There’s no point in denying I’m a lefty, but I think you’ll find that’s just one of many things upon which you and I agree - and upon which Māori and Pākehā, in general, find ample common ground. We all want a robust economy that provides jobs and opportunities, whichever part of the country you live in, or whether your parents were corporate high-flyers or, like my mum, the longest serving, hardest working fish and chip shop employee in Kawerau history
We all agree kids should receive as good an education here as anywhere in the world; that we need to keep streets safe from crime because people deserve to feel safe in their homes and workplaces.
Even on questions of race relations, if you and I were to sit down kanohi ki te kanohi,
I reckon we would find plenty of room for agreement there too.
I do not believe you share David Seymour’s amoral willingness to say anything on race, no matter how incendiary, for the meagre return of a punchy news cycle, or that you got into politics to inflame racial animus.
And yet, Mr Luxon, I fear your lack of political experience, along with what I perceive as a reluctance on your part to push back against racist elements among your base, has contributed to bringing race relations to the worst point since Don Brash’s Ōrewa speech.
Why is it that one participant at a National Party event feels so emboldened in their racism to append “pigeon (sic) English” to a formal consultation document in a venue bustling with fellow Nats?
Why do your strongest social media supporters feel free to traffic in racist tropes I thought we’d seen at the end of last century?
Why are local government allies, like Nobby Clark in Invercargill, hosting meetings where the prospect of race war is openly and enthusiastically discussed?
Why did a necessary and overdue debate over how we manage water resources descend into a prolonged and ugly campaign that many Māori, myself included, experienced as vilification?
Why are your allies in the media making up words like Māorification as if the lexicon of bigotry needs expanding in 2023?
And why is the man most likely to serve at your side as deputy prime minister getting cheered up and down the country for proposing that we subject rights and obligations inherent in the Treaty of Waitangi to a popular referendum when you know as well I do that such a plebiscite would tear this country apart?
In each case, the answer in part, I’m sorry to say, is because you have enabled it.
I’ve penned this open letter in lieu of a traditional column because I believe you are uniquely positioned to show the kind of leadership that could dial some of this down - and, boy oh boy, it needs dialling down.
The greatest political achievement of my lifetime is the bipartisan political consensus we managed to forge on Treaty settlements. It is the indispensable underpinning of decades and decades of relative harmony when surely much darker fates awaited us down easier paths. This is because an uninterrupted pantheon of national leaders from Bolger through to Hipkins put the national interest ahead of the narrow, fleeting advantages that come with playing the race card. I believe your actions of late put that legacy at great peril, and I cannot believe you entered national politics for that purpose.
Mr Luxon, many Māori I speak to are deeply fearful about what a National-Act Government might mean for us. We feel under siege - and not just when we watch the news or scroll through Twitter, but every day we carry it with us, the sense of being blamed, ridiculed, othered. I appreciate your lived experience doesn’t equip you to readily understand that kind of pain, but good leaders aren’t constrained by such limitations. I urge you to reflect on what this moment demands of you and, if you can’t take my words seriously, perhaps have a kōrero with Chris Finlayson or Jim Bolger. I have no doubt they will eagerly pick up their phones.
Nga mihi
Shane Te Pou
Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.
