On Monday morning on RNZ’s Morning Report, Revenue Minister Simon Watts admitted that it was a legitimate option for ‘landlords’ to leave their houses empty. (Refer Revenue Minister on mortgage tax deductions for landlords, RNZ 11 March 2024.) The official narrative of the elite political class is that when tenancies on rental properties end, the houses are retenanted or sold; sold either to an owner-occupier or to a landlord who lets the property to new tenants. They don’t usually admit to owning homes which are fully or substantially empty.

I might also mention that, in one of the leaders’ political debates before the 2023 election, both Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon were asked a question about whether they favoured a tax on owners of empty houses. Both leaders appeared discomforted, as if this was a naughty question that should not have been asked, and then recombobulated themselves by saying ‘no’; a response that was to be expected from Luxon, but which may have cost Hipkins a significant number of votes. (In addition to not including such an obvious policy in the Labour manifesto, Hipkins’ cold rejection of an empty-house tax revealed that Luxon is not our only tone-deaf political leader.) Clearly neither leader had been briefed on the issue, despite such taxes being adopted overseas and despite the policy idea circulating widely in the New Zealand non-mainstream media.

An additional feature of the Simon Watts interview was the Minister’s defensiveness towards Corin Dann’s use of the term “property speculator”. When Dann pressed Watts on the matter, Watts was unable to deny that some so-called ‘investors’ were indeed ‘speculators’, and sought to fudge the issue by saying that typical ‘landlords’ are ‘ma and pa investors’ with just one or two rentals (presumably in addition to their ‘ma and pa family home’. This seems at odds with his earlier admission that professional investors have a valid option to leave rental properties untenanted; because the popular image of ‘ma and pa’ landlords is of people housing tenants who they know and have a relationship with, not an image of ruthless speculators.

It is worth reminding ourselves about maverick economist Gareth Morgan’s 2017 comments about residential landlords: see A hard look at Gareth Morgan’s plan to save New Zealand’s renters, Madeleine Holden, The Spinoff, 9 August 2017. Quote from Morgan: ‘”Look at me, I own six houses, ” he stated on The Nation. “I don’t have tenants; they just make carpets dirty. I do it because I know you [other investors] want to get in on this as well, and so you’re going to bid the price of those houses up.”‘

Leverage: how it works to create speculator paradise

Ruthless property speculators – of which there were many from 2003 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2017 – use the principle of financial leverage to get a return principally from capital gain. (Capital gains taxes in other countries did not stop this process.)

The context is that New Zealand’s housing crisis is principally one of market and government failure in private rental housing. And we should note that this failure is less an Auckland problem and more a problem of New Zealand’s provincial cities and towns, and Wellington. Additionally, it is a crisis of urban land prices, and – as in the later 2000s – a crisis aggravated by high interest rates. Into this mix we face a change to taxation which will aggravate rather than diminish the housing crisis.

The principle of financial leverage works like this. Mr S has a million dollars and wants to double his money in two years. He has been told by his financial adviser that residential property is appreciating in price by ten percent a year. Further a typical house costs one million dollars. Mr S buys five houses with his million dollars; that $200,000 per house of his own money. He borrows the remaining four million dollars. (He may then list his houses on Airbnb, as ‘short-term’ rentals; he may even let his properties to genuine tenants, or he may leave them empty.) In two years time he expects to sell all five houses for 1.2 million dollars; that’s six million dollars in total. After repaying his mortgages in full, he would get to keep two million dollars. That’s a doubling of his initial outlay of one million. (OK, there will be some expenses; nevertheless Mr S expects to be smiling all the way to the bank when he realises his near 100% capital gain over two years.

Mr S is an example of a leveraged landlord. And he will make even more money if he doesn’t have to pay tax on his mortgage interest ‘costs’. But not all landlords are that highly leveraged. Some are not leveraged at all; they are letting mortgage-free properties to tenants. These landlords cannot gain from the deduction of tax for mortgage interest costs. So, in the coming years, they will not charge lower rents on account of lower costs. And it is these unleveraged landlords who will set the market price for private residential rental houses. (And many of these price-setting landlords will be ‘ma and pa investors’ approaching retirement age.) The leveraged landlords, if actually renting out their properties, when setting rents will take their cue from the unleveraged landlords; therefore, they will accept the reinstated tax deductions as windfall profits.

Rents will be at whatever price the market will bear, and not discounted by individual landlords with falling tax costs.

Auckland Regional Fuel Tax

Something similar will most likely happen with the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax. At present with the regional fuel tax in place, petrol prices in Auckland are not much different from the rest of the country. That wider nationwide price will tend to be the main determinant of ongoing petrol prices in Auckland, meaning the petrol retailers will gain a windfall when the tax ends. Auckland petrol consumers will gain less than what Mobil and BP will keep.

More generally, we see a pattern from this government to replace proportional taxes with regressive charges; for example, favouring increased car-registration fees over fuel taxes. The cost burdens are increasingly placed on those least able to afford the costs. (This situation can also occur if fixed charges for water or electricity increase faster than usage charges.)

House Prices

The granting of a licence to speculate is likely to set-up the next round of residential property price appreciation. (My sense is that other global economic headwinds will limit the next property bandwagon to no more than three years.) The issue today is much as it was in 2005, with the downturn in the tradable economy, caused in large part by higher interest rates, pushing bank lending into the non-tradable economy, especially property.

Lending to the property sector is less sensitive to interest rates than lending to businesses which export or compete with imports. The New Zealand economy is now primed for a shift in lending towards the property sector. In addition, consumer lending will likely stay strong; this will be driven more by the budget shortfalls of financially stretched households than by interest rates; consumer lending is largely interest-insensitive.

As house prices rise, rents can be expected to rise as landlords – unleveraged and leveraged – seek to maintain their percentage yields on capital. Let’s say that the expectation is that a $500,000 house in the provinces is expected to yield a rent of $500 per week; landlords’ expectations would be that if the $500,000 house becomes a $600,000 house then it should earn a rent of $600 per week. (In reality, in times of property price booms but little employment growth, there is quite a lag in rent increases; renters are simply unable to pay such proportional rent increases.)

What is likely to happen in the next few years – when the speculator community has its mojo back following the removal of tax on mortgage interest – is rents increasing faster than they otherwise would.

‘Investors’ owning just one home.

There is one class of landlords who require special attention. This is people who own just one home, which they rent out to tenants, while themselves renting their own dwelling.

I was in this situation from 2009 to 2014, having received an inheritance a few months after moving into a rental house which particularly suited my family’s circumstances. Other people will be in this situation if they move out of their family home to accept employment in another city. And other people, wanting to own some property as a hedge against poverty, will want to buy a cheapish rental in another town or an outer suburb; yet will themselves want to keep renting closer to where they work or to where their children go to school.

These people should pay zero tax on their rental income if the rent that they pay is more than the rent which they earn. While there is a case to treat mortgage interest as a legitimate ‘business’ cost for property owners, if the rent they pay offsets the rent they earn, then the question should not arise; there is no income to tax. So the critical reform here, that the National Party should be leading the way on, is to deduct rent paid from rent earned. More generally, these ‘landlords’ – who own just one property – should be treated more as owner-occupiers than as investor businesses.

Fiscal Austerity? Despite tax repeals.

We are being promised public austerity alongside the tax repeals which foster increased private affluence for a few. Tougher times stifle the circular flows that underpin a prosperous economy; austerity begets more austerity in a downward spiral, until someone finally rediscovers Keynesian economics.

Cabinet Minister Tama Potaka unashamedly advocated “austerity” last week, on Newshub’s AM show (1 March 2024): see ‘Not a free ATM card’: Taxpayers won’t bear cost of saving Newshub, minister says | AM. (The ‘austerity’ quote comes 8’38” into the video-recording. Lloyd Burr, the interviewer, looks genuinely surprised at this candid admission.)

In relation to Potaka’s comment we have this on Newshub on 5 March 2024: Finance Minister Nicola Willis rules out increasing GST after Labour speculation. The web-story discusses public austerity in the light of Potaka’s comments. This interview was a response to Why Labour’s new finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds thinks a tax hike could be on the cards on Newshub the day before. Nicola Willis knows better than Tama Potaka to avoid the ‘austerity’ word. But Nicola Willis is showing all the signs that she will be like her 1990s’ predecessor Ruth Richardson, who cut benefits and became Aotearoa New Zealand’s exemplar for fiscal austerity following her “mother of all budgets”.

Finally, Two questions for Christopher Luxon:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon owns four investment properties as well as three residences.

Question: Are you a good landlord, Mr Luxon?

Supplementary Question: How many of your four investment properties are currently tenanted?

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent, collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown.

The present ‘debates’ in Aotearoa New Zealand – ostensibly about Te Tiriti, the Treaty of Waitangi – represent a case in point. Increased bipartisanship festers, with the two sides largely talking past each other.

Pre-contact indigenous culture in Aotearoa New Zealand can be characterised as on the collectivist side of the collective-individual spectrum, at least with respect to tribal Iwi; whereas anglo-celtic culture was and is much more individualist. The protagonists on the Māori side of our present governance-wars are rhetorically harking back to the more collectivist worldview of their ancestral predecessors. And they are indulging in forms of co-sovereignty rhetoric that border on separate governance, without much explanation of what that means for individual Aotearoans.

One aspect of the more collectivist conceptual apparatus is the language, Te Reo. There is no explicit plural form. The word Māori covers Māori as a collective (or as a set of tribal collectives) and Māori as a set of individuals. While non-Māori used to refer to Māori as ‘Maoris’, this is simply not done in polite circles anymore. (I remember in 1984, how the leader of the “New Zelland Party” used to refer to “the Marries”.) Yet I do it here, as a way to emphasise my differentiation of collective Māori from individual ‘Maoris’.

In addition to pre-contact cultural differences in relation to the collective-individual spectrum, the established political Left and the established political Right (at least as we understand those terms in Aotearoa New Zealand; the United States has muddied those waters) define themselves through that spectrum. So Māori on the Left of politics have two predispositions towards collectivism. (Here we must note that the present ‘sovereignty debate’ is at least as much a debate within Māori as between Māori and non-Māori; the principal antagonists as well as the principal protagonists are conspicuously Māori. Twenty-first century Māori culture is by no means as collectivist as the rhetoric of the protagonists conveys; the divisions are Left versus Right, with a cultural overlay.)

