The poison pill smuggled in with the Indian FTA

Another Constitutional Trojan Horse: advancing change through political stealth

FOR ALL THE FOOLISH NONSENSE about "tsunamis" talked about the Indian-NZ Free Trade Deal, there is a genuine issue that Gary Judd KC has identified in reading through it, and it's not about free trade or butter chicken. It's about a poisonous clause inserted at the obvious behest of the NZ negotiators. 

"The striking feature of this Free-Trade Agreement," notes Judd, "is that it brings the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into the text of a trade treaty. That is not a side issue. It is a political and constitutional declaration inserted into an agreement that is supposed to be about trade. ... New Zealand’s Free-Trade Agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union refer to indigenous rights and Māori participation. But the India agreement goes further. It is the first to affirm UNDRIP expressly. That is a significant escalation."

Why the hell is it there?

Everything points to this UNDRIP wording having been included at New Zealand’s initiative, not India’s. India appears to have agreed only on condition that its longstanding reservation was recorded. There is no obvious reason why India would want UNDRIP written into a trade agreement with New Zealand. ...

If it truly changed nothing, it would not be there. The obvious reason for including it is not trade with India but politics within New Zealand. A trade agreement is being used to advance a domestic constitutional and political agenda. That is an abuse of the treaty-making process. A provision with no real trade function, but clear ideological value at home, has no legitimate place in a Free-Trade Agreement.

Once this affirmation is in a ratified treaty, it will inevitably be invoked inside New Zealand as proof that the country is committed to UNDRIP in a serious and operative way, not merely in some airy symbolic sense. Lawyers, activists and judges will be invited to treat it as yet another marker of state commitment. To dismiss that as mere technicality would be naive.

You'll remember that Helen Clark, as Prime Minister, was astute enough to have her UN representative vote against the Declaration -- one of only four nations to oppose.  (As Judd notes: "India voted in favour (see here) but immediately made it clear that it did so subject to an important reservation. That same reservation now reappears in the FTA.")

It was John Key who blithely acceded to signing up simply in order to bolster his parliamentary support from Pita Sharples's Maori Party. 

What Key casually signed away was not trivial, as we saw when Ardern's Labour Government began drawing up the He Puapua document under UNDRIP's impetus. "He Puapua is not a minor discussion paper," Judd reminds us. "It is a blueprint for major constitutional change, including forms of co-governance. One example is paragraph 15: 'If they choose, Maori must be able to participate in Crown governance."

Clark's objection to the Declaration was principled, and what Clark's UN representative  Rosemary Banks said about it then is as valid now: Four provisions in the Declaration in particular were [and still are] "fundamentally incompatible with New Zealand’s constitutional and legal arrangements, [with] the Treaty of Waitangi, and [with] the principle of governing for the good of all its citizens."

What were those four provisions?

• Article 26 stated that indigenous peoples had a right to own, use, develop or control lands and territories that they had traditionally owned, occupied or used. For New Zealand, the entire country was potentially caught within the scope of the article, which appeared to require recognition of rights to lands now lawfully owned by other citizens, both indigenous and non-indigenous, and did not take into account the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned. The article, furthermore, implied that indigenous peoples had rights that others did not have.
• The entire country would also appear to fall within the scope of article 28 on redress and compensation. The text generally took no account of the fact that land might now be occupied or owned legitimately by others, or subject to numerous different or overlapping indigenous claims.
• Finally, the Declaration['s articles 19 and 32] implied that indigenous peoples had a right of veto over a democratic legislature and national resource management, she said. She strongly supported the full and active engagement of indigenous peoples in democratic decision-making processes. New Zealand also had some of the most extensive consultation mechanisms in the world. But the articles in the Declaration implied different classes of citizenship, where indigenous had a right to veto that other groups or individuals did not have.

In short, the Declaration set up two standards of citizenship based on race, and a legal veto over other's property based on ancestry. Clark understood that. Key was too dim.

And so too are Luxon and Todd McClay, who either called for this clause's insertion in the Indian FTA themselves, or were insufficiently astute to have seen it there and taken out.

The He Puapua programme itself was begun without explicit acknowledgement of its goals. Those goals, indeed its very existence, were only revealed when it began to seem that some underlying framework was at play in Willy Jackson's and Nanaia Mahuta's legislative agenda.  Turns out there was. Media organisations uncovered the document, who then obtained it under the Official Information Act, and it was finally released only in April 2021 after pressure from the Ombudsman. "That is not transparent government," points out Judd. "It is disclosure dragged out by resistance."

The irony is that the same thing is happening here. 

Neither Government appears ready to argue openly for setting up two standards of citizenship based on race and ancestry.

Instead, they have to do it by stealth.

Gary Judd explains the danger in detail here, including illustrations "why ratifying the FTA in its present form is not a harmless gesture." I recommend the read.

He concludes:

What is most objectionable in all this is the contempt it shows for ordinary New Zealanders. Constitutional change of this magnitude should be argued for openly, defended honestly and submitted to democratic judgment. Instead, it has been advanced by ministers, officials and sympathetic elites through opaque processes, delayed disclosure and legal increment. That is no way to alter the foundations of a country.

The obvious remedy is greater democratic control. If politicians, officials or judges wish to drive constitutional change, they should have to defend it before the public in clear terms and win consent for it, not smuggle it through advisory reports, bureaucratic process or the fine print of a trade treaty.

That is the real issue raised by this agreement: not trade, but whether constitutional change in New Zealand will occur by democratic choice or by political stealth.

"The blight of Pauline Hanson is that her dumb bigotry offers a fantasy."

Former Aus PM Paul Keating -- aka the Lizard of Oz -- has deservedly unloaded on the pathetic race-baiting of newish Aus Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor.  "Many people, me included, wished him well in fighting One Nation with a conservatism anchored in principles. How dispiriting is his cowardice."

The Liberal party, battling an extreme version of itself – One Nation – has again fallen back to its default political policy: racism.

