Despite Tim Wikiriwhi’s best efforts, the turnout to the Hamilton meeting was disappointing — 50 by my count.

Perhaps my ad, which Tim placed prominently, would have produced a better result if I’d stuck with the usual headline ’Racial Equality Meeting’ rather than ‘Stop the Surrender of New Zealand to Tribal Tricksters’. I just wanted to see how many Hamiltonians felt passionately enough about stopping the surrender to come along in person.

The answer was not many.

I also wanted to use the occasion to plead with the organisers of the 1LAW4ALL party not to render their name in textspeak. To me, it’s madness to use the language of the Treaty-brainwashed under 30s when the party’s core target market is the literate over 60s.

This is another attempt to persuade them to reconsider.

I was not one of the 16 invitees to the setup meeting for this party (my reputation for forthrightness — or as I would put it, quality before compromise — having preceded me!).

But they did ask me to do their advertising.

On the evidence of that first important creative decision, I declined.

If you’ve followed my career, you’ll note that I don’t hang around long when I don’t trust the client’s judgment. (On the other hand, when the client trusts me to do my job, the result is usually pretty good.)

I hope they change their mind and show more respect for the English language. After all, isn’t that one of the glories of the West we’re supposed to be defending?

It’s fair to say I’m questioning my own value to this cause given these developments. I am an instinctive and rather too emotional creature. I’m hoping my instincts about the rendering of this party’s name are wrong, and that they enjoy every success.

In any case, I plan to keep posting my thoughts here and hope you’ll keep contributing yours.

Hi John,

I work in a very PC not-quite-government-department. I’ve been working here for nearly 6 years, and my annual appraisal is about to come up.

One of the things that has come up each year is my reading and understanding of the Treaty as it relates to work.

So far, I’ve managed to evade this subject by just saying “I respect all cultures, and I believe we should all be treated equally”.

(Which is true, by the way.)

Last year, I was told in no uncertain terms that that was not going to be sufficient this year, and I’d have to actually read some of our policies regarding the “Treaty”.

Well, I don’t want to.

I don’t believe in the version of the Treaty that is being shoved down our throats. And quite frankly, I’m also sick and tired of being made out to be the “bad guy” because I’m white.

I’m pretty sure that my contract would have mentioned something about the Treaty. But can I get out of it? Can I say it goes against my “religious” or “cultural” beliefs”?

(Pretty sure that would only work if I was brown.)

I did read very briefly a recent statement which said “we realise Maori don’t have the same access to healthcare as others”. A quick poll at my clinic resulted in blank stares, and “What the hells?”

If you or anyone knows how I might be able to challenge this requirement, I’d love to hear from them.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,
(NAME WITHHELD FOR FEAR OF LOSING JOB)

It’s disgraceful if people who work for the government must parrot the government’s lies in order to keep their jobs.

Would anyone else like to share their experiences of Treaty harassment?

And can our reader legally object to kowtowing to the Treatifarian agenda on religious, cultural or perhaps ethical grounds – on the basis that “I was brought up to tell the truth”?

Had dinner at the Wikiriwhis in Hamilton last night. Tim is an engineer, a libertarian, a Christian and a boxer, and Joy, among other things, is an excellent cook. So one way and another, I’m getting well looked after.

Both Tim and I were interviewed by the Waikato Times late yesterday, and a story, accompanied by a photo something like the above (this one shot by Joy in Tim’s man cave) is likely to run tomorrow.

I heard yesterday that a Dunedin meeting has now been confirmed for the evening of 11 June in a lecture theatre of Otago University. Thanks to Colin and Hilary for arranging that.

Before that, we’ve got a Hastings meeting on 7 June. More on these later.

Now to focus on tonight’s meeting at 7.00 pm in the Celebrating Age Centre, 30 Victoria Street, Hamilton.

NOTE: Apparently we’re not allowed into the venue before 6.30pm.

I’m about to drive to Hamilton for tomorrow night’s meeting.

Today an ad should have appeared on page 2 of the Waikato Times. This one was in the Hamilton News. Good to know that at least one person saw it.

