"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"-- Mark 8. v.34-38.
Winston Peters who is of Māori and Pākehā descent told voters in Howick that if NZ First were part of the next government, he would remove Māori names from government departments.
At a time when many in the country are striving to retain the Māori language and include Māori in decision-making, especially on environmental issues, and when many Treaty settlements are progressing but not yet concluded, this man turns his back on Māori taking part in the shaping of policies; while at the same time turning his back on part of his own inheritance. Another politician of part-Māori desācent, with physically less obvious Māori features, is Acts' David Seymour whose opinions on Māori issues are even worse than Peters'. What is it with these men that the pursuit of power has so perverted their values?
Peters says he's not attacking the Māori language but "the elite virtue signallers who have hijacked the language for their own socialist means ...This conceited, conniving, cultural cabal doesn’t represent hard-working ordinary Māori - they only seek to use Māori to further their own agenda."
Forget his cheap rhetoric about socialists, I'd challenge Peters to name one Māori leader who agrees with him, or a significant number of "hard-working ordinary Māori" who do not agree with their leaders.
He also said the tenets of co-governance were "based on a lie". "The simple fact is, Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown, because for years before 1840 they wanted law and order in their country, no matter how much the cultural Marxists want to try and re-write history." That's not what Pākehā scholars like Claudia Orange has to say or how the wording of Māori and English versions of the Treaty is seen by the Waitangi Tribunal or in international law.
Peters asks why we are putting up with this "bulldust." Perhaps because, if the polls are correct, so few of us would vote for NZ First.
For Winston Peters' address, click here.
Peters on kiwi identity. Click here.
For a related matter, click here.
-- ACW
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