Hard News: On the Clark candidacy
72 Responses
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
um, Whanau Ora
It is possible that The Maori Party is neither everything to all Maori nor nothing to any Maori.
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Tom Semmens, in reply to
Whanau Ora only got traction because it provided the National party with a perfect trial for privatising welfare and education services to unaccountable cronies in everything from housing to charter schools to the unemployed. Enabling corruption by giving the right a precedent for handing out public money to your mates is hardly something to be proud of.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
But the refusal to endorse Ms Clark came from a political party that would like to be seen as representing ALL Maori.
And Ms Clark, whose work experience outside of academia consists pretty much of a holiday job in Jim Anderton's dairy, led the Labour party to multiple victories. Should we be invoking the Fair Trading Act to protect the terminally credulous?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It is possible that The Maori Party is neither everything to all Maori nor nothing to any Maori.
Something like that. My impression is that politically-aware Maori want the party to be there and see it as representing something important – even if they're not going to vote for it.
I would reiterate my respect for both the co-leaders. Not so sure about Tuku Morgan, but it's not my party.
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
As Tim Watkin notes, Closing the Gaps was worked into a race issue by National
I don't see Tim saying that. I see him saying that Helen Clark ditched Closing the Gaps, at least as a slogan. One of the reasons for the slogan being dropped is that many Maori leaders saw it as based on a deficit model - "why do you think our kids only want to be as good as your kids?" was one way it was put to me when I was working for the Treaty Tribes Coalition at the time.
Particular offence was caused when Margaret Wilson - one of the appallingly arrogant ministers to serve in any government, red or blue - wrote new principles for settling historic treaty claims that included:
The settlement of historical grievances also needs to be understood within the context of wider government policies that are aimed at restoring and developing the Treaty relationship - for example, the Government's "Closing the Gaps" programme and the development of policy to address contemporary claims.
This was seen as outrageous because it delegitimised historic grievances - that if a particular iwi's children were doing well at school or in health statistic etc this would somehow mean the historic injustices were less worthy of being addressed by the Crown.
I really don't think the Helen Clark had the same sort of natural connection with Maori (at least those with a more traditional outlook) that Jim Bolger had, and which John Key has developed or at least learned to fake. I think this may have something to do with the fact that the place of Maori in New Zealand doesn't really fit into Clark's European social democratic outlook.
In contrast, I think a conservative provincial Catholic farmer like Bolger can think "so what you're talking about is your connection with the land, family values, spirituality and property rights" - and while this is far from being a full account of Maori beliefs it is an easier starting point than European social democracy.
Anyway, these are just some reflections from the time. I just wouldn't assume that Closing the Gaps was on one side of the ledger from the perspective of all Maori and the Foreshore & Seabed and "haters and wreckers" on the other.
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
I don’t like the way The Maori Party pretends to represent all Maori
I haven't seen actual data on this, but looking at overall results it seems very likely to me that more Maori people give their party vote to the National Party than to the Maori Party - and of course overwhelmingly more Maori people give their party vote to the Labour Party than to either National or the Maori Party.
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andin, in reply to
outrageous because it delegitimised historic grievances
Is that a word? delegitimised? So she twisted words to suit her own goals. Wow!
It has a great history this kind of behaviour, what more can I say.I think this may have something to do with the fact that the place of Maori in New Zealand doesn’t really fit into Clark’s European social democratic outlook.
Oh really? You think because of her upbringing and life experience, as defined by you, would be a blind spot in her ability to understand another’s way of looking at life specifically Maori? Um.. she was born here.. dont know if it counts for much in your world.
In contrast, I think a conservative provincial Catholic farmer like Bolger can think “so what you’re talking about is your connection with the land, family values, spirituality and property rights”
While his teeth clacked.
Got worse when he drank.
Dont play partisan games please. -
Geoff Lealand, in reply to
I agree with Andin. Matthew is floating a bunch of half-baked assumptions about Helen Clark's life. She was born and nurtured in a farming family in Te Pahu, in a very rural corner of the Waikato.
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Well before the listing ‘shock’ I read this from Audrey Young in the paper:
It seemed fairly clear: Clark wasn’t the U.S. pick, she wasn’t the European pick and she wasn’t from Eastern Europe whose ‘turn’ it was. Even Australia wasn’t clear about supporting her.
Despite us wanting the narrative to be the little country that can, underdog story, it would seem that the factors above were ignored by headline writers and it created unrealistic expectations.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I really don't think the Helen Clark had the same sort of natural connection with Maori (at least those with a more traditional outlook) that Jim Bolger had...
Talk about Myths & Legends of the Grammar Zone. In the lead-up to the 2005 election, when Clark presumably allowed herself to be spooked by the idiots' auction of Maori-bashing driven by Don Brash's enablers, National's sole Maori MP was stripped of her Maori Affairs portfolio. Along with prompting the hapless Brash on the parliamentary requirements of when to sit, stand and genuflect, that empathetic son of the soil Gerry Brownlee also found time to revive the quaint notion of the white man's burden by shouldering the Maori Affairs portfolio.
The Foreshore and Seabed Act was Clark's solution to having drawn the short straw in the deliberately poisoned post-election race relations atmosphere. The resulting fallout ensured that no political party would attempt such a blatant post-colonial asset grab again in the foreseeable.
