Most people know that before I became an MP I’d spent a good number of years co-ordinating and managing Equity Programmes at the Universtity of Auckland. In 2005 Maori and Pacific students at the University showed up in large numbers to support Helen Clark when she visited the campus. Many of them knew that if the National Party were to win that election, all of the Maori and Pacific mentoring programmes and/ or academic support and pastoral care programmes, would be gone by lunch time.
It’s ironic that the very issues that nearly won National that 2005 election, were also their demise in the end. Many Maori and Pacific went out and voted out of fear for what might be taken away.
However, the messages put out by the National party in the lead up to the 2008 election were very different. The 2005 right wing attack on equity focused programmes and funding/ ‘race based funding’ – was dropped. National made it look like very little would change. They attempted to create a perception of National being ’Labour lite’.
Now after two years too long of this National Government. All of the assertions made by Don Brash are coming to the fore. The most recent example of this sits with the recent announcement regarding the Tertiary Education Commissions Equity Funding. The National Government are ‘tricky’ – they didn’t do an outright cut. Instead what they’ve done is based next year’s equity funding for Maori and Pacific students, on 2009 numbers.
Most New Zealander’s would be very aware that unemployment rates for Maori are comparitively higher and that a lot of those that are unemployed are young. Most kiwis would understand that this therefore, pushes the demand for tertiary education up. Most would therefore accept that there has been a probable increase in Maori and Pacific taking up University and Polytechnic study (when they can get in – keep in mind the Government’s caps on numbers). So funding at 2009 numbers is the equivalent to a cut, given that there will be the same amount of money for an increased number of students.
The National Government would love to cut this type of funding all together, but they are being a little bit cautious at the moment as that wouldn’t assist them with wooing our Maori and Pacific communities as they attempt to extract some vote from them in the upcoming 2011 election.
I wonder what other creative strategies the National Government has for cutting back on Maori and Pacific specific programmes. I’m sure that they have more for us to not look forward to.
Getting close to a ban Trevor
Question: Why aren’t you guys all over the Taihape PHO disaster…
I hope the answer isn’t that it would be too embarrassing, because the disaster that’s befalling Taihape was something you set up.
I know you’ve been busy with a by-election, but what’s happening in the centre of the North Island HAS GOT TO BE A GIFT TO YOU! Heartland New Zealand thrown to the dogs. Easy. These are real people with a real problem that the big cities seem to be oblivious to.
If you can’t make some capital out of it…I don’t know what I’m doing even thinking of furthering my support for you.
I’m a little surprised you didn’t go with a euphymism for ‘race based funding’, Carmel. Doesn’t saying these words play into the hands of your opposition on this matter?
…though perhaps i’m a little out of touch with the current use of language on this issue, which is entirely plausible.
Yep – lest not go with the people who need it most based on need.
Lets base it on the colour of their skin.
I hope you campaign on this next year.
Lets not also remember that the increase of youth unemployment links to the lack of youth rates (thanks to labour).
Race based funding is an abomination..no good outcomes…Just look at Malaysia.
Disparity in funding based on race or sex or age or whatever is usually in direct proportion to the efforts of that society to address imbalances off its own bat.
A fair minded society dont need them because no imbalance exists.
Those who believe there are no such imbalances in our society are perhaps looking in the wrong direction?
Theres plenty of money in the Maori/PI comunities for education for their young people without racist state theiving from the pockets of others being required.That they choose to spend their money on other things they must value more tells you all you need to know…
Big gas guzzeling cras,SKY digital TV,smokes,takeaways,booze etc etc…until these people value their kids futures more than these things nothings going to change.
Those imbalances haven’t changed over the last two decades regardless of how much money as been thrown at such ventures… Just go look at the annual reports.
“Those who believe there are no such imbalances in our society are perhaps looking in the wrong direction”.
I put it more bluntly than that. They are either:
1. Overtly racist and sexist.
2. Covertly racist etc. and try to conceal it by blaming those affected.
3. Living in a fool’s ideological paradise which allows them to deny anything they don’t want to admit to…
Disparity in funding based on race or sex or age or whatever is usually in direct proportion to the efforts of that society to address imbalances off its own bat.
