Post by Kiwi Frontline on Aug 9, 2021 13:11:51 GMT 12
PAMPHLET TRUTHS SPARK OUTRAGE – Don Brash
A few days ago, I was phoned by a reporter for some organisation called Te Ao Maori News to ask if I knew anything about a pamphlet which had been placed in a letter-box in the Auckland suburb of St Mary’s Bay. The reporter said that the recipient of the pamphlet had been out-raged by the pamphlet because, according to the reporter, it presented “an inaccurate interpretation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Maori-Crown relations”.
On 4 August, Te Ao Maori News wrote up the story of the pamphlet entitled “Are we being conned by the Treaty industry?”, noting that the publication attempted to “demolish 24 so-called myths including saying the treaty was not a partnership, there is harm in co-governance and that Aotearoa isn’t the Maori name for New Zealand. The booklet claims Maori are not indigenous to Aotearoa and that full sovereignty was ceded to the Crown with the 1840 signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It claims the idea colonization was bad for Maori is a ‘myth’”.
I had nothing to do with the production of this pamphlet but I confess to finding nothing in the least surprising or objectionable in what the article claims the pamphlet asserts......
www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/pamphlet-truths-spark-outrage
ANOTHER DISMAL SETBACK FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM – Karl du Fresne
Attacks on free speech – even freedom of thought, since that’s what the enemies of free speech ultimately want to control – are coming so fast, and from so many directions, that it’s hard to keep up with them.
The latest involves seven University of Auckland professors who have effectively been blacklisted for writing a letter to The Listener politely but firmly challenging the notion that matauranga Maori – which can be defined as the traditional body of Maori knowledge – should be accorded the status of science, as proposed by an NCEA working group preparing a new school curriculum.
In the febrile ideological climate of 2021 the professors’ stance counts as heresy, and it brought the full, vindictive fury of the woke academic left down on their heads. Already the pressure has proved too much for Prof Douglas Elliffe, who has stood aside as acting dean of science. In an email to his colleagues, Elliffe said he was concerned that his involvement in the controversy would cause “division” within the science faculty. That doesn’t say much for the intellectual open-mindedness of his colleagues, but there you go.
What a triumph for the enforcers of ideological conformity, and what a dismal setback – another one – for intellectual and academic freedom. How much longer will universities maintain the sanctimonious pretence that they serve as the critics and conscience of society? In truth, they promote and protect an authoritarian culture in which dissenters risk ostracism.
University vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater, who should have been the first to defend the letter-writers’ right to express themselves, came up with the all-too-familiar mealy-mouthed copout: they’re entitled to their opinion, but …
www.nzcpr.com/another-dismal-setback-for-intellectual-freedom/
Frank Newman: LAST CHANCE FOR NATIONAL
Yesterday (4 August) Waatea News reported:
The National Party’s annual meeting this weekend will consider a Treaty of Waitangi clause for the party’s constitution.
Deputy leader Shane Reti says it has been a work in progress for many years.
"We generally see the benefits and the need to have something in our constitution that then anchors our Māori interface, anchors our relationship with Māori and how we can do better with that relationship, and certainly all of the regional conferences that was the mood of the room and the mood of members, that we needed to do this. It will be for the members to decide this weekend but I am cautiously optimistic," he says......
The same day Richard Prebble wrote an insightful column in the NZ Herald entitled, "The tide has turned for Labour, polls reveal". It's well worth a read.
The final sentence says, "These two polls, two years out, indicate that the next election is National’s and Act’s to lose. Don’t count out the ability of National’s MPs to come to Labour’s rescue."
It's a very fitting remark in the context of Shane Reti's desire to have the Treaty of Waitangi embedded within National's constitution.
One of the opinion polls referred to by Richard Prebble had National up 1.7 points and Act up 4.2 points. That means for every one voter that shifted to National, 2.5 shifted to Act.
That is what National should be discussing at its annual conference. After doing so they may well come to the view that introducing a Treaty of Waitangi clause into their constitution is not such a great idea. In fact, it would be a very dumb idea......
breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2021/08/frank-newman-last-chance-for-national.html
A REFERENDUM? YOU MEAN, LIKE, ALLOWING PEOPLE TO HAVE THEIR SAY? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT – Karl du Fresne
What’s interesting here is the sheer weight of the attacks on the referendum idea. This tells us the government and its de facto PR operatives in the media are keen to snuff it out before it gets any traction.
The argument that “Aotearoa” has been around for years is utterly and wilfully disingenuous. Yes, it’s on our passports and banknotes, as an acknowledgment of this country’s bicultural roots. But it has always been secondary to our official name and for that reason, no one could reasonably have objected (and to my knowledge, no one ever has).
But what has happened in recent months is vastly different. With striking suddenness, Aotearoa – which we need to remind ourselves is a name of dubious authenticity – has become the term of choice for politicians, government departments and agencies, academics, teachers, virtue-signalling corporates and the mainstream media. Its use has become routine in government advertising and public statements. In other words, it has officially been adopted as a substitute for New Zealand. And all this has happened without so much as a skerrick of public endorsement......
karldufresne.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-referendum-you-mean-like-allowing.html
ATTACKS ON PROFESSORS MISS TARGET – Graham Adams
A distinctly curious feature of the backlash against the letter published in the Listener titled “In Defence of Science” is that none of its most prominent critics have actually defended mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) as being scientific.
Yet the main point of the letter by the Auckland University professors — and the main point of contention for its critics — was summed up in its inflammatory conclusion: “Indigenous knowledge may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways, but it is not science.”
The seven professors who signed the letter were responding to a proposal by a government NCEA working group that mātauranga Māori should have “parity” with “the other bodies of knowledge credentialed by NCEA (particularly Western / Pākeha epistemologies)” in the school science curriculum.
The “epistemologies” — that is, science — were also referred to as a “Western European invention”.
The professors objected to science being characterised in this way, on the grounds that “Science is universal, not especially Western European.”....
Read Graham’s full NZCPR guest commentary here > www.nzcpr.com/attacks-on-professors-miss-their-target/
A few days ago, I was phoned by a reporter for some organisation called Te Ao Maori News to ask if I knew anything about a pamphlet which had been placed in a letter-box in the Auckland suburb of St Mary’s Bay. The reporter said that the recipient of the pamphlet had been out-raged by the pamphlet because, according to the reporter, it presented “an inaccurate interpretation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Maori-Crown relations”.
On 4 August, Te Ao Maori News wrote up the story of the pamphlet entitled “Are we being conned by the Treaty industry?”, noting that the publication attempted to “demolish 24 so-called myths including saying the treaty was not a partnership, there is harm in co-governance and that Aotearoa isn’t the Maori name for New Zealand. The booklet claims Maori are not indigenous to Aotearoa and that full sovereignty was ceded to the Crown with the 1840 signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It claims the idea colonization was bad for Maori is a ‘myth’”.
I had nothing to do with the production of this pamphlet but I confess to finding nothing in the least surprising or objectionable in what the article claims the pamphlet asserts......
www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/pamphlet-truths-spark-outrage
ANOTHER DISMAL SETBACK FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM – Karl du Fresne
Attacks on free speech – even freedom of thought, since that’s what the enemies of free speech ultimately want to control – are coming so fast, and from so many directions, that it’s hard to keep up with them.
The latest involves seven University of Auckland professors who have effectively been blacklisted for writing a letter to The Listener politely but firmly challenging the notion that matauranga Maori – which can be defined as the traditional body of Maori knowledge – should be accorded the status of science, as proposed by an NCEA working group preparing a new school curriculum.
In the febrile ideological climate of 2021 the professors’ stance counts as heresy, and it brought the full, vindictive fury of the woke academic left down on their heads. Already the pressure has proved too much for Prof Douglas Elliffe, who has stood aside as acting dean of science. In an email to his colleagues, Elliffe said he was concerned that his involvement in the controversy would cause “division” within the science faculty. That doesn’t say much for the intellectual open-mindedness of his colleagues, but there you go.
What a triumph for the enforcers of ideological conformity, and what a dismal setback – another one – for intellectual and academic freedom. How much longer will universities maintain the sanctimonious pretence that they serve as the critics and conscience of society? In truth, they promote and protect an authoritarian culture in which dissenters risk ostracism.
University vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater, who should have been the first to defend the letter-writers’ right to express themselves, came up with the all-too-familiar mealy-mouthed copout: they’re entitled to their opinion, but …
www.nzcpr.com/another-dismal-setback-for-intellectual-freedom/
Frank Newman: LAST CHANCE FOR NATIONAL
Yesterday (4 August) Waatea News reported:
The National Party’s annual meeting this weekend will consider a Treaty of Waitangi clause for the party’s constitution.
Deputy leader Shane Reti says it has been a work in progress for many years.
"We generally see the benefits and the need to have something in our constitution that then anchors our Māori interface, anchors our relationship with Māori and how we can do better with that relationship, and certainly all of the regional conferences that was the mood of the room and the mood of members, that we needed to do this. It will be for the members to decide this weekend but I am cautiously optimistic," he says......
The same day Richard Prebble wrote an insightful column in the NZ Herald entitled, "The tide has turned for Labour, polls reveal". It's well worth a read.
The final sentence says, "These two polls, two years out, indicate that the next election is National’s and Act’s to lose. Don’t count out the ability of National’s MPs to come to Labour’s rescue."
It's a very fitting remark in the context of Shane Reti's desire to have the Treaty of Waitangi embedded within National's constitution.
One of the opinion polls referred to by Richard Prebble had National up 1.7 points and Act up 4.2 points. That means for every one voter that shifted to National, 2.5 shifted to Act.
That is what National should be discussing at its annual conference. After doing so they may well come to the view that introducing a Treaty of Waitangi clause into their constitution is not such a great idea. In fact, it would be a very dumb idea......
breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2021/08/frank-newman-last-chance-for-national.html
A REFERENDUM? YOU MEAN, LIKE, ALLOWING PEOPLE TO HAVE THEIR SAY? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT – Karl du Fresne
What’s interesting here is the sheer weight of the attacks on the referendum idea. This tells us the government and its de facto PR operatives in the media are keen to snuff it out before it gets any traction.
The argument that “Aotearoa” has been around for years is utterly and wilfully disingenuous. Yes, it’s on our passports and banknotes, as an acknowledgment of this country’s bicultural roots. But it has always been secondary to our official name and for that reason, no one could reasonably have objected (and to my knowledge, no one ever has).
But what has happened in recent months is vastly different. With striking suddenness, Aotearoa – which we need to remind ourselves is a name of dubious authenticity – has become the term of choice for politicians, government departments and agencies, academics, teachers, virtue-signalling corporates and the mainstream media. Its use has become routine in government advertising and public statements. In other words, it has officially been adopted as a substitute for New Zealand. And all this has happened without so much as a skerrick of public endorsement......
karldufresne.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-referendum-you-mean-like-allowing.html
ATTACKS ON PROFESSORS MISS TARGET – Graham Adams
A distinctly curious feature of the backlash against the letter published in the Listener titled “In Defence of Science” is that none of its most prominent critics have actually defended mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) as being scientific.
Yet the main point of the letter by the Auckland University professors — and the main point of contention for its critics — was summed up in its inflammatory conclusion: “Indigenous knowledge may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways, but it is not science.”
The seven professors who signed the letter were responding to a proposal by a government NCEA working group that mātauranga Māori should have “parity” with “the other bodies of knowledge credentialed by NCEA (particularly Western / Pākeha epistemologies)” in the school science curriculum.
The “epistemologies” — that is, science — were also referred to as a “Western European invention”.
The professors objected to science being characterised in this way, on the grounds that “Science is universal, not especially Western European.”....
Read Graham’s full NZCPR guest commentary here > www.nzcpr.com/attacks-on-professors-miss-their-target/