Martin Doutre’s BSA complaint against Maori TV

 Native Affairs reporter Iulia Leilua ‘framing’ Martin Doutré beside
the standing stone on Mt Albert on the morning of the autumn equinox.

Along with Mike Butler and a teacher who prefers to remain anonymous, Martin Doutré has also lodged a formal BSA complaint against Maori TV for their cynically-titled Native Affairs hatchet jobs “Tall Tales” and “What Lies Beneath”.

As expected, the channel is struggling to put together a credible response. Both Mike and the teacher have had letters from Maori TV extending their 20-working-days deadline by a further 20 working days.

(Yes, they are legally entitled to do this. And yes, it would also have been nice if they’d apologised for the delay. But apologies, it seems, are the sole prerogative of the Pakeha.)

Below is Martin’s complaint. I’ve added photos and captions.

___________________________

Date: June 6^th 2014

To: Paora Maxwell
Chief Executive
Maori TV
P.O. Box 113-017
Newmarket
Auckland 1149

Attn. Vienna.Richards@maoritelevision.com

From: Martin Doutré
[address]
[phone number]
[email address]

Re:       Broadcasting Standards Authority complaint about What lies beneath (screened on consecutive weeks).

Dear Sir or Madam,

On Tuesday, 4^th of February 2014 I was invited to participate in a Native Affairs, Maori Television programme and to express my views on the following main topics raised by Iulia Leilua (convenor):

Martin Doutré

• Why he thinks Allan Titford is innocent

• Why he believes Te Roroa’s claim on his land was fraudulent

• How the Maori stories of Patupaiarehe and Turehu prove that Maori weren’t the first settlers of NZ

• An explanation of one of the ancient observatory sites he’s studied (Stockade Hill??)

• Why he continues his work despite heavy criticism from NZ’s leading academics

• If he’s right, what this means in terms of Maoridom’s place in NZ

• Also what it’d mean for the Treaty settlement process

• What impact Martin Doutré’s theories would have on Maori treaty claims if they were widely accepted

• Why it’s important for Maori and wider NZ to be aware of Martin’s research.

Despite my misgivings that the true intention of Native Affairs was to do a hatchet job on my work and integrity, but after receiving assurances from Iulia Leilui of fair and balanced reporting, I decided to give Maori Television the benefit of the doubt and participate.

In accordance with Iulia’s specific requests, I planned out an itinerary of archaeological sites that we would visit on the 21^st of March, 2014 (the Autumn equinox), where I could demonstrate accurate equinoctial fixes on the rising and setting sun, as determined from ancient solar observatories constructed by a pre-Maori people.

Martin Doutré on Mt Albert with one of many standing stone observatories
placed on the hills around Auckland by pre-Maori people. From this spot, twice
a year only, the  ancients could observe the sun rising in line with the trench they
had cut in Mt Wellington (behind) — their spring/autumn equinox marker.

To further aid Iulia in accurately reporting my views and evidence, I presented the itinerary to her in book form, complete with historical quotes related to the Patu-paiarehe people, as well as explanations and photos of archaeological sites to be visited.

The tour extended throughout an entire day, commencing before sunrise and finishing after sunset.

In the course of that long day, spanning about 14 hours of interim filming and interviews, I was agreeable to answer any and all questions that Iulia wished to ask.

I also participated at my own expense, providing all materials and gasoline for the extended tour to archaeological sites, scattered around the Auckland isthmus, at no cost whatsoever to Maori Television.

A lone piper on the Stockade Hill observatory as the sun sets in a trench
cut on Mt Wellington as an equinoctial marker. On the day we went out with
Maori TV, cloud prevented a clean shot, but the reporter had seen this photo.

Native Affairs/Maori Television later chose to misrepresent my integrity as a person, my research and views, in a clear breach of Standards 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Broadcasting Act, 1989.

Standard 4 states:

“When discussing controversial issues of public importance in news, current affairs or factual programmes, broadcasters should make reasonable efforts, or give reasonable opportunities, to present significant points of view either in the same programme or in other programmes within the period of current interest.”

Far from airing my views in a balanced and fair manner, as promised, Native Affairs/Maori Television cherry-picked only a very selective and short segment of footage from the comprehensive interviews I provided, sufficient to show what the enemy looked like and little else.

In my stead, they substituted in lengthy diatribes from a sizable group of known adversaries, hostile to my archaeological work or documented research about the Treaty of Waitangi.

Paul Moon, and later both Scott Hamilton and Ranginui Walker, have not, to my knowledge, ever visited the archaeological sites that I demonstrated to the Native Affairs/Maori Television crew, nor do they have any known expertise related to the cultural symbolism, pictograms or known forensic attributes associated with obelisks of those sites.

The sole participation of these professional naysayers centred on unfairly debunking, without any substantiating evidence whatsoever from their quarter, my tangible, observable, scientific evidence of archaeological and historical anomalies, which were certainly worthy of serious consideration in the public arena.

These adversarial commentators instead engaged in ad hominem attacks against me personally, in lieu of any counter-evidence, inferring that I was, in fact, harbouring a hidden political agenda, hostile to Maori interests.

Their clear intention in pushing this conspiracy theory was to incite suspicion, distrust, racial hatred and derision towards me personally, thereby distracting attention away from the inconvenient scientific issues that I raised.

Far from the public having any opportunity to view my archaeological evidence and have its merits debated scientifically in an open forum, it was deliberately withheld and not shown.

In the itinerary booklet I provided for Iulia, I included many direct quotes from Maori oral traditions related to the “uru-kehu – kiri-puwhero” pre-Maori people.

These quotes have come from the learned elders of yesteryear themselves, and are copiously interspersed throughout our old history books, Native Land Court Minute Books, etc.

The many hundreds of references that issued forth from Maori oral tradition sources existed before I was born and constituted historical information available to generations of New Zealanders since the dawn of the colonial era.

Despite this, the Native Affairs programme deliberately represented this pre-Maori inhabitants’ concept as something I had conjured up out of my own imagination, as if it was some form of new, heretofore unheard of, revisionist history.

Maori activist Justin Taua went so far as to call me and others being unfairly maligned and misrepresented on the Native Affairs programme “revisionists”.

This was further substantiated by Paul Moon, who, amongst other things said, “There’s a risk of some of these strange ideas almost becoming mainstream.”

My question to each of them would be:

Why are you calling me a “revisionist” when I still believe the history I was taught as a child from our history books, or the information I gleaned directly from learned Maori elders themselves in my adolescence or latter years?

I have never changed my historical views, whereas Paul Moon and Justin Taua are, by their own words, now in denial about this aspect of our long-term, well-recorded history.

I would ask them to please explain the meaning of a couple of sample quotes, out of the hundreds I could provide from our history books.

From Tuwharetoa by Rev. John Grace, chapter 7, page 115:

“Generally speaking, Ngati Hotu were of medium height and of light colouring. In the majority of cases they had reddish hair. They were referred to as urukehu.

It is said that during the early stages of their occupation of Taupo they did not practice tattooing as later generations did, and were spoken of as te whanau a rangi (the children of heaven) because of their fair skin.

There were two distinct types. One had a kiri wherowhero or reddish skin, a round face, small eyes and thick protruding eyebrows. The other was fair-skinned, much smaller in stature, with larger and very handsome features.

The latter were the true urukehu and te whanau a rangi. In some cases not only did they have reddish hair, but also light coloured eyes.”

Hone Grace had a European father and Maori (Tuwharetoa) mother.

From The Maori Race, by Edward Tregear, pp. 562-563:

“The Maoris used to pay great respect to the bones of their dead, yet here and there may be found among sandhills, etc., human remains uncovered by the wind, and of these no tradition remains, as there would certainly be if the relics were those of ancestors.

The natives say, “These are the bones of strangers.” So also mortuary-caves are found concerning the contents of which the Maoris make the same remark, and regard them with indifference.”

Neither Paul Moon, Justin Taua or Scott Hamilton are in the least qualified to comment about my well-researched views or the tangible archaeological evidence I provided to Native Affairs/Maori Television.