Angus Taylor, announcing a policy at primary odds with an immigrant nation, says a Liberal government under his leadership will adopt Trump ICE-style policies to weed and “boot out” people who fail to adhere to “national values” and who are responsible for the erosion of national culture including the Balkanisation of communities.

And, to hammer the point, sitting beside Taylor at his policy launch was Mr Racial Opportunism himself, John Winston Howard, late of anti-Asian migration in 1988 – the picket fence suburban racism of his first round as Liberal leader, and the wilful anti-humanitarianism of his electorally-driven Tampa atrocity of 2001. ...

Angus Taylor came to the Liberal leadership with a reputation of being mainstream Liberal; that is, a keeper of the Liberal party’s best longer-term instincts both in social and economic policy.

And many people, myself included, wished him well in consolidating the Liberal base and in fighting One Nation with a conservatism anchored in principles. If not righteous, decent.

But by adopting racism with its shabby appeal to differentiation and primal instincts, Angus Taylor marks himself out as a political leader unworthy of the leadership of a party that has managed Australia for the greater part of the last century and which celebrated the country’s unifying values.

Racism is not simply immoral and abhorrent, it is absurd. The notion that some of us are in some way different to the rest of us – in some way born differently, of some alien biology. ...

The blight of Pauline Hanson is that her dumb bigotry offers a fantasy. The fantasy that Australia in the modern age can return to a monoculture. A monoculture which fails to acknowledge or accept that a continent of our scale is able to turn its back on the multilateralism of neighbouring states or on the vitality of their societies. And, more than that, shun them while disparaging any contribution they may make or bring to us as migrants.

How dispiriting for the rest of us is Angus Taylor’s cowardice in not even attempting to stand and argue for principles that have been integral to Australia’s strength – principles his party has long championed.

RELATED:

=>Welfare State Leaves Boat-People to Die

Thursday, 30 August 2001, 11:01 am | Libertarianz Party

"New Zealanders who wish the 434 Afghan refugees on board the Tampa moored off Christmas Island would just 'go away' are exposing the dark underbelly at the heart of the Welfare State," says Libertarianz Leader Peter Cresswell....

=>Better Way for Boat-People

Thursday, 30 August 2001, 11:06 am | Libertarianz Party

"There is a better way forward for politicians wrestling with a way to deal with the 434 homeless Afghan refugees that no country wants to admit," suggested Libertarianz leader Peter Cresswell today....

"Too often ‘multiculturalism’ is mistaken for ‘multiracialism'"

"Too often ‘multiculturalism’ is mistaken for ‘multiracialism,’ when the two could not be more different. A multiracial society is one in which people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law. A multicultural society is one in which people are encouraged to ghettoise themselves according to national or cultural identity."

~ Andrew Doyle from his book The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution [hat tip Gary Judd]

BOOK REVIEW: 'Who Was Behind the Bolshevik Revolution?' by Ron Asher [updated with reply by publisher]

I have in front of me a new book by Tross Publishing, which I have been invited to review. Having written a chapter or two for the publisher, it is my unpleasant job not just to recommend you not buy it, but that the publisher withdraw it. (Recommending withdrawal is not a matter of "free speech" -- the right to speak includes the right to take the consequences, including criticism -- simply a recommendation for good editorial hygiene.) Withdraw, because it sits poorly with his other titles, because it sits badly with genuine scholarship on any subject. ...

... and because it's not even a good read.

In 1917 in the midst of a war for survival on the First World War's eastern front, Bolshevists seized power from a provisional Russian government fighting the war, and proceeded to enact terror on the population and thereafter on the world. Far from a revolution, it was a squalid little coup, and what came of it was disaster, starvation, death, and mass-murder. 

There had been a revolution that swept away the Tsar -- swept away him and his autocratic regime -- what Ayn Rand was to call "the good revolution." But it wasn't the Bolsheviks who revolted against the Tsar's regime; they came to power instead in a squalid little backdoor coup eight months later -- orchestrated in part by the Imperial German High Command, who had sent Lenin into Russia to kill the war on their terms -- a backroom revolt that stabbed in the back the Provisional Government and squashed like a bug Russia's first stumbling chance at real freedom. 

The Bolsheviks didn't sweep away oppression; they brought it back.

And our friend Mr Asher has now written 93 pages (and 5 pages of notes) to tell us who really did it. And oddly, the important wartime context is never mentioned ...

The wartime context of the coup. (From Louis Fischer's

 The Life of Lenin (NY: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 109

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT WAS SUPPOSED TO have said that "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

This short book claims to reveal who was really behind the Bolshevik Revolution. Really and truly. And it will do so, we are promised, "with meticulous care and references" [p. 5; all uncredited page notes will refer to Mr Asher (2026)]. Take careful note: This is not a book about the ideas that caused the event in question. It is about the people. And, spoiler alert, our author says it was the Jews wot dunnit. They were driven to it, says the author, because they were Jews. 

That's it. That really is it.

And note the argument: it wasn't that those who driven to it because they happened to be Jews. They were driven to it because they were Jews. It was "vengeance," says our author, for earlier Russian pogroms against Jews. Or just because their religion was weird. Or ... something.

A remarkable claim, not least because head Bolshevik and the revolution's driving force was one Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was not at all Jewish. (He was raised in a Russian Orthodox Christian family, baptised as an infant, and identified culturally and ethnically as Russian; historians who have examined distant links, such as the author of Lenin's Jewish Question, emphasise any link was irrelevant to his identity, ideology, or actions: he critiqued all religion, including Judaism, and saw ethnicity as secondary to class struggle). Nor was Lenin's successor known as Stalin any more Jewish (he was, famously, an ethnic Georgian christened as Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili), and nor was the head of Lenin's feared secret police, the Cheka (the brutal Feliz Dzerzhinsky, who was a Pole). 

None of the heads of the snake were Jewish.

Indeed, of the 21 members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party in August 1917, there were at most just six who could be categorised that way. Such niceties however do not disturb our author. (Indeed, he adds three more, without any reference for doing so.) 