Vertical Equity and ‘Targeting’; trickle-down or micro-management

Vertical equity is not a liberal concept (refer to my To be (a) liberal). Whereas horizontal equity means ‘treating equals equally’ – a concept central to (individualist) liberalism – vertical equity means ‘treating unequals unequally’. Discrimination. The liberals of the political Right, who emphasise the targeting of social services and public income distribution, square this illiberal circle by emphasising policies which solely target ‘need’; not race nor religion, not sex nor gender.

The political ‘progressives’ of the Left emphasise a collective form of targeting, but cannot (or refuse to) individualise this. Thus they may advocate more resources for Māori (and often tag-on Pasifika) and more resources for women; but they avoid any korero about individual discrimination.

At Budget-time, we have routinely heard the claim that there is not enough provision in the Budget – the government’s annual fiscal statement – for Māori. Perhaps less so from 2018 to 2022. But what does that mean? Resources for Māori? Or for ‘Maoris’?

The collectivist approach mandates that discrimination happens at the top-level of political society; at the governance level. Thus bureaucracies are created or extended – including governmental ‘entities’, and indeed ‘non-governmental’ entities (which nevertheless depend on government mandates) – which are openly discriminatory in their intent.

Discrimination in favour of an allegedly disadvantaged identity is justified through a process of leverage. Statistics are gathered from individuals and coded according to attributes – especially ethnicity, sex or gender, and health status; age and religion are less fashionable at present. The never unexpected results are then presented to justify forms of collective discrimination in the political process. Predictably, the incomes of ‘Maoris’ are lower on average than the incomes of ‘non-Maoris’, and female incomes are lower on average than male incomes.

The aim of this political process is not to remove these statistical differences. Rather it is to justify and extend identity bureaucracies – indeed to create advocacy ‘industries’ around such statistical differences – in such a way that there is a large suite of highly-paid jobs available to highlight these inequalities of averages. Such political theatre typically generates much heat and very little actionable ‘light’.

Essentially, what is supposed to happen is that much resource goes into these funded governance structures, and it is meant to trickle-down to the leverage group of disadvantaged people. The result in practice is that Left governments consume large slices of the national income, while achieving very little for the disadvantaged groups ostensibly being served. Trickle-down never worked. Instead the result is too much political superstructure and too little ballast. Government becomes top-heavy.

(These same principles apply to the under-provision – and particularly the lack of maintenance – of physical infrastructure as well. Hence all the water leaks from neglected pipes, and potholes across the roading network; pipes are ballast, and potholes are examples of missing ballast. Gold-plated schemes are created and discarded.)

Policies which benefit ‘Maoris’

The disconnect between the Treaty Māori and the leaders of the present government, is that the present leaders have an individualist mindset which means the parties talk past each other. Chrisopher Luxon genuinely wants to improve life for ‘Maoris’. Problems arise because his philosophical approach of targeting the needy – disproportionately ‘Maoris’ – has its own bureaucratic short-comings; and because his understandings of public finance are medieval (in the better sense of that word), and because he is a mercantilist at heart. Mr Luxon equates national progress with ‘making money’, with the accrual of financial wealth.

Nevertheless, and despite his philosophical blindspots, Luxon is correct to emphasise that expanding discriminatory superstructure is part of the problem, rather than a solution, to the statistical disadvantages used to justify that superstructure. Christoper Luxon and David Seymour clearly understand that effective direct support for the disadvantaged will disproportionately assist ‘Maoris’, because Maoris are disproportionately disadvantaged. Further, direct assistance also provides support for disadvantaged ‘non-Maoris’, who are no more nor less deserving. Indeed – and given the practical Ministry of Health definition of who is a ‘Maori’ – there are more disadvantaged ‘non-Maoris’ in Aotearoa New Zealand than disadvantaged ‘Maoris’ (because ‘Maoris’ represent perhaps twenty percent of that database of individual Aoteroans).

Collectivism and Individualism

As Stephen Joyce noted in his recent book, collectivism has an individual dimension and individualism necessarily has a collectivist dimension. Both sides of the present ‘debate’ need to expand their fields of vision, and address these blindspots.

‘Trickle-down’ policies have wasted much of this nation’s income. The Left version of trickle-down is no better than the Right version (which includes ‘tax-cuts for the rich’) which the Left like to lampoon. And the Right indulge in much more collectivism – albeit private sector collectivism – than they would ever want to admit. (Proper macro-accounting, incorporating public equity, helps to reveal the over-distribution of resources to elite private interests.)

It is clear that Christopher Luxon and David Seymour would have preferred not to have Winston Peters and Shane Jones as lead rhetoricians for their government. The irony is that, with one small adjustment to National’s tax policies, National would probably have got at least five percent more votes, and we would have a two-party rather than a three party coalition today. The adjustment was to have an income tax policy which only gave tax cuts to people earning less than $180,000 a year. National’s rhetoric of tax cuts to “low and middle income earners” was hollow, because everyone knew that high income earners were also getting the maximum tax cut (not counting a contrived higher amount only envisaged for a few thousand families). All National had to do was to bring the top tax threshold down to about $160,000 (refer my Christopher Luxon is tone deaf, 14 Nov 2023); but it did not do this, on account of its own lack of imagination and unwillingness to seek or take advice from outsiders.

Māori are important to Aotearoa New Zealand, not because of their ‘race’ but because they were Aotearoa’s first boat people. The Tiriti is not about ethnicity – though it is about indigeneity – and people who want to continue discussing its principles are not racist. Separatist agendas based on distinguishing individual Aotearoans on the basis of their race – their ethnicity, their ancestry – are racist. Collectivism averts the racist problem of individual discrimination, but creates another problem; the growth of an expanded high-earning elite class which leverages off rather than practically addresses socio-economic problems which are there for all to see.

Christopher Luxon operates by a mercantilist metaphor that sees Aotearoa New Zealand as a ship that must “go forward”. While that metaphor represents both shallow politics and shallow economics, the prime minister does at least understand that superstructure sinks ships.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Political Roundup: Te Pāti Māori and vested interests

Controversial Māori politician and president of Te Pāti Māori, John Tamihere, is in hot water over large financial donations relating to his 2019 Auckland Mayoral campaign and Te Pāti Māori’s 2020 election campaign. For him and his supporters, the allegations are “inherently racist”. For others, they illustrate that there are a lot of vested interests and wealth in te ao Māori, and this influence has the potential to have a strong impact on government decisions.

Is Te Pāti Māori a vehicle for vested interests?

Contrary to the myth that Te Pāti Māori only pursue the interests of working class or poor Māori, the party has historically often represented the interests of Māori middle class and business. In fact, this was why MP Hone Harawira split so spectacularly from the party in 2011 to set up his more working class orientated Mana Party. He complained that Te Pāti Māori had become dominated by the elite forces of te ao Māori. The two parties have now reunited, but the underlying tension that caused the split remains.

Similarly, there is a myth that, unlike other political parties, Te Pāti Māori doesn’t have access to wealthy backers. But records show that for many years the party, and its current president John Tamihere, have received large donations from wealthy individuals and organisations to use for campaigning.

Some of these large donations have been in the spotlight recently, and questions raised about their legitimacy. The latest is an investigation by Herald journalist Matt Nippert into donations given to Te Pāti Māori and Tamihere by two charitable organisations that Tamihere himself controls.

The Herald’s allegations about Tamihere’s charities

Matt Nippert’s story, published on the front page of the Herald this week, highlighted that charitable organisations are given tax-free status which saves them huge amounts of money, but this privilege is given on the basis that they do not side with political parties or give donations to election campaigns. In the case of Tamihere’s organisations, this rule appears to have been broken.

Here’s the opening paragraph from Nippert’s report: “Charities connected to Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere are under investigation after financial reports showed nearly $500,000 in charitable funds had been used to bankroll his mayoral and general election campaigns.”

Tamihere was advanced $82,695 from the National Urban Māori Authority (NUMA) and $385,307 from Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust Group. Tamihere is the chief executive of both organisations, which endorsed his campaigns for office in 2019 and 2020.

Nippert’s article quotes Natasha Weight, the general manager of Charities Services, the agency that regulates tax-free charities, saying the rules are very clear: “a charity must not support or oppose a political party or candidate. This includes making a donation to a political party or a candidate’s election campaign, endorsing a party or candidate, or allowing a party or candidate to use a charity’s resources”.

As political finance researcher Max Rashbrooke wrote this week, “this looks terrible for Tamihere and the Trust. How can a registered charity be lending (and in effect donating, since it’s interest-free) their money to a political candidate? That’s not a ‘charitable’ purpose!”

The University of Auckland’s Peter Davis, a long-time Labour Party activist, also commented this week on Tamihere and Te Whānau o Waipareira: “He has always run the trust as a bit of a personal fiefdom and this has not been transparent until now. It was possible to forgive the early likely and anecdotal transgressions because the Trust was doing necessary work, but this crosses a line that no longer earns such sympathy.”

According to Nippert, Charities Services has issued a formal warning to Te Whānau o Waipareira, and is now engaged in negotiations over how to proceed with the alleged breach of the law. Te Whānau o Waipareira could be de-registered and Nippert says it could lose its lucrative tax-free status, which he calculates could cost it $16m.

Tamihere’s charities – which are clearly partisan – also contract to the Government to provide Whānau Ora services. When the donations first came to light last year, political commentator Shane Te Pou called for the minister of Whānau Ora to bring in the Auditor-General to investigate.

Nippert has also raised a discrepancy in the amounts that have been provided to Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori: “Tamihere declined to explain the difference between the sum recorded in accounts as being advanced by the charities for his political campaigns ($468,002), and the figure recorded as donations from them and him for the mayoral and general elections ($387,604).”

Racism allegations and defence

Tamihere and Te Whānau O Waipareira have reacted strongly to the Herald news story, accusing the newspaper of racism. Tamihere called it an example of the media demonising Māori, labelling it “a hit on the Māori”.

Talking about Nippert’s story, Tamihere says “This is a pogrom”, and likens the experience to that of the Jews facing persecution. And he says that Te Pāti Māori will no longer work with or write for the Herald, which raises important issues for media freedom and holding politicians to account.

In announcing the boycott, Tamihere states: “I will never write another word to try and educate ignorant pakeha about Māori matters for the New Zealand Herald. Nor will any Māori Party member ever be either interviewed or write anything for the New Zealand Herald or ZB radio – let’s leave it for what it is – ‘white man’s radio’, ‘racist radio’, and a racist rag… We will just go on our own platforms. We will talk on iwi radio, because we no longer need white men to define us”.