By their own dismissive commentary, they are obviously ignorant concerning the oral traditions related to the Patu-paiarehe, Turehu, Pakepakeha, Ngati Hotu, Ngati Hinewai, Ngati Kura, Ngati Korakorako, Waitaha, Moriori, etc., etc., (and myriad of other named, pre-Maori groups) spoken about, seemingly, by every iwi in New Zealand.

Even Iulia Leilua, who claims Tuwharetoa lineage, appears to be ignorant or in denial of this dynamic history, as recounted by her own iwi, even though she has had direct contact with Monica Matamua who has testified to being, with evidence, of pre-Maori lineage.

If Paul Moon, Scott Hamilton, Justin Taua, Iulia Leilua or others wish to diminish the mana of the learned elders of past generations and call them liars (or worse), then they’re free to do so.

However, I would surmise that the wharewaananga-trained tohunga of past ages would consider ignorant, modern day, empty-vessel, pontificating pretenders, who knew nothing of these histories, simply as pokokohua and of no worth whatsoever, except as food.

I choose to believe the words of the learned elders of yesteryear over those of grievance-industry-aligned revisionist historians such as Paul Moon or radical Trotskyites like Scott Hamilton, etc., pushing their own political agendas.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel: Maori TV’s expert witness, Trotskyite
blogger Scott Hamilton, whose idea of civilised discourse once included
posting a photo of your host captioned “Lizard man John Ansell”.

The Native Affairs/Maori Television presentation grouped me into a batch-lot of people who were referred to as “anti-Treaty and anti-Maori”.

They wrote:

“In part one of this special report, former Northland farmer Allan Titford was portrayed in the media as a man under siege. 

His supporters included people who were anti-Treaty and anti-Māori, many of whom continue to use their money, time and political connections to push their agendas.”

This accusation was reaffirmed by Mihingarangi Forbes in her introductory comments, as well as by Paul Moon, who categorised the grouped batch of individuals under attack from Maori Television as being part of a “subversive organisation” with “another agenda”.

Moon claimed that this so-called “subversive organisation”, of which I was inferred to be a part, “wanted to deny anything to do with the treaty”,etc.

This accusation is in direct breach of Standard 5 of the Broadcasting Act, 1989, which states:

“Broadcasters should make reasonable efforts to ensure that news, current affairs and factual programming:

• is accurate in relation to all material points of fact and/or

• does not mislead.”

In several interviews with Iulia Leilua, whether on the phone prior to the formal on-site interviews or during moments of casual conversation, I emphasised that I am very pro-Treaty.

I also stated that one would be hard-pressed to find three people in New Zealand who are more pro-Treaty or supportive of Te Tiriti o Waitangi than Ross Baker, Allan Titford or me.

I went to particular effort to clarify my position, as well as that of the other named individuals, but, from the very first mention on her programme of me and my work Iulia Leilua sought to misrepresent my clearly stated views.

Here are some of the dirty tricks employed in Maori Television’s attempts at character assassination:

• A sparse clip of me at an archaeological site was shown, where I had mentioned (sound-bite not broadcast) to Iulia that the intricate incising, carved bullaun bowls and chevrons in bas and raised relief on particular obelisks had been excavated from under volcanic ash from the 186 AD explosion of Taupo. The forensic evidence thus proved that these human-made features, laboriously carved into stone, predated Maori by over 1000 years.
• Rather than show the site’s component features and broadcast my explanation, Iulia immediately cut to an old archival clip of me at a Treaty-2-U protest exhibit at Rotorua in 2006 and simply stated that I:

“…dispute Maori tangata whenua status. He’s taken this message on a nationwide road show with the One New Zealand Foundation which also defends Allan Titford’s innocence.”

This is a total distortion of facts and was designed to mislead.

I wrote a comprehensive, fully documented book on the subject matter of the Treaty of Waitangi in 2005, which Iulia purports to have read, and my 2006-2007 tour around New Zealand on the heels of the Treaty-2-U propaganda road-show was to protest against the historical lies being told by The Treaty of Waitangi Information Unit.

Our small protest group provided documented proof that Treaty-2-U was totally misrepresenting the true intent, purpose and meaning of the treaty in their indoctrination of forcibly bused-in, captive-audience, schoolchildren.

My participation had nothing whatsoever to do with “Maori tangata whenua status” and was solely focused on treaty text accuracy and interpretation.

See: http://www.treatyofwaitangi.net.nz/Treaty2UPart1.htm

Iulia in her commentary states:

“They also promote an alternative version of the Treaty called the Littlewood Treaty discovered in Pukekohe in 1989. It’s been used to dispute Maori land rights and the treaty signed in 1840.”

This again is a total distortion of the facts I relayed to Iulia, and runs counter to what I clearly stated in my 2005 book about the Treaty.

None of us have ever claimed that the Littlewood document is a “treaty” or “alternative version of the treaty”.

On the contrary, we have always emphasised that it is merely the final English draft from which Te Tiriti o Waitangi (in the Maori language) was translated.

The term “Littlewood Treaty” was probably first coined in 1992 by Claudia Orange and known by that title within a close-knit academic circle.

We have merely raised a very legitimate and scholarly argument that no mainstream historian has been able to counter with documented proof.

Even Paul Moon, who is outwardly antagonistic and scathing towards those of us showing evidence the Littlewood document is the final English draft (handwritten by Busby), can’t come up with anything to counter its authenticity.

On the contrary, he’s on public record as saying the following:

• “I agree that the Littlewood document is dated 4 February 1840, and that there was almost certainly no subsequent drafting of the Treaty’s English text’ (From Dr Paul Moon’s 30/8/04 letter to treaty researcher Ross Baker, and posted onto the ONZF website.)

• “On 30th March, US Commodore Charles Wilkes, Antarctic explorer, arrived in the Vincennes to join his other ships Porpoise and Flying Fish. Damaged after their bruising exploration of the icy land, they reprovisioned and repaired their ships till late April. As he left Clendon gave him a further despatch containing a hand-written copy of the Treaty in English copied from Busby’s copy of the final draft. It is believed that Clendon then retained Busby’s copy of the Treaty” (The Treaty and Its Times, by Paul Moon and Peter Biggs, ch. 9, p. 213).

In your role as an ever-on-call expert witness about almost everything and everyone, please explain Paul!

As Paul Moon must know, for the Littlewood document to qualify as the final English draft and mother document to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the English draft, known by our Treaty historians to have gone missing in about February 1840), it must comply to the following forensic criteria:

• It had to be on paper that preceded the signing of the treaty in 1840 and that paper had to be identifiable as stock in use at the Bay of Islands in February 1840. If the paper was from an orphan stock, then that would cast doubt upon the authenticity of the document.

Clendon’s W. Tucker 1833 watermarked stock fulfils this requirement.

• The paper had to have a pedigree traceable back to one of the founding fathers who drafted the treaty and, ultimately to Busby and Hobson.

The Littlewood document’s pedigree is impeccable and fully traceable to Clendon, Busby and Hobson himself.

• The author of the hand-written text had to be James Busby, British Resident.

That attribute of the Littlewood document is also beyond dispute.

• It had to bear the date, the 4th of February 1840, as that’s the day the final English draft was written.

It is clearly signed off, 4th Feb 1840.

Despite our exhaustive efforts to be very clear on our position, grievance-industry historians like Paul Moon continuously try to detour public thinking away from the true status of the document with such well-worn, red-herring banalities as:

“It can’t be a treaty ’cause it’s not signed.”

Well, of course it’s not signed, Paul – it’s only a draft!

Now Iulia is resorting to the same dirty tricks in deliberately misreporting and misrepresenting what I have expended great effort to explain clearly to her.

She has video footage of me explaining that there “is only one treaty and it’s in the Maori language”.

She also has video footage of me corroborating that statement with a historical quote from Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, where he said the following about the Maori language document signed at Waitangi on the 6^th of February 1840:

“The treaty, which forms the base of all my proceedings was signed at Waitangi, on the 6^th February, 1840, by 52 chiefs, 26 of whom were of the Confederation, and formed a majority of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. ‘This instrument I consider to be de facto the treaty, and all signatures that are subsequently obtained are merely testimonials of adherence to the terms of the original document.”

