By Perce Harpham
(As founder of the Progeni software company, Perce Harpham, now 91, was a pioneer of the New Zealand computer industry. He is also a former Green Party candidate.)
After some 16 years of loyal support I have left the Labour Party because it has left me. I am so ashamed at how “my” party is destroying our legal system and democracy that I wish to be completely dissociated from it.
It would be nice to be able to avoid “The tyranny of the majority” but this means the abandonment of democracy and replacing it with a “tyranny of the minorities”. Over the last few decades Maori have become the dominant minority - overarching the “rich pricks”, the farmers, the unions, the Pasifika citizens and many other minorities.
Possibly without long-term planning the Maori hierarchy have now got themselves into legal structures and positions of authority which one would have expected to occur only if we were conquered by an external agency. In either case it is known as a coup d’etat. And the Labour Party caucus are hell-bent on completing the takeover even though it is clear that many Maori (witness Winston Peters and David Seymour) do not wish to revert to the 1830s.
In 2024 I will have lived half the time since the Treaty was signed and I can see a pattern of misrepresentation which has degraded its meaning and corrupted political parties. It is widely recognised that large donations to political parties are made to secure influence and that this corrupts the system. No amount of money will guarantee a single seat. But the Maori hierarchy can virtually guarantee the outcome for the block of Maori seats.
The seats were established in 1868 and were meant to last only five years but the power of the block, even then, meant that the seats continued. This power and the bond between the Labour Party and the Ratana Church has meant the continuation and increase in the number of the seats which again were meant to be disestablished when MMP came into being. The current Labour caucus seems to me to have sold its soul to the Maori hierarchy in order to gain or retain power.
The Labour caucus is not acting in the interests of all citizens, but instead in the self-interest of the Maori hierarchy. It is the latter who are setting the scene for the transfer of wealth and governance to them. The benefits are likely to accrue to only a few. This is not democracy.
It is interesting to note that the Pasifika people come from the Pacific Islands just as the Maori did long ago. Away back they must have common ancestors. And the Pasifika population here is about half the Maori population by number. On average our Pasifika citizens must be less well-off than their Maori brethren but, per capita, they have only half the Maori number in prison. Possibly the reason for them being better citizens is that they have not identified with the overwhelming propaganda and numerous falsehoods claiming that Maori have been deprived and treated shamefully since the Treaty was signed in 1840. The legal privileges and benefits that Maori now have, and want, are at the expense of all non-Maori.
I have two grandchildren of Maori descent who know their iwi affiliations, four of Maori descent who don’t know their iwi and two who probably don’t have any Maori ancestry. I also have four great-grandchildren, two of whom will learn their ancestry and two who have no Maori ancestry. Under Labour’s new laws they will have radically different legal entitlements in the future of our country. Some of my descendants may be entitled to exercise veto powers in the control of almost all of our country’s water assets (Three Waters legislation) or over almost all town planning decisions (RMA replacement legislation). Clearly some will have no such powers due to their non-Maori heritage.
The most recent example to become public is that, even without the unimpeachable veto rights now being put in place, we saw iwi block progress then back-flip on the Dome Valley rubbish dump issue - changing their influential position blocking the new dump for Auckland in return for a settlement of millions of dollars and substantial land when the dump is filled. The back-flip decision has reportedly been made by iwi elite without a hui for their members. This is how water resource and other decisions will be made in this country in future thanks to Labour’s new laws.
The Labour Party’s constitution (see https://www.labour.org.nz/party_info) requires that it will act in accordance with “The same basic human rights, protected by the State, [which] apply to all people regardless of race, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious faith, political belief or disability.” It is clear that the Labour caucus is not acting in accordance with its own constitution.
The race-based policies which have been, and are, being made into law are unsanctioned by members of the Labour Party or any electoral mandate. Further, by transferring governmental and sovereign powers to an ethnic group, caucus members are all in breach of their parliamentary oath to bear true allegiance to the Crown. And do any of them really believe that Queen Victoria entered into a partnership agreement with 500 Maori chiefs on the other side of the world? Or that the said chiefs thought they were in partnership with one another when they had jointly killed some 30 percent of the Maori population in the 35 years since they first got muskets?
The Labour Caucus seem to uniformly agree that these new policies are mandated by the Treaty, yet the government will not publish the Crown Law advice they claim says this. When one considers Nania Mahuta’s duplicitous behaviour in trying to entrench the Three Waters legislation and the breaching of democratic processes in forming the legislation (tens of thousands denied a voice in select committee hearings), then the picture becomes very sinister.