Tamihere also appealed to pakeha to intervene to curtail the questions being asked, saying Nippert’s story was fake news and a smear: “good Pākehā friends need to know what some of their kinfolk get up to and they just have to stop it and stop them. It’s not for Māori to correct things all the time and defend themselves all the time from malicious framing of us always in a negative way.”

The charity is also now crowdsourcing material from supporters in an attempt to prove that the journalist is racially motivated, using the social media hashtag #dobinaracistlikeMattNippert

The ethnicity element is centrally important to this issue, and is likely to have continued reverberations. For instance, in Parliament it caused one of the biggest political scuffles of the week, with Whanau Ora minister Kelvin Davis reacting to questions about the scandal by accusing Act MP Karen Chhour of having a “vanilla lens” and needing to get acquainted with the Māori world.

Davis’ comments were made in response to the following question in Parliament: “So does the Minister agree with John Tamihere when he says his charity and Oranga Tamariki are in a partnership and not a contract, and if Te Whānau o Waipareira is struck off the Charities Register, will the Minister guarantee that this partnership will end?”

Past issues with the Te Pāti Māori and vested interests

Matt Nippert’s revelations of the donations aren’t entirely new. His story is important because they highlight the investigations of Charities Services into the partisan activities of the two trusts.

Last year the Electoral Commission announced it was concerned about a breach of electoral law by Te Pāti Māori because they failed to declare the donations from the two charities during the election – as well as another $120,000 donation from the mysterious Aotearoa Te Kahu Limited Partnership.

The Electoral Commission made a complaint to the Police, and then the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigated. This week we learned that the SFO have closed their investigation and decided not to prosecute. The agency won’t provide further details of what they learned about the breach and why they’ve made their decision, simply stating: “The SFO has closed this matter and will not be taking any further steps”.

What is unknown is whether knowledge of the donations would have changed voters’ opinions of the party at the 2020 election. Te Pāti Māori kept the details secret, and then got back into Parliament when Rawiri Waititi captured the Waiariki electorate, beating Labour incumbent Tāmati Coffey by 836 votes.

Vested interests operate amongst all ethnicities

Te Pāti Māori and John Tamihere have been entirely dismissive of any questions about their financial backers and whether they are following the rules meant to make politics more transparent. This suggests they don’t take issues of corruption and vested interests seriously.

Although the party has only two MPs, there is a strong chance that Te Pāti Māori will hold the balance of power at the next election. Some in the Labour Party clearly see Te Pāti Māori as the Ardern Government’s lifeline to power at the next election should the National Party and Act win more votes than Labour and the Greens combined. Tamihere and his colleagues could have huge leverage over the next government.

When political figures are powerful they need to be held to account, regardless of race. Allegations of racism are extremely powerful, precisely because of the history of appalling discrimination towards Māori in this country. But such allegations should not be used to shield those in power from scrutiny. Te Pāti Māori is a product of our democratic political system and, as such, has to be held to account in the same way as other political parties, especially on an issue so important and fundamental as the funding of political campaigns.  Double standards can’t be accepted by anyone wanting clean and fair politics – especially those of us worried about vested interests looking for ways to leverage their political donations.

Political Roundup: Labour’s fraught battle to retain the Māori vote

Labour’s poll results are trending down. Yesterday’s Curia poll put the party down two points to just 33 per cent, while National is up three points to 37 per cent. When it comes to next year’s election, a key constituency for Labour will be Māori voters, especially in the Māori seats which are facing a strong challenge from Te Pati Māori.

Yet Labour’s support amongst Māori also seems to be plummeting. A poll earlier in the year by Horizon Research for The Hui, showed Labour’s support had dropped from 54 per cent in 2020, to just 37 per cent this year. The seventeen-point drop was a sign, according to Te Pati Māori’s co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, that in Māoridom, “The red wave is well and truly over”. National’s Shane Reti also pronounced “the Māori love affair with Labour is well and truly over.”

Has Labour let down Māori?

When Labour won 50 per cent of the vote in 2020, with a historic majority in Parliament, there was a belief amongst commentators that Labour would now be able to deliver for their Māori constituency. There was a belief that this triumphant result, and winning back all the Māori electorates in 2017, was in part due to Māori voters trusting Labour to deliver on their promises of better housing, healthcare, and reduced economic inequality. Such a focus on lifting living standards was especially appealing to working class Māori.

Unfortunately, those results haven’t been delivered. Under Labour there continues to be a growing disparity between rich and poor, and poverty and inequality have been exacerbated. For example, the housing crisis Labour inherited from National, has now morphed into a “housing catastrophe”, and Labour seem largely uninterested in doing anything about this. On top of this, we now have a cost of living crisis, and wages are not keeping up with rising prices.

The powerful role of the Labour Māori caucus in government

One of the reasons that Māori might have believed Ardern’s Government would deliver in the areas that poor and working class Māori care about, is that the Māori caucus in Labour is the biggest ever. Commentators said that the fifteen Māori MPs in Government would have strong leverage over Ardern and her fellow ministers. What’s more, six out of the 20 Cabinet ministers are Māori – which is proportionally much greater than wider society.

Have the Māori MPs and ministers delivered? There is no doubt they have been highly influential. As leftwing commentator Martyn Bradbury says, “The Maori Caucus inside Labour are now the largest and most powerful faction” in the party. The Prime Minister and her colleagues have therefore not been able to ignore the demands and priorities of Labour’s Māori caucus.

In fact, some commentators paint a picture of Ardern as being held hostage to the agendas of the senior Maori leaders such as Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson. Journalist Graham Adams, for example, has written about how Ardern doesn’t show any great enthusiasm for, or belief in, her Government’s controversial Three Waters reform programme, and as a very cautious and poll-driven leader, “would normally back away from any policy as widely disliked as Three Waters soon after the poll results arrived on her desk”.

Adams argues that the Māori caucus has pursued many of the most important and controversial reform agendas of the current Government – this “includes setting up a separate Māori Health Authority, easing the path to Māori wards, handing more power to iwi in the conservation estate, in local government, and the Resource Management Act”.

Have Labour’s Māori MPs focused on the right issues?

Generally, the Māori caucus in Labour has been focused on constitutional and cultural reforms. But are these the right ones? Unfortunately for Labour, the main concerns of Māori voters – especially those who are struggling – are more materialist, such as housing and employment.

Much of what the Labour Government has been delivering for Māori often looks more like symbolism and bureaucracy. And in many cases, it’s been about assisting more middle class Māori supporters, especially those in business. Hence last year Willie Jackson convinced his government to make 5 per cent of their $42 billion procurement budget available to Māori businesses.

This all raises the question of whether Labour’s Māori MPs have focused on the right issues. Or, perhaps the question is whether Labour has become too focused on more elite or middle class Māori concerns.

In a sense, the caucus is having to respond to the more radical Te Pati Māori, which is increasingly Tiriti-focused and wanting constitutional change, rather than concerned with traditional Labour issues. Labour MPs therefore have to follow that agenda too. They need to convince Māori constituencies that they’ve won some big concessions off the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

If not, then what have the Labour Māori MPs got to show to their voters when it comes to the next election? If they can’t show progress on housing, standards of living, improved healthcare etc, the hope surely is that they can at least point to advances in te reo, the school curriculum, more visible Māori in leadership and business, and so forth.

Will these be enough? Leftwing commentator Chris Trotter suggests not: “Creating Māori wards is not the same as creating jobs. Building support for profound constitutional change in Aotearoa-New Zealand is not the same as building houses.”

The changing power of Labour Māori caucus

This week the Herald’s Audrey Young has written an evaluation of the Māori Cabinet ministers, some of which is quite critical. For instance, she labels Kevin Davis “Pedestrian”, pointing out that he got “the new portfolio of Māori-Crown relations in the first term but has been almost invisible in promoting the Government’s overall strategy to the public.” Young also labels Peeni Henare as “Sheltered” in the Cabinet, saying he “has not been tested politically and shows no signs of boldness.”

Probably the most critical is her evaluation of Nanaia Mahuta, who Young labels “Distracted”. Young says Mahuta is “distracted by Three Waters reforms and a series of stories about public sector contracts awarded to her consultant husband. They have reached such a pitch that she herself should refer the matter to the Public Service Commission or Auditor-General to get an independent opinion and draw a line under it.”

Willie Jackson and Kiri Allan receive more positive evaluations – the latter is said to be a “potential deputy Labour leader” and a “firm favourite of Jacinda Ardern.”

But it’s Jackson that is acknowledged as the real leader of the Māori caucus in Labour – Young reports that: “Insiders confirm appearances – that the most active and influential member of the caucus is Cabinet minister Willie Jackson.” She adds that he’s “the only one actively promoting and defending co-governance.” And elsewhere, Young has explained that Jackson is “still the go-to guy for hands-on co-ordination within the Māori caucus and within Māoridom peak groups and iwi leaders.”

The Māori Labour MPs need to keep their government delivering

With Labour’s post-Covid popularity steadily on the decline, there are many on the left who want Labour to revert to more traditional and popular leftwing policies, and jettison the strong pursuit of cultural and constitutional change.

For example, the Three Waters reform programme has become an albatross around the Government’s neck, which few are willing to defend. It will continue to cost Labour popular support. But should Labour pull back on the more controversial parts of the programme, such as giving half of the control over water assets to iwi?

The problem is that to do so would be to give Te Pati Māori a huge stick to beat Labour with. It could seriously jeopardise Labour’s hold on their Māori seats next year. Likewise, pulling back on the Government’s co-governance agenda would create havoc for the Māori caucus. A Māori caucus rebellion in Labour would be guaranteed.

Therefore, Ardern is in something of a bind. She will have to continue juggling the demands of the powerful Māori caucus while also being aware that some of that agenda might be making her government unpopular.

But Ardern would be wise to realise that when it comes down to it, most Māori voters are quite similar to non-Māori voters in caring more about the delivery of the basics – especially an improved standard of living. In this regard, Ardern should take note that the Horizon poll of Māori voters earlier this year pointed to why Māori voters were leaving Labour: “As inflation begins to bite, 72 percent say the cost of living is the main issue they will vote on, followed by housing and health.”

