Too late to call out separatism
It’s a bit late for National Party leader Judith Collins to start banging on about Ma¯ ori separatism as if the idea has suddenly arisen with the proposed Ma¯ ori Health Authority.
This week Collins criticised Labour’s radical shake-up of the health system, saying the proposal would divide New Zealand into “Ma¯ ori and everyone else”, and worried it would lead to separate justice and education systems.
Under the health reforms, the authority would be the lead purchaser of health services targeted at Ma¯ ori and act as copurchaser for other health services for Ma¯ ori.
It’s unclear exactly how a Ma¯ ori health authority would work, but Collins is undoubtedly correct in saying a race-based agency operating with targeted funding is separatist. It may also be more effective than the present system.
In a speech in March, Health Minister Andrew Little pre-empted Collins’ description this week when he described the Ma¯ ori Health Authority as the “key to shaping how Ma¯ ori exercise rangatiratanga over their own healthcare”.
Little importantly added the new authority was not just about creating a new entity but also about reinforcing that “partnership is the responsibility of all people in the system and will need to see active change in all organisations to further embed a Ma¯ ori voice”.
The partnership Little has talked about has made such strides in the last year that you could say the quiet revolution has been won, if not completed. It is too late for Collins to draw any lines in the sand, the sand has shifted under her. She needs to come up with some ideas of her own.
But make no mistake. New Zealand has, under Jacinda Ardern’s leadership, undergone a profound, radical and irreversible shift without much fanfare, electioneering or search for a mandate. The treaty, or Labour’s interpretation of it, has, after 180 years, been revived.
As you would expect with such sweeping changes, the shift is most evident in government and the public service but can also be seen in less complicated cultural markers such as the name of the country. Almost overnight the country has become Aotearoa/New Zealand and often just Aotearoa. In the same time our publicly-funded broadcasters have adopted a curious hybrid Ma¯ ori/English. Next year we will celebrate Matariki for the first time as a public holiday.
Government departments and ministries are recalibrating. We already had Whanau Ora and, even before the various reviews, Oranga Tamariki was being transformed into a by Ma¯ ori for Ma¯ ori organisation. The school history curriculum is being rewritten and the barriers for Ma¯ ori wards in council districts have been removed. The first steps to prison reform along tikanga lines have been made, and we will soon see tikanga become a more integral part of the common law.
Most of the private sector, including the organisation that pays my wages, is fully on board.
A telling illustration of the revolution’s success was a recent speech by Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta to the New Zealand China Council (April 19). The speech was pored over for coded references and clever nuances and later overshadowed by a debate about the Five Eyes alliance, which wasn’t mentioned in the speech.
But what was more interesting was Mahuta’s approach. She rolled out the metaphors of the taniwha and the dragon to describe the China/New Zealand relationship.
“I see the taniwha and the dragon as symbols of the strength of our particular customs, traditions and values that aren’t the same, but need to be maintained and respected.
“After all, as custodians and kaitiaki, taniwha are intrinsically linked to the wellbeing and resilience of people the environment and the prosperity from which all things flourish.”
As our first indigenous female foreign minister, she could bring a perspective founded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our bicultural pillars, she said.
“The principles of partnership, active participation and protection can be called upon to enable equity and tino rangatiratanga.”
Mahuta’s approach shows our foreign policy and the image we project in international relations and murky geopolitics will be informed by tikanga. This is ground-breaking.
Ardern has had the advantage of a back wind for her revolution.
Despite Covid-19 the economy has been in good shape, and she has been careful not to rattle the middle class with sudden or drastic fiscal changes. Covid-19 has also made big government spending and stimulus respectable. Creating money and increasing borrowing have given the impression the Government can afford anything.
An avalanche of reports and statistics hammering the obvious, that Ma¯ ori figure disproportionately in every negative statistic, shows no let-up.
The ground around race issues has also shifted due to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. The dominance of the white race will no longer be tolerated. Resistance is muted because an allegation of racism is potentially devastating.
In short, it is hard to imagine a more propitious time to embed farreaching cultural reform.
You do not have to agree with the revolution to admire the way Ardern and her top Labour cronies have pulled off a truly incredible shift. Some might wonder why she did not apply the same determination to tax change, climate change policy and drug reform. Some might also give her credit for clever politics. Essentially she has shunted the Ma¯ ori Party into irrelevance.
The team of 5 million might be ambivalent about the fundamental change. Many will applaud it. Collins will argue that if you fix poverty or increase resources for lung or bowel cancer you will help Ma¯ ori. But her argument’s time is over.
The dominance of the white race will no longer be tolerated. Resistance is muted because an allegation of racism is potentially devastating.