We are also told that in a generic sense “co-governance” does not have to be interpreted as a threat. But with the particulars of the actual new legislation there is such a threat that even the Chief Justice has felt compelled to speak out about the need for more careful drafting and has indicated the certainty of strife to come with overwhelming burdens for the courts in trying to determine what the laws mean. As in “Alice in Wonderland” , via the Te Mana o te Wai statements, they appear to mean whatever the Maori hierarchy choose them to mean at different times and in different circumstances.
The laws and regulations are now increasingly in a mixture of Te Reo and English with no formal definitions of many words. Moreover, in a supposedly secular country, they require cognisance of Maori spirituality! The requirement to observe Tikanga is a recipe for endless confusion because it is not defined for even one iwi and there are about 150 of them.
There are now 25 MPs (20 percent) of MPs who identify as Maori. This is above the 16 percent of the populace who identify as Maori. That should be co-governance enough. But only if all elected members believe in a democratic future - which clearly the majority, if not all, of the Labour caucus do not. Labour’s racist and tribal co-governance model must be ended in favour of the Treaty obligation to provide one law for all.
For more specific detail and what needs to be done get my free book at https://perce.harpham.nz/Corruption book3circ.pdf
It would be nice to be able to avoid “The tyranny of the majority” but this means the abandonment of democracy and replacing it with a “tyranny of the minorities”. Over the last few decades Maori have become the dominant minority - overarching the “rich pricks”, the farmers, the unions, the Pasifika citizens and many other minorities.
Possibly without long-term planning the Maori hierarchy have now got themselves into legal structures and positions of authority which one would have expected to occur only if we were conquered by an external agency. In either case it is known as a coup d’etat. And the Labour Party caucus are hell-bent on completing the takeover even though it is clear that many Maori (witness Winston Peters and David Seymour) do not wish to revert to the 1830s.
In 2024 I will have lived half the time since the Treaty was signed and I can see a pattern of misrepresentation which has degraded its meaning and corrupted political parties. It is widely recognised that large donations to political parties are made to secure influence and that this corrupts the system. No amount of money will guarantee a single seat. But the Maori hierarchy can virtually guarantee the outcome for the block of Maori seats.
The seats were established in 1868 and were meant to last only five years but the power of the block, even then, meant that the seats continued. This power and the bond between the Labour Party and the Ratana Church has meant the continuation and increase in the number of the seats which again were meant to be disestablished when MMP came into being. The current Labour caucus seems to me to have sold its soul to the Maori hierarchy in order to gain or retain power.
The Labour caucus is not acting in the interests of all citizens, but instead in the self-interest of the Maori hierarchy. It is the latter who are setting the scene for the transfer of wealth and governance to them. The benefits are likely to accrue to only a few. This is not democracy.
It is interesting to note that the Pasifika people come from the Pacific Islands just as the Maori did long ago. Away back they must have common ancestors. And the Pasifika population here is about half the Maori population by number. On average our Pasifika citizens must be less well-off than their Maori brethren but, per capita, they have only half the Maori number in prison. Possibly the reason for them being better citizens is that they have not identified with the overwhelming propaganda and numerous falsehoods claiming that Maori have been deprived and treated shamefully since the Treaty was signed in 1840. The legal privileges and benefits that Maori now have, and want, are at the expense of all non-Maori.
I have two grandchildren of Maori descent who know their iwi affiliations, four of Maori descent who don’t know their iwi and two who probably don’t have any Maori ancestry. I also have four great-grandchildren, two of whom will learn their ancestry and two who have no Maori ancestry. Under Labour’s new laws they will have radically different legal entitlements in the future of our country. Some of my descendants may be entitled to exercise veto powers in the control of almost all of our country’s water assets (Three Waters legislation) or over almost all town planning decisions (RMA replacement legislation). Clearly some will have no such powers due to their non-Maori heritage.
The most recent example to become public is that, even without the unimpeachable veto rights now being put in place, we saw iwi block progress then back-flip on the Dome Valley rubbish dump issue - changing their influential position blocking the new dump for Auckland in return for a settlement of millions of dollars and substantial land when the dump is filled. The back-flip decision has reportedly been made by iwi elite without a hui for their members. This is how water resource and other decisions will be made in this country in future thanks to Labour’s new laws.