Other items of interest and importance today

GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT
Jason Walls (Herald): Government paid private Three Waters consultants $16 million last financial year but DIA defends spending
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Labour has just 44 days before election for its legislative agenda
Jane Clifton (Listener/Herald): How the Government missed its chance to take on the big Aussie banks (paywalled)
Claire Trevett (Herald): National confirms Chris Bishop as campaign chair, Covid-19 role gone
Benedict Collins (1News): Labour’s Lorck ‘doing my best’ to improve behaviour after new claims

MONARCHY
Josie Pagani (Stuff): Don’t jump the gun on the monarchy. There’s a Treaty to consider
Sarah Jocelyn and Professor Andrew Geddis (Newsroom): How NZ could become a republic
Adam Pearse (Herald): Māori leader Esther Jessop calls taihoa on republic debate as royals grieve
Newshub: Queen Elizabeth’s death: Why NZ’s public holiday isn’t on same day as UK funeral
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to meet King Charles, Prince William
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk): I can’t see that Marama Davidson did anything wrong

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ELECTIONS
Todd Niall (Stuff): Auckland mayoralty: Viv Beck withdraws from race
Tony Wall and Todd Niall (Stuff): Auckland mayoralty: The hints Viv Beck left about withdrawing from the race
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Super City’s two-horse race between Wayne Brown, Efeso Collins (paywalled)
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Advantage, Collins but it’s far from match point
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Auckland mayoralty: Efeso Collins plans to ditch his car one day a week – he wants others to do the same
Glenn McLean (Stuff): Facts not being delivered in New Plymouth mayoral race

ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT AND INEQUALITY
Felix Walton (RNZ): Rising cost of groceries could drive unhealthy choices
Richard Harman: Robertson has plenty to worry about (paywalled)
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): GDP figures hit the sweet spot for Grant Robertson politically (paywalled)
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): Which parts of the NZ economy are out of whack
Anne Gibson (Herald): Horrific construction fatalities and injuries: But is building really the riskiest job? (paywalled)
Nina Santos (Herald): Myth-busting gender and ethnic pay gap excuses (paywalled)
Herald Editorial: We’re paying more for airfares, time to boost passenger rights (paywalled)

HOUSING
Jonathan Killick (Stuff): Auckland’s housing affordability by the numbers: A story of haves and have-nots
Felix Desmarais (Local Democracy Reporting): Rotorua on a ‘precipice’ as mayor meets with ministers about motels
RNZ: Majority of suburbs in main centres experience slide in property values
Newshub: Aotearoa’s property values continue to fall, 80 percent of suburbs record a drop in value

COVID
Matthew Brockett (Bloomberg): Jacinda Ardern’s Feted Covid Response Could Yet Be Her Undoing
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): New Zealand is now as it was – but nothing is the same
David Welch and Michael Plank (The Conversation): With most mandatory public health measures gone, is NZ well prepared for the next COVID wave?
David Seymour (Herald): Why we need an independent Covid response inquiry (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk): Time to get on with a Covid inquiry

HEALTH
Lillian Hanly (1News): Little met with silent protest over nurses’ pay equity agreement
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Andrew Little gets applause – for the wrong reason – at nurses’ conference
Emma Houpt (Herald): Hundreds of Bay of Plenty children waiting for dental surgery
Emma Houpt (Herald): Bay of Plenty’s Trinity Koha Dental Clinic provides more than $600k worth of free dental care

EDUCATION
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Fresh blow to mega polytech Te Pūkenga as finance boss resigns months into the job
Herald: Government announces $44m to increase teacher numbers, support students affected by Covid
Caroline Williams (Stuff): Massey University lecturer told Māori students they ‘don’t look Māori’

CLIMATE
RNZ: Rate of sea-level rise around New Zealand doubles in the past 60 years – Stats NZ
Rob Stock (Stuff): Is New Zealand’s plan for ‘green’ government bonds just smoke and mirrors?
Brent Edwards (NBR): Concerns about the Government’s emissions reduction plan (paywalled)
Paul Callister and Robert McLachlan (The Conversation): NZ has announced a biofuel mandate to cut transport emissions, but that could be the worst option for the climate
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Climate crisis: The monotony of the extremes
Tim Hunter (NBR): Biomass: the burning question (paywalled)

TE REO MĀORI
Damien Venuto (Herald): Is it time to change the name of New Zealand to Aotearoa?
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Has Te reo elitism become Professional Managerial Class brownwash?
Joris De Bres (Spinoff): The ‘McMāori’ saga and the business of te reo
Rawiri Waititi (Herald): From a kohanga sandpit to playing in New Zealand’s biggest playground

OTHER
RNZ: Treasury rips into Oranga Tamariki for loose fiscal controls
RNZ: New Zealand announces new ambassador to China
Karl du Fresne: Ken Douglas: one of the last of the old school

Political Roundup: Why New Zealand’s shift to a republic will be thwarted

The death of Queen Elizabeth and the ascension to the throne of King Charles has reignited the debate on whether New Zealand should become a republic. But despite strong arguments in favour of shifting to a republic, such a move is unlikely to occur anytime soon.

What will stop the republican movement gaining ground and winning over a majority of New Zealanders to ditch the monarchy? The answer is Treaty politics.

The shift to a republic cannot be separated from this now-dominant aspect of New Zealand politics. To argue for a shift to a republic in 2022 is to enter into a debate about the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Māori language version, Te Tiriti O Waitangi in our constitutional framework. These are very fraught debates, which have the potential to divide a nation.

A Republic is possible

Technically, a shift to a republic could be quite straightforward in terms of the Treaty. After all the British Crown no longer actually has Treaty responsibilities – those are now with the New Zealand Government. A move to a republic could, with a simple change of law, shift the formal Treaty partnership to the new head of state.

As Geoffrey Palmer said this week, “The fact that you get a new head of state wouldn’t affect at all the obligations in relation to the treaty… I know some people think it would, but it wouldn’t.”

There has long been a myth that the Treaty of Waitangi would be diminished by the demise of the monarchy in this country. Countless scholars show that this concern is not warranted. And surveys show that Māori are keener on becoming a republic than others.

New constitutional debates will be part of republicanism

However, constitutional debates have evolved significantly in this country, and now centre on the Treaty and indigenous rights. Witness recent governments’ incorporation of the Treaty into governing arrangements. The whole design of the Three Waters reform programme is centrally based on the role of iwi, for example.

The concept of co-governance has become an innovation that politicians are seeking to insert into more institutions. And many other proposals in the Labour Government’s He Puapua document will at some stage need to be discussed in terms of constitutional changes.

So any debate about shifting to a republic will automatically involve important consideration of how the Treaty and indigenous rights will be recognised and elevated in a new constitution. Māori aspirations will therefore reshape the republican movement – because in 2022 and onwards you can no longer deal with constitutional reform such as republicanism without a very serious debate about radical constitutional change involving tangata whenua.

Don McKinnon was reported this week as believing that “Māori would not agree to a republic without seeking concessions from the Government.” He told journalist Richard Harman, “Māori signed the treaty with the British Crown, and I would think there’d be a significant number of Māori who say, well, we’re not prepared to give up being a realm until we see far more equality within New Zealand today.” Similarly, law professor Andrew Geddis is quoted today saying a shift to a republic would require some sort of “reconceptualisation of Te Tiriti”.

The big republican debate will therefore be about placing the Treaty at the centre of the new constitution. And this could involve significant changes to the whole political system, including Parliament.

As political commentator and former MP Liz Gordon writes this week, “Māori will, if the matter arises, be asking for significantly more say in the governance of the nation. The Treaty of Waitangi, itself a kind of balance of powers, will need to be rewritten to provide shared kawanatanga and a new model of tino rangatiratanga.” And she is optimistic that this can be achieved, especially if such a model arises from Te Ao Māori itself: “if Māori can come together and propose a form of leadership that shares esteem and powers and takes us forward, such proposals would be unstoppable.”

For some in the republican movement these discussions about the role of the Treaty and Māori will be seen as a barrier to change, as debates that might once have simply been about whether New Zealand deserves to have a head of state determined by birth in aristocratic family in a far-off country, will instead be about more charged ethnicity and race issues.

Republicanism as a culture war

In this new environment, it might prove more difficult to win over support for a republic. While many New Zealanders, both Māori and pakeha, will be keen on ditching King Charles as our head of state, they might wince at the proposals for who replaces him, and what comes with that republicanism.

Although the current leaders of the Labour and National parties might profess to be republicans, they will run a mile from being associated with culture wars. Both Jacinda Ardern and Christopher Luxon will be keen to distances themselves from the fallout from what could be an ugly and divisive debate on New Zealand’s constitutional future. This isn’t simply about being cowardly and unwilling to front something they believe in, it’s more profound than that – not wanting to see the country descend into acrimonious debate with the potential to divide even their own parties and supporters.

When it comes down to it, there’s probably only a small proportion of New Zealand society who are fervent monarchists or republicans. People generally don’t feel that strongly about who our head of state is. In fact, a recent survey showed that only 18% of the public even know who occupies this position. But a much larger proportion of society cares about issues of racial injustice and radical reforms. It’s no surprise that polls show a large majority of New Zealanders don’t support the Government’s Three Waters reforms – probably largely due to the perception that they are a race-based reform giving large elements of control to unelected iwi.

Should the republican movement pursue “minimalist republicanism” or “Treaty republicanism”?

If New Zealand moves to a republic, there are many elements of a new constitution that might be easily agreed upon. The new head of state might be given a title such as Rangatira or Ariki.

But the constitutional reforms that could go along with the transition might be more radical. Therefore, the New Zealand Republican Movement has something of a dilemma in how it pursues change.

Does it adopt a “minimalist republican” reform movement, in which basic change is advocated – simply making the current office of Governor General the new head of state, with a reformed Parliamentary appointment process? Or does it look to more widespread constitutional reform, especially that which seeks to fulfill the aspirations of those demanding a more Treaty-based political system.

The former strategy might be more successful in terms of achieving a republic. The latter is more in touch with the Zeitgeist and will help get groups such as iwi leaders, Te Pati Māori and the Greens on side. But this option also threatens to open a real can of worms.

The republican debates we had in the 1980s and 1990s are long over. Back then it was about “minimalist republicanism” – just getting rid of the monarchy. It’s now about “Treaty-based republicanism”.

Most commentators haven’t caught up with this new reality. Much of the constitutional debate over the last few days has been about whether our new head of state would be a president, elected or appointed by Parliament, and how to avoid political capture of the new role.