Translation:State action to redress obvious but overlooked consequences of previous state actions is required….and round and round we go.
A fair minded society dont need them because no imbalance exists.
A true FREE society allows people to rise and fall to the level they chosse to arrive at via their own efforts…and thats all it needs to do.People are not equal and never will be.Its only in front of the law that equal traetment is deserved and expected.In any other area its go for broke as best you can.
Those who believe there are no such imbalances in our society are perhaps looking in the wrong direction?
Those who believe”inbalances” are something the state can fix by yet more interventions of the type that caused these issues in the first place are most certainly asking the wrong question.
Those who believe there are no such imbalances in our society are perhaps looking in the wrong direction.
The thing about acting according to the factors you name so is that you are addressing ones which the individual has no hand in changing, and ignoring highly variable factors like income. I remember Obama saying (well maybe more implying) that he wasn’t keen on race-based funding as that would mean his kids are elligible for such help, when they clearly don’t need it – this was while he was running for the Presidency.
@Anne.
Ah, the catch-cry of the modern liberal. “If you don’t think everyone should be treated equally, you’re a racist/sexist”.
It’s racist and sexist against the socialist’s great evil the straight-white-male, to say they have an easier road in life. I know some white people who are total gutter trash. And I know some brown folk who are gutter trash too. That’s life, and you have no-one to blame but yourself for your situation. To say that we should give extra money to the brown guy as opposed to the white guy is discriminatory and wrong. Everyone is an individual, we’re not groups, unions, or communities. Judge everyone on their own qualities and faults, not the colour of their skin.
On the subject of sexism, I bet you supported Wimbeldon’s move to give equal prize money to the winner of the women’s singles and the men’s singles. Isn’t the phrase: “equal work for equal pay”? The women only play three sets, the men play five. That’s not equal work. Are they saying women aren’t able to play five sets?
Interesting how Infinity loves to play the politics of divisive and hateful language, while ignoring the fact that in NZ skin colour is an independent variable in many different social indicators from school achievement to unemployment and income rates.
Mr Infinity, you’re right, that example from Wimbledon proves it….
“That’s life, and you have no-one to blame but yourself for your situation.”
Oh cool, ad hominem generalisations, my turn
Such is the cry of the white middle class male who assumes that veryone walks in the same shoes as him, if he actually ever wonders what paths others might walk.
C;mon CV, Maori are over represented in crime and prison stats because they choose that path. Geesh, dont you get it?
It’s just a coincidence that white middle class men have most of the wealth and jobs etc they just try harder and are better at pulling up their socks and making the most of a bad situation.
Next he’ll be saying John Key was in a state house and he got out from under, as proof that everyone can.
Interestingly, I think that the “white middle class man” (earning $40K to $80K p.a.) isn’t doing that well these days either and that he is getting bent over the barrel by the capitalist wealth holders in the country, just like everyone else.
Or maybe he does get it because an awful lot of NZ’ers leaving our country permanently have been degree qualified white collar professionals.
Time for everyone to realise that the only side that National is on is that of big business.
This funding should be based not on race, but on measurable indicators of disadvantage, like low family income, parents’ low educational achievement and so on. Those Maori and PIs who need help would not lose out, and the disadvantaged from other groups would not be excluded. Some people from some non-white immigrant communities who experience discrimination on the labour market and other kinds of discrimination too feel that singling Maori and PIs out for special help is unfair. It’d be much better to avoid this kind of resentment.
I’m sorry Tracey, but your silly sarcastic comment about Maori crime rates implies that a rich white guy held a gun to the head of all Maori in prison and made them do what they did. Or am I wrong? All criminals made their choice to murder, rape and steal, it is the path they chose, and you’re ridiculously naieve to blame it all on poverty. Regardless of their colour. The fact that you were the one who brought up crime, the greatest social evil we are beset with, and linked it to Maori does support my thought process that you are the paternalistic racist who believes people who are brown are inferior and need help.
If it isn’t a matter of attitude, what is it? Racism? A subconscious hive mind the supposed bourgeoisie possess that makes them all work to keep brown down? Isn’t giving them a tax-payer funded hammock the same thing?
