Is Hone Harawira coming of age?

February 28, 2012

I am becoming increasingly impressed with the Mana Party leader Hone Harawira – and given the bad press he drew over the past couple of years due to his use of shall we say colourful language in public, that is a rather brave statement for a man of my vintage and sensibilities to make.

I may be wrong, but I believe Hone is learning that he can express strong sentiments and forceful arguments publicly without the use of four-letter words. The result, as I observe it, is that we can now see that the man does indeed have depth and clarity in his thinking and simple eloquence in its expression.

I venture to say that if he can keep this up through the current parliamentary term, he will indeed be able to claim mana among those he represents as well as the respect of the broad population, in the same way that Pita Sharples has in recent years.

The Labour Party should now be reversing its silly policy of the last election campaign, when it said it would never work with Hone (while still being happy to work with a man of far less integrity in Winston Peters).

This morning I heard Hone speak on the radio about the social welfare changes, and I was impressed with his clarity of message. No fudging around, just calling a spade a spade. And no sounding like an angry victim. To me he represented and laid out in simple terms the counter-argument in the debate – that the “reforms” in reality are not about getting more people into jobs, but dog-whistling to the National party’s electorate that beneficiaries will be dealt to. And that if there is no actual training programmes for people looking for jobs, and no actual jobs being created, then there is no point.

In contrast, National’s minister for Social Welfare, Paula Bennett, sounded full of platitudes about unspecified training and hoped-for new jobs but offered no actual plans, just estimates by officials with no reasons for the numbers quoted.

I was similarly most impressed by Harawira’s response a few weeks ago to Paul Holmes’s sad, nasty Waitangi Day column in the Herald. There was Hone – usually despised by the mainly pakeha majority for his poor choice of words – this time being the voice of reason, not taking Holmes’s poisonous bait but rather just setting out the real facts, firmly but without vitriol, no punches pulled but all above the belt.

I was also surprised and Impressed to see how well Hone stood up and put forward a respectful, well reasoned position during the televised minor-leaders debate during the last election. His contributions were worthy of a major opposition party, not just the ramblings of a marginal party.

At the risk of sounding sycophantic, I could also express pleasure at seeing the grace, style and humour that Hone showed at the events at Waitangi. Given the prominent – and roundly criticised – role that his family has taken at the Waitangi Day celebrations/protests over the past decade or so, it was a pleasure to see a more measured and laid-back approach from their highest profile representative. I’m sure that he still feels strongly about the treaty issues that he has fought over, but he is learning to couch his convictions in a good humoured way that is mindful of other opinions.

I think that Hone Harawira is coming of age and, with the Maori Party leadership aging and struggling to keep their identity while being a government coalition partner, he (and his party) is well poised to become the main voice for Maori political aspirations through this decade.

I’ve blogged before about some politicians who have impressed me with their direct, honest approach to New Zealanders. Pita Sharples had, and maybe still has, mana but his position within government is making it ever harder to provide an independent Maori perspective. Steven Joyce I once saw as a refreshingly direct interviewee but now I can see that under pressure he is simply driven by the need to spin facts in order to avoid inconvenient counter-arguments. And John Key – again I was mildly impressed in his early prime ministerial days with his directness, but that has long worn off and now I see little to admire in his bland dismissal of anything that doesn’t interest or please him.

No, I may be wrong but …. Hone Harawira is now the person I could soon find myself respecting most among our political leaders.

1 Comment | Maori issues, Politics, Social issues | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

Labour’s attitude to the Maori seats is bewildering

June 27, 2011

I’m having problems trying to figure out the thinking behind the Labour Party’s attitude to the Maori seats in parliament, and I would really appreciate it if someone in Labour’s strategy team could explain.

I’m aware that some in the Labour hierarchy are still angry about the formation of the Maori Party (around the Foreshore and Seabed stuff), and vice versa with some of the Maori Party over the same issue.

It seems obvious to me Labour has so much to gain by putting all that behind it and making up with the Maori Party (and the new Mana Party for that matter), rather than still treating them as sworn enemies.

As I said, I don’t know who is pushing strategy on this within Labour, but Shane Jones seems to be the main spokesman. And his tone is always “put-down”, aggressive and posturing. Why? Yes, politics is confronting and competitive, but good strategists should never rule out the possibility and advantages of cooperation where both parties may benefit.