These are all good discussions to have. But in the end, they miss the bigger questions – which will be around the Treaty, and what role a new republic would have for Māori, and how we embody a multi-ethnic society in constitutional arrangements.

There has been a sense in which New Zealand has been sleepwalking towards a republic, or that we are already a “de facto republic”. Many feel that a final shift to make a republic official is just a matter of launching a new campaign, referendum, or piece of legislation. But the recent Māori political and constitutional renaissance changes all of that. Republicans will have to grapple with demands for more than just a change of a law to replace the King with the Governor General.

For a good illustration of this change, it’s worth noting that in 2017 Te Pati Māori strongly opposed New Zealand becoming a republic but, in 2022, they are leading the charge. This year they have a new policy: “Te Pāti Māori are calling to remove the British royal family as head of state, and move Aotearoa to a Te Tiriti o Waitangi based nation.” And as part of this, they want bigger republican changes, including a Māori Parliament which would operate alongside the present one.

Will this version of republicanism be a goer? Probably not for quite a while yet.

Further reading on the monarchy

Tess McClure (Guardian): Apathy in New Zealand – but little desire for change – as King Charles’s reign begins
Michael Neilson (Herald): Queen’s death raises questions over New Zealand’s constitutional future
Henry Cooke (Guardian): Is this when New Zealand breaks up with the monarchy? Don’t count on it
Michael Neilson (Herald): Queen Elizabeth II death: New Zealand MPs give views on republic question
Zarina Hewlett (Today FM): Christopher Luxon rules out Republic referendum in first term if he became PM
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Queen Elizabeth death: Jacinda Ardern, Christopher Luxon aren’t interested in New Zealand republic debate yet
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Republicanism not on Jacinda Ardern’s agenda – even if it’s inevitable
Andrea Vance (Stuff): How King Charles will capitalise on a tide of sympathy following the Queen’s death
Richard Prebble: Our constitutional monarchy works well
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): The unpublished blueprint to bring home NZ’s head of state
Peter Dunne: Could Charles III push New Zealand to become a republic?
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Queen Elizabeth’s death: Marama Davidson uses tribute to speak of monarchy’s colonialist legacy
Gideon Porter (Waatea News): Republicanism a mirage says Piripi
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): Conversation about republicanism could be most divisive debate in our history
Gordon Campbell: On being co-dependent on the royals
Kirsty Wynn (Herald): Royal visit to NZ on cards as King Charles III, Camilla, Prince William, Princess Catherine and the kids look to tour Australia
Brigitte Morten (NBR): Keep calm, mourn, carry on (paywalled)
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): With grief comes trauma and the potential for healing too
Mike Hosking (Newstalk): There’s no need for the republic debate
Joe Bennett (Stuff): Time to sever the tie to these soap opera characters?

Other items of interest and importance today

GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT
Audrey Young (Herald): Who’s the power broker in Labour’s Māori caucus? (paywalled)
Max Rashbrooke Lisa Marriott (Stuff): Two decades of donation scandals – so where are the prosecutions?
Craig Renney (Stuff): We may have more public servants, but NZ’s public sector isn’t bloated
James Perry (Māori TV): Electoral system review begins – public asked for their views
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): Green party says it has nothing to hide over new rules for candidates (paywalled)
Victoria Young (BusinessDesk): Deloitte makes healthcare play (paywalled)

HOUSING
Talia Parker (Herald): Tauranga housing report warns of people living in cars, garages amid shortage
RNZ: Central government will ‘probably’ intervene in Christchurch housing density row, mayor says
Tina Law and Liz McDonald (Stuff): Christchurch seeks bespoke plan after ‘no’ vote on housing density
John MacDonald (Herald): Thumbs up for Christchurch flipping the bird at the Government
Tom Hunt (Stuff): Experts warn of New Zealand’s next construction saga amid building boom
Nona Pelletier (RNZ): Housing market slump turnaround unlikely before mid-2023
Anne Gibson (Herald): House prices dropping $322 a day: Real Estate Institute figures out for August
Anne Gibson (Herald): How economists reacted to house prices falling $322 a day (paywalled)
Stephen Minto (Daily Blog): 6 steps to fix the Labour/Green driven affordable housing crisis

ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT AND INEQUALITY
Alice Snedden (Spinoff): One easy step to close the wealth gap entirely
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): Locked out Kawerau workers accept higher Essity pay offer with ‘relief’
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): How much higher could food prices in NZ go?
Brooke van Velden (Herald): NZ’s worker shortage is dire – govt and immigration need to move fast

COVID
Luke Malpass (Stuff): It isn’t easy being Green: Most MPs drop masks in Parliament as rule relax
Herald: Editorial – Taking back control as Covid eases (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Herald): The vax rules are going, so should the punishments

TE REO MĀORI
Carl Mika (The Conversation): Tokenism and te reo Māori: why some things just shouldn’t be translated
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): How much reo Māori do people need to do business in NZ?
Dr Awanui Te Huia (Newsroom): Challenges ahead for young speakers of te reo

OTHER
Akula Sharma (Herald): Iwi calls for true founding day recognition in Tamaki Makaurau
Dileepa Fonseka (Stuff): The $15b infrastructure project nobody really wants
Anthony Doesburg (Newsroom): Lee Vandervis: Dunner stunner in waiting
James Halpin (Stuff): Anti-government group tried to get Brian Tamaki to ‘feral’ Parliament protest
Nicholas Boyack (Stuff): Well known union movement giant Ken Douglas dies
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Police must change practices around photo taking – Deputy Privacy Commissioner
Kiri Gillespie (Herald): Better bus network needed for congestion charging to work (paywalled)
Gordon Campbell: On a fun summer, with covid anxiety
Robert McCulloch: Why I’m blogging less: government spin & propaganda to “neutralize” it have left me exasperated

Joe Hawke — the prominent kaumātua and activist who led the long-running Takaparawhau occupation at Auckland’s Bastion Point in the late 1970s — has died, aged 82.

Born in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1940, Joseph Parata Hohepa Hawke of Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei, led his people in their efforts to reclaim their land and became a Member of Parliament.

He had been involved in land issues in his role as secretary of Te Matakite o Aotearoa, in the land march led by Dame Whina Cooper in 1975, before Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei walked onto their ancestral land on the Auckland waterfront in January 1977 and began an occupation that lasted 506 days.

He was among the 222 people arrested in May 1978 when police, backed by army personnel, ejected the protesters off their whenua.

In archival audio recorded during the protest, he exhibited his relentless commitment to the reclamation and return of whenua Māori — his people’s land — and for equality.

“We are landless in our own land, Takaparawha means a tremendous amount to our people. The struggle for the retention of this land is the most important struggle which our people have faced for many years. To lose this last bit of ground would be a death blow to the mana, to the honour and to the dignity of the Ngāti Whātua people,” Hawke said1977.

“We are prepared to go the whole way because legally we have the legal right to do it.”

In 1987, he took the Bastion Point claim to the Waitangi Tribunal and had the satisfaction of seeing the Tribunal rule in Ngāti Whātua’s favour] and the whenua being returned.

He was a pou for protests and demonstrations thereafter — a prominent pillar in Māori movements.

In the 1990s Hawke became a director of companies involved in Māori development, and in 1996 he entered Parliament as a Labour Party list MP, before retiring from politics in 2002.

In 2008, he became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Māori and the community.

Hawke’s tangi will be held at Ōrākei Marae this week. Wednesday marks the 44th anniversary of the Bastion Point eviction. His nehu will be on Thursday.

E te rangatira, moe mai rā.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

If there’s one thing Matthew Tukaki thought he and the protesters at Parliament might agree on, it’s the right to free speech. But after starting a campaign to end the occupation, he discovered that wasn’t quite the case.

“I started a campaign on Sunday, which kind of went viral, called #endtheprotest, via social media,” the Wellington-based chair of the National Māori Authority said.

The hashtag is now one of the top trending topics for New Zealand Twitter users and has been shared by close to 60,0000 people on Facebook, hitting a reach of 2.3 million accounts.

Tutaki said the backlash, which had included physical threats and racial abuse, was initially just online but it quickly escalated once protesters realised he was behind the campaign.

“I came out of a hotel on Sunday and someone recognised me, they grabbed me by the arm, and the force was so great, they ripped the sleeve off my anorak and left a bruise,” he said.

Never one to let a single incident perturb him, Tukaki passed the protests on his way to lunch a few days later.

“I was down there on my way to get some sushi and a group of about eight of them piled in, shouting verbal abuse and trying to physically intimidate me. One of them was about to lunge and if it wasn’t for the police, it could have turned into something much more brutal.”

No self-respect
He said the protesters seemed to have no self-respect, either for their own space or the environment they were occupying, given the amount of human waste that was swirling around Parliament grounds.

“It’s like someone has turned up at your house, put a tent in your lounge, and then shat in your sink. It’s another level of disrespect out there and these people have no respect for the whenua.”

Having attended many protests over his life as well as having many friends and family involved in different types of activism, he said the difference in how a Māori-led campaign operated was stark.

“Ihumātao was totally different, hīkoi to parliament are different,” he said. “With Māori, when we have a protest, our people will go down to Wellington, we prosecute our kaupapa, present our petition and members of parliament will often come out to greet you.

“It’s always well-organised, and it’s safe and then we clean up after ourselves and we continue to prosecute the kaupapa back home from our marae.

“This is completely different. It’s violent, it’s aggressive and they have no respect for the whenua.”

He noted that even after protesters sent out a press release welcoming visitors, “a reporter from Wellington Live went down there, and was beaten up”.

Māori culture appropriated
He said it was particularly concerning to see both Māori culture and New Zealand’s wartime history being appropriated.

“Unfortunately our Māori whānau are being used as clickbait by those in the alternative right, who are pushing messages from the United States,” he said.

“We’re being used, our symbols are being appropriated. Our tino rangatiraranga flag is flying next to the Trump flag, next to where a Nazi swastika symbol was painted on a war memorial.”

He said the prime minister had made the right call not engaging and he felt some blame could be laid at the feet of politicians who had helped stoke racist conspiracies.

“Many politicians have used Māori issues as a political football over the last 12 months,” he said.

“What they have done is they have set free the sorts of racist attitudes that have been hiding in dark corners, and look at what those same politicians have done now — blame the government for it all.”

Peddling of racist ideas ‘normalised’
This wasn’t the first time Tukaki had received abuse, given his role with the National Māori Authority, which advocated for iwi and Māori business and community service organisations around New Zealand, but he was concerned by how normalised the peddling of racist ideas was becoming.