Thanks to Tim Wikiriwhi for organising everything. See you tonight for dinner, Tim.

Looking forward to catching up with you other Waikato readers tomorrow at 7pm at the Celebrating Age Centre, 30 Victoria Street.

My two hours with the sympathetic Vinny Eastwood on American Freedom Radio allowed me more freedom to spell out my views than I’ve ever had before.

There were technical issues with the link from Texas, but I think it played OK. Over the phone I couldn’t hear too well, so missed some cues to ‘wrap it up’ before going into breaks.

You’ll find me here, just after Vinny’s interview with John Minto!

Hauraki District Council voters are just the latest to reject former Rac(ist) Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres’s arrogant edict that local councils create race-based seats for part members of one race only.

Results for the Hauraki District Council Maori Representation Poll that closed on Wednesday May 1, 2013, clearly indicated the majority of those who voted do not support separate Maori seats.

Of the 5284 (39.12%) electors who voted, 4249 were against the idea, while 1015 were for it.

That’s an 80.4% ‘No’ vote — utterly consistent with other polls on Maori seats, and other issues of Maori privilege from whether to fund Maori-only housing to whether to revert to Maori names.

“It’s a good turnout as far as the election is concerned,” said Deputy Mayor Bruce Gordon, “The number of people who responded has given us a clear mandate with regard to the issue of Maori Wards, but obviously Maori can still stand as individuals for the upcoming Local Government election like anyone else.”

Quite so.

Of course, there’s a big difference between the referenda held by the councils of Hauraki District, Waikato District and Nelson City and those held by the government…

Local referenda are binding.

Because of that — and only because of that — racially biased councillors are being consistently overruled for arrogantly deviating from the wishes of the people they’re paid to represent.

It’s time national referenda gave all voters the same power.

My Maori colleague Tim Wikiriwhi is doing a great job beating the drum for next Thursday’s Hamilton meeting.

I’ve designed the above ad, which he has placed in today’s Hamilton News and on page 2 of next Wednesday’s Waikato Times.

Thanks to those who have responded to Tim’s appeal to help him pay for it. We’re still short of the required amount, so if you can pop something in the pot,  please email twikiriwhi@yahoo.co.nz and he’ll give you his bank account number.

I know some people are coming down from Auckland and others from Tauranga and Te Kuiti, so I’ll be focusing between now and then on making the trip worth your while!

Elocal editor Mykeljon Winkel has come up trumps again with a story about Ngapuhi’s achiever chief David Rankin.

ELOCAL

“You recently voiced support for historians who claim that New Zealand was settled much earlier than commonly accepted. Are you merely supporting free speech and political incorrectness, or do you genuinely believe that there were other civilizations here in NZ before the arrival of Kupe circa 1250AD?”

DAVID RANKIN

“Let me just start off and say this, Maori are not the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. There were many other races already living here long before Kupe arrived. I am his direct descendant and I know from our oral history passed down 44 generations.

I believe this needs to be investigated further because every Maori community talks about Waitaha, Turehu and Patupaiarehe. This goes hand-in-hand with the other research.

As Maori, we have come to a time of maturity where we need to debate these issues. I want to get to a genuine consensus about this issue, although I think academics want it to disappear. If we start talking about it and investigating it, it’s an exciting opportunity to explore.

My ancestors like Kupe came to the Hokianga in search of other people. In the Waima ranges, there was a pipi shelter on the mountains, and the kuia used to talk about the fair skinned people up there.

A lot of people identify as Paniora (translated as Spaniard), indicating that the Portuguese and Spanish washed up on ancient ships in Northland.

In 2002, I went to the Austronesian Leaders Conference in Taiwan and we discussed similarities with Taiwanese Aborigines. We traced our origins and the Maori and Polynesian connection to China.

All the leaders such as myself and Matiu Rei, Aborigines, Solomon islanders, Rapa Nui and Hawaiians were all interested in early settlement theories. There is a lot of writing about the whole ancestral link.