(Letter to Major Bunbury, The Treaty of Waitangi, by T.L. Buick, p. 162.)

I expressed to Iulia my view that there is no English Treaty, only the final English draft from which Te Tiriti o Waitangi was translated. It has no status as a treaty and neither does anything else in English.

I stated that the lost, final English draft was definitely found again in Pukekohe in 1989 and in my book, which Iulia had in her possession, I mention three other exemplars of the final English draft wording that have languished in overseas archives since February-April 1840 (four in total known to exist in early 1840).

Iulia knows full-well that our only gripe stems from the utter reinvention of the Treaty’s meaning since 1975, after a very defective ENGLISH text was introduced to sit alongside Te Tiriti o Waitangi and be co-equal to it.

The terrible text chosen was one of James Stuart Freeman’s seven variable Formal Royal Style English versions, which were all based upon early rough draft notes and not the final English draft.

Because of the vast differences in wording between that English version and Te Tiriti o Waitangi in Maori, after 1975 the treaty meaning got deliberately reinterpreted (reinvented) until it bore no resemblance whatsoever to what was so clearly stated in either Te Tiriti or the final English draft.

Iulia has video footage of me describing Te Tiriti as a very welcome, benign “gift” from the chiefs in 1840, so, in reference to my clearly stated position and my clear evidence to the contrary, why did Native Affairs/Maori TV mischievously represent me as “anti-Treaty”?

This constitutes a very deliberate slur against my well-described and publicised views and shows that Native Affairs/Maori TV are utterly incapable of accurate investigative reporting.

The Littlewood document subject matter was very worthy of comprehensive discussion in the public arena.

Despite my giving Maori TV an entire day of time and answering any question they wished to pose, the on-archaeological-sites environment in which I conducted the interviews was, obviously, not to their liking.

They obviously wanted me in their sterile studio, being yelled down by ranting adversaries, where I could not display, first-hand, my archaeological evidence.

Even though I had already answered all their questions on camera, Mihingarangi Forbes announced to her viewing audience that I had refused to appear.

Why did I need to appear twice when they had not yet used the lengthy interviews from my first appearance?

It is my firm belief that Native Affairs are deliberately engaging in ad hominem attacks and smear-campaigns in order push their brand of self-serving propaganda.

They wish to promote only that which is beneficial to their own political agenda and have no genuine interest whatsoever towards anything considered counter-productive to their prescribed goals.

Moreover, Annette Sykes displayed an utter lack of knowledge, or worse, related to the origin and significance of the “Littlewood document”.

However, she can correct her misconceptions by studying the entire paper trail and pedigree of the document at: http://www.celticnz.org/TreatyBook/Precis.htm

Dirty tricks employed by Native Affairs further include:

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

Although political scientist and historian Kerry Bolton, has not, to my certain knowledge, been in any way associated with the marital dispute involving Allan Titford, every effort was made to link him into a confederation with those supporting a retrial for Titford.

No such confederation exists and we pursue totally separate lines of research. His books and scholarly treatises on Marxism or other historical issues are much respected and published in academic journals around the world.

Although Ngati-Hotu kuia Monica Matamua has a dynamic story to tell about her links back to Patu-paiarehe ancestors, supported by DNA evidence and whakapapa, her claim was deliberately rendered suspect by a deceptive ruse of linking her to such dastardly fellows as Martin Doutré, Mykeljon Winckel of Elocal magazine and Kerry Bolton.

This was a treacherous, red-herring tactic employed to discredit a very dignified kuia, whose family has fought for generations to have their unique lineage and tribe recognised.

Her evidence is stand-alone and does not depend upon what Martin Doutré or anyone else “thinks”.

From my perspective, I feel that Iulia Leilua played both ends against the middle in order to get Monica Matamua to participate on the Native Affairs/Maori TV programme.

Iulia emailed me on 14/2/14 and stated:

“Kia ora Martin, just wondering if you could help me organise an interview with Monica Mataamua about her DNA testing?”

I gave Iulia the contact details that I had and, much later, after the terrible programme aired, Monica wrote the following:

“I have gone over and over Iulia’s native affairs program on the internet and the more I studied it the more crooked it got.

I must say she hounded me for months as I am wary of why people want to see me. 

I only agreed after Marty [Martin Doutré] said he had done an extensive  documentary for them so when she did turn up I thought it would be a special edition on N Hotu.

Instead she used my story, cut and spliced it to fit into her dirty scheme of hatred, prejudice and racism. Had nothing to do with the truth’”. etc. 

Monica Matamua was seemingly lured into participation largely on a pretext proffered by Iulia that I would provide visual evidence of Patu-paiarehe structures.

Monica correctly saw that a very dynamic documentary was possible, which could be composed of visual evidence of ancient astronomical and surveying structures, coupled with oral history testimony, DNA evidence and whakapapa.

Such a documentary would, undoubtedly, go a long way towards opening up a floodgate of testimony from the old learned elders, whose knowledge has been muted and supressed for many years now.

Huge new insights into our long-term history would, most certainly, result.

However, such a positive outcome obviously ran counter to the political agenda of Native Affairs.

Monica was simply used in a fashion that would diminish and trivialise her claim to pre-Maori heritage and even make a mockery of it by associating any such claim with discredited nutters and antagonists like Martin Doutré, or a gaggle of other fringe-dwellers stigmatised by the Native Affairs inquisitors.

So, it seems that tribalism, with its tradition of conquerors holding all the mana and the vanquished having none, won the day in the eyes of the unsuspecting viewing public.

The outcome was that Iulia’s Tuwharetoa tribe got to marginalise, hold at bay, and silence Monica’s Ngati Hotu tribal claim yet again by use of red-herring distractions and editing strategies.

Native Affairs are in breach of standards 4, 5 & 6 in relation to their disrespectful treatment of kuia Monica Matamua.

LOGICAL FALLACIES

They have deliberately tried to mislead their audience and unfairly instil doubt about Monica’s assertion by using a logical fallacy along the lines of:

• Monica Matamua believes she is of Patu-paiarehe lineage.
• Martin Doutré believes Monica is of Patu-paiarehe lineage, but is a disreputable fellow who tells lies.
• Monica Matamua is, therefore, not of Patu-paiarehe lineage.

This perverted form of logic, geared to unfairly manipulate the thinking of the viewers who fund Native Affairs/Maori TV from the public purse, was also used discredit the many years of documented, historical research undertaken by Allan and Susan Titford, Ross Baker and others into the Te Roroa land claim.

With regards to Titford, one of the several logical fallacies employed by Native Affairs to discredit his documented research was along the lines of:

• Te Roroa claim a right to own part or all of Allan Titford’s farm at Maunganui Bluff and seek historical redress.
• Allan Titford is a disreputable fellow who burnt down his own farmhouse.
• Te Roroa’s historical claim is therefore correct, their redress is justified and Titford’s documented research is wrong.

Several other usages of the same kind of logical fallacy could be cited in the very obvious smear campaign mounted by Native Affairs against Allan Titford and his supporters.

ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ALLAN TITFORD

With regards to Maori TVs accusation that “Allan Titford burnt down his own house”, I witnessed John Ansell handing Iulia Leilua two affidavits that testified to the fact that Graham Neville Cochrane, Susan Titford’s father, had committed the arson and had made a death-bed confession of having done so.

One of these affidavits had been sworn before the Police Declarations Officer and the other before a Notary Public.

John Ansell had chosen Maori TV as the media outlet for a public launch of this very special information and we have video footage of Iulia both receiving the affidavits and having their significance explained to her by Ansell.

Despite this, Maori TV’s later assault on Allan Titford relied heavily on the false premise that he was the arsonist.

The core issue or foundation upon which their case against Titford was built was how he was guilty of this nefarious act, but how he’d deceptively blamed Te Roroa for it.

Moreover, Ranginui Walker showed himself to be deliberately obtuse and uninformed regarding the final payout to Allan Titford.

With minimal research, Walker would have ascertained that Titford received a very paltry sum when he was forced, under duress and threats, to forfeit his 1746 acre farm.

Gramsci’s foot soldier: Ranginui Walker, Lebanese Maori sovereigntist and
acolyte of Italian communist Anton Gramsci, who predicted in the 1920s that
“socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture — by infiltration of the
schools, universities, churches and the media”. (Ditto Treatifarianism.)

Walker’s facts and figures smacked of pure propaganda and he came across as a hateful racist who holds “pakeha” in utter contempt.

It’s of significance also that, whereas so-called “pakeha” can be demonised or ridiculed with impunity, under the protocols of Native Affairs tribalism individuals like Alex Nathan of Te Roroa are portrayed in more saintly fashion, beyond reproach or criticism.

In the interests of what Iulia Leilua describes as “balance”, perhaps Native Affairs could do an exposé on Nathan’s stewardship over the Te Roroa rank and file funds and efforts to recover the missing millions of dollars that disappeared during Alex Nathan’s watch as chairman.

SUMMARY

Native Affairs/Maori TV have shown themselves to have a solitary allegiance to Maori grievance-industry agendas, to the exclusion of all else.

Their condescension, unashamed manipulation and insult-to-the-intelligence of their viewing audience, in only telling the viewer what they need to know, is despicable and falls far short of ethical responsibility.

There is no provision of fair, unbiased and balanced reporting, where the viewers are empowered to consider all of the facts for themselves and come to an informed, coherent conclusion of their own volition and free will.

Maori TV, within the confines of “What Lies Beneath” (all segments) coerced its audience into accepting points of view acceptable to Native Affairs.

Other points of view were not presented with sufficient clarity that one could draw any conclusions about their merit.

All in all, Native Affairs led viewers by the nose to a singular, premeditated conclusion, by providing no valid alternative avenues for consideration, after having done a hatchet job on anyone harbouring a contrary point of view, or proffering significant counter-information.

CONCLUSION

Native Affairs/Maori TV is a blatantly racist, political organ in support of Maori supremacy and the grievance industry.

It offers nothing of educational value that would be of interest to the majority of New Zealanders and, as a special interest group’s propaganda outlet, should not be funded by the taxpayer.

Martin Doutré

How to complain to the Broadcasting Standards Authority – Mike Butler

I love it when Maori TV tries to ambush me and present me as a racist for demanding racial equality.

Each time they do this, we get a little more evidence that helps to convince honest, fair-minded Maori that their ignorant, one-eyed cousins are giving them a bad name.

Most helpfully, the radicals’ rants don’t just unsettle some of their own supporters and enrage all of ours. They also appal and convert lots of mild-mannered neutrals.

My live debate with Annette Sykes and the heckling partisan so-called ‘moderator’ Mihingarangi Forbes has opened a new front for us: a flurry of complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

One of these I’ll be posting shortly, a complaint about last Monday’s Native Affairs from a teacher.

But here now is a complaint about the previous week’s Native Affairs, from former newspaper sub-editor and author of the new book Tribes–Treaty–Money–Power, Mike Butler.

Mike is also preparing a complaint about last week’s show, but first things first.

It would be most helpful, dear readers, if you would each consider lodging your own complaint about each of the last two programmes.

Bureaucrats respond to numbers, and this state-funded racist channel needs to get the message that there is a difference between criticism and racism, and that they can’t get away with unfairly smearing people like Allan Titford, Martin Doutre and me.

Tying them up replying to numerous complaints, and having to provide redress for their bias, should help them in their quest to understand the meaning of balance. 🙂

_________________

Native Affairs BSA complaint

 

Date: May 26, 2014
To: Paora Maxwell,
Chief Executive,
Maori TV
PO Box 113-017
Newmarket
Auckland 1149

Attn Vienna.Richards@maoritelevision.com

From:   Mike Butler,
[address]
[phone number]
[email address]

 

Re:       Broadcasting Standards Authority complaint about What lies beneath

The Native Affairs item titled What lies beneath that aired on Monday, May 12, 2014, revisited the long story of Northland farmer Allan Titford who bought land at Maunganui Bluff in 1986 for $600,000 and was subjected to a squatter protest from 1987 during a Waitangi Tribunal claim for part of his land.

Titford had no interest in treaty claim matters until a group of bullying hostile protesters occupied his land and wrecked his business.

The occupation, that included two house fires, verbal abuse, stock thefts, intimidation, vandalism, trespass, cutting fences so that stock would wander, shooting stock, sabotaging Titford’s bulldozer, threatening with a gun, assault, looting, stalled a subdivision project and meant he could not refinance or repay a two-year mortgage.

Eventually, Titford sold the farm to the government for $3.225-million in 1995. Little was heard of the issue until last year when a matrimonial dispute resulted in Titford being jailed for 24 years.

One count he was found guilty of was for burning down his house.

What lies beneath is built around an interview with Alex Nathan of Te Roroa.

In the intro, presenter Mihingarangi Forbes set the scene by saying when Titford “accused the Northland iwi, Te Roroa of being greedy Maori who were after his land”, the country rallied behind him.

Te Roroa, he said, were violent terrorists who burned down his home”.

She went on to say: “Fourteen years later the truth came out – it was Allan Titford who burnt his house down – but some media and lobby groups continue to support him”.

Reporter Iulia Leilua’s 20-minute two-part feature could leave an open-minded viewer thinking that Titford was finally exposed as evil, that Te Roroa claimants were wronged innocents, and that there exists a shadowy but well-funded very right wing conspiracy out to deny Maori of rights.

This complaint shows that What lies beneath was a biased and inaccurate presentation of the Maunganui Bluff land claim issue, that included unfair treatment of protagonist Allan Titford, along with racist and derogatory treatment of his supporters.

The feature breached standards four, five, six, and seven of the broadcasting code.

1. Failed to present significant viewpoints on controversial issues

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is quite clear under Standard 4 – Controversial Issues – Viewpoints that when discussing controversial issues of public importance in news, current affairs or factual programmes, broadcasters should make reasonable efforts, or give reasonable opportunities, to present significant points of view, either in the same programme or in other programmes within the period of current interest.

 

a) Guideline 4a says significant viewpoints should be presented fairly in the context of the programme.

What lies beneath presented in the intro what Maori TV presenters considered was the mainstream view 22 years ago, after July 4, 1992, when the Titford house burned to the ground.

That view was that Northland iwi Te Roroa were “greedy Maori who were after his land”, who were also “violent terrorists who burned down his home”.

What lies beneath also outlined in the intro the current viewpoint of Maori TV presenters, that “14 years later the truth came out – it was Allan Titford who burnt his house down – but some media and lobby groups continue to support him”.

Two opposing viewpoints were presented in What lies beneath but Maori TV presented the viewpoint it disagreed with in a hostile, pejorative manner, meaning that the viewpoint was not presented fairly.

 

b) A further assessment of whether a reasonable range of views has been presented is described in guideline 4b, which asks whether the programme approaches a topic from a particular perspective.

Maori TV claims to design its programming to deliver a Maori perspective.

It appears that presenters believe that by presenting What lies beneath from the viewpoint of Te Roroa, with Titford being non-Maori they would fulfil the “Maori perspective” role of Maori TV.

However, ifLeilua had asked a few more questions, listened, and looked further, she would have quickly found that Titford’s now estranged wife has Ngapuhi ancestry, and that Ngapuhi leader the late Graham Rankin appealed to the Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Margaret Wilson, to help the Titford family.

Rankin’s view was that the Titfords had been unlawfully dispossessed of their farm at Maunganui Bluff, Northland. [1]

For Maori TV to argue that equating the Te Roroa claim with a Maori perspective fails to understand that part of the dispute over land at Maunganui Bluff was a clash between Te Roroa and Ngapuhi.

As a result of the Battle of Te Ikaranganui in 1825 Ngapuhi dominance over the area was achieved.

Te Roroa were allowed to stay in the area under the protection of Parore Te Awha of Ngapuhi, whose name was on the Maunganui block sale deed.

Tiopira Kinaki, the other vendor named on the 1876 sale deed, was Te Roroa.

The Titford farm and the area on it claimed by Te Roroa were included in the 1876 Maunganui block sale. [2]

2. Failed to be accurate on all points of fact

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is also clear, under Standard 5 Accuracy, that broadcasters should make reasonable efforts to ensure that news, current affairs and factual programming is (1) accurate on all points of fact, and/or (2) does not mislead.

 

a) Forbes in the intro incorrectly said: “fourteen years later the truth came out – it was Allan Titford who burnt his house down”.

In fact the house fire occurred on July 4, 1992, which was 22 years ago, not 14 years as Forbes said.

But more importantly, Titford was found guilty of burning his house, an allegation he continues to deny, and a conviction he plans to appeal or seek a retrial on.

Therefore, the truth or falsity of the statement “Allan Titford … burnt his house down” remains unknown except to the perpetrator.

Moreover, viewers were not made aware of the existence of two sworn statements that cast reasonable doubt on Titford’s guilt regarding the arson.

Reporter Leilua was given copies of these affidavits and had all details explained to her, but there was no reference to this in the final edit.

These affidavits existed at the time of Titford’s trial, but were not introduced as evidence.

Ansell recorded footage of the actual interviews because earlier biased treatment at the hands of Maori TV prompted him to take a cameraman along, something that reporter Leilua strenuously objected to. [3]

 

b) Reporter Leilua said: “By 1876 nearly 90,000 acres of Te Roroa land had been bought by the Crown. However, Te Roroa disputed the inclusion of urupa, reserves, and the lake in the sale arguing that there had been a mistake in the survey”.

The land area quoted by Leilua was incorrect. The Maunganui block upon which the Titford farm was located, was 37,592 acres and the Waipoua block 35,300 acres giving a total of 72,892 acres, which is more than 17,000 acres short of Leilua’s sweeping guess.

Leilua was incorrect to characterize that land as solely belonging to Te Roroa. The Maunganui block was awarded to both Tiopira Kinaki of Te Roroa and Parore Te Awha of Ngapuhi.

Leilua was incorrect to imply Te Roroa at the time disputed the inclusion of urupa, reserves, and the lake. The only dispute at the time of the sale was the Alleged Improper Sale Inquiry 1876 prompted by Tiopira Kinaki when he discovered that Parore Te Awha received an extra £500.

This was nothing to do with what was included in the sale.

Leilua failed to say that the first appearance of a claim for that land, known as Manuwhetai, and another area on a neighbouring farm known as Whangaiariki, was in 1899, after both vendors and all involved in the 1876 sale had died.

Neither did she say that the claim was rejected at that time.

Leilua did not mention a special sitting of the Native Land Court investigating a claim for Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki held in Kaihu in 1939.

Neither did she mention a recommendation by Chief Judge G.P. Shepherd to parliament 1942 that:

• The only reserve in the Maunganui block provided for in the 1876 sale was a 250-acre eel fishery reserve known as Taharoa for vendor Parore Te Awha;
• Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki were not mentioned in the deed of sale;
• Neither were they mentioned in the inquiry into the sale held in 1876;
• The sale deed had a certificate to show that vendors Parore Te Awha and Tiopira Kinaki understood the terms of the sale;
• The deed had a certificate to show no fraud had taken place;
• A memo dated February 12, 1876, confirmed that Parore got Taharoa. [4]

Leilua did not say that nothing further was heard of this claim until 1987, after the Waitangi Tribunal was empowered to investigate claims all the way back to 1840, and when Titford began advertising sections in his coastal subdivision.

Leilua did not look into the evidence Te Roroa cited to support their view that Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki were left out of the sale because of a mistake in a survey.

Te Roroa claimants cited Plan 3297/8 as “proof” that Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki had been taken in error by the Crown.

Apparently unaware of Te Roroa reasoning for their claim, Leilua did not look into facts around that purported evidence.

Titford found that Plan 3297/8 was created by surveyors Barnard and Stephens for a landowner named Wi Pou, of the Ngaitu hapu, as part of a proposal to buy from the government two reserves on the south side of Maunganui Bluff.

Those reserves were to be named Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki.

Plan 3297/8 remained in government files as a record of a proposal that did not proceed.

 

c) Leilua said: “Under a National government in 1995, after rejecting numerous offers, Allan Titford finally sold his land to the Crown for five times more than he paid”.

While it is true that the sale price of $3.225-million is about 5.3 times the purchase price, Leilua did not say that the $3.225-million included 1450 head of stock valued at $750,000 and plant at $50,000.

Neither did she say that out of the $3.225-million, $1.8 million went to the National Bank and $425,000 went to other creditors.

Therefore, Titford was left with $200,000 for land he paid $600,000 for nine years earlier

Leilua collected a comment from academic Ranginui Walker who alleged Titford made “a huge profit”. Far from “a huge profit”, Titford came out $400,000 behind after working nine years for nothing and facing bullying from claimants, inaction by police, and stonewalling by the government.

 

d) Guideline 5c says news must be impartial.

The selection of sources for What lies beneath, and the extra time allowed to those supporting the theme of the feature, was far from impartial. Bias appeared in the number and frequency of comments for either Titford or Te Roroa.

For Titford, Ansell was the sole representative and featured in a single, highly selective interview. Doutré, who has supported Titford elsewhere, spoke entirely about evidence for Celtic New Zealand. Former MP Ross Meurant spoke for Titford in old footage. Newman’s single comment was neither about Titford nor Te Roroa.

For Te Roroa, claimant Alex Nathan spoke six times, Taua spoke four times, Ranginui Walker spoke twice, and Moon spoke once.

 

3. Failed to be fair

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is also clear, under Standard 6 – Fairness, that broadcasters should deal fairly with any person or organisation taking part or referred to.

The word “fair” means “treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination”.

For the purpose of guideline 6a, What lies beneath was aired on a current affairs programme, a genre that is expected to be factual.

The feature breached Standard 6 – Fairness in two ways:

 

a) Fair coverage of the Titford/Te Roroa saga would present known facts on both sides of the dispute.

Instead, after jumping to the conclusion that Titford did burn down his house, reporter Leilua recorded Nathan saying: “We knew that we were right”, and subsequent comments were collected to support this view.

Evidence that raised reasonable doubt as to whether Titford started the fire, such as two sworn statements indicating another party had admitted responsibility, was ignored.

This stacking of comments to support the pre-conceived view of both the reporter and the presenter breaches standard 6, guideline 6a, which requires fairness in a factual programme.

 

b) Apparently assuming that Titford burnt his house down and blamed Te Roroa, when reporter Leilua was given two sworn statements creating a reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of that assumption, Leilua ignored the affidavits and edited out of the final cut any reference to them by interviewee John Ansell.

This breaches standard 6, guideline 6b, which requires broadcasters to exercise care in editing programme material to ensure that the extracts used are not a distortion of the overall views expressed. [5]

 

4. Encouraged discrimination and denigration

Under Standard 7 – Discrimination and Denigration, broadcasters should not encourage discrimination against, or denigration of, any section of the community on account of sex, sexual orientation, race, age, disability, occupational status, or as a consequence of legitimate expression of religion, culture or political belief.

The word “discrimination” refers to making “an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age”.

The word “denigration” means casting “aspersions on, decry, criticize unfairly, attack, speak ill of, speak badly of, blacken the character of, blacken the name of, give someone a bad name, sully the reputation of, or spread lies about”.

What lies beneath breaches Standard 7 because it encourages discrimination against and seeks to denigrate those who criticize the divisiveness of race-based affirmative action and treaty politics.

An encouragement to discriminate against those who criticise treaty politics and race-based affirmative action appeared in the intro to Part 2 of What lies beneath, when presenter Mihingarangi Forbes described Titford supporters as “people who were anti-treaty and anti-Maori, many of whom used their money, time, and connections to push their political agendas”.

The only evidence of support by wealthy individuals of critics of treatyism was an assertion that “rich-lister Alan Gibbs” backed the New Zealand Centre for Political Research that pushes against race-based special treatment.

The feature was silent on the existence of the network of multi-millionaire neo-tribal groups known as the Iwi Leaders Group that pushes for race-based special treatment.

Denigration of those who criticise treaty politics and race-based affirmative action appeared in the title What lies beneath, which captured an implication of a sinister pervasive racist undercurrent, with those drawing attention to the divisiveness of treaty politics castigated as racist.

Smearing a person with the allegation that he or she is racist appears intended to silence debate because it is based on the assumption that no right-minded person would want to speak out for fear of being called a racist.

The denigration of critics of treatyism as racist is in itself racist.

 

Remedy sought

 

Native Affairs staff members have shown an ability to investigate complex stories while asking hard questions. So why did they not do so in this 20-minute two-part feature that aired on Monday, May 12?

Errors in this feature may be remedied by a 20-minute clip on Native Affairs that includes:

 

1. An interview with someone who knows the details of the impact of the occupation at Maunganui Bluff on the Titfords, and the background of the Te Roroa claim for Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki.

 

2. An interview with Alex Nathan that asks:

a) Is it not true that on August 7, 1987, squatters moved on to the beach part of the section in force and erected signs to frighten away any prospective buyers.

b) Is it not true that on August 16, 1987, Hughie Te Rore and Huia White told Titford that if he gave them the land they would drop their tribunal claim.

c) Is it not true that on December 5, 1987, at 1.15pm, Hughie Te Rore and Huia White arrived at the house and said that if Titford removed the buildings used by squatters they would take revenge within 24 hours and it would be nationwide news.

d) Is it not true that on January 12, 1988, a group of claimants in a green Toyota Corona shot stock in Titford’s paddock. Claimants also arranged for the Historic Places Trust to come in and make the site a sacred area.

e) Is it not true that on January 20, 1988, claimants erected a large carved pole on Titford’s land, an event that local councillors, local non-Maori, Maori Marsden, and TVNZ reporters attended.

f) Is it not true that on March 22, 1988, claimant Hugh Te Rore had Conservation Department archaeologist Leigh Johnson (Mr) visit Titford’s farm. Johnson told Titford he had permission to be there from landowner Hugh Te Rore. Johnson also told Titford that the area was from then on wahi tapu and a reserve.

 

3. An interview with Ranginui Walker that asks:

a) Is it not true that the $3.225-million the government paid for the Titford farm included 1450 head of stock valued at $750,000 and plant at $50,000?

b) Is it not true that out of the $3.225-million purchase price, $1.8 million went to the National Bank and $425,000 went to other creditors?

c) Is it not true that Titford was left with $200,000 for land he paid $600,000 for nine years earlier?

d) Do you still stand by your comments that Titford made “a huge profit” out of the sale of his farm?

 

4. An interview with historian Paul Moon that asks:

a) Is it not true that as an historian, past events and old documents are your stock in trade?

b) Therefore, based on your expertise in past events and old documents, is it not true that the only reserve in the Maunganui block provided for in the 1876 sale was a 250-acre eel fishery reserve known as Taharoa for vendor Parore Te Awha?

c) Is it not true that Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki were not mentioned in the 1876 deed of sale?

d) Is it not true that neither were mentioned in the inquiry into the sale held in 1876?

e) Is it not true that the sale deed had a certificate to show that vendors Parore Te Awha and Tiopira Kinaki understood the terms of the sale?

f) Is it not true that the deed had a certificate to show no fraud had taken place?

g) Is it not true that a memo dated February 12, 1876, confirmed that Parore got Taharoa?

h) Is it not true that the first appearance of a claim for land known as Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki was in 1899, after both vendors and all involved in the 1876 sale had died?

i) Is it not true that Plan 3297/8 was created by surveyors Barnard and Stephens for a landowner named Wi Pou, of the Ngaitu hapu, as part of a proposal to buy from the government two reserves on the south side of Maunganui Bluff. Those reserves were to be named Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki?

j) Is it not true that Plan 3297/8 remained in government files as a record of a proposal that did not proceed?

 ___________________________

[1] Graham Rankin, Letter, June 4, 2001. http://www.treatyofwaitangi.net.nz/AllanandSusanvsTheWaitangiTribunal.html

[2] The Sale of Maunganui-Waipoua, The Te Roroa Report 1992. http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/reports/viewchapter.asp?reportID=7df6e15e-2c4d-4dd0-9e60-50a88ffb48a9&chapter=13

[3] See John Ansell’s recorded footage of the actual interviews see https://treatygate.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/what-maori-tv-didnt-show-you/#comments

[4] Native Purposes Act 1938. http://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1942-I.2.1.8.4&e=——-10–1——0–

[5] See John Ansell’s recorded footage of the actual interviews see https://treatygate.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/what-maori-tv-didnt-show-you/#comments

It’s not OK – Danish MP

How dare visiting Danish MP Marie Krarup have the temerity to be upset by being greeted at Devonport Naval Base by a “half-naked man… shouting and screaming in Maori, and poking his tongue out” at her.

Doesn’t she realise, as “Maori culture expert” Dr Ranginui Walker reminds us in the Herald, that such boorish behaviour is the pinnacle of Maori culture?

Did no one tell her that only Maori are allowed to take cultural offence in New Zealand?

(Which begs the question: what do they do when they don’t like you?)

Marie Krarup, Danish People’s Party MP

Ranginui Walker says Maori customs obviously had not been explained to Ms Krarup before her visit.

Actually they were explained very well — by the Danish ambassador, no less. (He even helpfully warned the MPs not to laugh at the powhiri.)

She just found the customs offensive, that’s all. As is her right.

“Very often politicians are not as well educated as they ought to be, perhaps haven’t studied history.”

Or perhaps they have. Perhaps the Danish visitors were very well educated in the violent ways of our pre-colonial stone age cannibals.

It’s just that, unlike Ranginui Walker, most educated people are repelled by violence.

More significant than the MP’s comments themselves were the high number of net positive comments supporting Marie Krarup on the stuff website.

Here’s a selection:

I left the following comment on the Copenhagen Post site congratulating Krarup on behalf of the 80% of New Zealanders who agree with her.

Dr Ranginui Walker is a Maori radical, beloved of our Marxist academic elite. If he believes that the petulant powhiri and cannibal-inspired haka are the pinnacle of Maori culture, then the sooner that culture addresses its obsession with violence, the better.

While other New Zealanders have led the world down into the smallest thing (Ernest Rutherford – the atom) and up into the biggest thing (William Pickering – space), conquered the world’s highest mountain (Hillary) and generally punched above their weight in many fields of human endeavour, Maori achievements remain linked to violence, from pioneering guerrilla warfare to excelling at rugby (a Danish word, I believe!).

All tribal peoples, including we former British and you former Vikings, have had violent pasts. The problem in New Zealand is that too many Maori remain tribal and disproportionately violent.

Aided by cringing white appeasers, they are in the habit of blaming the Pakeha (Europeans) for all their ills, when in fact no native race has come so far so fast as the Maori after British colonisation.

But be assured that most Maori, and New Zealanders in general, are a lot more welcoming than Marie Krarup’s experience would suggest.

Well done to Marie for saying what 80% of Kiwis think, but are too timid to say.

Just as the raping and pillaging Vikings evolved into today’s Danes, and the bloodthirsty Anglo-Saxons mellowed into the powder-puff Poms, so too can Maori choose to set aside their obsession with violence and join the modern world.

In the 21st century, greeting visitors by threatening to kill and eat them is not OK.

Who loves New Zealand more: poet Brian Turner or Prof. Ranginui Walker?

I met Brian Turner about the time he wrote this.

We were both appearing at a poetry festival called Poems on the Vine (which we called Poets on the Wine) at Gladstone Vineyard in the Wairarapa.

At the time, Brian was Te Mata Poet Laureate. New Zealand’s poet of poets.

(I was tacked on to the programme to provide some light relief for the less cerebral punters.)

Brother of sportsmen Glenn and Greg, Brian struck me as a most thoughtful, passionate, and down-to-earth New Zealander. A Southern Man with brains.

Here’s what he thought of (Constitutional Advisory Panel member) Ranginui Walker’s claim that Maori love his country more than he does.

(Subheadings mine.)

Mine or ours?

by Brian Turner

NZ Listener, November 29, 2003

A response to the recent open letter from Ranginui Walker.

Ranginui Walker, communist,
Treatygater, and now on the Panel charged
with Maorifying the Constitution by stealth

No one would doubt or challenge Ranginui Walker when he asserts that his sense of attachment and belonging to the place where he was born and brought up runs deep.

But when he says, “I have been here a thousand years. You arrived only yesterday”, he very clearly denies a similar depth of feeling to almost everyone else.

Are Maori feelings
more authentic?

Walker’s empathy with his surroundings, he implies, is more authentic and valuable than that of, say, farming families of the Maniototo, or the people of the Waitaki Valley, or the townsfolk of Dunedin or Timaru.

In New Zealand today, there is a relentless presumptuousness about the way in which non-Maori feelings for land and water are dismissed as less heartfelt, less sensitive, less spiritual.

In this regard, Walker, and those like him, leads the way.

I am indigenous

Living here, one often hears tiresome, incessant talk from Maori, and non-Maori urban-liberals especially, saying that if you are of European extraction, you can’t possibly truly belong here, in the way that those with even the most attenuated Maori ancestry do.

I vehemently disagree.

Try telling that to the people I live among, and others, who go back generations here.

I am indigenous.

Stop the bigotry

I say, stop the bigotry whereby one culture or another claims greater moral virtue and/or spiritual sensitivity.

Recognise the worth and strength – and the reality – of hybridisation.

Isn’t this what just about all of us are, hybrids?

This will continue to the point whereby, in less than 50 years’ time, it’s likely that more than half of the population will be able to claim some Maori connection.

Then what?

Who is a minority?

Who is a “minority”?

Recently, a friend drew my attention to a marvellous address by Susan Sontag, when she received the Friedenspreis (Peace Prize) from the German Book Trade Association.

At one point, she said:

“A good deal of my life has been spent trying to demystify ways of thinking that polarise or oppose.

Translated into politics, this means supporting whatever is pluralistic and secular.”

I hope that Ranginui Walker and anyone like him might reflect on that, in this country where a sanctimonious culture of reprimand is rife.

To disagree with Maori
is to be racist?

I have found that, for many years now, to disagree or take issue with almost anything that Maori assert guarantees that you will be attacked and deemed anti-Maori, Eurocentric and racist, among other pejoratives.

Some of those attackers, oddly, include a number of strange birds, predominantly of European ancestry, who insist that, in order to live here, we have to atone for the sins of some of our fathers and be prepared to keep on atoning until Maori say “enough”.

All nations, all societies, all families, all individuals know and accept that their pasts are murky, that, at one time or another, they have transgressed, often badly.

So, contrary to the remorseless line that we are fed by various, mainly government agencies, it is not ignorance of the past that makes most people unwilling to forever make amends, it is a belief that little of benefit is to be gained from it.

Shouldn’t assistance
be based on need, not race?

We all know that many people here live in, by New Zealand standards, impoverished circumstances.

Would it not be best to provide assistance on the basis of need, and remove the racial component?

For years now, I have heard people express resentment that goes something like this:

If Maori are down and out, the cry is, “It’s Pakehas’ fault.”

If non-Maori are in strife, “It’s their fault.”

It might be better if, instead of alleging that New Zealand’s social problems are racially based, we accepted that they are, principally and more accurately, related to ideology and the changes wrought as a consequence since the early 1980s.

All races can be racist

I hasten to add, before the ranting begins, that I am not saying there isn’t racism in New Zealand.

Human beings are often racist, and to varying degrees, wherever one goes.

In this country, there are racist Maori and racist non-Maori.

There is also a high degree of preciousness and a scary, sometimes farcical eagerness to take umbrage.

With respect to the issue as to who owns the foreshores and seabed around New Zealand, Walker in effect says that although he and his tribesfolk are happy, in the main, to share the seas and beaches with other recreational users, he reserves the right to exercise control.

He expects the rest of us to defer, which is patronising and unacceptable.

Tribal arrogance

He often seems to advocate a kind of latter-day tribalism, a society based upon a wish to replicate conditions and a world that no longer exists.

And what Walker is really saying is:

“What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too.”

It’s cake-and-eat-it country.

He reminds me, again, of how proselytisers, when referring to rights conferred by article three of the Treaty, seldom acknowledge their corresponding responsibilities.

Maori signed up to be British

Whether anyone likes it or not, they signed up 163 years ago to being British (read New Zealand) citizens.

As such, that means a responsibility to work to improve and safeguard this society for the social, cultural and economic benefit of all.

I can’t see any point in us reverting to a system that boils down to pitting tribe against tribe.

To me, the seas and rivers and coastlines and lakes are part of our common heritage.

It is time for us to confirm that recreational activities involving access to those parts of the outdoors are the customary right of all.

That is what the overwhelming majority of people who appreciate them want, and expect their democratically elected government to protect.

Not only Maori
have customary rights

A great many people would be happy to define a customary right as a practice that citizens who live here are accustomed to engaging in.

Walker insists on ownership, but it would be good to reconsider what it is that we have a right to own.

Our own property and personal possessions, but little else, in my view.

Ownership of things we have created or, possibly, had a hand in making: but who among us made birds, fish, native forests, land and water?

Give permits to use, in some cases, but more than that, no.

The vision to say “our”

And when it comes to recreational use, make the same regulations apply to all.

The date of arrival of one’s ancestors (or, often, a selected few of them) should be no excuse for the awarding of preferential rights.

Walker writes repeatedly “my coastline”, “my shores”.

This country will remain divided until he, and others like him, acquires the vision to say “our”, until he will say that not only “some … Pakeha intermarried” with him, but “some Maori intermarried” with Pakeha.

________________________________

Thanks to Trina for alerting me to Brian’s article.

I’ll now contact him down there in his remote piece of Otago paradise and see if he wants to be part of our campaign.

The Oblivion Constitution

One of my comic heroes Victor Borge used to call Bolivia ‘Oblivia’.

I’m sure he meant no disrespect. He was just playing with words.

But it’s an apt description, all the same.

Of all the basket-case countries in South America, Bolivia is right at the bottom of the basket. GDP per head: around $5,000.

You may think those folks in the photo are Maori 150 years ago. They’re not. They’re Bolivians today.

(I took out the colour to trick you.)

And yet Marxist Maori professors like Ranginui Walker, Margaret Mutu and Nin Tomas, profess undying admiration for the Bolivian Constitution.

In fact, they cite it as their blueprint for a written constitution for New Zealand.

This is Evo Morales, Bolivian coca grower turned president, holding up his sacred text.

Morales is a good neighbour of fellow Latin champions of freedom Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

And here he is warming up for an indoor soccer game with his buddy that great peacemonger president Ahmed Ahmadinejad of Iran.

Morales’ constitution is based around ‘pachamama’, the idea that human beings are equal with all other living things, but some humans are more equal than others.

(Yes, you guessed it, the ‘indigenous’ ones.)

The concept of pachamama is named after the earth goddess of the same name. This elegant lady here…

Now this racist doctrine is no doubt quite popular with Bolivians.

After all, 85% of them are at least part-members of races that actually are indigenous to Bolivia.

(55% fully Amerindian, 30% Mestizos — part-Amerindian, part-European.)

But here in New Zealand, precisely 0% of our people belong to races that are indigenous to (ie originated in) New Zealand.

Of course, I hear the Grievers howl, up to 15% are part-members of a race whose leaders say they’re ‘indigenous’ to New Zealand.

They say it with a straight face, too.

Despite their legends declaring – loudly and proudly – that they’re ‘indigenous’ to the other side of the Pacific!

Such is the double standard of Griever Maoridom. You gotta love the cheek.

Now I’d like to hand over to essayist/commentator Colin Rawle, who will spell out the extreme danger to New Zealand of going down the path to Bolivian oblivion.

(Subheadings mine.)

___________________________________

Colin Rawle:

I have recently had the dubious pleasure of listening to Radio N.Z’s broadcast of 8th March, 2009, titled Constitutions: Bolivia today, Aotearoa tomorrow?

It was the question mark at the end of this title which made my blood run cold.

Not for nothing is the new Bolivian Constitution widely referred to as “revolution by constitution”.

However, such a departure from reality would not result in a bloodless coup. Far from it.

A better recipe for armed counter-revolution or civil war is hard to imagine.

Revolutionary, in the worst sense, is exactly what it is.

And being aware that these are the constitutional changes (under discussion even as I write) which rebellious Maori and their “liberal” white patrons would dearly like New Zealand to adopt, I have the following to say:

An excuse to upend Western values

The bedrock ideology of the new Bolivian-type social engineering owes more than a little to Marxism.

It holds the erroneous dogma that all human inequalities, of any sort, arise purely out of economic/social circumstances.

Any question of individuality, of personal attributes, qualities, failings, responsibilities and accountability is dismissed out of hand.

Here is the imagined justification for turning traditional Christian-based values and social institutions, millennia in the making, on their heads.

Here is the imagined justification for attempting to terminate the great democratic project which, against the most implacable opposition, has been evolving in Western civilisation since the Greek/Roman age.

Marxist madness now everywhere

This type of “thinking” which I have characterised as essentially Marxist (the absolute nadir of materialism as a social/political philosophy) has, since the early 19th century, remorselessly permeated every nook and cranny of the international Western world, and therewith, to a great extent, the entire world.

It is now so ubiquitous, so entrenched, that it is like the very air we breath.

It has become virtually invisible, unnoticed, and thus all the more destructive.

The so-called “march through the institutions” is an established fact for those with eyes that see.

The global resurrection, or exhumation, of narrow, heirachical, parochial, tribalism is but one malign result of this “programme”.

It is no less than an attempt to nullify two millennia of hard-won social evolution, and replace it with a stage of development which most peoples transcended centuries or even millennia ago.

If such a complete abandonment of common-sense proliferates as the rest of political correctness has, it can only lead to pan-social catastrophe.

Zealots destroyed Zimbabwe

Nothing it seems, has been learned by the vast social errors, of which Zimbabwe is only one example.

The crime of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, when it was still a success story by any yardstick, was only that it was British/Western-administered and not yet perfect.

Therefore, it had to be “liberated” by an alliance of Western Marxist/socialist zealots and racists, who have always been incapable of seeing the potential good in things which are not yet wholly good.

They want to create utopias overnight.

But that is not they way of the world, nor of human nature.

Zimbabwe Aotearoa?

The Bolivian experiment will make a present-day “Zimbabwe”, North Korea or a similar totalitarian dictatorship out of any country, including New Zealand, which is foolish enough to ape it.

The Bolivian utopian fantasy speaks of Bolivia being comprised of some 36 indigenous “nations”, some of which are less than 100 individuals.

Nevertheless, each “nation” is to be self-determining and have its own ethnic laws.

In practice, this simply means that Bolivia would have no practicably enforceable law.

Anarchy, violence, and social collapse is the likely outcome.

Equality by theft

True to its Marxist/communist provenance, the Bolivian constitution seeks to impose “equality” by confiscating or nationalising private property.

This must then be leased back by its previous owners from some sort of state/indigenous peoples’ bureaucracy.

This is to fly in the face of human nature.

People, human beings by virtue of their very idiosyncratic individual personalities, are never equal, save in the “eyes of God”, so to speak, or under enlightened man-made laws which understand this.

It is impossible to make everyone equal in the sense that socialism means it.

The very most that can be done in this regard is to strive to afford every person the same opportunities.

Now there is a worthy social goal.

Extremely difficult to achieve, granted. But at least not impossible!

Here we see the vast gulf between the world-view of the atheist and the theist – of whatever creed.

Misguided separatism

Social improvements must, and will, come. We are not at the end of history.

But only if humanity can recognise and overcome such sheer anti-progressive insanity as exemplified in the Bolivian constitution model.

“Self determination for all peoples” is still the ridiculous demand.

Such fine-sounding catch phrases roll easily off the tongue.

They find immediate knee-jerk acceptance among a well-meaning populace.

Nevertheless, scores of bloody conflicts attest to the impossibility of such an ambition in today’s cosmopolitan world of some 210 nations, but 3,500 different “peoples”.

The principal underlying cause of all modern racial/ethnic conflict in modern times can be attributed less to individual tyrants than to the misguided ambition of “self determination for all peoples”.

People, not peoples

“Peoples” are an abstraction.

So-called “peoples” are actually comprised of individuals .

“Peoples” in the abstract, cannot have rights.

Of equal importance, nor can they have the commensurate responsibilities.

Only individuals have certain unalienable human rights.

And they have them not by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or nationality, but by virtue of being human.

If it were understood that “peoples” can only be liberated by liberating individuals – all individuals – then universal equal rights could be achieved in a non-discriminatory way.

However, even in a “democracy” such as ours, those who revert, or cling, to tribal mentality (which requires an enemy), will endlessly invent reasons for animosity and conflict.

Maori manamania

In New Zealand, Maori extremism is dominated by emotion.

Historical facts and logic play no great part.

This is why factual, logical arguments with radical Maori are so spectacularly ineffectual.

Nor, as history and current events show, does endless largesse, and appeasement remedy the situation.

Because from the Maori standpoint, everything is about pride – mana!

Charity is very acceptable in the moment. But there is no mana in it.

Only in retrospect do they realise that it adds to their dependency and humiliation.

Thus for a warrior people, it turns to ashes in the mouth.

Tribalism destroys democracy

Clearly, tribalism is not only incompatible with democracy, it is destructive to it.

Obviously, none of these observations apply to sensible Maori people, who have educated themselves to an awareness of all the opportunities that modernity offers them.

All racial/treaty problems since the time of colonisation can, in large measure be attributed to the great gulf separating democratic European consciousness from tribal consciousness.

If the British had understood this they would never have entertained the idea of a treaty with Maori.

They would have known that, regardless of whether or not some of their own might transgress it, it would certainly be used, for just as long as tribal mentality remained dominant as a means to gain the advantage.

Tribalism is about dominance

This is typical of tribal consciousness – a stage of social development which all peoples have experienced at some time in their history.

Obviously, tribalism is pre-democratic and non-democratic.

One of its characteristics is a constant striving for dominance, supremacy.

(In anticipation of the inevitable knee-jerk reaction this, I’ll quickly add that the non-rebellious Maori tribes which adopted Christianity and remained loyal to the Crown and the Treaty of Waitangi, were already at that time transcending tribalism.)

The West’s rejection of the West

The only thing that has changed since the West’s 1960s psycho/social revolution to allow this aspect of neo-tribalism to break through into outer events, is the rejection by many New Zealanders of their magnificent spiritual/cultural heritage.

This dismissal of “old fashioned” morality and values, and weakening of moral fibre, has undermined a democratic social ideal which was forged over millennia out of a demand of the human spirit for freedom and legal  equality.

These “old” values should not be discarded in favour of anachronistic tribalism, racial privilege and separatism.

For they are the only foundation upon which a civilised social future can be built.

Will tribalism triumph?

Whether through apathy, ignorance, or whatever else, the ramparts of democracy have not been adequately defended.

Tribal mentality is flooding the breaches.

The only choice New Zealanders will finally be left with is whether to surrender to tribalism, or overrule it.

And by “New Zealanders”, I mean all people who value this status, this privilege, above all distinctions of race, tribe, or country of origin.

“They whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”.

Thus goes the ancient aphorism, and there is no lack of historical precedents to prove the point.

Depending upon one’s belief, “life”, “the world”, or “God” will always forgive a certain degree of human error.

Yet there has to be a limit.

Reject the blueprint for oblivion

There is no way that society can for much longer survive the currently prevailing level of social blindness of which the racial/treaty madness is a good example.

If anything resembling the Bolivian experiment is taken as blueprint for constitutional change in New Zealand, it will destroy our country.

We have no excuse.

Our very humanity should disqualify us from such foolishness on pain of consequences too severe to bear thinking about.

Unless clear, rational thinking and goodwill wins the day, social ruin awaits us.