“I was getting racist and threatening messages before the protest, but what this has taught me is the issue of racism is out there more, because people are now emboldened to show their names and faces.

“And to be frank, people like [David] Seymour and [Judith] Collins, [Winston] Peters and Matt King all need to take responsibility for the beast in the cave they have conveniently let loose.”

Justin Latif is a Local Democracy Reporting project journalist. Read more of his stories here. Asia Pacific Report is a community partner.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

PART 1: Divide and rule with Māori and Pacific communities

White Supremacy (WS) has proliferated during covid-19 lockdowns in Aotearoa from 17 August 2021. Supremacist activism, aspirations, attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, concepts, ideas, languages, media output, organising praxes, political slogans, political thought, and political party policies have all flourished as people protested against government covid restrictions and lockdowns.

In this writing, I distinguish between anti-vaccination and freedom protesters who are not advocating for WS and those who are part of anti-lockdown protests and anti-vaccination organising who do support white supremacy.

Similarly, the focus of this commentary is not to examine conspiracy theories. Moreover, I am not seeking to examine the work of Māori or Pacific people engaged in anti-vaccination and freedom from lockdown protests.

WS works best when it can divide and rule Māori and Pacific communities. My focus in this article is on Pakeha involvement in WS as it evolves in contemporary Aotearoa.

This article seeks to offer ways to understand the contemporary emergence of the supremacy phenomenon. This article will offer a thumbnail sketch outline of some of the features of supremacy in an Aotearoa context.

I assume colonial and historical forms of WS already existent in Aotearoa are coalescing and are being energised by contemporary, hybrid variations of supremacy emerging from the US, Europe, Australia, and other countries.

Supremacists in Aotearoa are clearly drawing upon WS activism, aesthetics, hostility, media output, messaging, modes of organising, and political thought from overseas.

White supremacy in Aotearoa
I attempt to group these variegated expressions of white supremacy in this article. I seek to outline this phenomenon as a composite of ideas, concepts, languages, beliefs, ideologies, attitudes, activisms, praxes, aspirations, narratives, and political positions — all situated in a time, space, and condition in Aotearoa.

I feel that WS must also be understood as embodying modes of being, living, and knowing operational in community, family, political, and social life. WS is occurring at multiple levels of our communities.

Further, I believe people must be able to analyse WS; group supremacist phenomena, and assess it vis-à-vis a framework such as a spectrum. Further, we must invite African, Asian, Māori, Pacific, and Pakeha communities to consider WS from within values specific to each cultural group.

Most importantly, we must invite community groups to question WS from their many different community standing places. I hope this modest work offers communities a framework for assessing WS from within their own flax roots community perspectives.

We need more work considering these issues from the perspectives of women, LGBTG, working class, and disabled sectors of the wider community also.

The online Merriam Webster Dictionary defines WS in two ways. Firstly, WS is defined at its most basic as “the belief that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races”.

In this definition, WS is defined as a component of an attitudinal sphere.

Secondly, the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines WS as “the social, economic, and political systems that collectively enable white people to maintain power over people of other races”.

Structural and societal level
This shifts discussion of WS from an individual attitudinal sphere to a structural and societal level. I deploy both these definitions of white supremacy in this article — and expand upon the definition in regards to specific concerns such as activism, language, and the media.

I argue white supremacy is one component of a wider colonial settler project in Aotearoa. Alicia Cox at Oxford Bibliographies defines Settler Colonialism as “an ongoing system of power that perpetuates genocide and repression of indigenous peoples… normalises continuous settler occupation… exploiting lands and resources to which indigenous people have genealogical relationships…includes interlocking forms of oppression such as racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism”.

In sum, I will argue that all forms of WS outlined in this article contribute to Settler Colonialism in Aotearoa.

I have examined commentary, comments, interviews, and video footage of well-known Pakeha WS activists and media pundits in Aotearoa. I have examined Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, and internet commentary from flax roots people. I considered fringe parliamentary political parties’ policies of those positioning themselves for entry into mainstream politics.

I viewed video footage of freedom and anti-vax protests around the country. I looked at internet sites of groups organising anti-lockdown protests around Aotearoa. I researched QAnon, the ALT-Right, and white supremacist organisations overseas. Similarly, I read work on concepts, language, and political thought that underpins some of these movements.

I see WS as a formation existing along a spectrum for the transformation of specific sectional interests; for those seeking to use direct action to challenge the government; for those seeking representation in Parliament, and finally for people seeking a potential white ethno-state.

We should be sensitive to the aspirations, attitudes, beliefs, concepts, ideas, use of language, and ideals concerning economic, social, and political thought underpinning WS in the list introduced below.

Expressions of WS
When examining sources I found expressions of WS regarding:

(1) contempt for Te Tiriti,
(2) rejection of power sharing between Pakeha and Māori as articulated in Te Tiriti,
(3) appropriation of He Whakaputanga alongside a rejection of Te Tiriti,
(4) antagonism towards the historical experience of Māori,
(5) privileging of a mythology of “peaceful” or “just” race relations in Aotearoa — thereby erasing histories of racism suffered by Africans, Asians, Māori, or Pacific communities in Aotearoa,
(6) political policies of different fringe parties antagonistic to “race”-based privileges for Māori in health, in law, or at the United Nations,
(7) vilification of the NZ Labour as “socialistic”,
(8) attacks on Māori activist, community, political, or scholarly leaders,
(9) assumptions WS is on same side as “ordinary” Māori, Pacific, Asian, African, or Pakeha communities,
(10) attacks on independent university based critical scholarship,
(11) abuse of Māori language users,
(12) championing of bellicose forms of Pentecostal Christianity as the only legitimate faith for Aotearoa,
(13) attacks on the United Nations and governments as cabals of evil,
(14) contempt for migrants rights,
(15) deployment of language hijacked from liberation struggles,
(16) deployment of narratives of WS,
(17) refusal to debate honestly,
(18) antagonism and personal attacks against those considered enemies of WS using different media,
(19) articulation of action programmes,
(20) modes of praxis,
(21) introduction of Alt Right and QAnon concepts, language use, and values, and
(22) lauding of former US President Donald Trump, Republicans, and Q.

I deploy one example of the techniques Pakeha WS proponents use to articulate their programme re language hijacked from liberation struggles. Pakeha WS adherents have sought to appropriate, disrupt, interrupt, colonise, and then occupy the languages of Māori and African-American liberation — and, implicitly, the epistemologies underpinning these languages.

For example, Pakeha WS figures have called acclaimed Māori community leader Hone Harawira a “sell out”, a “house negro”, and a “traitor” for his community work for Māori families during covid-19 lockdowns in Northland in 2021.

Here, WS folk have attempted to colonise the Black Liberation language of Malcolm X. This “house negro” language was deployed by Malcolm X in a specific time, place, and condition- as Manning Marable articulates in his controversial history, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Māori activists deployed this language in debates with their more conservative elders in years gone by.

But Pakeha WS advocates deploying this language are no friends of Malcolm or the Black Liberation struggle — these Pakeha are bitter opponents of the BLM movement. Similarly, these Pakeha are no friends of Māori liberation struggles such as the one at Ihumatao.

The whakapapa of struggle
WS adherents are trying to colonise, disrupt, and occupy this language so as to appropriate it to better undermine the links connecting Hone to his own people. But Hone is conjoined to his people by whakapapa and the whakapapa of struggle.

Moreover, who would Malcolm X stand with? WS representatives attacking indigenous people — or an indigenous Māori brother, like Hone Harawira?

I invite Asian, African, Māori, Pacific, and Pakeha communities standing in their own cultures, community values, experiences, and histories to consider these questions.

Does WS in its various forms as outlined in brief above:

(1) Resonate with your community values?
(2) Articulate your vision of the country?
(3) Uphold the mana of the diverse sections of each of your communities?
(4) Sympathise with your communal experiences or histories?
(5) Align with your notions of community service?
(6) Voice your community needs?
(7) Articulate your community aspirations for your young people, women, or your elders?
(8) Support your concerns in the parliamentary party sphere?
(9) Offer a valid means to find a way out of covid-19 in a time of great uncertainty?
(10) Make Aotearoa/New Zealand a safer place for your community?
(11) Make Aotearoa/New Zealand a more tolerant society?
(12) Uphold the mana of the first people of this land, the Māori people?
(13) Offer a means to advance the concerns of all communities in Aotearoa?
(14) Does settler colonialism offer a positive vision for a united and prosperous Aotearoa/ New Zealand in the future?

Only communities in Aotearoa have the answers to these questions. I hope the definitions, analysis, articulation of a spectrum, and the final questions provide an accessible and safe framework for communities to assess, critically engage, and strategise concerning this contemporary phenomena known as WS.

Tony Fala is an activist, researcher, and volunteer for a small charitable trust engaged in food rescue and distribution to communities in South Auckland. He acknowledges his own racism in years gone by — something he had to overcome. Fala wishes to acknowledge the anti-racist contributions of Joe Carolan, Tina Ngata, Rawiri Taonui, and Joe Trinder — and all other activists, journalists, and scholars engaged in responding to WS. He also wishes to acknowledge the important work of The Disinformation Project in Aotearoa.

• Tomorrow: Part 2: WS storytelling in more detail

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

RNZ Pacific

A young Māori activist has told delegates at a massive UN summit in Scotland the world’s climate crisis has its roots in colonialism and that the solution lies in abandoning modern-day forms of it.

India Logan-Riley was asked at the last minute to speak at today’s opening session of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

They said indigenous resistance to resource exploitation, corporate greed and the promotion of justice had led the way in offering real solutions to climate chaos.

Addressing delegates today, the young activist fearlessly linked imperialism’s lust for resources and its destruction of indigenous cultures centuries ago, to modern-day enablement by governments of corporate giants seeking profit from fossil fuels at any cost.

Logan-Riley said the roots of the climate crisis began with imperialist expansion by Western nations and reminded Britain’s leader Boris Johnson of the colonial crimes committed against subject peoples, including those in Aotearoa.

Māori and other indigenous people had been forced off the land so resources could be extracted, Logan-Riley said.

“Two-hundred-fifty-two years ago invading forces sent by the ancestors of this presidency arrived at my ancestors’ territories, heralding an age of violence, murder and destruction enabled by documents, like the Document of Discovery, formulated in Europe.