And in any case.a similar ethnic make-up can be found for many other Russian movements of the time, including the Russian Orthodox priesthood, the rival Menshevik party (whose founders were both Jewish, and which actually had double the proportion of ethnic Jews to the Bolshies), and of course the Jewish Bund (a secular Jewish socialist party active between 1897 and 1920). A similar make-up can be found because any intellectual movement attracts intellectuals -- and Jewish Russians were among the most educated of the time, and were barred by the Tsar's regime from other political involvement.

So the claim is not just remarkable for being bold, but also (as we will see) for lacking the kind of "meticulous care and references" the boldness demands. It's true that historians of the various Russian revolutions and coups d'etat have generally recognised that Jews were represented in early Bolshevik leadership, but so were many other educated ethnic minorities who all faced persecution under the Tsar. (Most of whom were excluded by being non-Russian from advancement in Russian culture or in the vast Russian bureaucracy.) And of course the vast majority of Jews were not Bolsheviks, and Jews as a community suffered enormously under Soviet rule.

This is especially important today to understand. The book comes at a time when ethnic Russian fascism and anti-Semitism has escalated dramatically following Putin's insane aspirations for empire, and Hamas's murderous October 7 attack followed by Israel's bloody response. It's said that Hamas's “Sinwar placed his money on the 2,000-year belief that Jews were inherently vengeful, greedy, and lustful for the blood of innocents and children [and] in betting on Jew-hatred, Sinwar hit the jackpot."  

The irrational hatred continues even here in New Zealand, once considered a relatively safe environment for Jewish folk, and yet the NZ Jewish Council recorded 227 antisemitic incidents in the 12 months following October 7 -- more than the 166 recorded across the entire eight-and-a-half years prior.

So things are ramping up, and you might well ask yourself about such a book's publication: "Why now?" 

And about the thesis, even if proven: "So what?"

WHILE YOU PONDER THOSE QUESTIONS, consider again what such a proof might look like -- proof that it was the Jews wot dunnit -- and about that promise of "meticulous care and references." 

Let's begin by looking at some contemporary (or near-contemporary) quotes adduced by Mr Asher to describe the Bolshevik coup and the Jews' alleged responsibility for it: some examples drawn from a diplomat's alarmed despatch, a gossip columnist's interview, a White Russian general's memoir, and a State Department intelligence file drawing on a known forgery -- all of which are treated as equivalent historical evidence ...

"A political movement based on race implies that your whakapapa defines your politics...."

"Let’s talk about te Pāti Māori. A political movement based on race. ...

"A political movement based on race implies that your whakapapa defines your politics....

"The idea that your politics is defined by your whakapapa is antithetical to the principles of modern democracy. That every man is created equal. That we should judge a person by the content of their character and not the colour of their skin. ...

"It is true that many Māori continue to struggle and there are obstacles their children face that the offspring of other kiwis do not. Prejudice, poverty and a legacy of failed policies create barriers that make success harder to achieve. We can acknowledge these truths and consider strategies to address these concerns without distorting of our history.

"In New Zealand ancestry is not destiny. This has not always been true. We must be vigilant to ensure that, in this country, an individual’s future is not defined by their heritage."

~ Damien Grant from hos column 'Let’s talk about te Pāti Māori. A political movement based on race'

"Is the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is.

"The latest 'Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026' presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand’s social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori. ...

"'The over representation of Māori tamariki and rangatahi in state care [is said to] reflect ... the enduring impacts of colonisation and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ... disproportionate inequities are due to current systems and the lasting impacts of colonisation ... and institutional racism...'
    '[T]angata whenua experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ... disrupts connections to te ao Māori and limits the ability to exercise tino rangatiratanga. ...'
    'Colonial policies, land alienation and the imposition of state justice systems that do not represent partnership have had long‑lasting effects that continue to shape Māori experiences in the criminal justice system today.' ...

"The [report's] 'Maori lens' response run to pages. ... 

"[I]s the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is. ...

"In the face of this report the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A litany of excuses'

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore."

 

"Today [now yesterday] is the last Tuesday of January. It is a date that should matter more in New Zealand’s political memory than it does.

"On the last Tuesday of January in 2004, Dr. Don Brash stood at the Orewa Rotary Club and delivered what remains one of the most important political speeches given in this country in modern times. It was calm, forensic, unapologetic and, most importantly, correct.

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore.

"Brash opened by setting out five priorities that would be familiar to anyone paying attention today. Declining relative incomes compared with Australia. An education system failing the least privileged. Welfare dependency eroding personal responsibility. A justice system more concerned with offenders than victims. And finally, the issue he focused on that night, the dangerous drift toward racial separatism and the entrenchment of what he rightly called the treaty grievance industry.

"That phrase alone was enough to end his political career.* Not because it was wrong, but because it was accurate."

~ Matua Kahurangi from his post 'The last Tuesday of January and the speech New Zealand still refuses to confront'

* To be fair,  his political career didn't end immediately; but it had been put on notice. Even a near-reversal in National's worst-ever election loss under Bill English wasn't enough to save it.

"They can call off the search for the 2026 Australian of the Year award. We have him already. His name is Ahmed al Ahmed."

"Every January, on Australia Day, someone is named Australian of the Year. They can call off the search for the 2026 award. We have him already. His name is Ahmed al Ahmed. He’s 43, a father of two and a shopkeeper. And today he stunned the world with an act of staggering heroism: he single-handedly tackled and disarmed one of the fascist filth who carried out the massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach in Sydney. ...

"There were other heroes, too. We’ve seen footage of Aussies tending to the wounded, breathing life back into the injured. ... Let us hope these Australians are commended and rewarded for taking such a valiant stand against the evil that visited the Jews of Sydney today. These men and women speak to the true spirit of Australia. ...

"These heroes also remind us that terrorists can be defeated. They can be disarmed. They can be stripped of their power, just like that.

"It won’t always be possible, of course. But where it is, we should strike. Too much official guidance tells us to scarper. ... too many people look the other way when tyranny strikes – or worse, stand and film it. ...

