See who is accusing the Luxon government (35% Māori) of being white supremacists – then check their diversity credentials

The co-leader of a party with no Pakeha MPs shows  plenty of gall when she accuses the Luxon government of showing “all the traits of typical white supremacists” in the way it’s rolling back Māori policies.

The accusation, from Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, was reported without any obvious blush by RNZ just two days after David Farrar had posted an  item :

DAVID FARRAR: Hysterical bullshit

Radio NZ reports:

Te Pāti Māori’s co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has accused the new government of “deliberate .. systemic genocide” over its policies to roll back the smokefree policy and the Māori Health Authority.

The left love hysterical language. If you oppose racial quotas in laws, you are a racist. And now if you sack 400 bureaucrats you are genocidal.

Modernising our medicines regulatory regimen: Medsafe is being replaced but traditional Māori healing will be exempted

When the Therapeutic Products Bill was introduced in Parliament in November last year,  Health Minister Andrew Little said it was intended “to modernise the way medicines, medical devices and natural health products are regulated”.

The result of more than a decade of policy work, the Bill replaces the Medicines Act 1981 and Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 with “a comprehensive regulatory regime that is fit for the future”, Little said.

It replaces Medsafe with a new regulator.

And – as things are turning out – it is establishing a separate regimen for Māori.

Consumer safety sat at the heart of the Bill, which would better protect the community “from goods and gadgets that make unfounded or misleading therapeutic claims”, Andrew Little said in his press statement on November 30.

This suggested snake oil would come under the critical eye of the new regulator, although – on second thoughts – New Zealand has no snakes and hence we have no snake oil or peddlers of snake oil.

Do we?

What do Māori get from the Budget? Not as much as last year, sorry, but $825m more than the rest of us

The question posed in a Te Karere TVNZ headline – Budget 2023: How much was given to Māori? – was partly answered on the same day by a OneNews headline – Budget delivers hundreds of millions for Māori.

The New Zealand Herald put a more precise figure on it: Budget 2023 breakdown: Māori initiatives get $825m, Te Matatini kapa haka festival receives massive boost.

Nevertheless, Newshub reported the Māori Party was miffed that Māori had been short-changed: ‘Should have done better’: Te Pāti Māori Co-leader reacts to Budget 2023.

RNZ (without a question mark) headlined a report:  Budget 2023: What’s in it for Māori.

The article was providing an answer rather than asking a question.

An obvious part of the answer is that Māori will share the same benefits that are appropriated for public services for everyone.

But on top of that – as the NZ Herald headline above attests – there’s $825 million of Māori-targeted spending.

This is not as much as was appropriated last year, as Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson acknowledged: 

GRAHAM ADAMS: Te Pāti Māori – Kingmaker or Labour’s albatross?

• Graham Adams writes – 

 Chris Hipkins must be fast realising that with friends like Te Pāti Māori he really doesn’t need enemies. In fact, the strong possibility Labour will require its support to form a government is looking like a real threat to its chances of re-election in October.

When Chris Luxon last week ruled out coming to an arrangement with Te Pāti Māori in post-election negotiations it lost its crown as “kingmaker” — although some journalists persist in calling it that. Mostly it will now be seen as tied to the Labour-Greens bloc on the left.

After Luxon had drawn a line in the sand — and dubbed a union of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori a “coalition of chaos” — Hipkins felt moved to assert his own authority by warning Te Pāti Māori not to get too far ahead of itself in issuing “bottom lines” as conditions for its co-operation. Its demands so far have included some sort of wealth tax, the removal of GST from food, and withdrawing from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

In an effort to reassure voters that the tail wouldn’t be allowed to wag the dog too vigorously, Hipkins said Labour would release its own “bottom lines” before October “because, ultimately, the larger parties do need to be able to implement the commitments that they campaign on”. He reiterated the point at this week’s post-Cabinet press conference: “It may well be, as we get closer to the election, that there are some areas where we don’t agree with [Te Pāti Māori], where there are things that we take off the table.”

Te Pāti Māori’s co-leader Rawiri Waititi, predictably, didn’t take kindly to being told his party should “be careful” with its non-negotiable policies. He described it as “oppression”, and warned the Prime Minister:

“You don’t tell indigenous peoples what our bottom lines are.”

Hipkins’ instructions to Te Pāti Māori to play nice were bound to backfire. It’s simply not in its DNA as a revolutionary party to kowtow to anyone. In fact, its electoral purposes may be best served by continuing to show just how contemptuous it is of the conventional political hierarchy. Chances are that snaffling a government minister to its ranks in the form of Meka Whaitiri was just an opening move. Who knows what other disruptive tactics it has up its sleeve?

