Sunday, February 07, 2016

Seymour vs Ardern is going to be entertaining

At the supermarket checkout this afternoon I spotted the header on the Sunday Star Times heralding two new columnists - David Seymour and Jacinda Ardern. Very nice. I expect they'll be given (or agree together) a subject each week.

Then I got an e-mail alert that Ardern had tweeted the link so took a look.

Interesting. It appears David has taken  on the subject and Jacinda has responded. I assume next week it'll reverse.

This format will make for much more entertainment.

Here's the first installment .



OPINION: Like almost all Kiwis I have always avoided Waitangi on the big day. Images of protesters, crying prime ministers, and actual mud-slinging are enough to put most people off.  If you've ever been in Sydney for Australia Day, you'll know how much better our national day could be.

But Parliament obliges me to be here, so I'm writing this from an old Paihia motel (my parliamentary colleagues had booked out the Waitangi Copthorne, but that's another story).

The trouble this time is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPPA. People oppose it for the same reason people used to have mullets – fashion, not logic. Being of Ngāpuhi descent myself, it's been a real struggle to understand why local Maori are protesting a trade agreement. 

If an iwi is going to host representatives of the Crown to symbolise this 176-year-old relationship, why not rotate the host iwi and location?

The fact is, many colonial-era Maori were very entrepreneurial, and took ready advantage of the more secure property rights provided by the Treaty – more secure than being invaded by nearby tribes as happened through the musket war period around 1820 to 1840. One of the many important rights the Treaty gave was access to sea lanes protected by the most powerful navy on the planet.

I've been reading Hazel Petrie's Chiefs of Industry. It tells the story of colonial-era Maori such as Te Hemara Tauhia. In the 1850s he built a sawmill in the north and charged Pakeha to mill their timber.

Then he realised they were making money off the shipping so he commissioned a 20-tonne ship to move it, too. That guy would have favoured signing the TPPA.

He was not unusual. As another author summed up, colonial Maori "were able to leverage European technologies to build remarkable trading relationships around the world as well as forcing the world's most powerful empire into a stalemate."

Back up here at Waitangi Day 2016 the usual suspects (about 0.01 per cent of the population) have made the elected prime minister of New Zealand stay away and denied all of us a national day we can enjoy because they don't like the TPPA. It got me thinking.

The Treaty was not signed just at Waitangi. It went on tour and was signed by Chiefs all over the country.  Waitangi is just the place it was signed first.

It's never been clear why one iwi gets to monopolise the celebrations, but this year's circus has made it especially unclear. The disruptors don't know much about trade or even their own history of trade.

Even the device that one protester threw at Steven Joyce probably entered the country under the China FTA.

If an iwi is going to host representatives of the Crown to symbolise this 176-year-old relationship, why not rotate the host iwi and location? It could be in a different place each year, following the actual path that the Treaty took during 1840.

Ngāpuhi have denied the whole country a proud national day just one time too many. It is time to take this show on the road. There were 20-odd signing locations so it'll come back around in 2036. Estimates are that the TPPA will be adding an extra $3 billion to our economy every year by then.

And a bit of competition among locations might also help to lift standards of behaviour, bringing some dignity and joy back to this historic occasion.

Jacinda Ardern responds

Australia Day? Are you kidding? That is the last place we should be looking for a model of race relations, let alone a national day of celebration – unless you're into drunken, casual racism. 

I am sorry you felt a sense of duty rather than any desire to be at Waitangi, David. Or that your auto lodge didn't meet your expectations.

But your interpretation of what the pilgrimage to this place symbolises is just plain wrong. It's not about the dominance of any one iwi as you claim, it's about recognising the place where the treaty - and the relationship between Maori and the crown, all began, and what that relationship means now.  
And that's what makes your argument so ironic. You believe that moving around the country every year, presumably having the talks and debate we have at Waitangi, would be a better way to mark our national day. And yet this is the very thing that caused the difficulties this year - the fact the government didn't talk, didn't debate, an agreement that they signed on behalf of New Zealand, and Maori - the TPPA. 

I hand on heart believe in free trade, and so does my party. But we also know that this agreement was about more than trade, and it was these elements of the agreement that the government should have discussed openly- they didn't. 

There is no denying that there have been ups and downs over the years at Waitangi, but it remains a place for open debate and dialogue. That's worth celebrating.

9 comments:

The Veteran said...

I choked on a very good glass of wine reading this this little gem from 'her' ... "I hand on heart believe in free trade, and so does my Party".

Gueez, bet she can't lie straight in bed either.

Eric said...

Ardern also said,last paragraph:

"There is no denying that there have been ups and downs over the years at Waitangi, but it remains a place for open debate and dialogue. That's worth celebrating."

Does she not follow the news?

Allan said...

Ardern is a person with no life experience. Her CV reads from school to University, then jobs with various Socialist organisations until being parachuted into a List Seat in Parliament for Labour. Her performance in Parliament is second rate and it is obvious that she doesn't really know what actually goes on in the real world. I for one will read David Seymour's comments with interest but will treat Adern's comments with the contempt that they deserve and disregard them.

Anonymous said...

why not rotate the host iwi and location?

This is Helen Clark's Labour policy - not just policy, practice as well. Once again, it seems the very best ACT can do is advocate for Labour party policies!


I hand on heart believe in free trade, and so does my party.

Well yeah, Helen Clark's Labour party did: they created both the China FTA and the TPPA. But the LIttle/Adern Labour party have never been about free trade, and made that very clear over the last week.

Anonymous said...

Where much of New Zealand, and in particular the Left, have got this wrong is really quite simple. The left talk of the signing of TPPA as being the end of debate. The reality is that the signing represented the point from which debate was able to begin. We are debatinig now aren't we? Well what is your problem Jacinda? Did you expect debate to take place before a moot existed?

Anonymous said...

Why Adern? She's a total lightweight and as Veteran pointed out, a half shut pocket knife of "truth". Seymour's not the only one to suggest moving the host around and the idea is worth doing. Not rocket science really.

JC said...

When it comes to politicians and Waitangi day we should treat it for what it really is.. its virtue signalling and nothing more.

They aren't there to celebrate or debate but to be seen to be there for public and political purposes and hopefully to have a photo taken listening earnestly to one of the local toe rags ranting incomprehensibly for the camera.

Its all just bad theatre put on by people with nothing better to do.

JC

Eric said...


anonymous at 10:27pm said:

"This is Helen Clark's Labour policy - not just policy, practice as well."

It is? Where has the official Waitangi Day commemoration ever been held other that at Waitangi? Labour has kept this policy pretty quiet. Fancy Helen Clark slipping under the radar on something as newsworthy as this.


"Once again, it seems the very best ACT can do is advocate for Labour party policies!"

ACT is doing Labour a service if Labour cannot get recognition for their own policies. Advocating for a good idea, regardless of source, is a virtue, surely?

Anonymous said...

Where has the official Waitangi Day commemoration ever been held other that at Waitangi?

Clark moved the official commemoration to Wellington in '01, and then toured various celebration around the country.
Key moved it back as part of the deal with the Maori party.

God knows what today's Labour party policies are: change the flag, change the name of the country, abandon English as the official language*, etc etc. (* which is possible. Finland went from

Advocating for a good idea, regardless of source, is a virtue, surely?

By definition all Labour policies since 1998 have been bad ideas.