Land ‘stolen by British Crown’
“Land in my region was stolen by the British Crown in order to extract oil and suck the land of all its nutrients while seeking to displace people.”

Logan-Riley said the same historic forces continued to be at play in Aotearoa, citing the example of the government’s “theft of the foreshore and seabed” and subsequent corporate drive to extract fossil fuels.

They expressed frustration that after being lauded at the Paris talks five years ago for relaying climate warnings of wildfires, biodiversity loss and sea-level rises, nothing since had changed.

“The global north colonial governments and corporations fudge with the future,” they added.

Logan-Riley said world leaders needed to listen to indigenous people as they had many of the answers to the climate crisis. Their acts of resistance had already played a part in keeping emissions down, they added.

“We’re keeping fossil fuels in the ground and stopping fossil fuel expansion. We’re halting infrastructure that would increase emissions and saying no to false solutions,” they said.

“In the US and Canada alone indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.”

‘Complicit’ in death and destruction
Failure to support such indigenous challenges to the “colonial project” and acceptance instead of mediocre leaders means you too are complicit in death and destruction across the globe, Logan-Riley warned.

The comments come as other climate activists have criticised the G20 summit on climate action ahead of the COP26 meeting.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who chaired the G20 gathering in Rome, today hailed the final accord, saying that for the first time all G20 states had agreed on the importance of capping global warming at the 1.5C level that scientists say is vital to avoid disaster.

As it stands, the world is heading towards 2.7C.

G20 pledged to stop financing coal power overseas, they set no timetable for phasing it out at home, and watered down the wording on a promise to reduce emissions of methane — another potent greenhouse gas.

The final G20 statement includes a pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year, but set no date for phasing out coal power, promising only to do so “as soon as possible”.

This replaced a goal set in a previous draft of the final statement to achieve this by the end of the 2030s, showing the strong resistance from some coal-dependent countries.

G20 set no ‘phasing out’ date
The G20 also set no date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, saying they will aim to do so “over the medium term”.

On methane, which has a more potent but less lasting impact than carbon dioxide on global warming, leaders diluted their wording from a previous draft that pledged to “strive to reduce our collective methane emissions significantly”.

The final statement just recognises that reducing methane emissions is “one of the quickest, most feasible and most cost-effective ways to limit climate change”.

“I just wanted to really convey that the negotiations are the same age as me and admissions are still going up and that needs to stop right now,” they said.

Logan-Riley had opened their address in te reo Māori before telling delegates they resided on Aotearoa’s east coast, where the sun had turned red in February last year because of smoke from wildfires in eastern Australia.

The activist relayed a story about supporting their brother in hospital being told by the doctor there staff were seeing higher numbers of people presenting with breathing problems because of the smoke.

“In that moment our health was bound to the struggle of the land and people in another country. In the effects of climate change are fates intertwined, as our the historic forces that have brought us here today,” they said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The co-leader of New Zealand’s minority Māori Party has launched a blistering attack on white privilege and the opposition National Party which it accuses of “igniting racism” in the framing of a debate about radical political change.

In a provocative introduction to her weekly column in The New Zealand Herald today, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asks: “Hey coloniser, so let me get this right, you want to lead a debate about indigenous rights that you helped to destroy?”

She writes in her media message to Pākehā colonisers: “You dishonour Te Tiriti [1840 Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding political partnership document] and promote continuing to do so.

“You stole our land and our language. You denounce our history, preferring to educate on anything but us. And you have done nothing to reverse this, instead preferring to ignore the problems.

“We are in an inherently white system that you designed, yet you feel oppressed that Māori want to stop the pain of inequities. Your systemic racism continues to perpetuate intergenerational trauma, which you refuse to accept.”

While acknowledging that National Party leader Judith Collins claimed that New Zealanders “find racism abhorrent”, she added that “in my opinion she is igniting racism through a carefully deployed campaign — apparently with the help of former leader Don Brash”.

Ngarewa-Packer says New Zealanders are entitled to a conversation about radical change, but they are not “counteracting with alternative solutions”, preferring to focus on what she saw as the “misery of struggling Māori whānau”.

‘White hypocrisy’
Criticising what she describes as “white hypocrisy”, Ngarewa-Packer called instead for a “debate about the coloniser’s entitlements”.

“And rather than start on a timeline plucked out to help lift right-wing leaders’ dying polls, let’s start at the beginning: 181 years ago, and discuss the rights of tangata whenua and the radical change needed in Aotearoa to see those rights fulfilled,” she said.

“And yes, I hear you. Why should you pay for your ancestors’ mistakes? But why should we, either?

“No one can give our language, lives, and land (actually this is possible) back. There is no true price for our tāonga. But we must at least stop the lying and stop making a mockery of tangata whenua with this pathetic dog-whistling.”

Ngarewa-Packer says a debate was needed on how New Zealand economy had been built off the “displacement of tangata whenua”.

“How tangata whenua are the largest benefactors to this nation, having accepted settlements worth 1 per cent loss of whenua stolen, in a process determined by the Crown!”

Disparity in the economy
Among examples Ngarewa-Packer gave of the disparity between the Pākehā and Māori share of the economy, were the NZ$1.9m funding for Te Matatini, the “largest kapa haka event on the planet, versus $16.9m for the NZ Symphony Orchestra”.

She also cited the $250m spent on the America’s Cup this year.

Ngarewa-Packer has also called for less hypocrisy about “crackdowns needed to stop crime”

“Let’s turn our gaze to white-collar crime, which has seen an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion loss to Aotearoa, through tax avoidance and evasion.”

She added that Māori sought to “drive our own tino rangatiratanga [self-determination]”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When policymakers try to fix things, they often mess up because of the way the problem is formulated and the ways that subsequent policies are targeted. A classic example was the Closing the Gaps initiative in the early 2000s.

The problem – albeit simplified – is that some people are ‘advantaged’ and others are ‘disadvantaged’. In New Zealand, one of the groups that were (and presumably still are) disproportionately disadvantaged are Māori. (Another such group was, and is, Pasifika.)

One useful way of approaching the problem is that we can say as stylised facts:

• Seventy percent of non-Māori are advantaged, and thirty percent are disadvantaged.
• Thirty percent of Māori are advantaged, and seventy percent are disadvantaged.
• The socio-economic circumstances of advantaged Māori are comparable with the circumstances of advantaged non-Māori. And the socio-economic circumstances of disadvantaged Māori are comparable with the circumstances of disadvantaged non-Māori.

Closing the Gaps was meant to be about making the disadvantaged less-disadvantaged; or – better still – not disadvantaged at all. But the policymaking didn’t target the disadvantaged as such; rather it targeted Māori as the most prominent disadvantaged group. And it is true that if the median circumstance of Māori could be raised, given that the median Māori is disadvantaged, then the gap between a median disadvantaged person and a median advantaged person would close. Though many disadvantaged people – indeed the majority of disadvantaged people, who in New Zealand are not Māori – would not benefit

Today’s more modest equivalent of Closing the Gaps is the proposed creation of a Māori Health Authority. And, as in 2004, the National Party passionately opposes this as racially targeted policymaking. (I might note that Māori versus Pakeha constitutional issues have no more to do with ‘race’ than do issues in Northern Ireland between ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’. In New Zealand’s case, the point of difference is that Māori are tangata whenua, not that Māori are ‘brown’; of course that doesn’t preclude the possibility that some people may be prejudiced against dark-skinned ethnicities, and thereby – knowingly or unknowingly – hold racist views towards Māori.)

Unintended Consequences

The problem with racially targeted policymaking of this sort is that it doesn’t address the actual problem (‘disadvantage’); instead such policies use ‘Māori’ as a proxy for ‘disadvantage’. (Other groups use other demographic proxies for disadvantage, such as ‘female’ or ‘working-class’ or ‘Muslim’.)

We are not yet clear as to the purpose of the Māori Health Authority.

Some believe that its purpose will be positive discrimination in favour of people with proven indigenous ancestry, especially in their ability to access health services. (Much as a Community Services Card discriminates in favour of cardholders.) If this is intended, it would be clearly problematic. Should a Māori family in Flaxmere or Kaikohe have more favourable access to services than their circumstantially identical Pakeha neighbours? Or should the community of Kaikohe be more favourably resourced than the community of Bluff?

The alternative interpretation is that the Māori Health Authority is an addition to the Health bureaucracy, that could only be justified – like other government bureaucracies – as a means to an overall improvement of health outcomes for all disadvantaged New Zealanders.

This is particularly problematic in today’s zero-sum fiscal environment. In a zero-sum fiscal environment, funding is from a fixed ‘pot of money’. This means that funding for one purpose comes at the expense of funding for other purposes (such as cancer treatment, or research on infectious diseases); and the policy issue becomes the ‘marginal health benefit’ that arises from this use of the money, as opposed to that use.

One of the most important refrains today is that Health is already over-bureaucratised, with far too great a proportion of funding going into ‘prioritisation services’; this being a euphemism for gate-keeping. Is an addition to the bureaucracy a more beneficial use of scarce resources than direct funding to train nurses, or to subsidise a greater range of life-enhancing drugs?

The concern that follows from this is the possibility that the principal benefit of the Māori Health Authority will be to provide enhanced career opportunities for the thirty percent of Māori who are not disadvantaged. And that the main people who will bear the opportunity cost of this benefit will be the presently disadvantaged, the majority of whom are the thirty percent of non-Māori who are disadvantaged.

The irony of this would be an opening of the gaps between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Indeed, a dispassionate look at socio-economic outcomes in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2017 would be that it has been a period that could be described as an ‘opening of the gaps’.

————-

Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

contact: keith at rankin.nz

New Zealand’s opposition National Party leader Judith Collins has suffered a sharp dip in support in the preferred prime minister stakes, in the latest Newshub Reid Research poll.

The new poll has Labour on 52.7 percent while National has improved slightly to 27 percent support – an increase of 1.4 percentage points on election night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on 48.1 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes, while Collins has slipped to 5.6 percent – a drop of 12.8 percent.

This is despite plenty of media coverage since she began accusing the government of introducing separatism for Māori “by stealth” when dealing with poverty and lack of opportunity in New Zealand.

Labour keeps its majority stranglehold on Parliament on 52.7 percent, up 2.7 points on the election result.

The Green Party is on 7.1 percent – down 0.8 – and ACT is just below on 6.9 percent, down 0.7.

The Māori Party remains on 1.2.