So here’s the situation as I see it. At present – and assuming that the Maori and Mana parties do not destroy each other, but that’s another story – there is the potential for a Labour-led coalition government after the November election if Mana and/or Maori win the Maori electorates. Labour plus the Greens plus whoever holds the Maori seats (and – shudder – plus NZ First if they clear 5%) together may well defeat National plus ACT. But this assumes (a) that the Maori and/or Mana parties take the Maori seats and (b) they are available as coalition partners.

But, judging from the lead-up and aftermath of last Saturday’s by-election, Labour desperately wants to take the Maori seats. If it did this, there would be up to seven seats no longer available to it to build a coalition government. Remember that it’s the party vote, not the electorate vote, that determines which parties get the numbers to govern.

If Labour aggressively contests the Maori seats and continues its nasty attitude to what should be natural coalition partners, two things will happen.

(1) Every Maori seat that Labour takes back will deny it one extra head in the coalition count, because Labour’s party vote won’t rise enough (if it rises at all) to compensate.

(2) If the post-election numbers are close enough that the Maori and/or Mana party get(s) to decide, the nastiness of Labour’s relationship with the Maori party will push Maori leaders to side with National again, given that National and John Key is treating it at least with some respect.

So why on earth cannot Labour get over itself, start doing the potential numbers, and “allow” the Maori seats to be won by one of the Maori-based third parties which could then become potential coalition partners? Or am I missing something obvious?

Leave a Comment » | Maori issues, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

How New Zealand could be bought out … again

July 28, 2010



Listening to the news on Radio NZ this morning, there was a report of some government politicians, particularly John Key and Bill English, expressing concerns about foreigners (Chinese in this instance) buying large amounts of NZ farm real estate and other assets. His catchphrase on this is along the lines of “if we don’t watch out we’ll become tenants in our own country” – meaning foreigners will own major land and we’ll just be paying rent and working for them.

My mind wandered back to an article I posted in April that compared the sale of land and assets – in the name of inviting overseas investment to create jobs – to the early colonisation of New Zealand and the transfer and alienation of Maori land. As the news item proceeded I began changing a few words in the comments being quoted from Key and others to take it back to sometime around 1840 (give or take a decade or so), when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

This imaginary excerpt from the imaginary Maori Communications Service:

‘Fears that pakeha settlers could muscle in on Maori land and farming have sparked a last-minute rethink on land sales taking place around Aotearoa. Super-iwi leader Hone said he is deeply concerned about how much land is being sold which, despite beliefs to the contrary, may be lost to Maori forever.

‘Hone warned that, despite their small numbers right now, the huge resources and financial backing of the settlers could see them one day become dominant players in Aotearoa’s economy. “The concern, I guess, is that there is so much wealth out there that they could literally buy Aotearoa’s productive base. It’s not impossible. That’s the question – what do we want to be? Do we want to be tenants in our own country or do we want to own our own destiny?”

‘The problem for Maori is twofold. First, the leadership cannot force individual Maori farmers to refuse to sell land. And second, the pakeha have so much more money that they can effectively control land prices to the point where Maori cannot afford to buy land that other Maori want to sell to cash up their assets.

‘Super-iwi spokesman in charge of finance, Wiremu, said that a review being considered at Waitangi was trying to strike a balance between protecting important assets and allowing sufficient foreign investment to create jobs and increase individual Maori wealth.’

‘Coming up next, the weather forecast ……’

(Back to 2010) And if you’re wondering if I made this up, well most of the words are exactly as spoken or reported in this morning’s paper – just change the leaders’ names to Johnny and Bill.

At least modern New Zealanders know how the country was taken over first time. Now we need to remember that it can happen again if we let greed and the almighty dollar rule.

6 Comments | Economics, Maori issues, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

‘One system for all’ is too simplistic a catch cry

April 23, 2010

Democracy has been a hot topic in New Zealand in recent months, and I’ve been having some thoughts about some of its facets. I’ve already written about the sacking of the democratically elected Canterbury Regional Council (Ecan), and the Auckland super-city setup whereby many processes associated with public assets are being contracted out to non-accountable private entities.