"Bravery finds a way, though. The human instinct to help is not so easily crushed. One thinks of the men who hurled beer glasses and chairs at the three radical Islamists who went on a stabbing spree in London Bridge in 2017. Or Ignacio Echeverría, the Spanish national who used his skateboard to beat one of those London Bridge terrorists (sadly, he was subsequently killed). And now Ahmed al Ahmed, the forty-something conqueror of a modern-day Nazi. ...

["T]he violent loathing that shook Sydney today did not emerge in a vacuum. .. If more of us had ‘had a go’ earlier, perhaps we could have seen off, or at least tamed, this gravest menace in Western society.

"Don’t wait until it turns violent. ‘Have a go’ now. If you see someone carrying a placard calling Jews Nazis, get in their face. If you see a keffiyeh mob outside a synagogue, confront them. If you see a frothing Islamist or leftist harassing a Jew in public, put yourself between the scumbag and his victim. Don’t run, hide and tell – stand, fight and tell them to fuck off. Enough is enough. Get out there."

~ Brendan O'Neill from his post 'Like the heroes of Bondi, we should all be tackling anti-Semites'

"Te Pāti Māori’s obsession with dividing people by ancestry belongs in the past. The rest of us should be focused on equality before the law."

"Te Pāti Māori’s obsession with dividing people by ancestry belongs in the past. The rest of us should be focused on equality before the law, something that the so-called colonial system has [had?] already delivered better than anything tikanga-based governance ever could."

~ Matua Kahurangi from his post 'David Seymour exposes the fraud of the anti-colonial crusade' [hat tip HomePaddock]

"Decide together to be Separate?"

"New Zealand is a hopelessly confused country where people ... use the same words to mean different things

"TV and social media imagery is overloaded with couples of mixed ethnicity. ... The bi-cultural images aren't a problem. They reflect statistics ie fact, that more Maori partner with non-Maori than with Maori. ... New Zealand is a country where the first settlers welcomed and joined together, literally, with the later settlers.

"But change screens and consider the next image:

"'Decide together, Thrive together.'

"'Decide together' to be Separate? It's like deciding together to a divorce.

"Separate rolls for Maori. Separate wards and separate electorates. By any stretch of the imagination, that is not togetherness. ...

"To thrive together requires individuals to put their humanity before their ethnicity."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A Confused Country'

"Toitū Te Tiriti’s vision for New Zealand would result in a complete fracturing of our country and systems."

"Eru Kapa-Kingi ... [threw out a call this week] to reshape New Zealand’s constitutional order, to carve out areas of separate governance, and to take steps toward a future where Māori and non-Māori live under completely separate systems.

"This is not even a conversation about co-governance anymore. This is a manifesto for secession. ...

"Eru Kapa-Kingi is not a random activist shouting into the void. ... He is politically connected, academically legitimised, and strategically placed to influence the next generation of lawyers and activists. His writing is not just a personal opinion. It is a roadmap for the movement that is inextricably connected to Te Pāti Māori.

"[He] rejects the Treaty settlement process altogether ... [calling instead] for restoring Māori authority over whenua rangatira*, creating hapū-based systems of decision-making outside of Crown control.

"This is not the 'partnership' that New Zealanders have been told must exist for the past several decades. This is not collaborative nor inclusive. It is parallel sovereignty with the Crown ejected. It is constitutional revolution, internal secession, ethno-national partition, annexation, balkanisation. ...

"[Kapa-Kingi is the leader of] Toitū te Tiriti ... the activist movement at the heart of the new push for Māori sovereignty. It emerged in 2023 as a coalition of iwi leaders, activists, and academics opposing the Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, and quickly became the most organised expression of resistance to Crown authority in recent memory.

"Toitū te Tiriti is not merely 'aligned' with Te Pāti Māori, it is stitched into the party’s very fabric. ...

"Its kaupapa goes far beyond repealing specific legislation or opposing the Treaty Principles Bill. It calls for a complete constitutional reset and the recognition of tino rangatiratanga as an independent source of authority. In effect, Toitū te Tiriti is building the intellectual, legal, and activist framework for Māori self-government that operates separately to the Crown. ...

"Toitū te Tiriti functions as both the conscience and the shock troops of Te Pāti Māori, pulling the Overton window toward a future where Crown authority is eroded piece by piece.

"The strategy is pretty sophisticated. But it isn’t new. ...

"Toitū Te Tiriti’s vision for New Zealand would result in a complete fracturing of our country and systems."

~ Ani O'Brien from her post 'The path to the balkanisation of New Zealand' 

* Whenua rangatira translates to “chiefly land” or “paramount land.” In context, it refers to land that is considered ancestrally significant, collectively owned, and central to the mana of an iwi or hapū. When activists or scholars refer to whenua rangatira, they are usually talking about land that should remain in collective Māori control (not sold off or alienated under Crown law) and that carries a spiritual and political significance, not just economic value.

"Real justice means more than equal treatment," apparently

"Labour’s Māori Labour’s Māori caucus fully intends to regain the dominant influence it had during the Ardern-Hipkins government of 2017-23. ...

"[W]hether ... pushback is even possible for [Hipkins] remains moot given it has been observed that [he] can only hang onto the leadership as long as he has the support of his Māori MPs. ...

"Journalists don’t ask Hipkins very often about Labour’s dedication to co-governance and the Treaty as a 'partnership' but it is certain to become an area of contention in the 14 months until the election no matter how much Hipkins wants to avoid it. Particularly, of course, if Peeni Henare and his fellow Māori MPs publicly advocate for it. ...

"Henare’s pledges to electors in the Tāmaki Makaurau seat have been described by some commentators as 'radical.' While that is true, it is equally true they simply represent the same radical policies Ardern and her Māori caucus foisted on an unsuspecting public after Labour gained an outright majority in 2020." 

~ Graham Adams from his post 'By-election puts co-governance in spotlight'

Meanwhile ...

"Human rights law is being used in Aotearoa New Zealand to block Māori aspirations, according to new research by Auckland Law School Associate Professor Andrew Erueti ... Erueti contrasts two competing models for understanding Indigenous rights: a liberal model, based on equal treatment under the law, which tends to limit Māori authority; and a decolonisation model, which recognises that Māori held political authority long before the state existed.

