The Maori Party and Nanny State

How does a party that believes in the power of nanny state to the extent that she can increase life expectancy, work constructively alongside parties that purport to be the parliamentary opposers of her? (notwithstanding that National doesn't properly comprehend what nanny state is and throws the term around expediently.)

Tariana Turia is at it again.

The gap in life expectancy between Maori and non-Maori is like an epidemic wiping out 10% of the Maori population, according to the Maori Party.

“If bird ‘flu killed one in ten of New Zealand’s population, a national emergency would be declared. There would be crisis plans put in place, trained personnel and resources redeployed and public spending redirected until the emergency was over,” said Health spokesperson Tariana Turia.

“There is an equivalent disaster taking place in Aotearoa right now. The latest life expectancy figures show Maori people have 10% shorter lifetimes than non-Maori...

...It is utterly appalling, and a national disgrace that this country does not expect that tangata whenua should live as long, or as well, as others, but we have come to regard this situation as normal and it barely rates a mention in the news.

“These terrible discrepancies in Maori health do not get the priority they deserve. Successive governments have drawn up Maori health strategies and action plans, but they have not been given sufficient urgency and importance.

Her approach to life is vaguely similar to the approach socialists take to money. There is only so much of it to go around and those getting more do so at the cost of those getting less. It's a nonsense. Just as Maori as a whole could earn more, invest and save more, so they could increase their life expectancy.

I could probably increase my own life expectancy if I ate better, drank less, exercised a bit more and went to bed earlier. But the truth is I want to enjoy my life on my terms. So do those individuals who just happen to have Maori ancestry. If anybody is robbing us of extended lives it is ourselves.

But Tariana wants more taxpayer money spent on denying that reality. That people actually make their own choices - good or bad. In fact she patronises 'her people' by suggesting that it is somehow the lack of government action - and by implication, spending - that is robbing them of life itself; that without government telling them, they can't draw constructive conclusions themselves. I wonder when she is going to grow up and in doing so, allow her adherents to.