Here’s another facet that’s been teasing me for some time – special race-based seats. (It’s related to the maxim of ‘One person one vote’.) This issue resurfaced when the representative structure for the Auckland super-city was decided and no representation was provided exclusively for Maori (or other ethnicities). But it’s been around – and it’s bothered me – for decades in the form of debate over Maori seats in parliament.

The standard argument against these seats allocated on the basis of ethnicity or race is that people of any ethnicity can become representatives simply by competing on merit in general electorates. If they’re good enough to do the job, they’ll get in through that route.

That’s a perfectly logical and satisfying argument if you happen to be part of the majority culture or ethnicity, and it works okay for those of the minority culture who relish a huge challenge. But for significant minorities – clearly Maori in most parts of New Zealand – this argument is just too simplistic, shallow and patronising.

If you’re an insistent advocate of racial assimilation – of minority cultures adjusting to fit in with a dominant culture – then you probably won’t agree with much from here on. But if you believe that:

  1. all cultures have some inherent worth  (even European J),
  2. all people should be able to identify with their chosen culture, and live according to it within the fundamental rules of civil and respectful living,
  3. people of tangata whenua status should have a truly representative voice in governance structures (if for no other reason than recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi), by which I mean their representatives should reflect Maori aspirations,

then there is a strong case for special seats. And it’s not just for ethical or political reasons; in fact it’s really a simple mathematical issue.

Let’s work this through using a reasonable approximation that 15% of New Zealand voters identify themselves as Maori. My argument is stronger for a region like Auckland which has a higher proportion of Maori residents, particularly in some areas such as South Auckland.

If after an election the parliament of New Zealand comprises 15% Maori, then that would appear to be OK. Correctly proportional representation. But is it? Can this set-up reflect the interests of both pakeha and Maori?

If there were no reserved Maori seats and all these elected Maori gained their place in “general” electorates, they would be morally bound to represent the majority of their constituents – that is, the 85% of pakeha voters. And, most likely, they would only be elected in the first place if they appealed to that majority of voters so it would be unlikely they would be able to advocate specifically for Maori unless the pakeha in their electorate approved.

In other words, these 15% of politicians would be people who identified themselves as Maori and presumably sometimes leaned toward Maori cultural viewpoints and solutions to social issues. However, they would rarely be able to advocate for any special Maori solutions on controversial cultural issues because they must be accountable to the whole (mainly pakeha) electorate.

So under this arrangement, even though 15% of the parliament may be Maori, none of the them could ethically advocate for Maori values and aspirations on any issue that the dominant pakeha culture is uncomfortable with. If they did try it – say on some watershed issue such as Foreshore and Seabed or special funding for a Maori education initiative – they would probably be voted out come next election. To survive, they would need to think and vote like pakeha.

It is for this reason that I am pretty convinced that, in a country where race relationships are based on the partnership concepts of the Treaty of Waitangi, there needs to be some dedicated seats (in proportion to population) just for the minority Treaty partner, so they can truly, and without fear of their electorate, advocate for their cultural values.

It’s still ‘one person one vote’, but a special seats option does allow genuine representation of significant minority voices and aspirations to be heard, and for both parties of the Treaty partnership to have influence.

4 Comments | Maori issues, Politics, Race relations | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

Dairy farm buy-up will lead to NZ’s second great colonisation

April 18, 2010

I’ve been unsettled by news that a significant number of large New Zealand dairy farms are being sold to overseas owners, or soon will be. The most recent instances are to a company which is to all extents and purposes Chinese, but it is not the ethnicity of these and other buyers that concerns me. They could be Australian, American, British or Mongolian – what matters is that they are not New Zealanders, they have money and New Zealanders are willing to take that money for short-term gain.

As I was pondering what this may mean in the longer term, an interesting analogy started brewing in the “what if” department of my grey matter. This may take more than a few sentences to explain, so bear with me.

Over the years I’ve had “robust discussions” with many Pakeha who are disgruntled by Maori demands in Treaty settlements and other historic land disputes. A common complaint is: “They sold the land in fair trading and knew what they were doing, and now they’re complaining that they were screwed and want more.”

Let’s set aside for now the response that most of the Treaty claims concern land that was NOT sold but confiscated or legislated away. These were illegal and must be redressed. For now I’m talking about the legal transactions that took place involving willing buyers and sellers. These would mostly have been small, local, incremental and spasmodic. There was not some wholesale decision by all of Maoridom at one time to sell their land to foreigners.