"'And that self-determination means restoring that authority on Māori terms,' he adds. ... 'Real justice means more than equal treatment' ..."

~ from the Auckland University puff piece 'Human rights used to limit Māori governance - academic'

"The state keeps pretending we are a nation of 'two peoples.' But that’s not true."

"There’s a quiet word baked into New Zealand legislation that’s been doing a lot more damage than people realise: bicultural. ...
    "It’s the linguistic gateway for race-based privilege, mandatory consultation with iwi, spiritual red tape like karakia and 'wairua health,' and culturally enforced obligations that ordinary citizens are expected to obey — often at a financial or legal cost. ...
    "It’s apartheid by paperwork. It's not inclusion — it’s a soft form of segregation, dressed up in government branding. The state keeps pretending we are a nation of 'two peoples.' But that’s not true. ...
    "Anthropology makes this obvious. New Zealand law does not."

~ John Robertson from his post ' Why the Word “Bicultural” Needs to Be Erased from New Zealand Law'

Seymour's Bill is frightening the luvvies so much they can't read

DAVID SEYMOUR'S REMARKABLY TEPID Regulatory Standards Bill is getting frightened and bewildered luvvies to put down their lattes and type indignant emails to their MPs.

Fuel for many of this outraged commentariat (Anne Salmond was the first; Brian Easton is the latest) is provided by a book-length screed by one Quinn Slobodian called Hayek's Bastards, "The premise of Quinn Slobodian’s new book," says the bookplate, "is that authoritarian right-wing populism is a mutated version of classical liberal economics." A version labelled "neoliberalism" by its opponents.

A counter-intuitive thesis to be sure, So I checked on some actual classical liberals to see what they thought of the book. (Pointless asking Trump followers, since we know none of them can read. Or "neoliberals," none of whom actually exist.)

Phil Magness, an economic historian  who most recently convinced over 150 economists and scholars to sign a declaration opposing Trump's economically harmful, constitutionally dubious tariff policies, wonders aloud at the absurdity of the book's central thesis. Which is Slobodian's apparent conviction "that Trumpism traces its intellectual origins to the Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises." This would undoubtedly astonish all three. 

Slobodian's attempts to link the three suffers, Magness says wryly, "from a lack of clear evidence for the parentage. Undeterred, Slobodian supplies the links by making them up."

As they say, if you have to lie to make up your criticisms, it suggests you probably don't have any.

Slobodian of course relies on the fact that few if any of his credulous readers will bother to actually read Hayek or Mises. (Easton for one would benefit hugely from the experience.) But if you want a candid study of how to quote somebody to say the precise opposite of what they say — in this case Mises quoting others to denounce their racial prejudice is used to suggest their vile views are his own — then Magness's review is a good place to start. 

This is not even sleight of hand. It's a conjurer simply assuming his audience are too dumb to notice. "Deliberate deception" is how another commentator describes it. It's a consistent pattern. Here's Slobodian in 2015, for example, showing how to get Mises to support something he was writing to oppose:

Slobodian demonstrates his pattern of ripping quotes from their
context to give the opposite impression of an author's intention.

It's complete dishonesty: a "scurrilous  ... slipshod attempt to taint and tarnish the reputation of one of the leading economists of the 20th century, and one of the most consistent and outspoken defenders of the classical liberal ideal of political, social and economic liberty and the free society," says Misesian Richard Ebeling in his response to the deception.

We live at a time when one of the worst accusations that can be thrown at someone is the charge of “racist.” Have that word tied to your name and it not only results in moral condemnation, it potentially throws into discredit almost anything and everything that person has said or done. That makes it a serious matter when an individual never identified with such racist views or values has that accusation attached to them. ... The actual facts show this is a fundamentally baseless accusation that attempts to taint and tarnish the reputation of one of the leading economists of the 20th century ...

[O]ne of the most embarrassing observations that can made about an author’s work [is] being slipshod scholarship. Professor Slobodian has 93 footnotes in his article. Over 50 of them reference Mises’s writings or correspondence. Looking them up, I found many instances in which the page reference to a paraphrase of a passage or a quote in one of Mises’s works was not to be found where Professor Slobodian indicated it to be.

In some instances, this was not simply being off a page or two; the page referenced turned out to be in a portion of one of Mises’s works that had nothing to do with the theme or idea that Professor Slobodian was referring to....

In addition, there are instances in which Professor Slobodian asserts or implies views or states of mind held by Mises at some point in time. But the footnoted reference sometimes refers to some other scholar’s work that when looked up did not refer to or imply anything about Ludwig von Mises. For example, at one point (p. 4), Professor Slobodian says, “But for Mises, a war had shaken him the most. Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905 brought about a non-white power into the elite white club of empires. The event resonated with the rhetoric of the ‘yellow peril’ widespread at the turn of the century, understood as both a racial demographic and commercial threat.” And he footnotes a[nother author's] work about Asian intellectuals in the period before the First World War.

Professor Slobodian then says, “Mises’s response was different but no less radical,” and then references how Mises [allegedly] saw the economic significance of increased global competition from Asia ... The juxtapositioning of these two ideas, one following the other, easily creates the impression that Mises, while having a “different” response, was part of the group worried about a “yellow peril.

There is nothing to suggest in Mises’s writings actually referenced that he held or expressed any such race-based fear in the wake of the Japanese victory over Russia. But the implication is easily left in the reader’s mind.

Slobodian is fundamentally dishonest.

Christopher Snowdon has more:

The first two chapters find Slobodian searching for hints of racial prejudice in the work of Hayek and Mises. For the former, the best he can manage is a reference to ‘the Christian West’ in a 1984 speech. For the latter, who may well have been Austria’s least racist man in the 1930s, it is an even greater challenge. 

Slobodian revives two articles he wrote about the lifelong supporter of open borders in 2019 that have been heavily criticised by Phillip W. Magness and Amelia Janaskie for ‘inverting Mises’s meaning in a light that erroneously casts him as sympathetic to racism or colonialism.’ 