Clark may have been sidelined by history on that score, but so were those who put Brash up to the Orewa speech. Both they and Clark misread the mood of the electorate. One could argue that Clark's parental condescension towards Maori might have been a lesser evil than the cynical appeal to the worst in people that was channeled through poor old Brash. Claiming some kind of moral high ground by pretending that Bolger was part of a similar paternalistic tradition shows that you've learnt nothing from the debacle.
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Margaret Wilson was one of the cleverest and most courageous political leaders we have ever had, whether as party president, Minister or Speaker, and a brilliant legal brain. She probably threatened mediocre male MPs more than any other woman MP. She just did not play their games. Not surprising the comments upthread.
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
The Foreshore and Seabed Act was Clark’s solution to having drawn the short straw in the deliberately poisoned post-election race relations atmosphere.
You have your timing wrong on this. Clark announced her intention to legislate in 2003 when English was still National leader. The Bill was passed in 2004. Here is a history of the issue one of my staff wrote in 2010 for a newsletter:
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/document/pdf/Hooton%20paper%20Foreshore%20and%20Seabed.pdf -
Joe Wylie, in reply to
You have your timing wrong on this. Clark announced her intention to legislate in 2003 when English was still National leader. The Bill was passed in 2004. Here is a history of the issue one of my staff wrote in 2010 for a newsletter:
Thank you. Hindsight certainly is a wonderful thing. Nevertheless you don't appear to have felt the need to take issue with Russell Brown when he stated upthread:
National at the time want to legislate over all rights. And they very, very nearly got the chance to do so. Had Brash become PM things would’ve got very serious.
Further to your claim of Jim Bolger exemplifying some kind of pastoral empathy with Maori "values" - perhaps there's some truth in that, insofar as Bolger represented the fag end of an arrangement where vested elites found accomodation with one another's interests. This kind of thing, for example. That only begs the question, why did such cosy accommodations unravel so nastily under Brash?
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
....mediocre...
Excellent description.
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linger, in reply to
Colour fool descriptions
Used for those with several feet of clay,
mediocre lies among the earthier tones,
midway between yellow ochre and faecal madder. -
Doesn’t the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act basically reimplement the Foreshore and Seabed Act, except with a name partly in Te Reo, which is of course enough symbolism to keep the Maori Party happy? I don’t believe any iwi has acquired anything under this act.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Colour fool descriptions
I’m loving your start on this palette!
There could be a whole NZ Hue’s Hue in it…stool life…
I believe Julia Morison has already employed the wonderful and ‘reddily’ available ‘faecal madder’In many ways M(o)useings is a continuation of Morison’s Kabalistic and Alchemical interests in the 1980s and ‘90s. The Alchemist dedicates themselves to the philosophical transmutation of base materials into gold. Her 1985 work Hermes used both excrement and gold, Te Papa has her Vademecum of 1986, Auckland Art Gallery has her Ten of 1997, and Christchurch Art Gallery holds within its collection her 1998 Excrement/Gold – an abstract diptych half gold leaf and half sealed dog faeces – God and Dog, the Sacred and Profane. In 2000 Julaine Stephenson parodied this work in the High Street Liftspace with her Harpic/Brasso. The Kabala connection suggests the shit is simultaneously the clay from which both Adam and Golem are made, and the baseness that is left behind once the mystical idea has been digested. Excrement is one of the sacred Sephirothic elements of the Kabala frequently used by Julia in earlier works along with lead, ash, clay, blood, mercuric salts, silver, gold and the ethereal represented by acrylic.
Read more: http://eyecontactsite.com/2012/06/going-through-the-motions#ixzz4GOHT9goS
from the mixing desk…
May I expand on the mediaochre
defined by its ready ‘brown nosing’ and achieved by mixing ‘Yellow press’ with ‘Red tops’.let the hue and cry begin!
Start your prism sentences here…
there’s a whole reignbow to chromakey!
…perhaps even a ‘Pain-tone Matching System’?:- )
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
That is deeply cynical. And pretty much exactly right!
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Toby Manhire nails his fine opinion theses to the doors of perception
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11687449and as that other great uniting of nations kicks off this weekend here's Clarke & Dawe's nailing of the Australian hopes;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-28/clarke-and-dawe:-australians-to-watch-in-rio/7669290 -
Looks like support for HC's candidacy is ebbing at the UN...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11688342The Maori Party critique of her past performance seems totally valid to me. Her handling of the foreshore & seabed issue seemed incompetent at the time and nothing has happened since to validate it.
The woman is merely a mainstreamer. Good enough to be a semi-plausible prime minister on some issues while out of her depth on others. I suspect those participating in the UN votes have sussed her out.
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Lilith __, in reply to
The woman is merely a mainstreamer. Good enough to be a semi-plausible prime minister on some issues while out of her depth on others. I suspect those participating in the UN votes have sussed her out.
Jesus Christ, I don't think even her bitterest political enemies in NZ find her mediocre! She's headed the UNDP since 2009. That's a very big freaking deal.
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
She’s headed the UNDP since 2009.
And most (including her Maori Party detractors...before...) say she's made a damn fine fist of the job.
Methinks Dennis actually believes that the next Boss of the UN will be chosen on merit.
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