So when it’s said, “Maori chose to sell to settlers”, in fact what generally happened was that one Maori hapu (or even just their leader) made a transaction on one piece of land at one time because the payment – tools, clothing, muskets, money, patronage, whatever – was very attractive at the time, and it was just a small tract of land anyway. It may have been months or years later that a similar transaction happened elsewhere nearby, and then again in another place some time later, and so on – a bit here and a bit there.

Add this up over several decades and you end up with most of New Zealand owned and run by Pakeha settlers and many Maori asking, ‘How did that happen?’.

The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi did involve the consent of a significant proportion of Maori leaders. In contrast, however, most of the small, cheap sales of land packages around the country were by small autonomous groups of Maori here and there, doubtless paying little attention to the part they were playing in a decades-long trend of alienation of their land to foreigners. Local, short-term interests outweighed consideration of countrywide sociological trends. And one-off payments, in exchange for acre by acre over the country, would have proved too attractive in the short term to easily resist.

Some readers will realise where I’m going here, but for those who think I’m way off course, here’s the link back to dairy farm sales.

The trend in the farming industry over several decades is now clear: the small family farm is struggling to survive, farms are amalgamating to increase efficiency and productivity, and big agricultural businesses with off-site owners are creating ever bigger farms.

Large numbers of individual farmers, and in particular dairy farmers, are struggling to live with the ballooning size of the industry, the increasing valuation of their farms, and the debts they’ve taken on to expand and compete. One bad year of payouts and they’re in deep doodoo. Many have worked themselves into unsustainable positions.

Now they’re attracted by the idea of selling their farms at the going prices – take the money and run while they can before things get worse. Trouble is, not many other New Zealand farmers are able to buy; they’re also in precarious positions and living beyond their means in the hope of another boom year.

The big money is overseas – in the countries from which we’ve all been borrowing for years, and particularly over the past two years. The chickens are coming home to roost, as the saying goes. We’ve been borrowing to live beyond our means, and now we’re having to sell out to the people who fund our mortgages – mainly Chinese and other Asian countries.

So we’ve started already down the track of selling large tracts of land, one package after another, and once this gains momentum, I can’t see why other countries may not one day own the majority of New Zealand’s landmass. (And yes, even Crown-owned land could go – a desperate growth-driven government may sell some if it means having money for their constituents to keep enjoying their way of life.)

Much like the great Maori land alienation from iwi and hapu through the 19th Century, the great NZ outdoors will be sold package by package, each time for short-term gains to satisfy small numbers of people.

I may be wrong but . . . . I can see that eventually we Kiwis could become the on-site workforce for foreign owners – just like much of Maoridom became after colonisation and selling most of their land to Pakeha.

Those who are quite relaxed about selling out to foreigners (“It’s great that these people want to invest in our country and bring their money here,” they say) see any overseas investment as good, purely for the reason that “it creates jobs” (as if that’s the Meaning Of Life) and therefore allows us to maintain our lifestyle. This is short-term gratification.

We Kiwis (Pakeha and Maori and other immigrants over the years) may well find ourselves one day  in the same position that Maori did after 100 years of the first great colonisation – financially better off and with better toys but with little meaningful say in how the country we once owned is run.

Some New Zealanders (such as dairy farmers and other business owners selling out) will become rich in the process, but most of us will be reliant on the goodwill of our new owners to be happy. They’ll employ us to work their land and their businesses, and we’ll use our wages to buy the things they make for us.

Of course, the trend of selling our sovereignty to other countries has been going on for about 30 years now in the wider business community – the overseas buy-up of our banks, telecoms, transport, etc. (Sorry, I meant the wonderful investment these new owners put into our country.) But most of these business sell-offs didn’t involve selling large tracts of actual land, just businesses and the profits they made. Now it’s getting much more serious as actual real estate is leaving our control.

Just as with Maori alienation from their land, it won’t all happen in a few months or a few years; it will be a trend over several decades. And once it’s done, there will be no way back to the days before the second great wave of colonisation. And our children will say, “Well I didn’t do it! Don’t blame me!”

But we’re all doing it if, in the name of maintaining our lifestyles, we are wooed by the argument that foreign investment in (ie, purchase of) our land is good for us.

13 Comments | Business, Economics, Maori issues, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

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