Really, Maori didn’t navigate here, we came on a tidal drift. Te Tai Tokerau is actually the tidal drift from the Tokelau islands. When my ancestors arrived at the shores of Aotearoa, there were people here to greet them. The question is: who are those people?

It goes hand-in- hand with our oral history. There are questions written by Ian Wishart, Noel Hilliam and others that need to be answered.”

Elocal has championed the quest for more openness on pre-Maori settlement in New Zealand. The case is well-summarised in a recent story by Raynor Capper on the Waipoua Forest stone city subtitled Undeniable Proof of NZ Civilisation Before Kupe.

Most interesting to me is National Archives’ 75-year embargo of evidence found in a three-year state investigation of 500 acres of the 25,000 acre historical treasure trove in the 1980s.

Is the idea of a pre-Maori stone city in the Waipoua Forest the ludicrous fantasy of nutters, as  our haughty Appeaser-General Chris Finlayson claims?

If so, why must we wait until 2063 to see what state investigators found there in the 1980s? 

ELOCAL

“What do you think the ramifications would be if Maori appeared not to be the indigenous people of New Zealand?”

DAVID RANKIN

“That would put all our treaty claims in question and our indigenous rights at the UN. It would open up a whole can of worms. I do believe if we start approaching it the right way other Maori would be keen to discuss it.

I think there has been a rot been allowed to set in to Maoridom since the Lange government took power in the early 1980s.

In many ways, all the changes that have taken place have taken the basic responsibility away, their mana, from being true Maori, like working for a living, educating themselves and their families, leading strong lives and observing the laws of the land.

If you are able to work then work! Help your fellow Maori and Pakehas be successful in life. Being Maori — and, let’s face it, you only need to be 32% by government standards — does not mean you need to take the easy way out and have your hand out.

I have never taken anything from the government, I am self made, strong and I say stop the funding. Maori need to return to the warriors they once were.

It may be hard at first but intergenerational beneficiaries are embarrassing to my culture.”

Listen to Treatygate LIVE on Saturday from 10am (not 12pm as it says above) at
American Freedom Radio.

Tomorrow, Saturday 11 May from 10am — 12pm (NOT 12pm-2pm as it says above), I’ll be broadcasting to the world via Skype on American Freedom Radio’s The Vinny Eastwood Show.

(No, I won’t be making light of genocide — especially the Taranaki genocide of the Moriori.)

Vinny is a marvel of the internet age, a 29 year old Westie revolutionary broadcasting out of a home studio in Glen Eden to up to 100,000 pairs of ears worldwide.

As his alter ego MR NEWS says, he covers “everything the mainstream media leaves out, so as you can imagine I’m quite busy!”

One of those things is Treatygate, so I’m grateful that guys like Vinny are there to pick up the slack.

The interview will go out live as a radio broadcast at 10am. Then Vinny will upload the Skype video to his You Tube channel. Also, nine New Zealand radio stations from Invercargill to Wanganui will run the programme as a delayed broadcast.

Vinny’s two-hour show five days a week is one of the mainstays of AFR. 

No pressure!

Vinny has more brands than an old Texan cattle ranch. Guerilla Media is another.

MR NEWS, Vinny’s You Tube channel, gets more views than NZ Herald TV.

Vinny at a pub in Glen Eden, where I bought him a beer or two
for loaning me his recording gear that Mike Butler and I used
(and mercifully managed not to get smashed) at Waitangi.

Catch Vinny and me on American Freedom Radio on Saturday from 10am till noon.

Or join The Vinny Eastwood Show chat room.

And/or call up the show on 001-218-339-8525.

What’s going to be weird is that, unlike in my recent two hour stint with Jackson and Tamihere on Radio Live — in fact, unlike nearly all of my other media appearances so far — I won’t be outnumbered by two or three opponents barking over the top of me.

This assumes that Vinny will be his normal amiable self. (Which he will be, because any enemy of the government is a friend of Vinny’s. )

Hope you can join us. 10am tomorrow.

