Friday 5 February 2010

Why the Treaty is Holding Us Back [update 4]

If morning TV is your thing, then why not take a look at TVNZ’s Marae programme tomorrow morning, on which from 8:00 to 8:30 a panel of four is debating the point: “The Treaty of Waitangi is Holding Back Our Nation.”  I don’t think I’m giving too much away by posting the opening remarks of my colleague Tim Wikiriwhi, one of four on the panel debating the point (the others are Stephen Franks, Matthew Hooton and Hana O’Regan, in front of an audience including John Minto and Matt & Madeleine Flannagan).

Why the Treaty is Holding Back the Nation
by Tim Wikiriwhi

    We should not be surprised that those who profit from Treaty separatism should be painting you a rosy picture of it.  But what do they really sell us?
    They hope you have forgotten about all the corruption; about all the grievous racial division their Treaty separatism has caused; about all the welfare dependence it fosters.
    They want you to believe the Treaty did not unite us as one people but kept us in eternal division.  They want you to accept their sexed-up version of the Treaty—their talk of “partnership,” which has become just another word for a hand out.
    They want you to forget all the anti-immigration and xenophobia-mongering—all the talk of “holocausts” and “post-colonial traumatic stress disorders”—all the damning of '”Tangata Tiriti” as if that makes them second-class citizens --all the racist slurs against non-Maori (against white mofos) by racist politicians occupying racist parliamentary seats.
    They hope you never question having such a racially perverted democracy—where a racist party sitting in racist seats gets to hold the balance of power—never question all the racially perverted laws.
    They hope New Zealanders have forgotten all the frauds, all the nepotism, all the misappropriations of taxpayers’ money, all the noses in the trough.
    They hope Pakeha never work out that land was confiscated from some tribes because they rebelled against the sovereignty of the Queen and the Treaty.
    They hope you have forgotten Tame Iti’s terrorist threat--how he was planning to kill white people; and how silent his comrades have been about what he was up to.
    Most of all, they hope you have forgotten that for a society to be just it must have laws that uphold the principle of equality before the law—especially racial equality before the law.
    They want you to continue to vote for unscrupulous Quislings like John Key who kiss up to Maori radicals and allow them unquestioningly to impose and expand their racist agenda.
    I consider it my duty to call the perpetrators of this massive political fraud to account.
    I call for the abolition of the Maori seats in Parliament, and a new constitution upholding property rights and the rule of law— that’s one law for all, regardless of race.

UPDATE 1: Matt & Madeleine give out awards.

UPDATE 4: And here’s what Stephen Franks prepared for his own Opening Statement.

"The real Treaty, the one signed 170 years ago was an asset to all New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha. It was way ahead of its time.  The parties were hugely unequal. The British had only just abolished slavery. Maori of course had not. But it promised all equality before the law.”

Read on here.

16 comments:

Sean Fitzpatrick said...

Kia kaha, Tim - put the boot in, mate.

Anonymous said...

Great little read

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Funny. I was asked to be in the audience and couldn't oblige. Then I thought, they should be asking Tim and made the suggestion. Not that I am responsible for him being on the panel. My suggestion was made very late in the piece. I'll be watching.

Your a brave man Tim Wikiriwhi. Tell the truth as you know it and you will never let yourself down.

Shane Pleasance said...

Effervescently NotPC! Bravo!

Falafulu Fisi said...

Malie tama Tim Wikiriwhi, fakasisina ai leva kinautolu.

That's awesome Tim Wikiriwhi, go and get them.

Libertyscott said...

Outstanding post Tim, resist the vicious claims about you being racist and those who wish to deny your ethnicity, because you don't engage in their tribal collectivist groupspeak.

Madeleine said...

Tim did say a little more than this, as those of you tuning in will see tomorrow morning. He controversially claimed that there had never been a single legitimate claim put before the Waitangi Tribunal (or something like that) and that all confiscations were justified.

PC I really must protest at the words "...in front of an audience including John Minto and Matt & Madeleine Flannagan" and ask you to please eschew from ever writing a sentence such as this again (or I might have to republish my photo of you impersonating John Key).

Whilst my preference is that John Minto's name will always be in a totally separate blog post to my own, I stipulate that if we must share the same block of text for some reason beyond your control (such as TVNZ putting him in the same room as us for a TV debate) that a there is a distance of at least 20 words and two sets of sentence ending punctuation between his name and my own.

Matt said...

Madeleine was originally asked to be one of the panelists but turned it down on the basis of not feeling qualified enough and that they asked her because they'd liked an article I had written on our blog but thought she'd written it.