The Labour Party’s constitution (see https://www.labour.org.nz/party_info) requires that it will act in accordance with “The same basic human rights, protected by the State, [which] apply to all people regardless of race, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious faith, political belief or disability.” It is clear that the Labour caucus is not acting in accordance with its own constitution.
The race-based policies which have been, and are, being made into law are unsanctioned by members of the Labour Party or any electoral mandate. Further, by transferring governmental and sovereign powers to an ethnic group, caucus members are all in breach of their parliamentary oath to bear true allegiance to the Crown. And do any of them really believe that Queen Victoria entered into a partnership agreement with 500 Maori chiefs on the other side of the world? Or that the said chiefs thought they were in partnership with one another when they had jointly killed some 30 percent of the Maori population in the 35 years since they first got muskets?
The Labour Caucus seem to uniformly agree that these new policies are mandated by the Treaty, yet the government will not publish the Crown Law advice they claim says this. When one considers Nania Mahuta’s duplicitous behaviour in trying to entrench the Three Waters legislation and the breaching of democratic processes in forming the legislation (tens of thousands denied a voice in select committee hearings), then the picture becomes very sinister.
We are also told that in a generic sense “co-governance” does not have to be interpreted as a threat. But with the particulars of the actual new legislation there is such a threat that even the Chief Justice has felt compelled to speak out about the need for more careful drafting and has indicated the certainty of strife to come with overwhelming burdens for the courts in trying to determine what the laws mean. As in “Alice in Wonderland” , via the Te Mana o te Wai statements, they appear to mean whatever the Maori hierarchy choose them to mean at different times and in different circumstances.
The laws and regulations are now increasingly in a mixture of Te Reo and English with no formal definitions of many words. Moreover, in a supposedly secular country, they require cognisance of Maori spirituality! The requirement to observe Tikanga is a recipe for endless confusion because it is not defined for even one iwi and there are about 150 of them.
There are now 25 MPs (20 percent) of MPs who identify as Maori. This is above the 16 percent of the populace who identify as Maori. That should be co-governance enough. But only if all elected members believe in a democratic future - which clearly the majority, if not all, of the Labour caucus do not. Labour’s racist and tribal co-governance model must be ended in favour of the Treaty obligation to provide one law for all.
For more specific detail and what needs to be done get my free book at https://perce.harpham.nz/Corruption book3circ.pdf
Welcome to New Zimbabwe.
ReplyDeleteI have recently been reading Lee Kuan Yew's amazing book "From Third World to First", and I am pondering just who will be the author of NZ's book - "From First World to Third" which will be written .... when? About 10+ years or so ?
Also - regarding Pacifica and Maori "connections" :-
ReplyDeleteOn a holiday to Rarotonga some years ago, I noticed that the toilets in the hotel were clearly labelled "Tane" and "Wahine".
These words were not brought there from New Zealand.
One of my cousins faces a similar family ''split'' along race lines. His first wife was Maori-Irish, he was of Scottish ancestry. They had two daughters before they divorced .
ReplyDeleteBoth daughters are fence sitters on race issues but three granddaughters, well trained by Vic Uni radicals, have no doubts. They are ''Maori'', one calls granddad a racist because he is ''white'' and they grunt and seemingly want to disown their ''white'' ancestry. One great gand kid came home from school in Porirua one day and my cousin, who was visiting, saw a drawing of people shooting people.
He asked about it and was told the kids were asked to draw a picture based on what they were learning about Brits murdering Maori ...enough said
Perce, that is an excellent article. What party do you now support.
ReplyDeleteThis is brilliant and captures what many people feel, and fear, about our country's dire future under Labour. It should be widely shared.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is one powerful “no holding back” article. Thanks for the excellent read Perce.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that people continue voting for a party when the contents of the box are radically different from the brand they originally subscribed to. Labour and the Greens have moved some distance away from their founding principles, with the jury still out on National. These parties have been sabotaged from within, and it raises real issues about their fundamental integrity as an organisation. It's what's in the box that matters, not the label on it.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article that needs a wider audience. There would of course be the usual banal accusations of "pale stale male" etc - but no refutation of the actual arguments put forth.
ReplyDeleteWell done Perce - it's never too late to see the light!
An admirable article & a worthwhile read which leaves me pondering.... in a population of somewhere around five and a quarter million souls how many are paying members of the NZ Labour Party?
ReplyDeleteOf that number, whatever that may be, how many identify as Maori?
Disclaimer: I felt myself deceived at the last election, and still do. How can they ask for my vote again in October this year? What is in their plans for the next three years, which, like last time, they will conceal from the electorate?