As for John Key in the state house; no, his getting out doesn’t prove that everyone can do it. It does prove that it’s possible, not impossible as socialists argue, to do it without the government giving you a hand out. No, not everyone can do it, some people are stupid, uneducated and lazy, and (again) that’s life. Why should I give my hard earned money to those people? They don’t deserve it, they didn’t earn it. Left wingers are very generous with other people’s money, and if statistics on who donates the most to charity, lefties or righties, are anything to go by…not very generous with their own.
Who remembers Closing The Gaps ? Race based funding that Labour stopped after $250 million was spent and not one iota of difference made.
If anything, racist nonsense like that makes things worser. It just adds to the “I am a victim, poor me” mentality.
Its not your money. When you go to work and earn an income don’t make the mistake of thinking that you are doing that for yourself either, you are doing it on behalf of your communities and your country.
It’s not my money? That’s not even socialism, that’s pure communism. If this is the state of the modern Labour supporter than you lot are doomed to opposition for eternity.
Also, if the community (no such thing) can’t get along without stealing from me to give to underachievers, then it can burn.
You work on behalf of your community and larger society as a whole, and you get benefits back from that very same community and society. If you want to opt out from the community or from society as a whole thats your choice otherwise you will contribute your share, however unwillingly.
Also I suspect you don’t understand communism very well since you seem to be throwing labels around left and right like there’s no tomorrow.
I grew up in East Germany in the 1970s, my family made it through the wall and came to New Zealand after the for a better life. I understand the mentality of the communist very well, thank you very much. And the idea that it’s not your money, it’s everyone’s, falls right in line with their teachings.
I suspect you don’t understand basic economics and the ideas of personal freedom very well. Why do economists decry collectivist tax & spend policies of your ilk that eliminate personal economic liberties in favour of…whatever it is you call your brand of fiscal behavior? You think economists would know a thing or two about how the economy would best work, no? You need to brush up on your Hayek, or perhaps take a third form economics class before you start to talk about how the money system works.
“… you seem to be throwing labels around left and right like there’s no tomorrow.”
Actually CV, Mr. Infinity paid me such a lovely compliment. A “modern liberal” indeed. Nobody’s ever called me that before.
@Anne, he’s defining you as different from a classic liberal…
So lets get out the trusty dictionary:
Is it really us that want an end to race based funding who are the racists Anne..?
I am a racist because I don’t think Maori, PI, Chinese, Indian, South American or Martian people are inherently worse at school and need more help than anyone else..?
I am a immoral person because I think we shouldn’t be taking money by force from one race to give to another..?
Interesting but tricky area to be discussing on a blog Carmel, but worth a crack.
Funding targetted towards assisting the elderly who have never had an opportunity to amass wealth in their lifetime is a state paid pension – don’t hear them arguing that. Funding targetted towards assisting those who have a mental or physical disability is called health funding or some such like – don’t hear them whinging about that either. Funding to assist women’s pay equity is slashed and you don’t hear them whinge about that. Yet, where natural disadvantages exist for a group with a common cultural history, it is labelled race based funding.
These are the types of things a government does to help address obvious disparities that exist within aspects of our society, disadvantanges caused by archaine belief systems, elderly cultural norms or a range of other social influencers over periods of decades or even centuries.
There is a clear and present need for assistance in those areas, especially in New Zealand where for example, 1 in 5 children live in poverty, where Maori youth unemployment rises again to double digit proportions, where Pacific Island woman endure the lowest rates of education leading to poor employment choices and where prisons are inevitably over populated with Maori men.
Investments into mentoring and support through tertiary training are investments in – to borrow from National – a brighter future for those people. This should be about investing to enable people in our communities to generate financial independence while overcoming societal barriers such as marginalised access to quality health care, housing and education as examples. Potential returns on this investment can grow ten-fold where that person’s life path can be altered and their familial outcomes improved and where the burdan on the state is relieved. This is but one approach but must come with intervention at early stages of development to prevent poor socio economic attitudes becoming engrained.
But no, not with my tax dollars they scream. It’s a bit of the old “build a prison, just not in my backyard” syndrome.
Those more short sighted right wing types (and I should say, not all), see this as stealing from them to give an advantage to another. Strange advantage where those who derive the benefit of these programmes are steered there for the very simple fact of their absolute DISadvantage.
