Monday, 31 May 2021

NO COVID VAX APPROVED IN THE WORLD EXCEPT IN ARDERN'S NZ

 To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB or Messenger. Scroll down for other comments. 



Self-explanatory


None of the COVID-19 vaccines in use is actually 'approved.'

Experimental shots have killed more than any other vaccine in last 22 years.

Rock legend Eric Clapton is the latest to report vaccine side effects.

Eric Clapton - "disastrous" side effects

While the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops are probably not crying into their pillows at night about Eric Clapton, one does have to wonder how well they are sleeping now, as the numbers of fatalities and adverse reactions among the guinea pigs who accepted The WuFlu Jab continue to climb. 

How do the bishops feel about neo-communist Ardern's Government rushing through Parliament, 'under urgency', legislation that ensures the roll-out of The Jab without any further interference from a busy-body High Court which had the impudence to find it was "reasonably arguable" that the government's approval of the Pfizer vaccine went beyond what the Act allowed?

Just as once upon a time David Lange banned nuclear warships, New Zealand it seems, is leading the way internationally. In New Zealand, we can proudly quote Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall, who said the bill removed a section of the Act which gave the health minister the right to approve medicines only to a limited number of people.

Ayesha Verrall: now who does she remind you of?

"The medicines ACT is an outdated piece of legislation that has not kept pace with international regulatory practice," said Verrall (who's visually a combo of Cindy Kiro and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer minus the moko). 

But ahem, in the US the Covid vaccine is available only under emergency access still - as it was in New Zealand until Verrall fixed things, making sure the $8.5m Ardern doled out for the Pfizer vaccine wouldn't be wasted. We know how careful this Government is with the taxpayers' money, don't we? 

What's more, the situation is similar in Europe, where four COVID-19 vaccines have been granted 'conditional marketing authorizations,' a fast-track mechanism that can be used in emergencies." 

How stupid can we be? Stupid enough to vote Ardern into office as Prime Sinister Minister, obviously. But surely not so stupid as to turn up and take The Jab. 

And as an aside, is the unannounced but not unremarked reappearance of holy water and Communion under both kinds evidence in the Hamilton Diocese, at least, of repentance for kowtowing to a totalitarian Government's diktats on COVID-19? Thank God for small mercies, and great ones too. 

Vaccine manufacturers are rushing, warns the prestigious British Medical Journal, to get the experimental COVID-19 jabs approved by health regulators.

While "none of the COVID-19 vaccines in use are actually 'approved','" Pfizer formally submitted a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) May 7, racing to become the first China virus jab approved by the U.S. health regulator."Through an emergency access mechanism known as Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), the products being rolled out still technically remain 'investigational,'" the British Medical Journal (BMJ) cautioned earlier this month.

The journal asked if more data was needed, pointing to the lack of randomized controlled trials (RCT) for vaccine safety or duration of protection.

RCT assigns subjects randomly to an experimental group receiving the treatment being tested and to a control group receiving a placebo. The results assess the treatment's effectiveness, which is the extent to which it does patients more good than harm.

"All COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in the U.S. are available under emergency access only," the BMJ noted. "The situation is similar in Europe, where four COVID-19 vaccines have been granted 'conditional marketing authorizations,' a fast-track mechanism that can be used in emergencies."

These can be converted into standard "marketing authorizations," if positive data becomes available, but this hasn't yet happened for any shot being administered, Dr. Peter Doshi, BMJ senior editor, explained, citing FDA fact sheets distributed to jab recipients, which state: "There is no FDA approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19."

The FDA also said it would want placebo-controlled efficacy trials using at least 3,000 participants to demonstrate that a vaccine was at least 50% effective against preventing the China virus infection or disease of any severity.

For full approval, it also asked for safety assessments to include "serious and other medically attended adverse events in all study participants for at least 6 months after completion of all study study participants for at least 6 months after completion of all study vaccinations" and longer safety monitoring for new vaccine mRNA platforms.

Doshi expressed concern over applications for approval based only on six months of data — "the fastest for a novel vaccine in FDA history" compared to other vaccines approved by the FDA since 2006, which went through trials over a median of 23 months.  "On paper, the phase III studies by Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen are all of two years' duration," the BMJ confirmed.