Does the NZ Labour Party still claim to be a social democratic movement?
This is an interesting take on the future from Tukoroirangi Morgan who is the chairman of the Iwi Regional Representative Group, which covers 45 hapū and iwi across Northland and Tāmaki Makaurau, as well as the Far North District Council, Whangarei District Council, Kaipara District Council and Auckland Council, within the new Three Waters co-governance strategy.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking to the Iwi Chairs Forum in Taupō, Morgan said Three Waters would give Waikato Tainui more of a say on how that is done, and on any subsequent increases.
“As kaitiaki of Waikato awa, we support all steps to protect the natural taonga that is our taiao,” Morgan said.
“While it is easy and convenient for Auckland Council and Watercare to keep increasing the water take from our awa tūpuna to supply water to Tāmaki Makaurau, it is not sustainable.”
While acknowledging some objections to Three Waters, Morgan told the forum the present system, which places sole water management with councils, wasn’t doing enough to support communities.
“All New Zealanders across the motu should have access to safe and reliable drinking water, wastewater and stormwater, and this principle overrides all others,” Morgan said.
So after Mr.Morgans proclamation , if taking more water from water from the Waikato is not sustainable, please explain why? The Waikato River has a catchment area equal to a fifth of the area of the north island, the Tongariro power scheme(built 1960’s) diverts an extra 2500 million litres of water down the Waikato river every day of the year and lastly, Auckland’s water intake is only a short distance before it flows into the sea. Mr. Morgan’s statement defies logic unless he is looking for money
There is one law that pre-empts and predates the treaty by a few years
ReplyDeleteIt’s called the Magna Carta and I believe it applies in NZ still.
As the author I very much appreciate and am grateful for all of these comments.
ReplyDeleteMy concern has always been policy, whichever Party is producing it. At 91 I will not be joining another Party but hope to get some ideas accepted by the public and to then have them included in the policies of more than one Party.
At present I could only vote for ACT, NZ First or National.
There is a view by many Party members that it is treachery to fail to accept everything that the Party espouses. Yet there is good and bad in every Party and it is very hard to make changes. And even when the members agree the MPs elected may totally ignore what the members have decided or would decide if they were asked- as is abundantly true with Labour at present.
I will almost immediately announce the vendors for my book and ebook and stop the free version on July 10.
Perce Harpham has stated in plain language: “The legal privileges and benefits that Maori now have, and want, are at the expense of all non-Maori”.
ReplyDeleteI will pick up on the words “at the expense of all non-Maori”. I would go further and say it is at the expense of all New Zealanders, Maori included.
One day, and I hope soon, some wizard economist will come up with an economic and social cost analysis of New Zealand being forced to put its entire effort into Maori culture and a one-sided Treaty interpretation.
My thoughts have always been that the Treaty was designed for the benefit of all New Zealanders, not one single group. In other words a governance and social contract for ALL. As it is now if we continue with Labour and their band of brothers we could to be set on the path to separatism or even full apartheid.
Co-governance is the Maori Marxist Trojan Horse, no more and no less!
If Australia votes down its Voice and Aboriginal Treaty referendum, as it probably will, New Zealand should follow suit and disestablish the Waitangi Tribunal, reset the whole caboodle and start again.
I have always wondered why the Treaty of Waitangi is assumed to be ever lasting, when most treaties between two people either lapse or are rejected when their useful days are over. Given the plural understandings of what it says, it would, at the very least, be appropriate to sit down and negotiate a new Treaty assuming sufficient people can be found with more than 50% Maori DNA.
ReplyDeleteDid someone not once say that the purpose of the TVNZ news was to tell people what to think? That sums up the problem with communications and journalism.
ReplyDeleteOrmond - the Treaty, which is a relic of the colonial period of direct rule from London via a governor, was effectively superseded by self government in 1852 and the subsequent extension of the suffrage to Maori. It has no contemporary relevance, especially given the transformation of New Zealand's population through immigration and miscegenation over the past two centuries.
ReplyDeleteEamon Sloan- yes, co-governance is a Marxist Trojan horse. Labour's goals are to secure a lock on the Maori vote (which self-ID will ensure will only grow in response to incentives like preferential access to surgery) and to diminish the power of the non-Maori vote (the other populations as the Ministry of Justice refers to them). It's Labour's master plan for achieving power in perpetuity. Both here and in Australia the Far Left are using "indigenous rights" as a wrecking ball against liberal democracy.