One does not need to be an expert on Mises to see that Slobodian is guilty of selective quotation. One only needs to read the whole paragraph from which the quote is taken. For example, Mises is quoted as writing in 1944: ‘There are few white men who would not shudder at the picture of many millions of black or yellow people living in their own countries.’ Slobodian puts this in a context that implies that Mises shared this revulsion and cites it as evidence that Mises had ‘partially legitimised closed borders for nonwhite migrants as a near-permanent feature of the world order.’ But the very next sentence of Mises’ text reads: ‘The elaboration of a system making for harmonious coexistence and peaceful economic and political cooperation among the various races is a task to be accomplished by coming generations.’ It should be obvious that Mises was not endorsing the prejudices of the majority, but merely acknowledging the existence of such prejudices and hoping that they could be overcome.

And here's Slobodian's problem, and the reason he must so transparently mis-quote: "There is simply no through-line from Mises or Hayek to the alt-right." 

By referring to right-wing populists of the present day as Hayek’s illegitimate offspring (‘bastards’) Slobodian allows himself a certain amount of wriggle room, but if a student believes the exact opposite of the teacher, can he really be portrayed as a follower?

The fatal flaw in this book is that Slobodian has clearly started with his conclusion and worked backwards. An author who was interested in writing about the roots of the current wave of right-wing populism would start with the right-wing populists and study their words and deeds.

Which is what Misesian Jeffrey Tucker did many moons before Slobodian even thought about slithering into print — "the most important political book in recent memory" is what my own reviewer called it.

BUT THIS BRIEF GLIMPSE  into a fetid authorial swamp was not just to alert you to a shitty book from an author too incompetent to even formulate real arguments. It's to show you how bereft of clothing are the nakedly insubstantial objections to Seymour's bill, that so many rest their objections on a ad-hominem without even a home. As Richard Ebeling says so tellingly in a recent article, "“Progressives” Blame F. A. Hayek for Everything They Dislike."

That so many of these "progressive" objections to a fairly unobjectionable Bill rest unthinkingly on Slobodian's animus and deception — for a historian used to checking sources, Anne Salmond's was an example of one of the most dishhonest — suggests the same thing said of Slobodian's book could be said about the objections to the Bill: if you have to lie to make your arguments, then perhaps you don't really have any.

I only wish they were right that it is something they need to be scared about.

The separation of church and state is being ignored by laws that officially reference Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews

The separation of church and state is a principle established back in the Enlightenment era, one recognised in the US Bill of Rights. Establishing "a wall of separation between Church and State," Thomas Jefferson explained the principle in a famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

The principle rests on this compelling point: "that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions," so that neither the Danbury Baptist Association nor any other religious-based group need fear government interference in their right to expressions of religious conscience. 

This was a historic change from centuries of religious persecution. This is a point now unfortunately lost on New Zealand's legislators, who for decades have routinely inserted into law concepts emanating from Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews, i.e., Māori religion. 

Law, we should be reminded, is a description of the way in which a government proposes to exercise its monopoly on force. As such, we should demand precision, objectivity, and concepts based on protecting individual rights. Instead, as a result of this departure from proper principle we have been delivered law that is imprecise, and riddled with bogus concepts based on a particular religious worldview.

Author and researcher John Robinson lists 35 New Zealand laws that officially reference Māori spirituality, customs, and worldviews — using terms like tikanga, mana whenua, mauri, wairua, and more. Among them are many that might surprise you:

Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA)
Terms: Te Mana o te Wai, kaitiakitanga, mauri, wairua, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Gives legal status to Māori spiritual values when assessing environmental impacts and resource consent.

Water Services Act 2021
Terms: Te Mana o te Wai, kaitiakitanga
Context: Water regulation must consider Māori spiritual views on water’s life force and guardianship.

Local Government Act 2002
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Requires councils to involve Māori in decision-making and give weight to their cultural practices.

Conservation Act 1987
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Māori beliefs must be considered in conservation efforts and land access.

Waitangi Tribunal Act 1975
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles
Context: Empowers Māori customs and grievances to be judged by Māori cultural norms.

Environment Canterbury Act 2016
Terms: mana whenua representation
Context: Mandates tribal representation in regional governance based on ancestral authority.

Oranga Tamariki Act 1989
Terms: whakapapa, mana tamaiti, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori child welfare decisions must respect spiritual ancestry and cultural norms.

Education and Training Act 2020
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles, mana whenua
Context: Embeds Māori values and customs into the public education system.

Climate Change Response Act 2002
Terms: tikanga Māori, kaitiakitanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Context: Climate planning must consider Māori spiritual guardianship of nature.

Crown Minerals Act 1991
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty principles
Context: Requires consultation with Māori based on cultural and spiritual claims to land and minerals.

Biosecurity Act 1993
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Disease and pest control policy must consider Māori views on spiritual and land connections.

Public Health and Disability Act 2000
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana motuhake, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Health services are required to reflect Māori beliefs and autonomy.

Wildlife Act 1953
Terms: customary rights, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Spiritual and cultural practices are recognized in hunting and wildlife protections.

Forests Act 1949
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Forest use and protection must consider Māori customs and Treaty rights.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014
Terms: wāhi tapu, wāhi tūpuna, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Sacred and ancestral Māori sites are protected by law.

Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022
Terms: tikanga Māori, Māori Health Authority, Treaty of Waitangi
Context: Establishes a parallel Māori health system based on cultural values.

Kainga Ora–Homes and Communities Act 2019
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua, Treaty obligations
Context: Housing projects must align with Māori cultural values and Treaty-based consultation.

Land Transport Management Act 2003
Terms: mana whenua, Treaty principles
Context: Māori cultural considerations must be included in transport planning.

Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Spiritual guardianship and cultural relationships must be respected in marine planning.

Walking Access Act 2008
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Access to land and tracks must consider Māori spiritual and cultural significance.

