Undeterred by my exposé of their one-eyed Titford story (or more likely because they couldn’t get anyone else), Maori TV are flying me to Auckland to participate in a live Native Affairs debate on Monday night at 8.30pm.
Topics are:
- The Littlewood ‘Treaty’. (I put the word in speech marks, since it’s a draft, not a treaty.)
- New Zealand’s alternate history (ie that people other than Maori were first settlers of New Zealand).
- The level of support for One New Zealand, NZCPR, Celtic NZ, 1LAW4ALL, the Pakeha Party and Treatygate.
They asked for teams of two from each side. But sadly, as of Friday, no one else from the above groups was prepared to front. (Disappointing, to say the least.)
Therefore I’m told my only opponent will be Annette Sykes.
Well, after my last two experiences of Maori TV debates, I wouldn’t bet on it.
The first time, reporter Semi Holland told me I’d be debating Joris de Bres and getting equal time. But on the night it was Joris and Ella Henry, giving them a two-thirds/one-third time advantage.
The next time when I was invited to debate Metiria Turei, Semi promised me she would not pull the same stunt.
But true to form, when I got there, Semi revealed that Metiria and I would soon be joined by John Tamihere. I got mad and she had to bribe me with chocolate cake to keep me in the building.
(My new name for Semi Holland, by the way, is Semi Honest.)
However I’m pleased I hung around that time, because their ambush backfired when Tamihere failed to show. Interviewer Julian Wilcox gave me a fair run and I got equal time — but only by accident.
Anyway, I believe in taking every opportunity to get the truth out there, and regardless of whether or not they honour their promise of a fair debate, I intend to give Monday night’s audience their money’s worth.
Tune in if you can. And show them you’re there by providing some pushback to the no-doubt-vicious abuse on the Native Affairs Facebook page!
treatygate.wordpress.com 
I’d be there.
Good luck and will be watching.
Racheal
Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 01:05:55 +0000 To: racheal_storm@hotmail.com
They never asked 1Law4All to take part. Not as far as I’m aware.
And if they did we would probably decline because they are a race based, taxpayer funded organisation which is against our policy, so……….
It’s against my policy too, Aamiene. I take the view that you can’t change a policy by declining to debate it.
I agree, however I do believe that there is a difference between debating a policy and giving the beneficiaries of that policy more air time to try and justify their existance, and carrying out the debate on their turf and terms – asking for trouble I think. I prefer to choose my own battle fields 🙂
I do wish you luck though and hope I get to see it on Demand TV, since we don’t have actual tv in the house.
Given that it’s their airtime, it’s a choice between bad and worse. Either they push their policy unopposed, or opposed.
As things stand, their viewers have been indoctrinated to believe that the Littlewood Treaty is a back translation of no consequence, Maori were the first people here, and people like us are a bunch of racists to the right of Genghis Khan.
It’s likely those people won’t have heard anything coherent to the contrary. By the time I’ve finished, I hope they will have.
The hopelessly one-sided will respond to anything I say by heaping abuse upon my head on their Facebook page. That’s a given.
But even they won’t necessarily mean it. (I know that from my many debates on this and other blogs, where initially abusive Maori often soften their position once they realise their position is based on emotion and wishful thinking rather than historical fact.)
Then there are the honest, intelligent Maori who respect us for doing our homework and for coming into the lion’s den, even if they’re uncomfortable about our conclusions.
Those people can often be persuaded to look fairly at what we’re saying, especially once they sense that we’re not anti-Maori, just anti-racial favouritism.
What I don’t want anyone to say is, “We invited Ansell to discuss his controversial views on this programme, but he refused to appear.”
But isn’t it especially galling that the racial bias spewed out is paid for by the NZ taxpayer? I wouldn’t mind all their racial venom so much if they were paying their own way.
Hell, what about all the millions of taxpayer dollars being given away under the thin guise of Treaty settlements, like so much largesse, by Quisling-General Whinlayson?
John said:
“They asked for teams of two from each side. But sadly, as of Friday, no one else from One New Zealand, NZCPR, Celtic NZ, 1LAW4ALL, the Pakeha Party and Treatygate was prepared to front.”
