suspect whoever in the National Party cleared Brash to deliver this speech will be (very quietly) getting his or her butt kicked right now.

But there may be an upside.  That would be the divisive impact Brash’s speech will have had among the National Party faithful, and the marginalization of Brash and his extremist economic and racial views by the National Party hierarchy.

I hope, but am not that confident,  it is finally bedtime for Bonzo Brash.

External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has described as “totally unacceptable” the remarks made by a TV talk show host in New Zealand against Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

The minister said that the High Commissioner of New Zealand has been asked to meet him.

Earlier this week, TV anchor Paul Henry made offensive remarks on air about how Dikshit’s name should be pronounced. He also made derogatory remarks about Indians.

It is poor taste to make childish scatalogical puns on a foreign politician’s name.  But the really offensive part of this is the slur that Henry casts on all Indians with his comment:

Its so appropriate, because she’s Indian, so she’d be dick-in-shit wouldn’t she, do you know what I mean?

Henry’s racist indiscretion is internationally embarrassing for New Zealand, and it is not surprising that it has now been escalated to a diplomatic level.  Surely TVNZ now have to do more than the slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket they delivered over his insults to Sir Anand Satyanand.

Update: There’s some video footage here from CNN-IBN showing how this is being portrayed in India (they wrongly state that TVNZ is a private station though).

Speaking at a small-business conference at Massey University yesterday, Mr Williamson said he would not discuss the Crafar issue specifically, but the general attitude to foreign investment was usually linked to the ethnicity of the buyer.

“The number of New Zealanders who don’t like the idea of overseas investment and think it’s really a bad thing, really sort of frightens me, and it’s really amazing that some of them have actually got Pommy accents.”

…

“So what’s a foreigner? A lot of it’s more to do with racism. If you look different, you’re a foreigner but if you come from the other side of the world, from Scotland, then you’re not.”

Williamson needs to have a word to his colleague, Finance Minister Bill English, who last month seemed to be pandering to the supposed racism Williamson criticises:

Public debate over the issue “would benefit from more information” such as where most buyers were based.

“Just a tiny fraction of approvals are from countries outside of the UK and the US, France and the Netherlands,” he said.

In reality, Williamson and English are both running racial interference, albeit from opposite sides of the field, for continued slack regulation on foreign investment.  The ethnicity of foreign purchasers is a red herring.

The real issues are that extensive foreign investment is driving up the price of rural land to an extent that it is unaffordable for many would-be New Zealand farmers to own their own farms. High land prices also force farmers to make the maximum possible return from their land through ecologically unsustainable farming practices. The consequences of this are increased greenhouse gas emissions, increasingly polluted waterways, loss of biodiversity and poor animal welfare practices.  Increased repatriation of profits overseas by foreign-owned farms will also continue to drive the widening of the current account deficit.

Williamson and English do a disservice to the debate on foreign investment by trying to divert if from the genuine economic and ecological concerns of New Zealanders to a debate about racism and race.

Something ugly crawled out from under a rock this week.  In response to the Government’s proposals to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act, some strange bedfellows have established the Coastal Coalition.  Its stated mission is: 

…that the foreshore & seabed is the common heritage of all New Zealanders and should remain in Crown ownership. 

The curious mix in this coalition includes John Ansell, the designer of Don Brash’s notoriously racist “Iwi-Kiwi” National Party 2005 campaign billboards.  Ansell is recycling that design concept for the Coastal Coalition, with billboards like the one above.  Also involved is former ACT Party Deputy Leader, Muriel Newman, who is the Administrator for the Coastal Coalition.  No surprises in that, either. 

Green Co-Leader Metiria Turei was quick to condemn the Coastal Coalition campaign: 

“John Ansell’s bill boards are designed to scare instead of educate,” Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said. 

John Ansell was behind the iwi/Kiwi National Party billboards that stirred racial tensions in the 2005 election. 

“This attempt to re-run the divisive and dishonest campaign from 2005 is sad. New Zealanders have moved on. 

“Scaremongering like this is disgraceful. It inflames and creates division between communities as well as utterly distorting the truth. 

“The issues surrounding the foreshore and seabed are about the treatment of Maori equitably under the law. The right to access the courts and the right to have customary title recognised and respected. 

What is surprising, though, is that the likes of Ansell and Newman, both from the hard right and with a history of racism, appear to have allies from the other end of the political spectrum.  The Coastal Coalition’s spokesperson is Hugh Barr, Secretary for Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations, whom Ansell himself describes as “centre left”.  Ansell also claims media commentator Chris Trotter, who has published and blogged arguments similar to those of the Coastal Coalition agenda, and Jim Anderton as supporters of their cause. 