I’ve now moved it to just below the post about Oamaru North School. I think the ‘akonga’ renaming crosses a line. Have a read and see if you agree.

More Maorification in education, this time the social studies curriculum of Oamaru North School.

Seems the staff went on a Treaty of Waitangi indoctrination course. (Masquerading, of course, as “professional development”.)

And they came back so brainwashed they saw fit to set aside the culture of 70% of the school’s pupils to “meet the needs” of the 15% who are part-Maori.

The subject in question was “the primary context within which the students could examine their relationship with the place where they lived”.

Now I don’t speak Bureaucrobabble, but I suspect this translates into the English expression “the main landmarks of Oamaru”.

For the last 150 years, the town’s beautiful white stone buildings have served in this role. But not any more, according to the indoctrinated indoctrinators of Oamaru North.

Now, Victorian architecture is out, and tribal archaeology is in.

In order to indulge the favoured few, all of Oamaru North’s children are now required to relate, not to the symbols of civilisation that they see all around them, but to primitive Maori cave drawings half an hour out of town. (At Duntroon, 42km north-west of Oamaru.)

Sadly, there’s plenty of similar mumbo-jumbo where this came from — the Ministry of Education’s update on the Treaty of Waitangi’s Education Ministry – NZ Curriculum update 16 – Treaty principle

Read it and weep — for your children.

In their relentless mission to degrade Western civilisation and prioritise the primitive, the NZ Teachers Council now insist that any teacher wanting to be registered must stop calling children ‘learners’ and refer to them at all times as ‘akonga’.

(Naturally, they remember to put a macron over the first ‘a’ in akonga, but forget to put a possessive apostrophe after the ‘s’ of Teachers. No doubt they regard punctuation as an evil colonial affectation.)

Like the Constitutional Advisory Panel, the teachers have also taken it upon themselves to change the name of our country while they’re about it.

Just in case you think their akonga edict is voluntary, read this…

And this…

That’s right: there is no longer any place for any English language quotations in the English language version of the Teachers Council Registered Teacher Criteria handbook.

The glories of the language of Shakespeare are as nothing compared to the pronouncements of the wise kaumatua.

Part of the brainwashing process requires our new teachers to ask themselves the following (this is a montage of questions dotted throughout the Holy Criteria)…

This from the home page of the website.

Naturally the teacher is brown and her ‘akonga’ are white.

My next illustration is my attempt to put it all in disgraceful perspective.

Didn’t Gramsci and co. do well?

What we’re seeing is the socialists joining forces with New Zealand’s communist primitivists as part of the plan to topple the West.

(I must say I’m surprised the Christians are leading the charge to capitulate with their Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. They should be proud of saving Maori from the depravities of cannibalism and intertribal genocide, but why they want to surrender their culture to the descendants of those tribesmen is a mystery.)

Clearly our schools are now Orwellian state indoctrination units where…

According to last week’s Sunday Star-Times survey on Constitutional matters, 70% of 3800 readers want to ditch the Maori seats, while 25.6% want to keep them…

And 56.3% don’t want the Treaty principles in any written constitution, while 34.4% do…

In another question, 87.8% of readers want to see any written constitution ratified by referendum.

Tim Wikiriwhi, taking on the Grievers in The Great Waitangi Debate.

My next meeting will be very different.

It will be in Hamilton at 7.00pm on Thursday May 16th at the Celebrating Age Centre, 30 Victoria Street.

I’m proud to say that, for the first time, I have a Maori colleague publicly supporting me. So much so that he’s enthusiastically volunteered to organise the meeting.

Tim Wikiriwhi is a brave, passionate and articulate New Zealander. He’s a Christian Libertarian, which I’m not, and we don’t agree on everything. But we sure as hell agree on this.

He’s one of the few Maori to demonstrate the courage to stand up to the  thuggish part-descendants of the 1860s rebels who falsely claim to represent their race.

When TVNZ’s Marae programme needed a Maori to oppose the Griever view, it was Tim they turned to. And he did brilliantly.

