He Puapua Report "ruckus": Racism resurfaces (pn721). See also pn719.

Probably the most balanced, and certainly the most informative, article on the He Puapua Report is written by Ātea editor Leonie Hayden. Click to read before reading the rest of this posting.

An indication of the extent of the "ruckus" she describes can be seen in the number of articles on the topic listed in today's NZ Politics Daily (see below). Some see reactions to the report as a desparate political ploy by Judith Collins to win votes; others support Collins's conspiracy theory or say at the very least Government has some answering to do; while others say no answers are needed because the report has not yet been considered by Cabinet. The time for questions and answers will come later.

Here's the list of today's NZ Politics Daily articles.  Click on the highlighted area to to read them.

He Puapua document and the National Party
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Whose race card is this anyway? Judith Collins and David Seymour both appear to have found the same wedge issue
Graham Adams (Stuff): Ardern on a hot tin roof over He Puapua plan to share power with Māori
Claire Trevett (Herald): Judith Collins' has grabbed the agenda on 'separatism', the PM needs to grab it back (paywalled)
Jade Kake (Stuff): Sorry, Judith, you're wrong about the Treaty and property rights
Richard Harman: Keeping He Puapua from Winston and Shane (paywalled)
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): He Puapua wasn't released over concern it could be misconstrued as Government policy - Jacinda Ardern
Leonie Hayden (Spinoff): He Puapua: The Indigenous peoples report that caused a NZ political ruckus
Michael Neilson (Herald): He Puapua: Draft Cabinet paper revealed over Māori self-determination report
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Andrew Little says he moved to create Māori Health Authority without reading report Judith Collins says inspired it
Zane Small (Newshub): Judith Collins' claims about Government acting on He Puapua Māori co-governance report thrown into doubt by Andrew Little
Katie Scotcher (RNZ): Draft cabinet paper on future of He Puapua report revealed
1News: Collins says her speech about 'separate systems' for Māori well-received by National party members and MPs
RNZ: He Puapua report: Government has nothing to hide - Ardern
The Civilian: Collins warns Government is planning separatist New Zealand with special car parks and gender segregated bathrooms

Beyond Conspiracy  

Not wasting any time, the Michael Bassett, Don Brash and Rodney Hide website links to a Hobson's Choice petition (see below) asking us to demand the report—which has not yet even been dicussed in Cabinet, let alone Parliament— be trashed. 

 It goes far beyond denouncing He Puapua's assumed future provisions, however,  by calling for all existing legislation and provisions concerning Māori to be removed.

Goodbye Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal, Ministry of Māori-Crown Relations, Māori participation in water and foreshore and seabed issues, Māori urban wards, and Māori electorates and seats in parliament.  Goodbye efforts to redress issues in the teaching of history in schools. Goodbye to attempts to redress the appalling Māori health and prison statistics.   And even, God bless us all, Goodbye Aotearoa and Hello to  new passports using Nu Tirani  instead of Aotearoa. (The former is a transliteration of New Zealand and hardly a Māori word,  They falsely say Aotearoa is a post-Treaty invention.)  How far —and how petty— can they go! 

Two-faced, they claim we are all equal while continuing to demean everything Māori.  As one writer writing of Michael Bassett said, it's incredible how prejuduce can undermine intelligence.  Scratch the surface, and there's more personal and institutional racism in NZ than we care to admit.

Petition: We, the undersigned citizens of New Zealand, demand that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Government reject outright and cease implementing all aspects of the two-government plan as described in He Puapua, the report of the working group on a plan to realise the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in NZ.

That would mean:

• No two-governments,
• No written constitution based on the radical reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi created by the Waitangi Tribunal in the 1980s,
• Disestablishing the Waitangi Tribunal, which has shown by its decisions that it has outlived its usefulness,
• Disestablishing the Ministry of Maori-Crown Relations, which is entrenching racial separatism,
• No separate health, welfare, judiciary, prison, or any other such government agency set up for a single ethnic group,
• Ending all dialogue between the Government and the Independent Monitoring Mechanism group.
• A declaration that water is owned by all citizens of New Zealand,
• Restoring the right for citizens to petition for votes on proposals for Maori wards in local government,
• Holding a binding referendum on whether to continue with or disestablish the Maori seats in Parliament,
• Suspending work on the proposed school NZ history curriculum, because the draft is flawed and politicised beyond redemption,
• Restoring public ownership of the marine and coastal area,
• Requiring the correct use of the name of our country, which is New Zealand, on passports, and all government documents. The Treaty-based Maori name for New Zealand is Nu Tirani.

 

We, Maori and non-Maori alike, are in this together. We ask that we be treated fairly and equally.

Fairly and equally. Yes. But fairness may need people to be treated differently. Equality is not sameness. 

-- ACW