The problem for those who perceive themselves to be  on the left joining this racially divisive and dishonest campaign is that there are already around 12,500 private titles over the foreshore and seabed.  If they believe the foreshore and seabed should all be in public ownership, they should be advocating nationalising those 12,500 private titles.  It is not a position I agree with, but it would at least be a consistent one – nationalise the lot, not just the bits Maori may have claim to. 

Those purportedly on the “left” supporting the Coastal Coalition risk exposing themselves as… [insert your preferred option from this blog post title].

He (Howard) would be fantastic. I know John well, I met him on numerous occasions when I was leader of the opposition and as prime minister. I think he’s been a tremendous leader of Australia, a great politician.

Key is about as wrong as he can get. Sure, Zimbabwe has been a strong supporter of the campaign against Howard, most likely as retribution for his support for the isolation of Zimbabwe cricket at the height of Mugabe’s despotism and atrocities in that country.  But that is about the only foreign policy initiative Howard ever got right.

Howard’s record in Australian domestic and foreign policy is one of pandering to, rather than combating, racism – an issue which is bound to be very sensitive in most of the ICC Test-playing nations which have themselves experienced racist colonial rule in the not so distant past.

Here’s a summary of Howard’s record:

• Howard stood alone amongst Australian political leaders on both sides of politics in the 1980s, in contrast to others like Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, in vehemently opposing sporting boycotts and economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
• In 1998, soon after coming to power, the Howard government enacted legislation that effectively took away the common-law land rights that the High Court had granted to Aborigines. Howard disallowed UN human rights officials from entering Australia and investigating further.
• Howard also set out to attack the reputation of Professor Henry Reynolds, a pre-eminent Australian historian whose 1981 book ‘The Other Side of the Frontier’ revealed the 19th-century assault on Aboriginal Australia. Howard used the services of a little-known, right-wing academic named Keith Windshuttle for this purpose.
• Howard refused to accept the recommendations of the 1997, the Human Rights Commission report – ‘Bringing Them Home’ – which estimated that more than 100,000 Aboriginal children fathered by whites were forcibly taken from their mothers as domestic servants, as a ‘hoax’. He refused to grant an official apology from the government and reparation for the victims as recommended.
• Howard’s Coalition government gave birth to a new campaign of racism against refugees with the decision to stop the Norwegian freighter Tampa from offloading 400 rescued, mostly Afghans. The Howard government whipped up a xenophobic nationalist hysteria about asylum seekers ‘flooding’ Australia’s shores.
• Just two days after calling the 2001 election, Howard whipped up paranoia by falsely accusing a group of Iraqi asylum seekers arriving by boat, of throwing their children into the ocean in an attempt to pressure an Australian warship into picking them up and taking them to Australia. The lie unraveled when naval officers, disgusted by the government’s actions, announced that the allegations were untrue.
• In 2003, Howard committed Australia to the illegal Iraqi invasion and war. He became the ‘true friend’ of George W. Bush, and offended Asian leaders when he announced that he was the ‘Deputy Sherriff’ of Bush who was ‘looking after’ the Asian region.  In joining the invasion, Howard announced: “We are determined to join other countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, its chemical and biological weapons, which even in minute quantities are capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale.” – another blatant lie.
• Howard also announced an openly racist government intervention into Aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory in 2007, after suspending the Racial Discrimination Act, on the pretext that Aboriginal children were being sexually abused.

It doesn’t reflect well on Key to call a man with such a record a “tremendous leader of Australia” and lobby for his ascending to the Presidency of the ICC.  Just as he didn’t understand how offensive his own unilateral cancelation of the Uruwera settlement and subsequent “I would have been the dinner” quip was to Ngāi Tūhoe, Key just doesn’t seem to understand how offensive Howard’s political record of racism is to post-colonial ICC member countries.

Hat Tip: Ajit Randeniya at Lankaweb

This prejudicial attitude is not new, particularly in Haden’s Auckland where some rugby fans have blamed the high number of Pasifika players for the poor performance of the Blues. Richard Boock described this feeling in a Sunday Star-Times column back in 2008. He described it as “a desperate backlash from an element who are clearly losing touch with the modern world. Presumably they feel the same way about Pacific Islanders fulfilling other roles in the community as well. I’m pretty sure there’s a name for that.”

I have looked at the recruitment pattern of the Crusaders and the statistics don’t support Haden’s claim about Pacific Island players. There have been plenty in the side. You would expect a fairly high European composition given that Canterbury is much whiter than the northern provinces. To their credit, the Crusaders have relied more on local players than most other Super 14 franchises, which has enhanced the strong community backing for the team – one of the secrets of their success. Canterbury-bred players, whatever their ethnicity, might also be a bit tougher than their Auckland counterparts. I speak as someone who regularly played schoolboy rugby on Saturday mornings in Hagley Park. It was a bit rugged being tackled on fields that still had ice on them.

