Around about now - in between photo ops and cricket and dinners at Tantalus - Christopher Luxon will be thinking about his speeches at Rātana and Waitangi Day and how he's going to get through those speeches without being egged lol - while his Government is being taken to the High Court by one of the nation's largest Iwi.
The context Luxon is confronting as he pretends to paint the shed in his Dad's jandals - is how he wants to make English first, how he has rushed to scrap the Māori Health Authority, intends to crack down on mostly gang crime, get mostly brown kids to attend school, build more private prisons for more over- represented brown people cos that does not help, how he wants to bring Treaty Settlements to an end ( even though Ngapuhi say they never ceded sovereignty and so do the Waitangi Tribunal ) and how Luxon wants to close that reconciliation project off by 2030 - so we can move forward as one white nation who refers to its multi-culture as if it is proud in theory but not in practice ( the good days in the 20th century ), scrap environmental protections, mess up the rivers, kill the fish, fire the conservation folk in the public service, and support Seymour to use a majority to change the principles of Te Tiriti.
Luxon has provided Seymour with a platform for his grand equality and assimilation plans - via a Select Committee report.
I left out gutting the RMA ...but it would be exhausting to detail everything...you get the picture ...Luxon is waging war on Māori harder than anyone.
Yes between staged fake photo ops and tired simplistic sound bites founded on BS - while on holiday in his luxury beach front property, Luxon will probably be hauling out the same speech he gave in 2022 and 2023 and making a few more tweaks - and reciting a few introductory lines in Te Reo Maori again like, "'He iwi tahi tatou" ...you know the drill.
The pakeha assimilation of Māori thing - versus the common humanity thing :
"It seems unlikely that these words were intended to convey that the Treaty submerged Maori identity or distinctiveness in the new polity and society. Such sense would be at odds with the explanations and understandings of Hobson, Mathew and others expressed at the time as discussed above. It would also be unlikely that the chiefs would greet with approval a sentiment at odds with expressed concerns about maintenance of their own authority. Mathew’s translation resonates with the anti-slavery movement’s “We are all brethren”. - Ned Fletcher
A brief revision of Luxon's same speech given in 2022 and again in 2023 - boils down to talking first in Te Reo from recited notes - and then - reverting to English about how James Cook headed south from Tahiti in 1769 and had instructions to take possession of whole nations ( doctrine of discovery ) after a brief chat with the indigenous about how he discovered their land and would they consent to him taking over all of it on behalf of King George etc.
The race was on to build Empire and keep out the competition from Spain, France, Portugal and the Dutch...you know we discovered it first so the gold, Kauri, flax, and the fruits built off cheap labour or slavery is ours etc.
What a lens for Luxon to highlight first - in both 2022 and 2023 in his Waitangi speeches.
Yes Luxon has brought a "Captain Cook discovered NZ" lens to his constituency - not one about life in this country from the 13th century onwards, where nameless people that Luxon was too lazy to bother to pronounce their names existed for centuries, establishing systems of lore, tikanga, agriculture, and rights - ...cos that would not inspire vapid shallow National Party voters much - where was the self interested ambition- to move forward and get rich ( with maybe seven houses )?
Luxon left all the real history out again.
Yes we shake our heads and he still smugly thinks he is superior and got that done for another year.
Luxon probably did not realise on both occasions how unbalanced his vanilla lens sounded to more educated and empathetic ears who detected his inherent racism and instead imagined how he told himself he was getting things done, very fairly and for all New Zealanders.
What a tosser with a plastic bat.
Will Luxon drop the Captain Cook thing in 2024?
Maybe talk about a few of the Chiefs and their mana - and maybe Busby's whakaputanga in 1835 with the Northern Confederation of chiefs - and what Normandy's instructions to Hobson were really about?
Huh? Luxon?
Perhaps he will drop that Captain cook focus this year - given the way he no longer needs the votes - and how he's stirred up so much uncertainty and fear in a short period as he works to divide all New Zealanders while saying the very opposite.
He repeatedly tells us how he cares deeply about all of us - that's why he has made such a bad start and is being taken to court over parts of his anti-Maori coalition agreement.
Remember how back in 2022 Waitangi Day and Rātana were kind of messed up by Covid - so people did not gather - but by 2023 Jacinda had resigned and some outstanding people had passed away like Moana Jackson and Titewhai Harawira - so Luxon's speech had some minor amendments in 2023 to it from 2022, acknowledgements and tweaks to it but carried many of his same lines forwards from 2022.
Luxon was lazy and stuck to the Pakeha perspectives he knew best would gain him votes.
Last year Luxon was on the grounds talking about James Cook again, and how Captain Hobson had gathered with the chiefs and repeated from 2022 - how they left us with an "imperfect, inspiring document" that we've struggled to interpret ever since, and he emphasised that Treaty Settlements are final and talked about bringing that reconciliation project to an end.
Assimilation basically.