It’s my goal with Together New Zealand to encourage those Maori with achiever values to seize back the mantle of Maoridom that has been stolen and tarnished by the backward-looking grievers. Tim could be just the man to do it.

He’s going to speak before me, and he’ll be a hard act to follow.

Inspired by Tim, my own performance won’t be the usual evidence-packed slideshow I’ve been casually narrating thus far.

This one will be a speech!

The Celebrating Age Centre, 30 Victoria Street — scene
of many a political speech in Hamilton, including mine.

See you on the 16th.

Thanks for sharing, Mike. All the best to you and your wife and son.

The article is disappointingly flippant, many of the questions are childish, and the ‘Yep/Nope’ options pathetic for a serious newspaper.

But you’ll need to hold your nose and answer them all if you want to register your views on Maori seats and the entrenchment of the Treaty.

Invoking the spirit of Margaret Thatcher at the Waikanae meeting.
New Zealand badly needs politicians with “the guts to do what’s right”.
PHOTO: NED PEKO.

We had a full house of 160 at the Kapiti Coast U3A meeting on Monday.

Since I’d been there twice before performing my after-dinner speech about the crazy English language, I started a few minutes early with Tom Lehrer’s Elements Song and my own song about Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!

(With my gruelling day job, it’s good for me to return to the humour now and then. I’ve also just accepted an invitation to to be guest poet at Wairarapa Words in Carterton on May 5th.)

My Treatygate/Together New Zealand presentation was compressed into 45 minutes, which was a little rushed for my liking.

SCF is, of course, South Canterbury Finance.
PHOTO: NED PEKO.

Since most people were not Treatygate groupies, I polled them before and after my talk on how much of a problem they thought Treaty issues had become.

At the start, a handful said ‘not a problem’, but most were evenly split between ‘a bit of a problem’ and ‘a big problem’.

Observer Lindsay Perigo was struck by how many had migrated from ’bit’ to ‘big’ after seeing my evidence.

Surprisingly, about 70% of this random group of intelligent older folk said they would vote for a single issue party to end Apartheid Aotearoa.

Thanks to my friend Ned for the photos — and the beer and Shiraz afterwards.

Two members of the Constitutional Advisory Panel, John Burrows and Peter Chin, will be holding court on the Constitutional Review.

If there’s any fairness in the process, Bruce Moon will be allowed say the following:

I am very worried about the quantity of misinformation, even straight lies, circulating about the Treaty of Waitangi, much of it emanating from official circles, some alas, from the Constitutional Advisory Panel itself and some of its individual members.

I am also very worried about the credentials of most of the members of this panel for making recommendations to Government on such an important question as the constitution of New Zealand.

Why I am worried about the Panel is answered in chapters 15 & 16 of this book [Twisting the Treaty] which I suggest that all of you should read.

As to misinformation about the subject matter, I confine myself to published statements of the Panel itself, a critique of which has been issued to you at the door today.

If you have not had time to read it yet, do so as soon as you can.

The Panel says: “The Treaty … enabled the British to establish a government in New Zealand and confirmed to Māori the right to continue to exercise rangatiratanga (chieftainship).”

Now what sort of half-truth or less is that??

By Article first of the Treaty, the Maori chiefs surrendered sovereignty completely and forever to the Queen – they did not just ‘enable the British to establish a government’.

There can be no honest doubt about that.  Why isn’t the Panel simply honest enough to say so?

All the chiefs at Waitangi and Hokianga knew this, even those who were initially opposed to it.  I could quote their actual words if there were time.  All the chiefs at Kohimarama in 1860 knew this and I could quote their words too.

Now, by Article first, all Maoris became subject to British law, as did Australian aboriginals and Americans Indians to the colonial powers in those continents but the Treaty gave Maoris much more than they got, because by Article third, Maoris received all the rights and privileges of the people of Britain.

Imagine that for the ten thousand or so Maoris who were slaves of other Maoris!  With a few strokes of a pen, from being liable to being killed and eaten at the whim of their Maori masters, they become British citizens in full!