EEZ and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012
Terms: tikanga Māori, Treaty principles, mana whenua
Context: Deep-sea resource use must consult Māori cultural and spiritual perspectives.

National Parks Act 1980
Terms: kaitiakitanga, wāhi tapu, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori spiritual values influence park management and access.

Marine Reserves Act 1971
Terms: kaitiakitanga, tikanga Māori
Context: Customary guardianship and Māori beliefs influence reserve designation and rules.

Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Act 1994
Terms: tikanga Māori
Context: Even activities in Antarctica must respect Māori spiritual customs.

Building Act 2004
Terms: tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Local iwi spiritual and cultural views must be considered in development approvals.

Te Urewera Act 2014
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Grants a forest legal status as a living ancestor with spiritual significance under Māori belief.

Whanganui River Settlement Act 2017 (Te Awa Tupua)
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Declares the river a living entity with rights, based on Māori cosmology.

 Taranaki Maunga Settlement Act 2023
Terms: legal personhood, tikanga Māori, mana whenua
Context: Gives Mount Taranaki the same spiritual and legal status as a living being.

Criminal Cases Review Commission Act 2019
Terms: te ao Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori spiritual and cultural views may influence justice processes and reviews.

Trade Marks Act 2002
Terms: mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Māori traditional knowledge and customs can affect trademark approvals.

Patents Act 2013
Terms: mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori
Context: Patents can be denied or restricted based on spiritual and cultural beliefs.

Each of these inclusions undermines law, makes its exercise illegitimate and imprecise, and requires by law that all New Zealanders bow to a religion — one based on race — that is not necessarily their own.

As a commenter observes, 

There are also numerous reports/frameworks affirming the Te Ao Maori vision- a powerful and authoritative reference to guide action and establish norms, e.g. Te Rautaki Ao Maori—guidelines for NZ parliamentary process, Matauranga Maori in the Media, and many more.
     NZers are now enmeshed in a web of embedded "cultural references" which decree how to live their lives.

There is neither a moral nor a legitimate legal case for that.

"Race-based policy is not just unsustainable. It is immoral."

"Race-based funding is racist. A statement so obviously true that it ought to be stitched onto the curtains of the Beehive and should be self-evident to anyone with an IQ above room temperature. ...

"Yet... [t]his fetish for ethnic exceptionalism has become the most expensive fiction in New Zealand’s policy landscape. The central myth - that Māori are uniquely deprived and therefore must be uniquely subsidised - collapses under the slightest statistical scrutiny. But facts, regrettably, are of little use to those whose salaries depend on ignoring them.

"The Māori economy now exceeds $70 billion. That is not a typo. Seventy billion dollars, according to BERL. Māori businesses thrive in agriculture, fisheries, energy, tourism, construction - you name it. We are not talking about a struggling underclass. We are talking about a sovereign economic force with the political influence of a Middle Eastern oil bloc. And yet, astonishingly, we are still expected to believe that Māori are victims — infantilised, eternally fragile, and unable to function without a phalanx of publicly funded 'navigators,' 'equity officers,' and 'tikanga consultants' to shepherd them through modernity.

"This narrative is insulting, inaccurate, and intolerably expensive.

"Consider life expectancy. In 2002, the average Māori lifespan hovered around 68 years. As of 2022, it stands at 74.3. That’s an increase of more than six years in two decades. Māori smoking rates have halved since 2006. Educational attainment among young Māori has risen steadily. Tertiary enrolments are at record highs. And in urban areas, Māori household incomes are now statistically indistinguishable from the Pākehā average.

"So where, precisely, was the need for a separate Māori Health Authority? ... [for o]ur state schools [to] have become temples of cultural appeasement ... [for] 'Māori housing strategies] that will [allegedly] solve intergenerational poverty [but simply mean] priority access for iwi developers and whānau collectives ...

"Māori make up 51% of our prison population. We are told this is a result of systemic racism. No - it is a result of systemic dysfunction. ... race-based funding enables this dysfunction. It reinforces dependency. It signals that failure will be rewarded, not rectified ...

"None of this is a call to ignore Māori disadvantage. It is a call to address it with honesty, rigour, and standards. The previous model did precisely the opposite. It flattered tribal elites, funded unaccountable bureaucracies, and delivered nothing but resentment and division.

"So dismantle the rest. ...

"Let the iwi aristocracy, so fond of preaching commercial wisdom, compete on a level playing field in the free market. Let them earn their fortunes without the insulation of state patronage.

"This romanticised vision of Māori as an eternally wounded, noble caste is not merely ahistorical. It is politically corrosive. It distorts justice, misallocates resources, and entrenches mediocrity. ...
New Zealand must decide: do we believe in equality under the law or cultural exceptionalism? One cannot have both.

"Race-based policy is not just unsustainable. It is immoral. And if the National Party had any spine, it would say so."

~ Tony Vaughn from his post 'Racial Romanticism Is Not Policy - The Cost of Coddling a Myth'

Hmmm.

"[S]peaking Māori ... is [oft] perceived as 'virtue signalling,' which is a perception that has arisen in the context of decades of fashionable Western self-loathing. Like you, I can’t stand insincerity. It is hypocritical that people who obsess over the every failing of Western culture cannot also acknowledge the good things about it: democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, habeas corpus and trial by jury, to name just a few. ...
    "However, at present thousands of Māori people are enthusiastically pursuing the renaissance of their language and their culture from a place of sincerity. Many white New Zealanders do not realise this and are mistaking them for the anti-Western virtue signalling camp, and are accordingly very hostile to anything Māori. This is met with bewilderment by Māori. They do not understand at all why some white people are so hostile to their culture. ...
    "Rather than realising the true source of the hostility to Te Reo (which is the intellectual dishonesty of postmodernism as a worldview) antipathy towards anything Māori is viewed in the light of historical suppression of Te Reo in schools as well as the devaluing of Māori culture generally. In short, it is perceived as racism. You need only read Māori media outlets to see the enormity of the bewilderment, hurt, rage and even hate this causes. ...
    "We need a new political paradigm in which postmodernism does not harden people to indigenous issues. The key to this is the simple realisation that you can be pro-indigenous without being postmodern."

