I am not an ACT party voter. I disagree too strongly with their liberal stances on social issues, which in my opinion are at least as important as economic management.

But damn, they are tempting me to vote for them this time around. They’ve always had a much better understanding of their values and ideology than National, who have forgotten their values and see their purpose as keeping Labour out of power, but not necessarily their policies.

Their party conference was held over the weekend. One of the guest speakers was Professor Elizabeth, a sociologist of education in the School of Critical Studies, the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland (that’s a mouthful!). She is also infamously one of the seven signatories who sent the letter ‘In Defence of Science’ to the NZ Listener in July 2021, decrying the assessment of Maori customs as being the equivalent to modern day science.

Her speech can be read and viewed here: https://blog.elizabethrata.com/2022/07/24/in-defence-of-democracy/

It’s very, very good:

My talk ‘In Defence of Democracy’ is for those of all political persuasions who are deeply worried about New Zealand’s descent from democracy into a tribal form of ethno-nationalism

Her title ‘Defence of Democracy’ is a deliberate echo of the letter she signed to the Listener. There is a dangerous alternate and nefarious world view which has captured our elites and is now accepted as normal. We must push back!

Nearly forty years ago the 1985 Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act set in motion a radical constitutional agenda. The aim –  to shift the country from democracy to tribalism. In that time a corporate tribal elite has privatised public resources, acquired political power, and attained governance entitlements. Activist judges have created treatyism – a new interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi as a ‘governance partnership’. Intellectuals have supplied the supporting racialised ‘two world views’ ideology.

The question we must ask is this: How has a small group of individuals, both Maori and non-Maori, managed to install a racialised ideology into our democracy?

How indeed! It has been a long and steady road, but the results of the revolution are plain to see.

Treatyism’s success can be seen in how comprehensively ‘partnership’, ‘decolonisation’, ‘co-governance’  – whatever term is used – is inserted into all our government institutions, into the universities, and into the law. It is an ideology that tells how we are to understand our country’s history and how we are to envisage its future.

The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi was, like all human products, of its time and place. One aim – shared by British and Maori signatories alike – was to establish the rule of law by imposing British sovereignty through British governance. Sovereignty and governance go together as two sides of the same coin – with intertwined meaning. 

The aim of the Treaty was to make New Zealand British. That was understood by everyone who signed it. The forthcoming mass immigration of British settlers may not have been anticipated, but the submission to Queen Victoria and British rule of law very much was understood and a welcome relief to many Maori.

Revived in the 1970s as the symbol of a cultural renaissance, the treaty was captured by retribalists in the 1980s to serve as the ideological manifesto for the envisaged order – a reconstituted New Zealand. It was given a ‘spirit’ to take it above and beyond its historical location so that it could mean whatever retribalists say it means.

It now means “whatever retribalists say it means”. It means that we need to begin meetings with pagan prayers, that Maori own the airwaves, water and foreshore, that we should handover NZDF housing to the local tribe – need I go on?

This treatyist ideology successfully promotes the false claim of partnership between the government and the tribes. However there is a deeper more insidious strategy propelling us to tribal ethno-nationalism. It is the collapse of the separation between the economic and political spheres.

…

The corporate tribes have already acquired considerable governance entitlements – the next and final step is tribal sovereignty.  It’s a coup d’etat in all but name, accomplished not by force but by ideology – enabled by a compliant media.

She says it is not too late to resist the enormous success of retribalism. But we need to “understand, value, and restore democracy”. She lists the following as necessary tasks:

  1. Remove the treaty and its principles from all legislation. People (not a sacred deity)  put these into legislation. People can remove them.
  2. Remove retribalism’s ideology from all public institutions, including the universities.
  3. Encourage those in civil society who value and desire Maori culture to participate in – for example – Maori media, Maori language, kaupapa Maori schools, Maori literature, arts, music, fashion, film, festivities . . . all the activities of a vibrant culture.
  4. Teach a complete and unvarnished NZ history developed according to sound scientific methods.
  5. Allow New Zealand English to evolve organically through incorporating Maori words, not by government decree.
  6. Re-build the education system to teach academic subjects – the source of the partially loyal individual – not ideological dogma.

She also suggests that the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi is not, in fact, our most important constitutional document. She suggests that the 1852 Constitution Act and the 1893 Electoral Act (allowing Women’s suffrage) are much more important, and should be celebrated as such. Not that we actually need a founding document to know who we are and what we stand for.

She concludes:

New Zealanders, both Maori and non-Maori, have not been asked to agree to tribalist governance.  If we had been asked would we have agreed?

Tribalism and democracy are incompatible. We can’t have both.  If we wish to keep New Zealand as a liberal democratic nation then, as we derive our citizen rights from the nation-state, so we have a duty to ensure that the nation-state which awards those rights, remains democratic and able to do so.

For our country to remain a liberal democracy, we need to know what democracy is, its true value, and what we must do to restore it.

I couldn’t agree more. Note that Prof Rata has been active in promoting things like Maori schools, and the last thing she is proposing is the subjugation of NZ’s indigenous people to a foreign culture.

NZ has suffered a revolution, which started in earnest in the 70s. We can accept it, which means accepting a state divided along ethnic lines and tribal authority, or we can push back and have a counter-revolution.