What went wrong with Gareth Morgan's plan to re-educate those people who 'ignorantly' share in what he calls 'Brash-think'? Only 19 people turned up at Orewa. Apparently that number was matched by the media presence.
Morgan got the pre-publicity through Monday's NZ Herald. Then Sean Plunket picked it up and got Don Brash on his show to talk about whether his views had changed in the interim. Later Morgan was a guest on the Mau/Jackson show (though I didn't listen so can't confirm that.) Next Morgan invites Brash to Orewa which should set up a showdown guaranteed to attract hundreds.
If you saw him on TV3 last night - during the news, then on Campbell Live - you were watching a very disgruntled man. Made even more glaring by Don's usual imperturbability and good humour.
Whereas Morgan was sniping at Brash's political appeal to ACT, United Future and NZ First types (code for red-necks) Brash expressed his view that for Maori to get ahead reformed: education, welfare and land ownership were key.
I am also pretty sure that after a shot of Gareth and Don chatting amiably 'off-camera' the next offering was Morgan describing Brash and similar thinkers as 'racist' out in the car park.
Declaring my bias, I do not like Gareth Morgan. My own personal experience of him left me suspecting his motives.
Perhaps he has become over-exposed? Perhaps his popularity and influence are wearing thin. Or perhaps those of us who think like Brash are tired of arguing about it and stayed away. And the Maori that Morgan would curry favour with don't want him on their case. You may have your own answer. I'd be interested.
The following are the Brash speech notes:
NOTES FOR
REPLYING TO GARETH MORGAN, 4 FEBRUARY 2015
Thanks
for inviting me here today, and for the opportunity to comment on what Gareth
has said. I didn’t see the speech in
advance of course, so these comments are just immediate reactions based partly
on what Gareth said a few days ago in a speech to a Ngapuhi audience.
Let
me say first that there are some of Gareth’s views with which I agree. He said in his Ngapuhi speech that he is
opposed to separate Maori electorates, Maori wards (and by implication the Maori
Statutory Board in Auckland) and quotas for Maori in educational
institutions. Granting any group special
rights is contrary to Article 3 of the Treaty he said, and I totally agree with
that.
It’s
also patronising, and implies that Maori aren’t quite competent enough to have
their voices heard in the political arena without a special leg up. Of course that is nonsense: when I was in
Parliament, there were 21 Maori in Parliament – roughly the same percentage of
Members of Parliament as Maori are in the wider population – only seven of them
elected in the Maori electorates. The
other 14 were elected in general constituencies or were placed in a winnable
position on a party’s list.
Similarly
in Auckland: the first election of councillors after the super-city was
established in 2010 saw three people of Maori descent elected – not in Maori
wards but on their own merits – and again three Maori out of a total of 20
councillors meant that Maori on the Council were in roughly the same proportion
as Maori in the general population.
But
as explained in his Ngapuhi speech his basic position seems to be that –
“..
the Treaty is whatever a reasonable person’s view of the following four taken
together leads them to – not any one taken in isolation, but all taken
together:
1) Treaty of Waitangi
2) Te Tiriti O Waitangi
3) Principles of the Treaty
4) Post-1975 Consensus on the
Treaty.”
And I think that that is a
nonsense. The so-called principles of
the Treaty have often been referred to, frequently in legislation, but have
never to my knowledge been fully explained, let alone agreed. And to refer to a “post-1975 consensus on the
Treaty” is again a meaningless concept – I know of no such consensus, and the
whole reason for the ongoing debate is that there is no consensus about what
the Treaty means, or should mean.
In one of his Herald
articles recently he talked about Maori having a partnership with the Crown,
making us, in his words, “one nation, two peoples”. I also think this is nonsense, Lord Cooke
notwithstanding. The idea that Governor
Hobson envisaged the British Crown – the representation of the most advanced
country in the world at the time – forming a partnership with a disparate group
of Maori chiefs who were, at that time, scarcely out of the Stone Age, is
ludicrous.