Article second was really redundant because all it did was affirm the rights in law of subjects to own property, a right which had been non-existent under Maori ‘tikanga’. Refer to TtT, Chapter 3.

Moreover this was asserted for all the people of New Zealand, not just Maoris – “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani”.

The word use for ‘ownership’ was ‘rangatiratanga’ because only the class of rangatiras and above owned anything under Maori ‘tikanga’ – the common people owned virtually nothing.

So when the Panel says the Treaty “confirmed to Māori the right to continue to exercise rangatiratanga (chieftainship)” it is making a quite false and misleading statement.

Why does it do that?

So that is the Treaty, ladies and gentlemen, totally and in full.

It conferred absolutely no rights on Maoris or anybody else which were not the rights of all the people of New   Zealand.  All the claims we hear of Treaty-based rights of Maoris to our water, the electromagnetic spectrum, native plants and animals and anything else they can think of are totally spurious!

The Panel goes on to say “Generally legislation refers to principles of the Treaty rather than the Treaty itself”.

Well, yes it does, but this is something else which is quite spurious, disgraceful doings of our politicians.

The phrase “principles of the Treaty” was first inserted in the State-Owned Enterprises Act, 1986 by the misguided Geoffrey Palmer at the behest of the Maori Council.  It is an entirely recent notion which, being undefined, can be twisted by anybody who wants to do so, to “prove” almost anything.

The “principles” are not and never were part of the Treaty.

But it doesn’t end there – it gets worse.

The Panel says “Treaty principles have developed because of the difference between the English and Māori texts, and the need to apply the Treaty to circumstances as they arise.

The Waitangi Tribunal and Courts have played key roles in defining the Treaty, using principles to express the mutual responsibilities of the Crown and Māori.”

It is hard to know where to start in explaining how wrong this statement is.

1. There is no “English Treaty” – there is only one Treaty as there always has been – a document in the Maori language.

The English text referred to here is a bogus document, concocted by Hobson’s pompous secretary, Freeman, after the event.  One of his seven variant versions was signed at Waikato Heads (with a few signing at Manukau later) to cope with a very awkward situation which arose through no fault of anybody.

Again, to find out the details, refer to Chapter 2 of TtT.

2. The Treaty was a document signed at Waitangi by which New Zealand became a British colony and Maoris British subjects.

Since then, of course, we have evolved into a free and independent nation. The Treaty was a step in this process and that was all.  It did its bit in 1840.

It is nonsense to talk of it as a “living document” as Mike Cullen of the Panel and others do.

If you and I sign a bit of paper by which I transfer my car or house to you, then that is that.  It has consequences of course because that property is subsequently in your ownership, not mine but, in itself, it is a done deal.

So was the Treaty of Waitangi.

3. The Treaty does not need “defining” as the panel says.  I have told you this afternoon all that is in the Treaty.

If, as the Panel says, the “Waitangi Tribunal and Courts have played key roles in defining the Treaty, using principles to express the mutual responsibilities of the Crown and Māori” then they have usurped a right, our rights, in doing so.

They have done just that in introducing the false idea of “partnership” which occurs nowhere in the Treaty.  It arises out of a statement by that learned but foolish judge, Robin Cooke, who exceeded his judicial brief in doing so. [I knew him personally so have some grounds for saying this.]

“Partnership” has grown like a cancer upon our body politic and is a sign of a great sickness in it.  Such things should make us all very worried.  They worry me.

You, John and Peter, are highly qualified and experienced lawyers, well capable of looking through evidence and distinguishing the true from the false.  It is imperative that you do so, immediately, and correct the many false pronouncements of your Panel.

If you can’t do this, then your only honourable course is to resign from it.  Your path is clear.

Bruce Moon

Left: Wearing the medals Dad never wore.
Right and below: Dad, 91, after laying the wreath at a BNZ ANZAC Ceremony, 2011.

Dear Dad,

How’s things up there? It’s been eighteen months now. We all miss your warmth and your humour, and will always treasure the example you set us of utter integrity. No doubt you’re having a ball with your old mates. Say hi to Nana and Uncle Bill and Auntie Minna.

And Steve Jobs. Have you persuaded him to be your personal computer tutor, as I predicted at your funeral?

This is just to say that, after 68 years, your medals have finally been to a Dawn Parade.

You never wore them, did you? Not even when your beloved BNZ asked you to lay the wreath at that ANZAC service in 2011.

I was so proud to be there with you that day. Your interview for the Archives has become a family heirloom. I’ve even put it on You Tube.

(Don’t ask. Just know that someone from Qatar has just been watching you talk about Guadalcanal.)

Anyway, my old mate John T suggested it might be good for us to go to yesterday’s Dawn Parade.

I wasn’t so sure. Had to admit I’d never been to one. You know I’m not a morning person, Dad.

But then I thought of you.

I thought about how you once volunteered for something even more traumatic than getting up at five.

World War Two.

That must have been a tad daunting, given your position as the world’s least violent man. How could you possibly have killed anyone?

(Yes I know – you’d have used your legendary persuasive skills to politely convince your Japanese opponent to fall on his sword.)

Then I thought about how, in 1919, Nana named you Vivian after her brother John Vivian Telfer, who hadn’t made it back from Gallipoli four years earlier.

(The vicar at the service told us that one in seventeen New Zealanders died in that war. That’s one in eight men. Maybe one in four young men. Then Spanish flu followed them home and decimated the survivors.)

I thought about young J.V. being ordered to go over the top at daybreak, and the odds against him replying: “Honestly I’d love to, Sarge, but if it’s all the same to you — what with all the noise and the flies and the body parts flying everywhere – I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I could really do with another couple of hours’ kip.”

Either way he was done for.

How much my boys’ and my generation take for granted, thanks to him — and you.

John Vivian Telfer, my great-uncle.
Killed at Gallipoli, 1915.

And so, since I’m a John and you’re Vivian, I thought I’d honour that young man — as well as my favourite old one.

Well before sunrise, I lifted your medals out of that old Pitcairn Island book box to which you unceremoniously consigned them after the war.

I took care to pin them on the right side of my jacket – to make it clear that they’d been earned by someone else, not me.

(No, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to wear the bar as well!)

Thought I’d better wear a suit, in case you were watching. John wore shorts. Most wore jeans. But all the old guys wore jackets, and I was representing one of their finest.

It was a moving occasion, as dozens if not hundreds of Martinborough locals fell sombrely in behind the town’s tiny and dwindling band of old soldiers, their numbers swelled by firemen and servicemen and schoolchildren.

The bugling was stirring, the singing atrocious – a typically Kiwi monotonous mass mumble — especially the first verse of the national anthem.

As the vicar’s soothing words trailed away in the dawn’s early light, we trooped off to the Town Hall for refreshments, where the woman from the church who served me coffee was one Deborah Coddington.

(We greeted each other politely. What Deborah didn’t know was that I’d been thinking of challenging her to a Treaty debate in that very venue. But ANZAC Day didn’t feel like the time.)

Deborah – ACT MP turned Constitutional Advisory Panellist and wife of iwi lawyer Colin Carruthers – reminded me of the other reason I was there.

It was to remind myself that you and all your mates, Dad, did not help God defend New Zealand just so a bunch of gutless appeasers — a chamber of Chamberlains – could one day give away the country you fought for to a bunch of conniving fractional-descendants of the tribesmen who wanted to wipe out your great-grandmother.

(Where else in the world do the descendants of the winners of a war of rebellion pay reparations to the descendants of the losers?!)

I remember you telling me  how you kids in the 1920s hated having to kiss great-grandma’s furry face at family picnics. So I looked her up…

Alice Telfer. Born: Auckland, 1845. Died: Auckland, 1946. What a life – from Heke’s War to Hiroshima!

But here’s the sobering fact they don’t teach in our state indoctrination facilities…

If Governor Grey hadn’t made the Kingites think again after they’d threatened to massacre every man, woman and child in Auckland, Alice Telfer would have been dead — shot, if she was lucky, tomahawked if not – at fifteen.

