(My December 20 Truth column isn't on-line yet no doubt due to Xmas break. Below in full.)
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has announced she'll retire in 2014. She'd previously publicised leaving parliament in 2011, so this latest promise might be taken with a pinch of salt. The decision to exchange a ministerial salary for Super must be tough.
Nevertheless it's perhaps timely to look back on a couple of Turia's more interesting statements.
When TV3's John Campbell asked what she meant about welfare being bad for Maori she replied, "We’re talking Maori unemployed. We’re not talking about Maori women on benefits."
At a reproductive health conference, about the high Maori teenage birth rate being framed as problematic, she said she was "intolerant of the excessive focus on controlling our fertility...Maybe one of our policy goals in the Maori Party should be to go forth and multiply."
In 2010, 46 percent of Maori females aged 20 - 29 were dependent on welfare - mainly the DPB. Tariana does not view this as being "bad". By implication, she doesn't associate over-dependence on welfare with Maori children's poor health and educational outcomes or heightened risk of abuse and neglect.
When CYF manager of Maori Strategy, Peter Douglas suggested at-risk Maori children be removed beyond whanau, Turia responded, "I am totally opposed to children being raised outside whakapapa links.”
Being Maori, and growing the Maori population count, matter more to Turia than children's prospects.
She's previously complained that Maori are the only ethnicity in New Zealand that cannot grow their share of the population through immigration. (Perhaps if the 100,000+ Maori living overseas weren't beleaguered by the treaty and tribalism at every turn, they'd come back.)
It'd be fascinating to know how Turia views her parliamentary career. A tale of great achievement? Personally, I'm struggling to identify any major gains for Maori attributable to her particular ideology - racism.
If a successor can't be found, and the Maori Party disappears, good. New Zealand does not need racially divisive politics.
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6 comments:
"I'm struggling to identify any major gains for Maori attributable to her particular ideology - racism."
Its clear from her statements that she's doing a pretty good job of encouraging and protecting an increase in the number of future Maori voters. Radical Islam has/had the same goal.. outbreed the Infidel and establish the worldwide Caliphate.
I doubt Turia wants to take over the world but rather follow a refined Palestinian strategy..
1. Outbreed the Jews (Pakeha).
2. Deligitimise Israel (Tauiwi statements)
3. Create one Palestinian state (Tino rangatiratanga).
Over the last 20 years she's been pretty true to these concepts although it could be argued that in the last few years she's settled more for protecting Maori gains.
JC
Brilliant thanks Lindsay. I wasn't aware of some of those gems till reading them here just now. Again thanks.
Here's the most important article on welfare published in 2012 - or in 2013 for that matter.
Georgia - population 9,000,000
Welfare bludgers (excluding codgers) - 4,000
If NZ adopted Georgia's commonsense policies, we'd have only 2,000 full-time welfare bludgers (not counting the WFFers EQCers ACCers and the millions otherwise living off the state payroll).
But wouldn't it be a start?l
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/georgia_s_war_against_the_poor_the_southern_state_is_emptying_its_welfare.html
Wow!
One thing they don't discuss, though, is welfare. "We don't talk about [Welfare] anymore," says food bank advocacy and education director Laura Lester. "We don't even send anybody in to apply, because there's just no point."
This could be done in NZ, if Crushed Collins & Basher Bennet lived up to their names!
What's Collins got to do with it?
I agree with JC.
Sadly, Turia has been just another "Maori moaner".
Everything is "everyone else's fault."
The glaringly-obvious fact is that cutting welfare-dependency and cutting the number of children born to beneficiaries would be a MASSIVE boost to Maori (and to everyone else too, thanks to lower welfare payments and lower crime-rates).
**Why is it**, Lindsay?
Why are people like Turia utterly blind to the SIMPLE, obvious facts I've mentioned?
I have to conclude that they are THICK. There is no other explanation.
A reasonably bright ten-year-old would agree with the sense of what I've said.
That says an awful lot about Turia (and all of the people who agree with her).
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