PM Chris Hipkins defends the Government’s new policy which ranks ethnicities to determine who gets an operation first.
OPINION
How large will the irony be on election night in a bit over three months when the Labour Party get punished for a series of decisions they actually delivered on.
That is not to be confused with the overall result, which will be based on the many and variedissues they have struggled with: the recession, the crime, the emergency housing crisis, the general stench of ineptitude.
When it comes to Māori they seem to have delivered in spades.
Whether it was co-governance, or changing the rules around councils appointing Māori to seats, Three Waters, the school curriculum, many many parts of our daily lives have had, over the past six years, an astonishing amount of “Māorification”.
This week’s example is the public outing of what has been going on in our health service over ethnicity and getting you moving through the queue faster.
Do remember, Māori have their own health agency, apart from this new ethnicity test, the irony of that being a report into its establishment has been produced and Health Minister Ayesha Verrall has been sitting on it for six weeks now and the word is it doesn’t read all that well.
Dr Shane Reti, the National Party’s health spokesperson, claims there is much concern and his attempts to get it released under the Official Information Act were rejected by Verrall, who, when asked whether Reti was right and it looks bad, said “she hadn’t formed an opinion”.
Six weeks is 1) a lot of time to have a report and 2) a lot of time to work out what it says … I think Reti might be onto something, and the Government is just trying to find a useful Friday afternoon to dump it, hoping by Monday it’s forgotten.
Anyway, what all this shows, is the Government has deliberately divided us.
New Zealand is not an inherently racist place, and yet, with a series of actions over two terms, the Government have overtly and visibly rolled out policies specifically in favour of Māori.
So, to the irony.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall and National Party spokesman Shane Reti. Reti has raised questions about the Government's ethnicity criteria in health waiting lists and a report into Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. Image / NZME composite
Having done all this, what are the outworkings?
Firstly, is the plight of Māori materially improved? In other words, have problems been solved? I would answer, no.
Politically this has come at a huge risk, and come election night, at a huge cost.
My prediction for election night (there will be more the closer we get) is that the Māori Party will do well.
It won’t matter, to the extent they won’t be in government - having ruled out National and National having ruled them out as well.
A smaller irony will be it will save Labour the trouble of having to do business with them, because if you think the current set-up with the Greens has turned out shambolically, add a rabid race-based party to the mix and see how smoothly that goes.
But what will smack Labour in the face as they pick up the pieces in opposition on the Sunday morning of October 15, is that all of that effort to pander to Māori will largely have been for nothing, given 1) they are out of government and therefore a lot of the aforementioned policies will be repealed, and 2) the Māori Party will have nicked half their support base.
I predict the Māori Party will win at least three seats, possibly more.
How bad did you have to be as a local rep if in a Covid election you couldn’t hold a Māori seat as a Labour MP.
But fast forward three years, co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have made enough separatist noise to drum up a level of specialist credibility and Meka Whaitiri has gone and scarpered.
History shows Māori to a degree tend to vote in a block, so it’s a safe bet they will do well.
So the one big thing Labour actually delivered on, and if you prescribed to it as sensible, can be proud of, will blow up in their face.
Oh the irony, they sold-out mainstream New Zealand, and divided the country in the process, only to see their best efforts rewarded with electoral humiliation.
Mike Hosking hosts Newstalk ZB’s breakfast programme and is New Zealand’s number one talk host.
