“CONSEQUENCES” – it’s a word that acquires an ominous quality in the mouths of political radicals. As in: “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from its consequences.” Or, as Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa Packer expressed it, when asked what would happen if the Act Party secured its referendum on Te Tiriti from its new coalition partners: “We have always said there will be
If looking for South African analogies, Willie might consider the referendum in 1992 in which South African White voters were asked to give a mandate to President de Klerk on the ending of apartheid. There was a landslide 68% in favour. The referendum was opposed, with threats of violent resistance from the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AFB) under Eugène Terre'Blanche.
A privileged group trying to preserve their special status with threats of violence? Sound familiar?
'Chris Trotter SEES HIMSELF AS New Zealand’s leading leftwing political commentator, with 30 years of experience writing professionally about New Zealand politics. He now writes regularly for the Democracy Project, producing his column “From the Left”.
Bravo, CT, for this and your companion piece on Luxon's path to statesmanship. Or not.
We should consider though that a referendum is not perhaps the best way forward. Determining our cultural and constitutional futures requires a contest of ideas, not a simplistic contest of numbers. Even with their ranks of non-Māori supporters, Māori are likely to be numerically disadvantaged from the outset.
Besides, it is no longer possible to debate these issues rationally. Te Tiriti, its theology and all of its ideological paraphernalia have been so comprehensively aryanised in education, the judiciary and public service that any attempt to determine the contract's original purpose and meaning for voting purposes will be perverted by officially mandated misinformation and hysteria. Ours will make the Voice Referendum look like a love fest.
Problem is, as the wise Basil Brush has argued elsewhere, a systematic inquiry of any kind - even a Royal Commission - will struggle to find truly impartial commissioners. Māori will demand 50% representation on the bench. And as you have remarked in your companion piece, submitters who question of the new te Tiriti orthodoxy will risk their careers.
We must resolve this soon though. The new Te Tiriti Jugend are already graduating from the revised history curriculum. Whatever the nature of an inquiry and its determinations, their education into the New Way will go on poisoning the future.
FYI, John, the blurb at the bottom is an editorial - not a personal - assessment.
Distinguishing Left from Right in 2023 has become a very fraught exercise!
If looking for South African analogies, Willie might consider the referendum in 1992 in which South African White voters were asked to give a mandate to President de Klerk on the ending of apartheid. There was a landslide 68% in favour. The referendum was opposed, with threats of violent resistance from the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AFB) under Eugène Terre'Blanche.
A privileged group trying to preserve their special status with threats of violence? Sound familiar?
I think the footnote should read:
'Chris Trotter SEES HIMSELF AS New Zealand’s leading leftwing political commentator, with 30 years of experience writing professionally about New Zealand politics. He now writes regularly for the Democracy Project, producing his column “From the Left”.
Bravo, CT, for this and your companion piece on Luxon's path to statesmanship. Or not.
We should consider though that a referendum is not perhaps the best way forward. Determining our cultural and constitutional futures requires a contest of ideas, not a simplistic contest of numbers. Even with their ranks of non-Māori supporters, Māori are likely to be numerically disadvantaged from the outset.
Besides, it is no longer possible to debate these issues rationally. Te Tiriti, its theology and all of its ideological paraphernalia have been so comprehensively aryanised in education, the judiciary and public service that any attempt to determine the contract's original purpose and meaning for voting purposes will be perverted by officially mandated misinformation and hysteria. Ours will make the Voice Referendum look like a love fest.
Problem is, as the wise Basil Brush has argued elsewhere, a systematic inquiry of any kind - even a Royal Commission - will struggle to find truly impartial commissioners. Māori will demand 50% representation on the bench. And as you have remarked in your companion piece, submitters who question of the new te Tiriti orthodoxy will risk their careers.
We must resolve this soon though. The new Te Tiriti Jugend are already graduating from the revised history curriculum. Whatever the nature of an inquiry and its determinations, their education into the New Way will go on poisoning the future.