It was wrong in the first place to appoint Andy Haden as an ‘ambassador’ for the rugby World Cup. Green Party Sport and Recreation Spokesperson Kevin Hague pointed out that Haden organized the 1986 Cavaliers rugby tour to apartheid South Africa and called the NZRU’s apology to Maori players a “waste of time”. Now after claiming having fewer “darkies” helps a team, Haden has to be sacked.

‘Fair and balanced‘ Fox News asked in an online poll what people thought the US Tea Party Movement is about.  Here are the results:

Thanks for that.  It has really helped to make my birthday a happy one.

He starts with a criticism of Hone, he attacks the Maori Party, he promotes unjust treaty settlements and he defends the discriminatory foreshore legislation. And all delivered to a predominately Pakeha audience. How could whanau and iwi and those on the progressive left respond in any other way but with severe criticism? What exactly was the message here, who was he really talking to and about what?

I personally struggle as to what it is I am most disappointed about in his speech.

Lets take the foreshore. Goff said, in defending legislation considered by many whanau, hapu and Pakeha to be indefensible:

But for all the criticism I have heard, most people accept that the current foreshore and seabed rules aren’t broken and they’re a good foundation for moving forward. They believe it’s good legislation for all New Zealanders….It’s hard to see why the country should be put through all the grief just to put a new brand on law that’s working…. If the foreshore and seabed issue is left for the courts to resolve, we could be tied up in knots for years. The government has a choice between sticking with the status quo, which guarantees access but allows for agreements around customary rights, and the alternative of never ending court battles….National wants to reopen the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Labour asks: What isn’t working? Will reopening court action help or would it see wounds fester?

Labour has never understood the impact of their utter rejection of Maori over the Foreshore. They have never understood the seriousness of slamming the door in the face of whanau and hapü over the issue. Because that was who really paid the price – the small coastal iwi and hapü who would never have the resources to fight or to lobby or negotiate.

Goff claims in his speech that the legislation is working because Ngati Porou did a deal with Labour under it, but what about Aitanga a Hauiti, who lost their treaty rights to their coastal rohe? Labour’s foreshore legislation picked the “large Maori corporates” as the winners and shut out the smaller iwi. Coincidentally, Goff also levelled this same criticism at National and the Maori Party in his speech:

Instead, it’s just done a deal to advantage some large Maori corporates, which other forestry companies do not get from the government, which will give the Maori corporates an estimated $1.75 billion. Let’s be clear. This deal will not benefit Maori as a whole.

I agree that the ETS deal won’t benefit whanau, but it’s completely inconsistent to then say the foreshore legislation was good because big iwi like Ngati Porou could benefit. Pot calling the kettle black.

The disloyalty by Labour to these smaller iwi was severe. It takes real leadership to say you got it wrong. Cullen’s, somewhat conditional back track on the foreshore issue in April this year certainly did not go that far, but it opened the door just a crack, showing they at least recognised a failure of judgement even as they tried to justify it.

Cullen’s position gave Labour some wiggle room over future foreshore changes. It is highly unlikely that much of the Labour scheme will change even if the Nats repeal the existing law. Labour could claim both some success of their scheme with the voters they wooed with the original act, and win some Maori support through a dignified acknowledgement that change was necessary.

At best, I could say that maybe Goff was trying to do that with this speech on the foreshore as there is some recognition of the Cullen position in it:

Back in 2004, Labour’s process on dealing with the issue, in a different environment, could have been better…

But when read alongside the other criticisms it still just comes across as anti whanau, intended or not.

Labour will be frustrated that National will get credit for foreshore reform despite their racist and despicable 2005 anti Maori campaign. But that’s one of the costs of losing an election, hell, we’re all pissed at that.

But this frustration mustn’t distort the bigger picture here: the progressive left must rebuild links with the diverse communities who are suffering under this government and that includes whanau and hapu. Goff, for all his possible intentions to build a sense of ‘nationhood’ simply delivered to National a great wedge with which to divide us.

“In South Africa it’s a big thing, racism, but in other countries, especially here and Australia, it’s big too, really big, you know,”

You only need to spend a quick moment looking at what being Maori, Pacific Islander, or indeed most other ethnicities than of Pakeha/European descent, means for your education, health, earning potential, housing, diet, deprivation and opportunities and it becomes fairly hard to defend the belief that racism exists only in South Africa.

It would be nice if the election this year spent some time highlighting what needs to be done to improve the equity of all those health and well being indicators. But somehow I suspect not. Race will probably be an election issue again this year but I doubt it will be for the reasons de Villiers has highlighted.