Matthew Hooton: Dawn raids failure - a new low for government incompetence and cynicism

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Pacific Peoples Minister Aupito William Sio announcing a government apology to the Pacific community in 2021. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION

In more than 30 years working in and around politics, I thought I’d seen every extreme of incompetence, cynicism and indifference. It has left me deeply sceptical of governments’ tendency to achieve anything, tell the truth, or care about either.

KiwiBuild quickly won the Ardern Government the gold star as New Zealand’s most incompetent, but mostly, it was assumed to mean well.

Labour better hope the public accepts that abject incompetence alone explains its failure to stop dawn raids after its 2021 apology to the Pacific community. The alternative is that it also wins first prize for cynicism and indifference.

The 2021 apology was always a bit suspect. Apologies for Treaty of Waitangi breaches are written into legislation, passed by Parliament, usually unanimously, and signed into law by the Sovereign or their representative, the Governor-General.

When ministers then visit marae to read the apology on behalf of the Crown, they do so with the mandate of Parliament and the force of the law.

The 1970s dawn raids may not have the same constitutional importance as Treaty breaches, but they represent a similar and more recent stain on New Zealand’s history as the poll tax on Chinese immigrants from 1881 to 1944.

Helen Clark took her 2002 apology for the poll tax seriously.

It was delivered on Chinese New Year at Parliament, before two years of discussions with the descendants of those who paid the tax on the best form of reconciliation.

On Chinese New Year 2003, Clark announced that as many as possible of the names of those who paid the tax had been recovered and published.

In 2004, she confirmed the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust would be set up with a taxpayer seed grant of $5 million to preserve and promote Chinese New Zealand history, raise awareness of early Chinese settlers’ contribution to the country’s development, and support Chinese New Zealand language and culture. It continues to thrive today.

Clark also announced new school resources to tell the stories of Chinese settlers, and that a significant Chinese heritage site in Central Otago would be preserved.

The then-Prime Minister managed to make the apology and reconciliation process more about the Chinese community than herself.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark (pictured here in 2007) took her 2002 apology for the poll tax seriously, writes Matthew Hooton. Photo / NZME

Most importantly, her Government didn’t then introduce a new poll tax on immigrants from China.

Ardern’s dawn raids apology was meant to be based on Clark’s poll tax effort.

In contrast with Clark’s relatively low-key approach, Ardern herself was the very centre of attention at the dawn raids apology, given not at Parliament, but in the Auckland Town Hall.

Almost Christ-like, Ardern bore with dignity and fortitude what, based on Pacific culture, was meant to be a ritual and purifying humiliation on behalf of us all. Both the ceremony and Ardern looked terrific on TV that night.

Just over $3m was announced for scholarships and fellowships for Pacific people in New Zealand and for training grants for young leaders from Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Fiji.

As with the poll tax, there were announcements about gathering and preserving historical accounts and producing school resources.

“May this,” Ardern proclaimed, “help future generations gain knowledge and understanding that will help them ensure the mistakes of the past are not ever repeated again.”

Earlier, she had tutored the Press Gallery that the dawn raids were “really dehumanising” and “really terrorised people in their homes”, creating “deep wounds”.

They were something “we just would not do today, and have not done for many, many years”.

Her Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, said those directly affected “continue to struggle with the emotional harm from those past events, and many experience post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]”.

“Trust was broken,” he said, “and what this apology is about, first and foremost, is restoring trust [and] building confidence in the next generation.”

It would, he declared, help Pacific people “reclaim and restore their mana, to cope with PTSD and to move forward with dignity and a sense of confidence in their future wellbeing”.

Ardern promised the apology would be made “in such a way that it’s meaningful”.

“You know,” she intoned, “it’s one thing to stand and issue words, but it’s another to really demonstrate the deep sorrow that does exist for the harm that this policy caused many years ago.”

Nevertheless, the then-Prime Minister quickly ruled out ACC support for those suffering from PTSD and was confident the apology wouldn’t help those wanting to sue the Crown.

Despite the fine words from the speechwriters and the beautiful TV images they generated, we learned this week that dawn raids continued right through Ardern’s prime ministership.

Not a single person in Ardern’s office ever bothered to check if dawn raids were still happening and order that they be stopped. Nor did then-Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi, who retired from Parliament soon after to controversially become a lobbyist.

It was nearly two years after the apology that Faafoi’s successor, Michael Wood, finally sent the necessary order to officials. That was only after media reports of ongoing dawn raids, and just weeks before his resignation for undisclosed shareholdings.

Former Solicitor-General Mike Heron KC and barrister Jane Barrow were appointed to investigate.

While conceding that Ardern hadn’t mentioned the ongoing dawn raids under her watch, they found it was reasonable for Pacific people to assume her apology meant they would cease, or at least be exceptional.

They agreed with Pacific leaders that “an apology for behaviour, aspects of which continue after the apology, does appear to ring hollow”.

It is incomprehensible that a Government could be so incompetent as to make such an historic apology without bothering to check whether dawn raids were still occurring and ordering them to stop. An alternative is that the Ardern regime reached hitherto unknown levels of cynicism and indifference in not even caring.

There were, after all, good pictures on TV. Surely that was enough?

Ardern finished her apology by saying it was her “sincere hope” that it would “go some way in helping the Pacific youth of today know, with certainty, that they have every right to hold their head up high, and feel confident and proud of their Pacific heritage”.

“May my words today,” she purred, “be received in the spirit of humility that I convey them.”

There are two upsides. Ardern and Faafoi are at least no longer in Parliament, and Wood will surely follow when Labour works out that his idiocy cost them a third term.

More importantly, the Pacific youth Ardern purported to address so humbly and sincerely have at least learned never to rely upon a politician’s promise.

- Matthew Hooton has previously worked for the National and Act parties and the Mayor of Auckland.