David George said...

He kupapa koe?

Lindsay Mitchell said...

9:30?

I had the supermarket shopping done and put away, the washing hung out and settled down to watch at 9:30 only to find it had finished:-((

Madeleine said...

It will be up online shortly -then you can edit out the ads and re-play the fun bits.

But seriously you'd done your groceries and your washing by 9.30am? Impressed! I've managed two cups of coffee and I instructed the kids to get themselves breakfast...

Peter Cresswell said...

Oops. Sorry. Turns out I had the wrong time myself. :-/

It wil be available on TVNZ On Demand shortly. I'll post the link when I have it.

Madeleine said...

The link for Marae: The Great Debate is here: http://tvnz.co.nz/marae/s2010-waitangi-special-video-3348418

Though be warned you need a fairly heavy duty connection to view it - our broadband connection has been downloading it for 2 hours and we are still only on the first speaker.

Tim Wikiriwhi said...

I agree with Steve Franks who said it was great that TVNZ held this discussion, as a lack of serious debate plays a large part in perpetuating the troubles surrounding race relations and the Treaty.

He is right to say it's not the real Treaty holding us back but the sexed-up Treaty interpretations--but wrong to say it's OK for the state to treat different peoples differently.

Hana O'Regan was nice enough in person, but her politics are flaky and hypocritical. She could not see that in slamming the NZ government for being discriminatory against Maori in the 1920s ( Lower pensions for Maori was one example she used) that she herself was advocating the same type of discrimination be imposed today, only favoring Maori.

I did my best to show her this error; that what was needed was one equal law for all. Her claim the Treaty can mean whatever we want it to mean shows how flaky her ideas really are.

I am happy that in the last segment I got to slam our racially divided electoral system. What made the election of Barack Obama great is that he was elected in a proper non-racist election, unlike our current shameful apartheid system in NZ.

Matt Hooton's smug grin when I attacked John Minto was amusing, but he said little of note all day. Even Hana O'Regan thought she had been paired up with a wally.

Matt and Madeleine Flannagan both questioned the interpretations of the separatists: How did they get their idea that the treaty obliged the state to teach and propagate Te Reo? Why do they think a legal document like the treaty can be interpreted without applying the usual rules of law?

Prof David Round criticized the ongoing and deepening riff caused by the separatist Treaty industry.

Most of the rest spouted the usual socialist rubbish denying any responsibility of the Maori people to stand on their own two feet, lumping the taxpayer with the burden of carrying them like babies. Muddled at best, with some truth and a hell of a lot of false assumptions/propaganda.

The state education system propagates the lies of treaty separatism.
This exposes the travesty of having state control of our schools and the urgent need to divest the state of its control over our children’s minds. Privatize education!

The Battle goes on.

Tim Wikiriwhi said...

A couple of historic references here to support my own contributions to the show.

1. Governor Grey's declaration to the Waikato Chiefs about respecting the sovereignty of the Queen and keeping the peace, dated 11 July 1863. Governor Grey asked them to stop the evil acts against peaceable settlers…Grey asked for the free passage of Europeans in the Waikato district, in particular movement on the Waikato river. He also stated:
"Those who remain peaceably at their own villages in the Waikato, or move into such districts as may be pointed out by the government, will be protected in their persons, property and land.
Those who wage war against her majesty, or remain in arms, threatening the lives of her peaceable subjects, must take the consequences of their acts and they must understand that they forfeit the right of possession of their lands guaranteed them by the treaty of Waitangi; which lands will be occupied by a population capable of protecting for the future the quiet and un-offending from violence with which they are now so constantly threatened." [Richard Stowers, 'The Forest Rangers']

2. Sir Apirana Ngata who stated in his ‘The Treaty of Waitangi: An Explanation’ that,
”Some have said that these confiscations were wrong and they contravened the articles of the treaty of Waitangi, but the chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England, the Sovereignty and authority to make Laws. Some sections of the Maori people violated that authority, war arose and blood was spilled. The Law came into operation and land was taken in payment. This in itself is Maori Custom-revenge-plunder to avenge a wrong. It was their chiefs who ceded that right to the Queen. The Confiscations can not therefore be objected to in the light of the treaty”

2/08/2010 09:45:00 AM
Delete

David George said...

WHY I SUPPORT THE REPEAL OF THE SEABED LEGISLATION.

The last gummint rode over the legal rights of an iwi in the Marlborough Sounds.

I was around when the national gummint brought in empowering legislation to build the Clyde High Dam.

In both cases the legal rights of citizens were ridden over by the state.

David.