Sergeant Viv Ansell, bottom left, between puffs.

The tribal tripe is getting worse by the month, Dad.

Just last week some loony judge fined a chopper pilot $3750 for offending our highest mountain — now officially, would you believe, a Ngai Tahu ancestor.

The Taupo troughers are not only stinging triathletes like jellyfish for swimming in our largest lake, they reckon they can get away with charging millions a year to power generators for storing their water in it.

Water that has very conveniently fallen out of the sky!

(A sky which they do not yet own, but undoubtedly will the next time the Maori Party hold the balance of power — which, after the Maori roll campaign, according to Colin James, is going to be more often than not.)

Come to think of it, with foxes like Finlayson in charge of the Treaty henhouse, they probably won’t have to wait that long.

Anyone with a nanodroplet of brown blood, an ounce of creativity, and an ability to keep a straight face while emotionally blackmailing Tangata Whinlayson (not easy, admittedly) is quids in.

Dad (left) and an army mate with a Fijian chief.

Sorry my generation’s been such a disappointment, Dad. Sorry we’re letting the country you fought for break in two.

(Your church, by the way, has broken in three — the ‘Anglican church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia’.)

Your old colleagues still talk about you as the BNZ’s change agent of the 60s and 70s. The way your successors brought the bank to its knees in the 80s made you as angry as I’d ever seen you.

Well, that’s how I feel about what my former employer Key has been doing to New Zealand.

A bank can be bailed out. But once a country’s gone, it’s gone.

And New Zealand is going fast. Key is driving more people away than Clark did. The escapees write to me from Queensland. They all give the same reason: the Maorification of Everything.

(And a lot of them are Maori.)

I don’t have your patience, and we don’t have the time. It’s next election or never.

I’ll do the best I can with what I’ve got.

See you later,

John

Te Herenga Waka Marae, 46 Kelburn Parade, Wellington,
venue of the third NZCPL Constitutional Debate.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me, with my 11.00 am meeting in Waikanae followed by a drink with Lindsay Perigo.

The first event should go well. The second could be dangerous. (‘Perigo’ is Portuguese for danger.)

So could the third. Assuming I’m fit to drive back to Wellington — and assuming the man on the roof doesn’t get me! –  I’ll be at the above Te Herenga Waka Marae, 46 Kelburn Parade, at 6.30pm for the third of the NZCPL Constitutional Debates.

Here’s the blurb:

Maori Aspirations for Constitutional Change

Featuring Tai Ahu, Dr Rawinia Higgins, Veronica Tawhai, and Valmaine Toki

This debate brings together four newer voices from the Maori community to discuss the nature of Maori aspirations for constitutional change, broadly conceived.

The discussion will move well beyond the status of the Treaty of Waitangi, and include consideration of alternative models of Maori-Crown relationships, the development of a kaupapa Maori or tikanga-based constitution, and Maori constitutional aspirations in the context of indigenous peoples’ rights at the international level.

I hope to see you there. Oh, and if you’re wondering what that character on the roof is so steamed up about, here’s the back view…

Kupe and dog, Te Herenga Waka Marae, Victoria University.

As I write, I’m listening to the National Radio broadcast of Constitutional Debate II, to see whether they broadcast the first and second questions, asked by myself and John Robinson respectively.

(Encouragingly they did broadcast my first question last week.)

UPDATE: They did broadcast both our questions — well done, Radio New Zealand.

They also broadcast a much better question from a young man whom I congratulated for asking Dr Maria Bargh:

“I have a dream that one day my daughter will grow up to be judged on her merits, not on the colour of her skin.  If the electoral racial preference becomes entrenched, how will I explain to her when she grows up that she is a second class citizen, and how will I explain to her that I let it happen?”

Bargh gave an oily, wriggly, incoherent answer that amounted to: “I couldn’t care less.”

Maria Bargh is a tribal one-eyed racist and a danger to New Zealand.