Well, to whom would Semi Honest have addressed any request to, in respect of a non-existent Pakeha Party? Same applies to Treatygate. Do either exist as an entity? I doubt it.
Methinks you are – as you suspect – being set up, again.
An interesting comment, Simple Simon, considering Maori TV obviously did know who to contact at Treatygate, the entity you are now engaging with.
And if they’d wanted to contact the Pakeha Party, it would surely just have been a matter of phoning its leader, David Ruck. Credible entities have leaders.
Whatever else Ruck may have done, he certainly succeeded spectacularly in keeping the race relations issue on the nation’s radar. For that, I think he deserves credit, not scorn.
Can the same be said of your entity – one with plenty of members, I gather, but no leader, no candidates, and no profile?
I think a bit more respect is due to those who front up and at least try to cut through.
The issue is not whether I’m being set up – of course they’re always going to try to do that. I expect nothing less.
But I’ve never seen that as any kind of reason to run away from a debate – any time, anywhere.
Native Affairs’ more feral viewers are only one of the potential audiences, and not a very important one.
Far more important are the movers and shakers who see us knocking our opponents’ flimsy arguments for six.
No, the issue is not whether I’m walking into an ambush. The issue is whether I can say or do anything in that hostile environment that can get traction, be it respect or publicity or to seed doubts in the minds of our opponents.
My last interview and decision to post the raw footage on this blog has caused an outraged media professional to prepare a detailed complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority showing how Maori TV breached media ethics.
That’s something.
And if you saw Paul Moon and the other grievers and appeasers on last week’s programme, you will have seen that they are clearly concerned at their collective inability to starve our network of entities of oxygen.
Now that’s a disgraceful comment, but nonetheless a compliment to those who have been prepared to fight our corner.
To me, anyone who is trying to overturn a monolith like the Treaty industry has no option but to front up whenever an opportunity arises to make progress, no matter how small.
It’s water on rock. But so was the Grand Canyon.
I’ve heard that David Ruck did a runner, and has been incommunicado for some time.
First you say:
“[To gauge] the level of support for One New Zealand, NZCPR, Celtic NZ, 1LAW4ALL, the Pakeha Party and Treatygate.
They asked for teams of two from each side. But sadly, as of Friday, no one else from the above groups was prepared to front.”
Then you say:
“. . . considering Maori TV obviously did know who to contact at Treatygate, the entity you are now engaging with.”
I’m confused. Were you expecting someone else from Treatygate to front? Who else did Semi / you ask who is not already a part of the other groups mentioned? Given your past engagement with them, I imagine that Semi Honest simply contacted you, direct.
Is there any evidence that David Ruck – or more particularly – the Pakeha whatever still actually exist? It seemed to leave a faceache page as a bit of dunnage when it sank from sight around around July 2013,
And is there an answer to my question about the how, who and when Semi Honest asked the other entities to field people?
You aren’t taking her word for it, now, are you?
Anyway, don’t let your guard down in the battle against the brown-washing, racist media hatcheteers.
Simple Simon, you seem to be trying to flush out of me a confession that Treatygate is just me (as if that’s something to be ashamed of).
Of course I happily confess that. Everyone knows Treatygate is my personal blog, not an organisation with members or staff. I don’t think anyone is suggesting it’s any more than a one man band (if you don’t count all the readers and commenters).
1LAW4ALL, on the other hand, is an organisation with members and a board.
If Maori TV didn’t invite the party, then you’d have to ask why. Presumably they either didn’t know who to contact (the party having no leader) or they did, but either didn’t believe anyone would be suitable, or didn’t believe, from previous experience, that anyone would accept.
Not wishing to overstate my importance, I was not one of the first two choices to appear on the programme. By my count (I was cc’d on their various email invitations) I was about fifth.
This might have been because I am not one of the more recognised experts in either the Littlewood ‘Treaty’ or pre-Maori civilisations, or because I am a one man band, or because I upset the apple cart by bring along a second camera and posting the raw footage of my last interview.
When my turn came, I was asked to find a teammate, and I did my best. I phoned three people to see if they would join me, two of them outside of the groups named.
For various reasons, all declined.
I’m not going to name these people, but I’m positive you would have approved of all of them. One has provided me with excellent background material, and I have had cause to be grateful to them all at different times.
Annette Sykes has a good pedigree as a scholar, activist, party president and lawyer, but I will do my best, secure in the knowledge that I have both the moral high ground and a solid base of facts.
Greetings John, Unbelieveable that someone from those other parties you mentioned have refused to join you on the programme.
Nzcpr,1law4all,etc,golden opportunity to get exposure but no they flunk out.Makes you question their commitment to this issue.Part Maori will be laughing,their opposition carn’t even agree to have a member appear on tv with you
.What a joke
.How the hell they think they are going to awaken the nz public by sitting behind their computers pontificating and requesting participation in meaningless polls ete -give me a break Good luck John I will be with you in spirit and watching.
Thank you Albert. The disgraceful media bias against those who seek to expose the Treatygate con will always mean that opportunities to connect with the public on TV are few and far between.
On those rare occasions, regardless of who offers those opportunities, we must front up and make the best of them.
If we say no to those challenges, we certainly won’t get any cut-through.
If we say yes, we might.
I’m not going to waste precious screen minutes speaking about people and parties who won’t speak for themselves. But my respect for some of them is not exactly stratospheric right now.
I make an exception for Martin Doutre, who after spending a whole day guiding a Maori TV crew all round Auckland is reluctantly to have his work misrepresented a second time.
And I know Ross Baker was prepared to fly over from Australia if the channel would pay his fares, but they wouldn’t.
What exactly have you done about this issue Mr Fletcher? Apart from sitting at your computer pontificating about how useless people who are genuinely trying to actually do something are. It’s comments like the one you made here that make their jobs even harder.
Good luck. Don’t forget to challenge Sykes to verify any factually incorrect historic claim she makes. She will make plenty of them because she thinks she is in her environment, which she is of course.
You have to do what you have to do John. No one is debating that or your massive input so far. We all have our own ways of battling what is going on but as long as we keep up the good fight, that’s really all that matters. We are all pushing back, and it doesn’t hurt to have more than one front line.
Best of luck on Monday night.
I respect you for being prepared to appear on ‘Native Affairs’. However, I think you are misguided at best. The history of Aotearoa-New Zealand is quite clear, and it’s a history of which we should all be proud – particularly now that we are genuinely addressing the generations of inequality and oppression that Maori have suffered. And at the heart of the remedy is Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a document of the most enormous significance to us as a bi-cultural nation fast becoming a multi-cultural one.
Thank you Andrew. However I am not aware of a country called Aotearoa-New Zealand. My country is called New Zealand, a Dutch/English version of the most appropriate name for this country imaginable: New Sealand.
The presumptous insertion of Aotearoa without a public mandate is as good an example as any of current attempts to rewrite our proud history.
As I tried to make clear before I was drowned out, inequality is only to be expected when people are still only four generations out of cannibalism. Of course the endemic violence and depravity of the Musket Wars period is going to take time to disappear.
But instead of complaining that they’re not yet performing at the same level as non-Maori, and ludicrously concluding that it’s the white man’s fault, Maori should congratulate their forefathers for realising that the way out of their troubles was with the British.
The British, by the standard of the time, responded as well as they could to the various challenges and provocations. If Governor Grey – New Zealand’s Lincoln – had not stood up strongly to chiefs who breached the Treaty and were vowing to kill every settler man, woman and child, you and I would not be here today.
The colonisation process was never going to be perfect, and mistakes were made on both sides.
But it’s quite outrageous to claim that Maori have not been massively enriched by opting to skip 3000 years of evolution and become equal citizens of what was then the greatest empire on earth. That was a very smart move, which the largest gathering of chiefs then assembled was happy to endorse at the Kohimarama Conference of 1860.
People like Annette Sykes (who, by the way, is at least half English, and therefore half as native Kiwi as me) should reflect on their good fortune, and stop blaming others for their failings.
Indeed the Treaty signed at Waitangi in 1840 is of enormous significance. It’s a crying shame that today’s part-Maori will not honour that Treaty.
Good show on Maori TV tonight John. Whenever you had a clear run to speak without being drowned out by the two women you made good sense.
The preview they had with Scott Hamilton (Reading the Maps blog) and Ranginui Walker were scandalous and unnecessary.
As usual the time for ‘debate’ far too short but you can see there are some very unrealistic people in Maoridom.
Kia Kaha ,( to use our other official language.)
Don Mac
You mean apart from NZ Sign Language, Don? (English, believe it or not, is not an official language of NZ.)
I feel pretty good after it. The Titford rerun was unscheduled, but I’m very pleased to have been given the chance to mention the affidavits.
I suspect they did this because I had flagged that their failure to present my evidence would be the subject of a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority by a seasoned journalist.
Mihi Forbes was certainly less impartial than Julian Wilcox. She seemed to think the big issue of the Titford case was whether we should apologise to Te Roroa for being falsely accused of torching the house – not whether a man is in prison for 24 years for crimes he did not commit.
(One characteristic of tribalism everywhere is the lack of empathy for anyone outside the tribe.)
Now that I think about it, one person did apologise to Te Roroa, and that was Sue Titford/Cochrane on TVNZ’s Sunday hatchet job.
I could never understand why she did that, given that she told Ross Baker at the time she accused Allan of burning the house that “the Maoris still shot the stock etc.” and acknowledged on this blog that he and Allan’s conclusions that their land claim was fraudulent remained true.
So why the apology?
Now I realise she was apologising for allowing people to believe that Te Roroa were the arsonists, not because Allan did it (she knew he did not, despite saying in court that he did under state immunity from perjury charges).
She apologised because she knew it was her own father who had committed the arson.
Besides the arson, I was also able to cast doubt on one of the rapes, before Mihi realised that this could be highly embarrassing to their ‘demonise Titford’ agenda, and tried to shut me down with “well he was found guilty and that’s that”.
Hopefully people heard me respond with “a lot of people are found guilty for crimes they did not commit”.
The segment hadn’t been going for more than a few seconds when Mihi told her first porky: that we think the Treaty is a fraud.
I told them I support the Treaty. I tried to say Martin Doutre and Ross Baker do too, but I think that was drowned out.
My support for the Treaty and agreement that the Maori Tiriti was the only legitimate treaty caught them off-guard.
The relevance of the Littlewood document, I explained, was that, unlike the so-called ‘official’ English Treaty, it contained the same words in English as the Maori Tiriti did in Maori.
I cast doubts on Paul Moon’s credibility as an historian for putting up the straw man argument that the Littlewood couldn’t be a treaty “because it wasn’t signed”.
Of course it wasn’t signed, Paul. It was a draft – one that no chief would have seen, much less signed.
The only people who call it The Littlewood Treaty are those wishing to deny that it’s a treaty! Our people have always referred to it as Hobson’s final draft, the sheet used to translate Hobson’s sovereignty-for-protection-and-equal citizenship agreement into Maori.
The fraud, I explained, was not the fact of the Treaty, but the deliberate misinterpretation of a good document, the deliberate focus on the wrong version, and the effective replacement of the Treaty of Waitangi with what I call the Treaty of Wellington 1989 (AKA Geoffrey Palmer’s non-existent Principles of the Treaty).
Sykes (or was it Forbes?) tried the old sob story of how disadvantaged Maori have been by colonisation. I was waiting for that.
I responded with the undeniable truth that, far from being disadvantaged, Maori have received a massive boost from their contact with the British, who have given them pretty much everything that allows them to live in the modern world, and doubled their life expectancy.
Mihi duly blundered into the trap by asking, “What about the Maori crime stats?”, which I countered with the inconvenient truth that Maori were the most violent people on earth before the British had even set eyes on them.
This was such an unexpected bombshell of blunt truth that all Sykes could splutter was that I was deliberately forgetting the French cannibals.
I was unaware of the endemic depravity of our Gallic cousins, but certainly the Frogs have always enjoyed good food. Therefore I’m happy to accept Annette’s assertion that her forefathers were only the second most violent people on earth.
That’s the interview as I remember it.
Oh yes, somewhere along the line, I also managed to mention, over howls of outrage, that the northern chiefs’ speeches at Waitangi clearly showed they knew they were surrendering their sovereignty, which they were happy to exchange for protection from the French (cannibals, apparently), from lawless Brits, and from other tribes who would soon be coming to eat them.
(I was meaning to say ‘kill’, but it came out ‘eat’. No marks for diplomacy, but still true.)
Tomorrow I’ll look at the video and see how much of the above I got right. Unless they were all drowned out by my opponents’ howling, I seem to have got across quite a few points.
Certainly Annette was visibly angry throughout and did not return my eye contact, but she was gracious enough to shake my hand afterwards as she left for an indigenous people’s conference in Hawaii.
I’m pleased to report that the crew at Maori TV were unfailingly pleasant and welcoming (with great food!), and both the producer Kelvin and host Mihi thanked me for taking the trouble to come up. This may not have been easy for them, given my relentless opposition to their goals, but it’s heartwarming that opponents in a battle of ideas can enjoy a laugh or two when the scrap’s over.
Ella Henry, who appeared after me, and with whom I’ve debated before, besides being tremendously articulate, is also very funny.
At the beginning of the programme they said who they had asked to come on the show and 1Law4All wasn’t even mentioned. In fact, no political parties were mentioned. Mainly it was Ross Baker and Muriel Newman. So don’t be trying to make out or imply stuff that isn’t true about other parties not wanting to appear.
Aside from that, you did very well considering the utter condescending and disrespectful approach of the other two people there. I thought they acted shamefully. Mihi Forbes in particular was extremely rude to you and Sykes wasn’t much better. But both of them were unable to argue with facts and so just tried to drown you out all the time. They’re a waste of space, both of them.
Thanks Aamiene. But if you want to accuse me of dishonesty, please provide evidence, because as far as I know everything I said was truthful. I’m very picky like that.
You yourself said that 1LAW4ALL would probably have declined an invitation. And you ought to know. I’m happy to record that they were not asked. Why do you think that was?
If someone from your party had wanted to be on the show, he or she had three days after learning about the show on this blog to contact Maori TV and volunteer. Did they do so?
” The level of support for One New Zealand, NZCPR, Celtic NZ, 1LAW4ALL, the Pakeha Party and Treatygate.
They asked for teams of two from each side. But sadly, as of Friday, no one else from the above groups was prepared to front. (Disappointing, to say the least.)”
I apologise, John, I was not meaning to imply you were dishonest, but your statement implied they had asked everyone mentioned in the list posted. Therefore the clear implication when you say ‘the above groups’ is that they were all asked and declined, when in fact they, or at least 1Law4All, were not even asked.
As for the reason why? well given the performance of your opponents last night, I’d say they were too lazy to take the trouble to find out who to contact. Sloppy journalism has become the norm in New Zealand unfortunately. Like so many other things, it has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator rather than raised up to a standard.
Thank you Aamiene, that’s good of you. Now we can focus together on the common enemy.
Excellent work, J.A. I truly admire your dedication and fortitude. You did manage to get some very important points out in the short time that you were given. You are right: not once did Annette Sykes look you in the eye. It is very difficult to argue with two aggressive people talking at the same time. Having Scott Hamilton and That Rangi Walker speak before the interview was definitely unfair and really defined the attitude of the programme.
I am also disappointed that NZCPR and 1Law4all did not show. Maybe they were not asked. The Treaty revisionists are a deceptive lot.
Thanks Peter. Muriel was asked, but declined. 1LAW4ALL was not asked, but according to a wife of a board member would probably not have accepted.
Seeing them relying on rabid, blinkered Marxists like Scott Hamilton and Ranginui Walker was a very encouraging sign. If Hamilton, Walker and Sykes are their big guns, they’re more morally crippled than I thought.
Greetings John, Well done again, the difference in attitude between yourself and your part maori hosts was striking and is not lost by those watching.
You came across as calm and dignified, unlike sykes and mihi shouting and accusing etc.very undignified.
AGAIN WELL DONE
Thank you Albert, I appreciate that. Despite the abuse piled on my head from certain quarters, I sleep well knowing I have facts, good intentions and good people supporting me.
Best interview you have done up to now.
The “host” was a disgrace. She was caught out a few times, and her screaming and taking sides was very unprofessional
Mihi …otherwise known as Joanna Forbes