CHRIS TROTTER: Te Pāti Māori’s uncompromising threat to the status quo

• Chris Trotter writes –

The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity).

Should the movement’s leader(s) demonstrate a newsworthy eccentricity, then they may even find themselves transformed into political celebrities. The moment a political movement makes the transition from inconsequentiality to significance, however, then all bets are off – especially if that significance is born of a decisive rise in its parliamentary representation.

Te Pāti Māori (TPM) is currently on the cusp of making that crucial transition from political novelty to political threat. The decision of the former MP for Waiariki, Labour’s Tamati Coffey, to step away from his parliamentary career at the end of the current term will be welcome news to TPM’s male co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, who took the seat from Coffey in 2020. There is a good chance, now, for Waititi to turn the Māori seat of Waiariki into TPM’s anchor electorate.

Why Collins must ignore critics who claim she is playing the race card and keep challenging the PM on the meaning of “partnership”

Left-wing commentators are cock-a-hoop.  Labour is up 2.7% to 52.7%; National is up 1.4% to 27%; the Greens are down 0.8%; ACT is down 0.7%.

In the latest preferred leader poll results, Jacinda Ardern is down a bit but Judith Collins’s support has gone down by two thirds.

On The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury posted an item under the heading Why National’s Māori segregation bashing has failed in the polls.

He seized on the responses when TV3 asked voters if they thought Labour was being separatist, and National divisive…

Police and their Minister duck Maori Party question which drew attention to something troubling about children and the cops

Yes, we are aware of the Maori Party’s aversion to Parliamentary questions from Opposition MPs which aim to flush the PM and her government into the open on their programme of incorporating the “Treaty partnership” in their reform programme.

The Maori Party insists those questions are racist and has pressed the Speaker to rule them out of order.

It has also challenged the Speaker and Parliamentary protocol through expressions of dissent which culminated in one co-leader being ordered from the House for performing a defiant haka and the other walking out to show her support for her colleague.

This has won headlines around the world.

Not bad for an outfit which won 1.2 per cent of the party vote at the 2020 general election.

Māori Party co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi have also won publicity this week by declaring their intent to fight the Government’s proposed laws targeting gangs.

Protest march is mounted against council that wasn’t intimidated by a haka and voted against Maori ward

When we disagree with decisions made by the democratically elected leaders of our towns, cities or country on a highly contentious issue, we can be sanguine and reason that whatever had been decided, either one side or the other would have been  disappointed.

Or – the Maori Party way of doing things, by the look of it – we can join in a physical show of strength.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer announced today she will be joining a protest march to Manawatū District Council led by a group of local Maori.

A disgruntled group, presumably.

This is their response to the Council voting 6-4 against the establishment of a Māori ward last week.

Maori tribe raises questions about the millions invested by PGF in tourism project on Mt Taranaki

Many millions have been served from an array of government troughs in recent days. But questions are being raised about the millions pumped into one project – on Mt Taranaki – and we wonder if similar questions could well be raised about other funding decisions brought to the attention of the Point of Order Trough Monitor.

In recent days the government has announced –

• It is pumping an extra $3 million into the Drought Recovery Advice Fund to support farmers and growers with professional advice to help them recover from this drought, and better prepare their farm businesses for any similar events in future.
• It is providing a  boost of over $30.3 million for the Mana in Mahi – Strength in Work programme, to increase support and job opportunities for those most at risk in the labour market as the economy recovers from the impact of COVID 19.
• It  is providing businesses with up to $16,000 to help pay the cost of each apprentice for the first two years. The apprenticeship support scheme, Apprenticeship Boost, is part of a wider government programme to keep apprentices in jobs and support employers to invest in new ones
• It has established a programme to help foreign nationals in serious hardship.  The Assistance for Foreign Nationals impacted by COVID-19 Programme will provide temporary, in-kind assistance to eligible people to help meet basic needs such as food and accommodation.
• It is providing a funding boost to Playcentre Aotearoa to help the organisation retain its 400 plus centres after the Covid-19 lockdown disrupted the flow of grants, donations and fundraising. The Government is making $3.7 million available to address its urgent funding issues and a further $500,000 will be available to assess the condition of playcentre facilities throughout the country.
• It is investing (through the Provincial Growth Fund) nearly $17.87 million in the Te Ara Pounamu pathways project to support the roll out of state-of-the-art innovative digital technology to tell the West Coast’s unique cultural and historical stories, to Aotearoa New Zealand and the world.