To be fair to Act, Seymour trotted out Act’s alternative budget like a spieler at the carnival. Flashy pretty colours, handy little book. At least he had a plan.
Of course, the main tactic emerging so far from NatAct is to create the fear in enough people of New Zealand being changed forever if Labour is returned to drive a huge number right on election day. Is that fear reasonable?
183 years after the Treaty was signed and about 170 years since it was consigned by the government of the day to the back of a documents safe somewhere in Auckland, it’s still being remembered.
It’s a simply worded treaty, in both Māori and English. All historians I have read consider, despite its simplicity, it means one thing to many Māori and another to the Crown.
There’s the rub. The Crown decided in the 1850s that the Treaty was a barrier to settlement so put it to one side. History tells us the result. By then Pākehā were flooding into New Zealand.
Māori never really forgot the Treaty. They certainly didn’t forget being called rebels on their own land, land-theft and confiscation as war reparation after defending their whenua and the gerry-mandering that took place with the active assistance of the insultingly termed early Māori Land Court.
So 183 years later here we are. Still sorting it all out. Māori found a voice in the 1970s via groups like Nga Tamatoa and are becoming more insistent on equity as time goes by.
The NatActs all know this. They are currying the fear in people that NZ society will disintegrate as we know it if Labour returns.
Is it actually time for New Zealand to confront the wrong parts of colonisation?
Of course, NatAct know that but are quite happy to kick things on down the road to another time, focused on short-term power gain.
Te Pati Māori leader Rawiri Waititi talking firmly to an almost empty parliamentary chamber provided the contrast. He spoke in English throughout and outlined TPM policy.
Much of it perhaps uncomfortable to listen to. He is the voice for activist Māori. For the sake of social cohesion real change must come. It must never come through fear and anger but through concessions, understanding and forgiveness.
Māori want equity, that’s all.
I would pose this. National is using the emotive term “Coalition of Chaos” to describe Labour et al. What will New Zealand be like in three years if NatActNZF are in charge?
Three Waters put in the too-hard basket, tax breaks for the wealthy, ending the Māori Health Authority? All stuff not denied by NatAct. Change is hard for many, especially many older folk.
We pine for simpler times. But we also forget how far we have come in our lifetimes in creating a more open and fairer society than our parents knew.
Our children don’t share all our vision of the world even if they say they do. Did we share our parents’ vision, no, not at all? That’s progress.