~ Lucy Rogers from her post 'Why I speak Māori (and it has nothing to do with “virtue signalling”)' [Hat tip PM of NZ]

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life." Including internet access!

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life. 

• "Even New Zealand’s left-leaning mainstream media have picked up on the University of Auckland's compulsory indoctrination-rich Waipapa Taumata Rau course
• "Janet Dickson’s challenge to the Real Estate Authority over their compulsion on estate agents to undertake a compulsory professional development module called Te Kākano (The Seed)
• "another example in tertiary education concerns efforts to decolonise [sic] the Massey University BA degree ...

"Such examples barely lift the lid on the extent of Treaty indoctrination across the public service, the education and research sectors, businesses and professional regulatory bodies. For example, 

• the Midwifery Council’s Scope of Practice
• the cultural safety requirements imposed on practitioners by the New Zealand Psychologists Board, and 
• the Treaty-centric competency standards for New Zealand pharmacists ...

"A very heavy focus on one population is evident in the charters, mission statements and constitutions of many organisations in New Zealand. ... [I]t seems that even the Internet cannot escape the current identity politics. ... [even if s]uch technology is universally available to the entire world and, by its very nature, is not exclusive to any one ethnicity. In fact, it is one of the most democratising of any technology ...

"[And yet] the InternetNZ Council [which operates the regional registry for New Zealand, i.e, the .nz Register]... has on its agenda the ... overarching Strategic Goal of 'Centring Te Tiriti o Waitangi' as a Strategic Priority, and ethno-centric preferences that dominate five Strategic Goals and 13 out of 25 sub-goals [including] ...  

• Implement Ngā Pae: Pae Kākano | Horizon 1....
• understand what it means to InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa Group to be Tiriti-centric....
• embed Te Tiriti through our strategies, policies, practices, people capability to achieve digital equity, digital inclusion and access for Māori ...
• [ensure] a Te Tiriti o Waitangi perspective guides everything we do. ...
• [ensure] investment priorities are guided by clear objectives that promote equity, align with priorities identified by Māori in the sector.

"It is perfectly reasonable that effective engagement with Māori, as with all stakeholders, should be part of the mission of InternetNZ. However, by declaring that it will be Te Tiriti-centric, InternetNZ, like our universities, is implicitly taking a political stance, when as a user-focused organisation it should remain entirely neutral....

"The stated goals stand at odds with the principles of [worldwide] internet governance as identified, for example, by the global Internet Society[which undertakes] the global management of the Internet.  ...

"As a critical facility for Internet access for New Zealanders, InternetNZ needs simply to recommit to the fundamental principles of a globally interconnected world, that demonstrate no preference for any particular ethnic, religious, social, economic, national, cultural or racial grouping. ... 

"[W]e must avoid even the remote possibility that access to a .nz domain name could be frustrated because the user may not support one or more of the strategic goals outlined above, or New Zealanders’ rights and responsibilities being differentiated by race."

~ John Raine and David Lillis from their post 'In Case You Were Wondering – InternetNZ and the Treaty'

"NZ urgently needs the support of retired individuals or those whose livelihoods are not yet affected by government or iwi control."

"New Zealand is facing a significant freedom of speech crisis. Across the country, people dependent on their business or employment income are being intimidated into silence regarding the influence of the tribal elite over many aspects of our lives. It’s not just about expressing personal opinions but about elected representatives, public servants and private business operators being silenced when it comes to the facts. ... [see for just a few examples: Real Estate agent Janet Dickson's court fight over licensing modules; so-called 'cultural safety' and 'cultural competence' requirements for nursing and teacher registration; 'Mātauranga Māori' being taught as science in schools; proposed 'competency standards' for pharmacists, & creeping tribal control over state assets]    

    "That’s why NZ urgently needs the support of retired individuals or those whose livelihoods are not yet affected by government or iwi control. You have the freedom to speak up for those Kiwis who feel unable to do so themselves. I encourage anyone, who can, to take up this cause, as the consequences for New Zealanders—including Māori who are not part of the leadership elite—will only worsen if this takeover continues."

~ Fiona Mackenzie from her article 'Too Intimidated to Speak Out?'

"The Treaty Principles Bill ... provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is"

"Consider the two words 'liberal', 'democracy' and their connection. Both give us something that none of our ancestors living in kinship groups had. 'Democracy' gives us a system of parliamentary sovereignty, of law, of regulation. It recognises that our common humanity justifies equal rights. Those rights belong to the individual citizen, not to the group.
    "The word 'liberal' gives us the freedom to be different – as individuals and in voluntary associations based on a range of shared interests –culture, heritage, language, sport, music, religion, politics, and so on.
    "This is what makes liberal democracy remarkable. As citizens we have the same political and legal rights. As members of civil society we are free to be different. This is an enormously important point. It is the combination of rights, responsibilities and freedom within democracy's governance and laws that makes the modern world vibrant and prosperous.
    "That's why I support the Treaty Principles Bill – because it provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is – something we should all know, especially ... Members of Parliament ...
    "The Bill is the symbolic link to the hope found in both the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in the 1852 Constitution Act. Nineteenth century New Zealanders, especially those who had been slaves, decimated by war, of low genealogical birth status, or from impoverished backgrounds – they put their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future for their descendants. In the 21st century we can strengthen that faith for our descendants by agreeing to the principles in this Bill.
    "New Zealand's future may be that of a prosperous first-world liberal democratic nation or a third-world, retribalised state. A first world tribal nation is a contradiction in terms. It is not possible. There can be no prosperity without individual equality and freedom. There can be no social equality without prosperity. ...

    "[A]s early as the 1870s there's the commitment to a united people who belong to, and benefit from, the nation 'New Zealand.' Nearly 150 years later that commitment is under serious threat from those who would replace liberal democracy with tribal sovereignty and, by doing so, create a racialised society – apartheid." 

~ Elizabeth Rata from her Oral Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill