No Māori in Cabinet. No Māori in Caucus. No Māori in the Public Service. No Māori in schools. Where exactly does Don Brash want Māori to go? Back to Hawai'iki?
Exaggerating just a little, but only a little. Witness:
1. No Georgina.
2. No Māori seats.
3. NO TPK!
4. Having, through steps 1-3, set a blinding example of abolishing tokenism, further ensuring that all teachers continue to have the right to mispronounce Māori, perhaps even when they are teaching it.
Gerry, Gerry, Gerry - as one nightmare of a possible future Minister of Māori Affairs (who will seemingly only exist to abolish his own job), and a former teacher of Māori - we know you have a sore spot over your struggles with "ko Gerry ahau." But as Howard Morrison says, "there's only five vowels for goodness sake."
I mean, you should try Cantonese. Nine tones. I tried out my new line of Canto-swearing on a Hongkie recently, and he said "yeah, you sound like a Mainlander." GodDAMNit!
For all this reheated talk of abolishing race-based Ministries, Brash has stayed pretty quiet about his much earlier indications of boosting the 'Asian Relations' portfolio into something meatier. Bringing it up again would throw some tricky questions in his face. Are... some races better than others? Is that it? Do they bring in more funding? Is that it? Are you... married to some races ...but not others? Is that it? How can you justify any of your Māori policies and let the other race-based bureaucracies, MPIA and the Office of Ethnic Affairs, survive at all? The OEA is the closest thing there is to a real 'Asian Relations' ministry. Are you going make it a full Ministry? Or destroy it? Are you going to take the 'Asians' out of OEA, give them a Ministry and ditch the non-Asians? Too scared to come out swinging against Pacific people? Since bro'Town, do white people not hate them enough anymore?
Or are you gonna ditch us all?
And if not: WHY NOT?
Go on, be consistent. I dare ya. Or... or... oh hell, it sounds so stupid to say 'or else you'll just look like a racist.'
I wrote last year that 'If Māori are expendable, we are all expendable.' A year later, the National Party immigration policy release proved it. I don't like being right that much, to be honest.
Given that everyone has an ethnicity, the Office of Ethnic Affairs has a rather convoluted explanation of what 'Ethnic' means for their very necessary purposes. But a more concise term for the so-called "Ethnic Sector" would be: Non-WASPs-without-own-Ministry. NWwoM. Not only does this acronym mimic some awesome 'ethnicky' temple-gong noise, it has an acronym within the acronym! But if Māori are stripped of their Ministry, and MPIA and Ministry of Women's Affairs follow, there will be an enormous population of non-WASPs and non-males battling discrimination Without-own-Ministry. Maybe we will all be WoMs, or WoMbles together, living underground and surviving on trash and ingenuity alone.
*****
An alarming discovery: Brash has regularly referred to his wife as "Singaporean Chinese." But this is the reverse formulation of what he himself has proscribed for Chinese people in New Zealand! He doesn't want "New Zealand Chinese" remember, he only wants "Chinese New Zealanders." I uh... wasn't very happy about this.
If Brash's wife is "Singaporean Chinese" rather than a "Chinese Singaporean", then by his standards, Je Lan is 'not a real Singaporean'. And all his touting of his 'Singaporean wife', therefore a terrible lie!
The bidding wars, the debate circuses, it makes a girl switch off. I only realised how sick I was of this election when I laughed out loud at, and VOTED for, these three efforts from the 'make-your-own-election billboards' website because I thought they said everything that needed to be said about the whole affair. I always knew Dr Dre would again become politically relevant.
Then I realised how lucky I was that I was experiencing fatigue with a party political system relentlessly trying to give me what they think I want. And that I'd actually get to vote for more than just a make-your-own-election billboard. Damian Christie, if he's reading this right now, is probably puking: 'it always comes back to the tanks with you', he wrote to me a couple of posts ago... Well actually, it might even be little closer to home than that.
I said to a fellow-yellow on the weekend, on an outing with my New Zealand-Mainland-Singaporean-Chinese mother, "Singaporean wives? We'd only vote for Brash if he was married to Lee Kuan Yew..."
"Oh Miiing!" said my Ma, shaking her head, wondering, as usual, what on earth I'm on about and hoping it's nothing terribly offensive.
"...'Cos we'd be too scared not to!" I finished. And we all cracked up.
"We'd have our individual IC numbers on the votes, so he'd know exactly who didn't vote for him!" Ma chipped in, hilariously. Ha-bloody-ha!
Singapore cancelled its presidential elections a few weeks ago: have a look at Rockson Tan's piss-your-pants-laughing take on it.
In the newspaper, "Cheebye and sibei toolan got no election!!!" become write in English as "Yay Singaporean very the happy no need to choose president!!!". Maybe the newspaper hokkien not so good, never translate properly.
Cyber-buddy Martyn See, maker of 'Singapore Rebel' is experiencing a mounting police crackdown. Singaporeans are also experiencing via the postcast of webstars Pilot n' Jo, their first ever competent and fair interview with S'porean opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, and are suprised and shaken that he seems like an intelligent, rational human being rather than a psychotic anarchist - and that they had fallen for the propaganda all along. If you're a S'pore, spread the word.