Short sightedness also brings about the typical commentary that “they have the same opportunities as me” – clearly and proven wrong through decades and decades worth of research and analysis. Their “fairness” is about not allowing others to start at the starting line, sure, run the race but not from my starting line. It’s something that will just never go away.
Ra ra, my tax dollars etc. Meh… If you don’t want to pay tax, get off my roads and don’t use my emergency room at the hospital. Those very same people are the first to complain when the roads have potholes and the emergency room can’t cope with their visit. Zimbabwe’s their next best option.
Hi Anne!
!
Mr Infinity – read http://iansescapevalve.blogspot.com/2010/10/so-what-exactly-is-racism.html
Anyway, I thought John Key wanted to stop Kiwi’s (read young Maori) leaving the country (for Australia)? Well, if you make it harder for them to get an education and there are no jobs for them, where are they going to go?
New Zealand, proudly supporting Australian growth by providing the necessary manual labour.
(NB a few weeks ago there was a report about Te reo Maori being used less and how there needed to be more investment in teaching Te Reo – seriously, maybe someone needs to ask if there can be Kohanga Reo and Kura set up in Aussie!!)
No-one has a problem with paying tax, Anne. People don’t like it being wasted on things like carbon credits, spent inefficiently (all of Labour’s policies) or given people who refuse to work. People complain about the emergency room because it is incompetent, and because tax dollars are spent on it, it reflects badly on the way our public health system is run. Same goes for the roads, people want their tax dollars spent on things like roads, but they don’t like to see it being wasted on a shoddy tar-seal job. Virtually all state enterprise is incompetent, doesn’t mean people don’t want it, but it doesn’t mean we have to ACCEPT it.
It’s about waste. Throwing money at Maori and PI’s just because they’re brown is a waste, and has proven to be because the sad statistics won’t go away. And crime skyrocketed under Labour and their limp wristed approach. It’d be better to cut the funding altogether and find a better way to spend it. Perhaps isolating kids in low decile schools and crime infested holes like Manurewa who have high test scores and help them get out of those terrible places – regardless of whether they’re white, black or purple.
@ Ian, I stopped reading once you put yourself in the anti-free speech/anti-Paul Henry group. Then again, the gov should sell TVNZ and then we wouldn’t have a problem.
There alot of smoke and hot air in this section.
Question:
Should we help out Maori and Pacific Islanders just because their skin is brown or should we help them out because some of them are poorer, less educated and have more health problems?
I don’t like the idea of help people because they brown (or what ever skin colour), what we should do is help all poor/struggling people regardless of the colour of there skin. There are still many “European” New Zealanders and other groups who are also suffering! Why just Maori and Pacific Islanders?
When I was school a (going back 7 years and this was under labour!) the teachers taught us it OK to favor Maori and Pacific Islanders over any other group, like job hiring etc… it was ok because it was ‘Positive Discrimination’.
The teachers taught us this rubbish and it was also written in the text book. I didn’t swallow it then and I don’t swallow now.
I come from a working class background and never had a stella up bring but it was alright and yes, I am a European KIWI. I found it ironic the teacher who was in charge of preaching this rubbish was a fella who was part Maori who might I add was a bit more well off than my family was.
Such experiences makes me unsympathetic to those who advocate such polices, regardless Maori or European.
There nothing positive about “Positive Discrimination’. This behavior hurts every one including those who your trying to help!
If you want equality maybe you should start by treating Maori and Pacific Islanders as equals, not as inferiors who need the “liberal and educated white man” to save them.
Ah great. Another racial post. I’m being serious. I like these types of posts.
Yes it’s depressing. And not surprising considering National’s traditional support base. It’s worth noting that abolishing the Maori seats is still National Party policy. I know this because my MP told me.
If I had to put my money on it, National will keep doing what they’re doing (reducing numbers but not abolishing) as an insurance policy. By doing this they will reassure Maori and Pacific communities that they’re not on the scrap heap, and at the same time keep the red-neck base happy because they’re not increasing numbers.
What Labour can do is to put pressure on the Maori Party, you know this already. If the Maori Party get cranky eventually Key will cave in. He’ll do this because his other support partners Act are effectively destroying themselves. No Prime Minister wants to do business with a group of people that have lost all credit. Although John Key could be the exception.
Labour is going to have to work on policies that deal with Maori and Pasifika education in it’s TKM, PI and Education Policy Committees.
Hi Spud.
I’m quite ok with targetting cash to where it’s needed most, and if it’s based on race, then so be it.
What we should be careful of however, is how and why we are helping maori, islander or white New Zealanders.
It is a given that now, to a greater or lesser degree, all kiwis have the same opportunities as each other – Free schooling, Access to health, immunisation, human rights and workplace equality.
If any sector of our community is being locked out of what we all take for granted, then that is a focus for attention and action.
What isn’t, in my view, the responsibility of government or ngos, but the communities responsibility, is making sure kids don’t walk to school with no shoes on in winter nursing empty bellies. What shouldn’t happen is associating anti social behaviour with government funding. If tennants trash their state or privately rented homes, piling rubbish around ill kept sections full of pitbull dogs, then that isn’t a problem of a minister, it’s down to law enforcement.
I get peoples anger at maori (in particular) because many see the tribes big treaty payouts and annual financial reports, yet nothing is done about the criminal youth, the abuse, the drugs, the gangs etc… It seems to be a case of protecting money, culture and tradition over the issues they should be wrestling with.
That’s why the maori party is such a joke.
I thought the creed of the socialist was “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”
The fact that a person is of a colour that is “perceived” as disadvantaged cannot be such a criteria. If a person is in need, then help that person.
What is unhelpful is the blanket labeling of a group as being disadvantaged. What message do we send to our young people, especially young Maori and PI people, when we have discussions along the lines of “you get extra money allocated to you because you are of a different race, and that race cannot make it’s way in the world without help”.
The message it sends is negative.
In the 70’s there was a campaign to change the role of women in NZ society. The central theme was “Girls can do anything” and so it proved. This is the message we need to send to young Maori and PI’s, that they can do anything. We don’t need to keep a race based funding model that lables them as less capable.
Gipper and Melusina – great, lucid and derisive free posts. You said what I would have liked to articulate. I’ve read both twice, thanks so much.
Thank you.
Girls can DO anything but do they and do others let them? To think that this campaign had more than partial success is not accurate, in my view, however progress is progress and as long as society is moving in a constant direction toward equality of opportunity rather than sameness I am satisfied.
***Don Brash’s quest to end race based funding being fulfilled by John Key***
Race based funding is fundamentally wrong and should be ended.
However, I’m not clear from your post that it really is being ended in any meaningful way.
*** am a racist because I don’t think Maori, PI, Chinese, Indian, South American or Martian people are inherently worse at school and need more help than anyone else..?***
Jeremy M Harris,
No, but you might be a creationist. Groups do differ on average in various ways (Let’s celebrate human genetic diversity Nature 461, 726-728 (8 October 2009)).
*** am a racist because I don’t think Maori, PI, Chinese, Indian, South American or Martian people are inherently worse at school and need more help than anyone else..?***
By inherently, do you mean you that everyone is born into a neutral situation?
Good.
If they are getting rid of race-based funding, I applaud them. I would prefer to see New-Zealanders-in-need-based funding.
Seriously Carmel, Labour is in danger of losing my vote. On any issue you seem to be just generally against whatever it is that National said, and that is such a wobbly platform.
[And I am not some racist, homophobic Tory, I am a Labour voter and one of the Clark Govt's biggest fans. But in my view, the Key Govt has done a fine job of sticking to a sensible course and not dismantling the social fabric of the country.]
Stop trying to find skeletons in the Nact closet, stop knocking them for doing a good job, and start promoting what you would do that would be better. Otherwise no-one but idealogues has any reason to vote for you, and Labour’s next election will be worse than the Nats under English in 2002.
“And I am not some racist, homophobic Tory, I am a Labour voter and one of the Clark Govt’s biggest fans. But in my view, the Key Govt has done a fine job of sticking to a sensible course and not dismantling the social fabric of the country.”
If you were a true fan of Helen, then you couldn’t ever praise Key after his abuse on the working people of NZ.