The poll was conducted between 7 and 13 May with a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

How seriously does the Māori Party take issues of corruption and the untoward influence of big money in politics? Not very, based on how it’s handling a political finance scandal in which three large donations were kept hidden from the public.

The party is currently making excuses, and largely failing to answer questions, about being referred to the Police for breaches of the Electoral Act for not declaring large donations it received during the election campaign, amounting to what could be corrupt practice.

The news of the Māori Party being referred to the Police is in Claire Trevett’s news report yesterday, Election donations: Māori Party referred to police over $320,000 in undeclared donations.

As the article notes, “Under electoral laws, political parties must disclose donations of more than $30,000 within 10 working days.” This is so the public, especially during an election campaign, is aware of who is funding the politicians. In this case, the Māori Party decided not to declare, as the law requires, three very large donations, which amount to nearly a third of a million dollars.

The money donated comes from former party co-leader John Tamihere ($158,224), Aotearoa Te Kahu Limited Partnership ($120,000), and the National Urban Māori Authority ($48,880).

It could be that the party didn’t have the correct processes in place, in what is a complicated area of operating a political party. Although the law is clear about what needs to be declared, the details of what should be included is a difficult area, especially if the donations amount to an amalgamation of “in kind” contributions and election spending by candidates. As Trevett’s article above reports, the party president “said Tamihere paid for some party costs out of his own pocket and the party had not realised it was supposed to treat those as donations.”

Nonetheless, the ball is now in the Māori Party’s court to reassure the public, and their voters, that they have integrity when it comes to powerful vested interests. Unfortunately, they aren’t providing a lot of the necessary detail.

About half of the money in question came from John Tamihere, who was less than forthcoming or contrite when replying to a journalist’s question on why he hadn’t been transparent, saying “Because I’m not as perfect as you” – see Tova O’Brien’s Billy Te Kahika outs himself as second Electoral Commission referral to police over donations.

Party president Che Wilson is claiming ignorance and a shambolic state of affairs in the party as his excuse – see RNZ’s Māori Party undeclared donations referred to police. Wilson is quoted saying, “We took over a party that had broken down and as part of the rebuild as volunteers when we got into the thick of the campaign we misinterpreted how we had to report things”.

Similarly, talking to Newshub, Wilson conveys that “they were so focused on issues that needed solving in the lead-up to the election that meant they didn’t have the correct processes” – see Rachel Sadler’s Māori Party undeclared donations: Electoral Commission notified as soon as error was noticed – party president Che Wilson.

Evaluating the party’s responses so far, electoral law expert Andrew Geddis told RNZ’s Morning Report: “That doesn’t strike me particularly as a good excuse, given that these rules are in place for a good reason. And if you as party secretary are taking on the responsibility then its implicit on you to make sure you know what you are doing and that you’ve got the processes in place to be able to meet the legal requirements” – see: Rules around electoral donations very clear – Geddis.

Geddis appears to believe a prosecution is required in this case, because “There’s no point having these rules if people can just ignore them and just walk away with a slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.” But he adds that a judge might choose a lesser punishment for the party president if there are mitigating circumstances (such as the fact that they have come clean to the Electoral Commission).

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams has spoken out today, saying there’s “no excuse” for failing to disclose the large donations, and the “law is perfectly clear” – see Waatea News’ Māori Party fails to report funding. According to this article, “Williams says John Tamihere, who is a former MP, would know the rules”.

What’s more, Williams argues that the Māori Party’s failure to disclose its funding during the election campaign may have been politically consequential: “It might have altered votes if people knew John Tamihere chucked in $158,00 before the election. That should have been reported before the election. That’s the point of the law”.

Questions raised about who pulls the strings in the Māori Party

The spotlight is now on the three big donors to the Māori Party. On Newshub’s Hui TV programme last night, Mihingarangi Forbes challenged the party president about the funding from the National Urban Māori Authority (NUMA), which John Tamihere is the CEO of, and is contracted to the government to provide Whānau Ora services. But Wilson refused to comment saying “We can only talk about what we’ve done and you’d need to talk to NUMA about that.”

Political commentators Shane te Pou and Tau Henare appeared on the programme, and had very different interpretations of this donation. Te Pou, a former Labour candidate, said: “I think it’s very important the police investigate. If Whanau Ora money has been used – and I use that word ‘if’ – I don’t think that’s a good thing at all. At the end of the day it’s taxpayer money… If I was the minister of Whanau Ora, the first thing in the morning I would write to the Auditor-General and I would ask him to investigate” – see Dan Satherley’s ‘That’s the game’: Māori Party MPs warned attacks will come over donations scandal.

In contrast, Tau Henare called the scandal a “storm in a teacup”, and argued that the problem is with the law rather than the Māori Party: “The reality is we have a law that’s designed to obfuscate, designed to… hide things… The law needs to be looked at, the law needs to be revamped so everybody is clear about their accountabilities. In terms of the Māori Party, I think it’s a bit of a rookie mistake.”

Rightwing blogger David Farrar argues today that the matter raises important questions about the Māori Party’s funding – especially from the mysterious entity, Aotearoa Te Kahu, which gave a single donation of $120,000 – see: Who are the mystery Māori Party funders?.

Farrar has been digging around to find the background of this donor: “Go to the register of limited partnerships and you find they act on behalf of Aotearoa Te Kahu GP Limited. Their shareholder is ATK Nominees Limited. And their shareholder is Morrison Kent Limited. It is fair to assume Morrison Kent are not the actual shareholders but are acting for someone. So this leaves the question who actually controls and funds Aotearoa Te Kahu and made the decision to donate $120,000 to the Māori Party?”

Has the Māori Party been a victim of racism?

At the same time that the Māori Party were referred to the Police, the Electoral Commission also said that the National Party had breached the rules by failing to disclose $35,000 donated last year in three instalments by real estate businessman Garth Barfoot. Che Wilson has suggested, in his interview with Newshub, that because National hasn’t been referred to the Police, it’s a case of the Māori Party being unfairly singled out: “That’s just really sad that the system has its bias and potentially is racist”.

However, the Electoral Commission has been reported as saying that the same rules are being applied, but it hasn’t yet decided whether to also refer National to the police. In her article, Claire Trevett states: “The Electoral Commission said it had asked for an explanation from the National Party and was still assessing the matter. It did not automatically refer all late donations to the police, but considered issues such as the party’s past record and the timeframes involved.”

Blogger No Right Turn has backed up the Māori Party on this, suggesting if the Police choose to prosecute, this will reflect discrimination on their part: “In the past the police (as opposed to the SFO) have generally refused to enforce the law (it’s not ‘real’ crime, you see, unlike someone smoking a joint or walking while brown). But given the party involved and the police’s culture of racism and subservience to power, maybe we might finally see the law enforced this time, though for entirely the wrong reasons” – see: The Māori Party’s hidden donations.

Finally, the Electoral Commission is yet to release the details of the donations received by parties for the 2020 election year, but in February the donations to individual election candidates were published – you can see the details in Claire Trevett’s, Shane Jones, Christopher Luxon, Anna Lorck – who got the most donations in 2020 election?.

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Three years ago, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern campaigned on kindness and transformation.

As New Zealand heads to the voting booths this month, Te Ao host Moana Maniapoto on Māori Television sat down with the Leader of the Labour Party and asked her about the big issues facing Māori.

Te Ao editors: “We reached out to the leaders of both Labour and National but Judith Collins was unavailable.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New opposition National leader Todd Muller is backing his front bench, saying he chose the shadow cabinet line-up on merit and talent.

While three out of National’s top four ranked MPs are women, there are no Māori MPs on the front bench, or of any other ethnicity.

Māori Party founder Dame Tariana Turia told RNZ she was “gobsmacked” by National’s new line-up given her experience working closely with the party in government.

READ MORE: Todd Muller’s car crash of an interview on Q & A

“Here is a political party that I thought valued the Māori voice… It’s very disappointing to now see that in 2020 there is no Māori voice on the front bench,” she said.

However, Muller told RNZ Morning Report he went with who he believed were his best MPs.

“I looked at it through the lens of my shadow cabinet and I looked at it through the lens of the talent that I have at my disposal which is quite extraordinary in terms of my 55 MPs and the third thing I did, which is different to what has happened in the past, is rather than loading up the shadow cabinet with all the portfolios, I spread the critical and substantive portfolios across the whole team, including Dan Bidois for example who has Workplace Relations and Safety.

“When I put it (party list) forward I didn’t rank it and I also said this isn’t our final list ranking.”

Māori MPs in shadow cabinet
Muller pointed out that his shadow cabinet does contain Māori MPs.

“From my perspective the shadow cabinet is what counts,” he said.

“In that shadow cabinet I have Dr Shane Reti who I brought beside me when I won the leadership as someone who I rate highly and think is already a huge contributor to the National Party and the country and will be a substantive senior minister in my government, and of course Paula Bennett … then beyond that a caucus with Māori representation that is connected hugely in the Māori community.”

Dame Tariana also acknowledged the likes of Dr Reti, ranked 17th, and Harete Hipango, ranked 39th, and believes they deserve a promotion.

“One thing I know about politics – everything is about votes. And if they think that the Māori vote is not going to go their way, are they going to choose any Māori people to be in their top 10? Doesn’t look like it.”

There was also confusion at yesterday’s announcement when Finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith was declared Māori by deputy leader Nikki Kaye.

Muller said he didn’t consider Goldsmith Māori when sorting out his front bench.

‘That was an error’
“That was an error and we admitted that yesterday,” he said.

“She (Nikki Kaye) obviously wasn’t 100 percent clear on his whakapapa. Mistakes happen and that was acknowledged at the time.

“Certainly from my perspective I am very comfortable with the team we have, I think it is remarkable talent.

“I think my shadow cabinet bests this government’s cabinet in terms of person for person contribution, capacity life experience, lived experience and the ability to help frame up with the wider team a recovery plan for this country that will have substance.”

Muller’s front bench was not only criticised by those outside his party but inside as well.

National list MP and Māori development spokesperson Jo Hayes publicly critiqued Muller’s front bench on Radio Waatea.

“This is not good. We need to remedy this or you need to front it and take it head on and say why. You need to give a better explanation,” she said.

Muller would not say whether he was happy with Hayes voicing her concerns but said he had a conversation with her last night about the issue.

“She was passionate and she obviously shared a view and we talked about it.”

Muller would not disclose if he told her not to speak about the issues in the future.

• This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz