Post by Kiwi Frontline on Apr 7, 2016 18:09:15 GMT 12
Kapiti News 16.03.16
RACE BASED FUNDING
After reading Mayor Ross Church’s Classic Torque column featured in the Kapiti News on March 9, I became aware the KCDC had invested some of its rate payer’s money into an indigenous film festival called Maoriland.
I quickly checked the KCDC website page “The Role of Council” and I could not find anywhere that it was the role of Council to fund projects which promote phoney claims of indigenousness by people who are slightly deluded.
Now, I would defend the rights of people to define themselves in any way they wish, even to make films about how they think that they are different to other humans who are not indigenous. But the Council have no mandate to invest our rates contributions into race based projects at the expense of other races.
It is widely accepted that there was no collective group of people in New Zealand who could have been described as a single or separate indigenous group of people. New Zealand was colonized many times over, in fact Waitaha and Ngati Hotu tribes use DNA evidence to show they were here hundreds or even thousands of years before the later colonization out of the Pacific by Polynesians who arrived by boat in the 13th century.
Our Council need to stick to the democratic functions of developing our resources, infrastructure, management of the environment and planning and leave the promotion of separatism to others.
Or, they need to come clean and tell us that they intend to promote one race over another. Then we can vote with the knowledge that they are openly racist at the next election.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
Kapiti News 30.03.16
NO SUCH THING AS RACE
Last week I was pitied by a flabbergasted Karen Peterson Butterworth for using the word “Race” in my letter regarding the funding for the Maori Film Festival. Actually, I agree 100 % with Karen when she states humans never developed into biological races. Humans are all individuals, no two are the same and the only person that shares the same ancestry as you is your siblings.
Unfortunately for tax payers though the New Zealand Government does not agree with Karen and me. The Waitangi Tribunal who operate within the Ministry of Justice do define people by race. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 clearly defines a Maori person as a person of the “Maori Race” of New Zealand. The act allows for this separate race to make all sorts of claims, effectively suing us for anything and everything.
This apartheid system has for 40 years favored this race and these separate people have been able to amass an economy of about $42 billion dollars. Judging by the half page advertisement that was below my letter in Kapiti News 16/3/16, local tribe Ngati Raukawa are going use this system to sue the country all over again for yet more treaty claims as it appears the nearly $30 million dollars already handed over by New Zealanders to this group as a treaty settlement wasn’t a settlement after all. Now, Ngati Raukawa did not even sign the Treaty of Waitangi.
Hardly a history of relentless deprivation that Karen speaks of, quite the opposite.
Karen suggests I read a book to learn about poverty. I grew up in Cannons Creek and suffered the effects of poverty and its associated social problems, perhaps it is Karen who needs to actually experience poverty rather than read about it in books. Many of my friends are still there struggling in a low wage economy, scratching their heads every time they hear yet another billion dollars awarded to the richest and only race in New Zealand.
Karen has taken it upon herself to be an apologist for her ethnic group who she says, with no evidence cited, stole resources from these special people and is apparently using this as the excuse as to why council should fund the Maoriland Film Festival. This logic means rate payers are now responsible for righting past wrongs and people will be labeled with “ethnic envy” for speaking up about it.
I feel for her as she has fallen for the separatist indoctrination cycle prevalent in New Zealand culture and she must now feel the shame of it for her entire life.
I certainly don’t and admire people of any ethnicity who contribute to society rather than take from it.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
Kapiti News 06.04.16
MISSED POINTS
Both Jenny Hare, who accused me of being ignorant, and Jill Abigail, who thinks I am insecure in my identity (March 30), for having the audacity to criticise the Councils funding of the Maoriland Indigenous Film Festival, have missed the point in their haste to attack me personally.
I did not critisise the films or the festival itself. I am sure some of the films may be world class and I defended the rights of the people to make them.
Regardless of how good or interesting the films are, problems arise when we learn the selection process for the films in this festival includes that they are either by or about people based on their (imagined) race. If our Council is prepared to gift $32,000 dollars of rate payers money to a festival that excludes films which are not by or exclude certain races they are treading on very shaky ground.
The second problem is of course that big fat elephant in the room, Maori people are not indigenous to New Zealand, not by any stretch of the imagination. They arrived by boat in the 14th century to find people already living here, their own legends state as much. Our Counsel has effectively entered the race wars by gravely insulting Ngati Hotu and Waitaha people, both of whom claim to be pre Maori and complain that Maori colonization has stolen their identity, Ngati Hotu have made a Treaty Claim to that extent.
Our Counsel is not qualified to enter these race wars and would be well advised to fund less controversial events.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
CULTURAL CRINGE
I write in support of Andy Oakley (letters March 30). I do so because what Mr Oakley writes most New Zealanders agree with, in general terms, but only within their own social or workforce circle. At any public meeting they appear to be struck dumb. This sad state of affairs has come about because we, the public, have allowed ourselves to be brow beaten into cultural cringe. A challenge to anybody who doubts this is, next time you hear an Irish joke and everybody laughs, tell that same joke on another occasion but start it off, "There were these two Maori ...". See the weak smiles and the shuffling of feet with the listeners not wanting to be there.
In my experience Maori are just as likely to laugh at themselves as any other group who becomes the point of a joke (Poms, Italians Scots etc), but it is the non-Maori who create the awkward silence. The whole Maori-non Maori situation is beyond ridiculous. At a guess I would say there are under three million full time workers in our country and they are all paying for a dual system.
The last census to ask a direct question of ethnicity was in 1985- 86. At that time only 8.9 per cent of the population was at least half Maori. With old Maori dying off, inter race marriage becoming the norm and booming immigration I would not be surprised if that 8.9 was now less than 6 per cent. This leads me to suggest that the majority of those making claims as Maori are really double dipping. They have enjoyed the alleged profits of the plundering by seven eights of their ancestors but now claim it all over again on their one eight part Maori heritage.
The Treaty of Waitangi is a major stumbling block to New Zealand becoming an affluent society and the envy of the world. A conservative guess would be at least two billion dollars a year for all treaty related costs. We cannot afford it. When a claim is made under the treaty it is not some remote billionaire Russian oligarch or some vast multi national company being bled but their next door neighbours, the old couple across the road, the young couple with three kids living five doors down, and their own family. Those are the people whom the claim is bleeding. They are the people who pay the tax to supply the wherewithal.
I have worked with part-Maori people, I have, and do, socialise with part-Maori people but, the thing is, I do so as people. The fad that they are part-Maori, Indian, Chinese or anything else doesn't come into it. They are either nice people I want to associate with or they are rat bags with whom I do not. I think most New Zealanders are the same so why, at political level, are we suddenly different people with one group needing special consideration and privilege over the rest?
R F
Waikanae
RACE BASED FUNDING
After reading Mayor Ross Church’s Classic Torque column featured in the Kapiti News on March 9, I became aware the KCDC had invested some of its rate payer’s money into an indigenous film festival called Maoriland.
I quickly checked the KCDC website page “The Role of Council” and I could not find anywhere that it was the role of Council to fund projects which promote phoney claims of indigenousness by people who are slightly deluded.
Now, I would defend the rights of people to define themselves in any way they wish, even to make films about how they think that they are different to other humans who are not indigenous. But the Council have no mandate to invest our rates contributions into race based projects at the expense of other races.
It is widely accepted that there was no collective group of people in New Zealand who could have been described as a single or separate indigenous group of people. New Zealand was colonized many times over, in fact Waitaha and Ngati Hotu tribes use DNA evidence to show they were here hundreds or even thousands of years before the later colonization out of the Pacific by Polynesians who arrived by boat in the 13th century.
Our Council need to stick to the democratic functions of developing our resources, infrastructure, management of the environment and planning and leave the promotion of separatism to others.
Or, they need to come clean and tell us that they intend to promote one race over another. Then we can vote with the knowledge that they are openly racist at the next election.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
Kapiti News 30.03.16
NO SUCH THING AS RACE
Last week I was pitied by a flabbergasted Karen Peterson Butterworth for using the word “Race” in my letter regarding the funding for the Maori Film Festival. Actually, I agree 100 % with Karen when she states humans never developed into biological races. Humans are all individuals, no two are the same and the only person that shares the same ancestry as you is your siblings.
Unfortunately for tax payers though the New Zealand Government does not agree with Karen and me. The Waitangi Tribunal who operate within the Ministry of Justice do define people by race. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 clearly defines a Maori person as a person of the “Maori Race” of New Zealand. The act allows for this separate race to make all sorts of claims, effectively suing us for anything and everything.
This apartheid system has for 40 years favored this race and these separate people have been able to amass an economy of about $42 billion dollars. Judging by the half page advertisement that was below my letter in Kapiti News 16/3/16, local tribe Ngati Raukawa are going use this system to sue the country all over again for yet more treaty claims as it appears the nearly $30 million dollars already handed over by New Zealanders to this group as a treaty settlement wasn’t a settlement after all. Now, Ngati Raukawa did not even sign the Treaty of Waitangi.
Hardly a history of relentless deprivation that Karen speaks of, quite the opposite.
Karen suggests I read a book to learn about poverty. I grew up in Cannons Creek and suffered the effects of poverty and its associated social problems, perhaps it is Karen who needs to actually experience poverty rather than read about it in books. Many of my friends are still there struggling in a low wage economy, scratching their heads every time they hear yet another billion dollars awarded to the richest and only race in New Zealand.
Karen has taken it upon herself to be an apologist for her ethnic group who she says, with no evidence cited, stole resources from these special people and is apparently using this as the excuse as to why council should fund the Maoriland Film Festival. This logic means rate payers are now responsible for righting past wrongs and people will be labeled with “ethnic envy” for speaking up about it.
I feel for her as she has fallen for the separatist indoctrination cycle prevalent in New Zealand culture and she must now feel the shame of it for her entire life.
I certainly don’t and admire people of any ethnicity who contribute to society rather than take from it.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
Kapiti News 06.04.16
MISSED POINTS
Both Jenny Hare, who accused me of being ignorant, and Jill Abigail, who thinks I am insecure in my identity (March 30), for having the audacity to criticise the Councils funding of the Maoriland Indigenous Film Festival, have missed the point in their haste to attack me personally.
I did not critisise the films or the festival itself. I am sure some of the films may be world class and I defended the rights of the people to make them.
Regardless of how good or interesting the films are, problems arise when we learn the selection process for the films in this festival includes that they are either by or about people based on their (imagined) race. If our Council is prepared to gift $32,000 dollars of rate payers money to a festival that excludes films which are not by or exclude certain races they are treading on very shaky ground.
The second problem is of course that big fat elephant in the room, Maori people are not indigenous to New Zealand, not by any stretch of the imagination. They arrived by boat in the 14th century to find people already living here, their own legends state as much. Our Counsel has effectively entered the race wars by gravely insulting Ngati Hotu and Waitaha people, both of whom claim to be pre Maori and complain that Maori colonization has stolen their identity, Ngati Hotu have made a Treaty Claim to that extent.
Our Counsel is not qualified to enter these race wars and would be well advised to fund less controversial events.
ANDY OAKLEY
Raumati Beach
CULTURAL CRINGE
I write in support of Andy Oakley (letters March 30). I do so because what Mr Oakley writes most New Zealanders agree with, in general terms, but only within their own social or workforce circle. At any public meeting they appear to be struck dumb. This sad state of affairs has come about because we, the public, have allowed ourselves to be brow beaten into cultural cringe. A challenge to anybody who doubts this is, next time you hear an Irish joke and everybody laughs, tell that same joke on another occasion but start it off, "There were these two Maori ...". See the weak smiles and the shuffling of feet with the listeners not wanting to be there.
In my experience Maori are just as likely to laugh at themselves as any other group who becomes the point of a joke (Poms, Italians Scots etc), but it is the non-Maori who create the awkward silence. The whole Maori-non Maori situation is beyond ridiculous. At a guess I would say there are under three million full time workers in our country and they are all paying for a dual system.
The last census to ask a direct question of ethnicity was in 1985- 86. At that time only 8.9 per cent of the population was at least half Maori. With old Maori dying off, inter race marriage becoming the norm and booming immigration I would not be surprised if that 8.9 was now less than 6 per cent. This leads me to suggest that the majority of those making claims as Maori are really double dipping. They have enjoyed the alleged profits of the plundering by seven eights of their ancestors but now claim it all over again on their one eight part Maori heritage.
The Treaty of Waitangi is a major stumbling block to New Zealand becoming an affluent society and the envy of the world. A conservative guess would be at least two billion dollars a year for all treaty related costs. We cannot afford it. When a claim is made under the treaty it is not some remote billionaire Russian oligarch or some vast multi national company being bled but their next door neighbours, the old couple across the road, the young couple with three kids living five doors down, and their own family. Those are the people whom the claim is bleeding. They are the people who pay the tax to supply the wherewithal.
I have worked with part-Maori people, I have, and do, socialise with part-Maori people but, the thing is, I do so as people. The fad that they are part-Maori, Indian, Chinese or anything else doesn't come into it. They are either nice people I want to associate with or they are rat bags with whom I do not. I think most New Zealanders are the same so why, at political level, are we suddenly different people with one group needing special consideration and privilege over the rest?
R F
Waikanae