“If you were a true fan of Helen, then you couldn’t ever praise Key after his abuse on the working people of NZ.”
LUL what?
One of Clark’s best features was was taking Labour in a liberal human rights direction. Rather than being a figurehead for the trade unions movement.
If you think this is treasonous you might like to consider how little public support there has been for any of the recent high-profile union activity, even when Sue Bradford was involved.
Plenty of Labour voters like myself don’t belong to unions, and don’t have a lot of time for militant unionism and its “all employers are evil b@st@rds” message.
Now personally I have no problem with Labour moving to be come more about the unions again. But if they do, I will be more likely to be voting Green instead of Labour…
“New-Zealanders-in-need-based funding”
C’mon folks, it was always need based funding it’s just that others decided to label it race-based, whether labour or national.
So let’s all be mature and discuss needs based funding and if we agree on that, rather than on some backroom PR epithet designed to divide and obfuscate.
So, of those who have posted against race based funding, who agrees with needs based funding?
RRM, just trying to understand, ideologically you were a Labour voter when they moved more toward the right, and made concessions/moves to embrace business rather than seeing them as an enemy?
You dont have a problem that National have moved labour relations even further to the right, and made no concessions toward ordinary workers, but would vote Green?
@Colonial Viper “Its not your money. When you go to work and earn an income don’t make the mistake of thinking that you are doing that for yourself either, you are doing it on behalf of your communities and your country.” – I don’t know who you are, but you are now warned. Clare
Tracey;
You are correct. There’s no union for what I do, so the trade union cause falls on pretty deaf ears with me. Sorry but it’s true. I think civil unions and prostitution law reform have done more than most realize to further freedom and equality of rights for New Zealanders.
I would happily have seen the Clark/Cullen Govt continue, but at the same time I have some confidence the current incarnation of the Nats is moderate and certainly not leading us down some right wing ideological route.
Whereas a highly unionised Labour would be pedalling a barrow that I simply have no interest in. To this, add that with Cullen gone, I don’t really know who the keeper of Labour’s economical nous is (Hopefully this will become clear before polling day…?)
The Greens appear to me to be highly principled, they too are a bit rudderless at the moment with Fitzsimons gone, but nevertheless they are a strong pressure party and our parliament is the richer for having their input. I would vote to keep them around.
And Labour really needs to stop the personal sh!t with John Key. Seriously. I work in a commercial world, and meet business people every day, they are not some sort of enemy, their motivations in life are not so different than yours.
From this it’s clear to me that Key is a proper stand-up guy. The endless attempts at character assassinations etc against him are ugly and very unimpressive.
The race based funding argument is a tiresome exercise of attempting to assign failure to our political mandarins.It’s all about the politics of envy and greed.
Has any one reflected on the fact that this country has from it’s inception in 1840 being a source of race based funding for the anglo saxon races who emigrated here en masse.
Our european forefathers had it laid out on plate for them to the exclusion of Maori.
So please desist from idle chatter about race based funding because really all you are doing is pissing on someones leg.
Meh.
The fact that you think your “stand-up guy” is doing the right thing standing up for the tax payer rip offs that Wong and English have perpetrated on us tells me a lot about your judgement of character.
Strong trade unions were behind the US lift our of recession in the mid 1930’s and the catapulting forwards of the US middle class in the 1960’s.
Strong unions and an increased respect for labour hours ahead of capital ROI for foreigners is crucial going forwards.
Perhaps you should learn to differentiate between nice peeps and the actions and motivations of their organisations.
I’m sure plenty of really personable people work at BP, but areas of their organisation are willing to cut costs and take unnecessary risks in the pursuit of windfall profits even if that means putting lives and the environment at outrageous risk.
Tragic organisational decisions made by really nice peeps whom if you met one on one are probably really decent folk. Doesn’t mean they are beyond offshoring jobs and decimating communities, damaging the environment, disempowering the bargaining position of labour or lowering working standards for workers.
“The fact that you think your “stand-up guy” is doing the right thing standing up for the tax payer rip offs that Wong and English have perpetrated on us tells me a lot about your judgement of character.”
And yet none of the mud sticks. Why?