Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

Clearing the Air | Aug 30, 2005 12:49

Yes... I am a man. But a when friend emailed Farrar's note this morning I wasn't all that shocked. The last time this mistake was made it was on a feminist site somewhere, which obviously says something about my natural sensitivity. Or maybe the woman in question didn't know who Che Guevara is either.

And no, I don't eat granola. I do however eat that Pams-brand muesli stuff from Pak N' Save because it has very little sugar, and I know what I don't like. I don't like too much sugar for example. It makes you fat. And being fat is bad.

OK, so first things first. I am a man. A big man. I am nearly 2 metres tall and weight in at an athletic 90kgs. Except for my gut. Which is not very athletic at all. Unless of course you count the record for holding the most beer. 12 cans of Tui and 6 of Carlsberg Elephant beer on the Tour De Coma at Massey University in 1992.

I fell asleep in Palmie and woke up in my bed in Wellington.

I think the angels may have transported me home, because I don't remember it myself.

Next, I have all of my own hair up top. So thanks to David Slack for offering to photoshop extra chest hair onto my photo on Island Life to make me seem more manly, but let's not get too carried away.

I also do not have excessive body hair. I have no hair on my back for example, but do sport a very large and at one time painful tattoo from shoulder to shoulder, as befits my status as a intellectuel bogàn.

And, for all those out there who seem to think for some reason that 'Che' is a pseudonym, no, you munters.

In 1971 I was called 'boy' for 6 months until 'the man' made them name me. Pesky damn hippies. They stood around and named me 'Che' by consensus.

'Tibby' on the other hand means 'Ships cat', and was the name given to one of my ancestors on the crossing to New Zealand in the 1840s. He was the ships boy, and it's a job I'd never do. Because I am a man. A big man, with big, stinky feet, hands like a lumberjack, a habit of leaving everything I own on the floor, and a passion for Xbox.

But, if you'd prefer to think of me as a woman, well, bloody good on you. It ain't going to happen, but if it cranks your handle, imagine away.

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Hori Old Chestnuts | Aug 30, 2005 18:19

With everyone talking about Haka O Pango it's probably a good time to raise the spectre of the National Party's Treaty policies. Now, people are probably expecting me to label them 'racist', but I don't actually think they are. Stupid? Yes. Racist? No.

Thing is, I don't actually see them as race policies. The do genuinely seem to be about Treaty politics, and the relationship between Māori and Brash's mainstream. What I do see them as is assimilationist.

With the failure to get substantial traction with their tax policies, there seems to be a consensus forming in the media that Brownlee will be trotted out to have a go at 'separatism'. Well, bloody good on you Gerry. Bloody good on ya.

Pity you're aiming to drag New Zealand back to the 1960s, but bloody good on you all the same. Nice to see New Zealand can reconnect to its roots. Roots that should have been soaked with round-up, or dragged out of the policy environment and doused with petrol, but roots all the same.

As I say, National's Treaty policy centres on the idea that 'New Zealanders' should be homogenised, and invokes the spirit of 'equality' to undermine many of the hard-fought gains made by Māori since re-establishing their political voice in the 1970s.

The main reason I don't think that the policy is racist is because there isn't any real reference to getting rid of Māori, or Māori culture, as was the case last century. Plus, even if there is that kind of mindset in the National Party anywhere, which I can't guarantee, then it's unlikely to get a run on the field in an actual Government.

But of course, you could say that about the entire National Party itself. Which is why this suspicion of Māori-bashing is being peaked.

Not racism, but a claytons assimilation is what National is proposing. They aren't racist, Don is married to an Asian lady, as he likes to point out, but you don't have to be outright racist when you can achieve the same ends by pulling to rug out from under Māori society.

And that's the key. Māori society.

As it stands, Māori society has found its feet here in post-Colonial New Zealand, and did so around the time we, as a nation, shook off the shackles of our British past. I know that commentators like Tze Ming like to point out that New Zealanders are essentially Anglo, but I'd like to reply that we don't think of ourselves as being such. Or, you'd hope not anyhow. Pesky damn whinging poms.

Anyhow, what we have forming in New Zealand isn't a 'racial separatism'. That phrase is utter bullshit. What we have is a Māori society sticking up for itself and making demands for a better inclusion in New Zealand society. The difference between these two things is both profound, and the core of the issue.

OK, so lets go back to Te Haka o Pango. Apart from the occasional wowser, people seem to love it. It baffles me then that people will actively support some parts of Māori culture, like this and the Te Rauparaha haka, while refusing to acknowledge that Māori culture, and the society that underwrites it, needs a public voice in the mainstream.