The end of the "Treaty Grievance Industry" as Hobson's Pledge ( Casey Costello and NZ First ) would say. Now that was "in the can" we could get back to being Pakeha - something like that.
It was all "a little experiment" and hadn't we done well - if you are pakeha and got some land on the cheap.
Remember how Jacinda wanted to try "by Maōri for Māori" health initiatives because the other way proved not to work - and we should try what does work?
Well Luxon wanted to kill that off before it succeeded.
Luxon told people at Rātana last year that having their own Māori Health Authority sitting within the Public Service violated the coherence of one system ( when it did not ).
Luxon explained that centralisation in Wellington was wrong despite him sitting in Wellington in a centralised system of Westminster Government himself .
Luxon insisted that taking five years to prove better health outcomes for Māori - was unacceptable while National's record in underspending on Health is far worse.
Luxon told everyone how ethnicity had no part to play in effectiveness which could only be based on need - forget about being remote in some rural back water or institutional racism like the kind Luxon has no awareness about. He's got all the benefits of being part of the dominating culture and being affluent with private health insurance.
"New Zealand has one government elected by all of us", said Luxon - stirring up a strawman of uncertainty about Co-Governance of Parliament via He Puapua and an upper house with a veto.
Luxon blamed Jacinda for not taking the people with her and making the case for constitutional change ( more misleading BS cos Jacinda never proposed that in the first place, it was just a think tank paper not policy ).
Now in absolute irony - Seymour wants constitutional change around the Treaty Principles but has not taken the country with him at 8% of the vote - and it is only via MMP and Luxon's failings as a negotiator that we now all face Seymour's Treaty principles Bill bollocks this year.
Good luck with the one at Rātana and Waitangi.
As you know - with Jacinda - we would have been consulted about anything like sharing the government of NZ with Māori - and that this was just Luxon making mischief and adding to fear and confusion.
All through this terrible business by Luxon .. Tama Potaka nodded his head in full agreement, and the usual cast of token characters - chosen for their usefulness on these days - like Dr Cigareti and Joseph Mooney ( who as a young rural man had been interested in Te Tiriti ) stood behind Luxon, along with the more Pakeha and uninformed pearl clutching Willis and that dreadful blonde woman National use to crush beneficiaries.
The nodding dogs on the back window.
The ones who have sided with Hobson's Pledge and expect a warm welcome - but shit is likely to hit the fan.
Perhaps part of the Hui on the 20th is to calm the farm?
There's always the risk that expressing your utter contempt for the new Government may get white society's back up and NewsCrap ZB would highlight how Māori are wrong - etc. You know the weapons they use at NewsCrap ZB to divide us.
I wonder if Seymour and Winston will make speeches and whether Casey Costello will make an appearance with pumpkin head Jones?
If anyone is going to get egged - I guess that's the target and most inflammatory territory and Luxon's security may advise they stay away this year.
This whole Treaty thing is awkward for National.
It's not their gig really and most of Te Ao Māori have to sit through it and put up with this BS - my sympathy.
Luxon acknowledged that National had only just recognised the Treaty in their constitution, and had to get some more brown faces onboard ( elite Maori ) which you might argue they did in the 2023 election, be it as tokens or as a minority - and I expect to see James Meagre standing around in a suit behind Luxon nodding his head like Tama will this year.
We may hear about the Māori economy from Luxon and how Māori concerns are the same as Pakeha concerns - the cost of living crisis will rate a mention and tax relief - along with education ( National's reading, writing in English stuff and maths ) and health ( Dr CigaReti and Casey Costello lol ) but Luxon will likely steer away from the criminal justice system.
The criminal justice system is a bloody train wreck for Māori according to Supreme Court Justice Joe Brown - and wow - prison is not the answer...while this Government scrap the offender background reporting needed for judges to make sound and reforming judgements.
So what was the alternative to all this breakdown in race relations?
Last year Chippy also began his speech with a few words in Te Reo and some acknowledgements about those who passed away - but with Chippy - he stressed that Te Tiriti does not end with settlements like it does with Luxon.
Instead it's about a permanent working together and that everyday should be a day we consider Te Tiriti - not just Waitangi Day - like Luxon and his boring pakeha centric rehashed speech featuring James Cook and "He iwi tahi tatou" ...
Chippy talked about Marae transforming from a place of uncertainty for him as a kid who never learned about the significance of Marae - to a place of welcome and a place of argument and - in some respects Pakeha who are outsiders should attempt to make that journey...
On some level we are in for one hell of a BBQ on 6th February 2024 - and the media will be all over it - but I am picking Luxon will not duck it like Sir John and Sir Bill did.
Luxon will drag out the old speech and is probably tweaking it now with advice from Goldsmith and Willis over the internet about how to get away with this and the same old cliched Pakeha platitudes on one hand while dividing us with the other.
Goodness knows what Seymour will attempt to say this year, but things are sure going to be more sensitive than previously.
What do you reckon?
Waitangi and Rātana 2024
G
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