So I disagree with
Gareth’s starting point, and as a result I disagree with many of his
conclusions.
I think making the
teaching of te reo compulsory in primary school, as he advocates, would be a
complete waste of valuable teaching time for most New Zealand children, many of
whom can’t even read and write well in English – which is not just the dominant
language of New Zealand but is also the dominant language of the whole
world. Being able to read and write in
English is of fundamental importance to all New Zealanders, whatever their
ancestry. And yes, there may be merits
in terms of brain development in learning a second language at an early age,
but if a second language is to be learnt it should be one which would be of
benefit in the wider world, such as Mandarin or Spanish. (Interestingly, I took part in a Maori TV
programme a few years ago, on a panel of six people discussing whether te reo
should be a compulsory subject in primary school. Even though I was the only non-Maori on the
panel, the panel voted by clear majority against
making the teaching of te reo compulsory.)
And the idea of having an
Upper House with 50% of its members being Maori strikes me as utterly absurd,
and totally at odds with any concept of democracy.
Many of our problems today
stem from the way in which Te Tiriti O Waitangi – the real Treaty, which Maori
chiefs signed – has been reinterpreted to suit the desires of modern-day
revisionists. But its meaning is totally
unambiguous.
The first clause involved
Maori chiefs ceding sovereignty to the British Crown, completely and forever. And there can be not the slightest doubt
about that. That Maori chiefs understood
that at the time is abundantly clear from the speeches made by the chiefs
themselves, both those in favour of signing and those opposed to it. This was further confirmed by a large number
of chiefs at the Kohimarama Conference in 1860, and confirmed again by Sir
Apirana Ngata in 1920.
The third article of the
Treaty provided that all Maori – “tangata Maori, katoa o Nu Tirani” – should
receive full citizenship rights – and this included the many slaves of other
Maori, most being held in abject conditions and often the victims of cannibal
feasts. Today, we tend to see this
clause as no big deal but in 1840 it was an extraordinary thing for the Queen’s
representatives to offer – nothing similar happened for the Australian
aborigines, or the American Indians.
All Maori, no matter their status, were offered the “rights and
privileges of British subjects”, putting them on a par with every other British
subject – not, it may be noted, ahead of other British subjects but on a par
with them.
The second clause is what
has caused so much angst. Actually, the
clause is redundant since all it does is guarantee the right of citizens to own
private property, and British subjects have this right anyway. But note that the guarantee was made to all
the people of New Zealand – “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” – in clear distinction
to the third article which specifically applied only to Maori – and “all” means
“all”. In other words, rights of
ownership were guaranteed to all New Zealanders, not just to those with one or
more Maori ancestors.
There is ongoing debate
about what “tino rangatiratanga” meant at the time but it is impossible to
believe it meant what modern-day revisionists try to take it to mean. Why on earth would Hobson have asked Maori
chiefs to sign a Treaty involving the complete cession of sovereignty in the
first clause if the second clause contradicted that first clause?
Let me say that I have
always supported the payment of compensation by the Crown to any New Zealander,
Maori or non-Maori, who can establish with a reasonable degree of certainty
that their property has been illegally confiscated by the Crown. There are clearly suspicions that some of the
claims which have been settled in recent times have in fact been settled on
several previous occasions, and that brings the settlement process into
disrepute. But in principle nobody can
object to the Crown paying compensation to any
New Zealander whose property has been illegally confiscated.
So in summary, I like the
Treaty: it is a very simple document recording the cession of sovereignty by
the Maori chiefs who signed it; extending to them in return the full rights of
British subjects; and guaranteeing to all
New Zealanders the right to own property.
But it does not require us
all to learn te reo; it does not provide for separate Maori electorates or
Maori wards; it does not give Maori a power to veto RMA resource consents; it
does not give Maori any preferential rights over natural resources; and it
certainly provides no basis for an Upper House with half its members being
Maori.
Don Brash
Orewa, 4 February 2015