What current National Party policy seeks to do is to minimise this voice. By purging the Treaty from Brash's mainstream, and by removing objectively Māori political institutions like the seats, National is removing the hard-fought gains of Māori society, and pushing Māori culture down into some form of 'private' identity with no public reflection.

The best way to compare this lack of 'public reflection' is to look at the example of migrants. Migrants have no public voice in New Zealand, and are effectively victims or political fodder for people like Peters. Migrants have, in reality, no real option but to assimilate into the mainstream.

And why? Because assimilation is the best way to shed negative attention from the mainstream. It worked for the Dalmatians, the Dutch, Italians, the list goes on.

Assimilation is a policy that failed 50 years ago, and will fail again today. Māori aren't about to assimilate into that mainstream, have fought against negative stereotyping and statistics, and have shown actual, demonstrable improvements since the 1970s.

What I mean by public reflection is that Māori culture is today part of the fabric of New Zealand society itself, and should rightfully take its place as part of the systems of government. National however, may well deliberately seek to minimise that inclusion, and push Māori society out of governance and into a weakened private identity.

Let's see what Brash has to say in Whangarei before we judge him, and what Brownlee says when called to weight into the argument in coming weeks, but any argument that seriously considers Māori society to be an object to be purged needs to be seriously criticised.

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Generation Me | Aug 25, 2005 11:48

I had an interesting email the other day where someone asked me advice on how to vote. Naturally I can't give advice on who to vote for, but it was obvious the person wanted to see Peters out of Tauranga, and needed the details of MMP explained.

Now, a good old tar, feathering and subsequent slap on the arse with the Key to the City is probably out of the question, and would probably drag Tauranga back to the wild west it once was. But it would be a laugh to watch from a safe distance. The hot air escaping from Peters' rapidly deflating ego would cause a scene like that bit of the Lord of the Rings where Sauron buys it.

The emailer in question was wondering how to get rid of Peters when they were a Labour supporter, and realised that the local commie pinko just wasn't likely to get the votes up. Sorry Sally, nothing personal, but I just can't see the red team winning in a true blue heartland like that.

What I'd do if I lived in a place like Tauranga, touch wood, is split my vote strategically. There's no reason why you have to give both your party and candidate vote to the same colour. And although you might not want to tell your chardonnay sipping chums that you actually split your vote, they're unlikely to call you some kind of bastard half-caste once you mop up their spluttered canapés and explain your reasons.

How this works is that you give your candidate to the blue team, and your party vote to the red team. Simple. Shameful. But simple. And then it's bye bye Whinny while helping the commies get back into power.

And I hear from people back home that Clarkson is a top bloke. One who might actually do something for his electorate, as my blue-voting family like to point out.

Mind you, all this local politics stuff seems very far away from Wellington, and what with Winston at No.1 on the NZ First party list we're unlikely to get rid of him entirely, unless by some miracle they drop below 5%. So to the good folk in Tauranga, we'll take that politician off your hands, and here, have one who you might find useful.

And on the subject of politicians, my, isn't Wellington full of them. I know that's stating the obvious, but when you can't step outside your door without bumping into one of the buggers it's tough to be a completely objective blogger. I saw John Carter campaigning with the Baloney Bus the other day and was a little taken aback.

It was Upper Hutt. My first thought when he tried to stop me and a mate on the street was to ask if he still liked to pretend he was Māori. And to ask it very, very loudly. There were a few hoodies in the Maccas who might have been interested in that one.

On the other hand though, it's not too bad having all these well-paid pollies and public servants gadding about the place. Way back in the day Wellington was a seriously bleak place, and you can guarantee it's not entrepreneurs of some variety that are spending their money in the huge number of brightly lit bars and cafes around the central city. Auckland? Absolutely. But here it's the government that keeps this city alive.

Cuts in public spending would likely cut into that particular bit of trickle-down, in my humble opinion. Of course, we're not talking about mass sackings of public serfs, but hiring is likely to freeze, which will in turn slow economic growth here in the city (slightly).

The converse of that argument would of course be that many of the public serfdom are on salaries right smack bang in the middle of the tax argument target range. So it's likely that even if hiring freezes, there will still be more money around. And if chuck the hugely increased numbers of contractors hired on inflated wages to cover for the lack of staff in the Ministries...

A figure I heard bandied around about increased salaries is that 80% of the money is likely to be spent (not saved). Take out the 12.5% that disappears in tax revenue, and you're still looking at a substantial amount of money being splashed about.

So it's kind of win-win for the bar tenders either way really. For former expats like me who only came home because of the employment bubble though it's all bad. Unless of course they buy a bar or café.

But who the hell wants to be a servant to servants?

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