Doshi also questioned the benefit of seeking a BLA when millions of doses of the jabs were already being administered across the globe. None of the vaccine manufacturers gave the BMJ an answer.

Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University and member of the FDA's advisory committee, told Doshi that an approval would increase trust in the jab, particularly among those hesitating to take the shot.

More importantly, it could affect the potential for making vaccines compulsory. "It is unlikely these vaccines will be mandated while an EUA is in place. Remember that currently these vaccines are still considered experimental," Dr. Meissner added.

So far, at least one federal lawsuit has been filed challenging an employer's COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the grounds that vaccines are still under emergency use authorization. Questions on the legality of such actions hang on distinguishing authorized from approved.

The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (Title 21) requires experimental vaccine recipients to be informed "of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product." Under the Nuremberg Code, no one may be coerced to participate in a medical experiment.


Meanwhile, Britain's best-known medical journal, The Lancet, is claiming that the absolute risk reduction (ARR) of the best known COVID-19 jabs is only 1·3% for the AstraZeneca, 1·2% for the Moderna, 1·2% for the Johnson & Johnson, and 0·84% for the Pfizer vaccines.

Last year Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla earned $21m

Funnily enough, here's the Catholic Church again, with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla opening a conference at the Vatican earlier this month discussing 'the role of the mind, body, and soul in the future healthcare' with none other than Dr Anthony Fausti Fauci.   

  the elephant (not) in the room," the journal criticizes the media and governments for hyping vaccine efficiency based on figures reporting Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) rather than ARR.

RRR considers only participants who could benefit from the vaccine, while ARR — which is the difference between attack rates with and without a vaccine — considers the whole population, the journal explains.

Data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) released Friday showed 227,805 reports of adverse events in the U.S. following the China virus jabs, including 4,201 deaths and 18,528 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020 and May 14, 2021.

In Britain, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) data from Dec. 9, 2020 to May 12, 2021, showed 226,158 reports of adverse events, including 1,178 deaths.

Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal, told Steve Bannon that the China virus jabs had killed "more people than any vaccine combined in deaths for the last 15 years." The death toll continues to increase.

The vaccine "gold rush" has spawned nine new billionaires with a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion since the China virus crisis. Eight existing billionaires who invested in COVID-19 vaccine pharma companies have seen their combined wealth increase by $32.2 billion.
Ever been had, New Zealand?

Sunday, 30 May 2021

BRAVO: ANTI-COVID NZ VAX PHYSICIAN, U S PRIESTS, NZ LAYMAN

To comment please open your gmail account, or use my email address, FB or Messenger. Scroll down for other comments.

Anyone still dithering over whether or not to take the poisonous jab being foisted on the entire nation by Mass Murderess Prime Minister Sinister Ardern should watch an open video released on Friday by Whangarei Catholic GP Dr Damian Wojcik.



A forensic physician with a Master's degree from Monash University, Dr Wojcik comes across as wise, kind, informed and courageous. He's not an anti-vaxxer. He is very seriously concerned about deaths and disabilities resulting from what he correctly calls a gene altering serum.https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/data-science/an-open-video-from-nz-gp-damian-wojcik/

But Jorge Bergoglio, who passes for pope, and the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand who pass for prelates, want us lined up - in our own churches, if you please, if this evil government wishes it - to take a jab which is far more likely to have fatal consequences than the disease (no more lethal than bad flu) that it's supposed to prevent. But even its pharmaceutical beneficiaries (who have no liability) admit the vaccine is no guarantee you won't catch COVID-19. 

Why would anyone in their right mind roll their sleeve up for this hoax?

So let's hear it for another brave man, another priest in the mould of Fr James Altman. In Rockford, Illinois Fr James Parker, like Fr Altman, has been sacked by his bishop - ostensibly for encouraging his parishioners to inform themselves before being vaccinated.


Bishop David Malloy

Bishop David Malloy is kicking Fr. James Parker to the kerb for encouraging his parishioners to inform themselves before making a decision on vaccination.

Faithful Catholics in Illinois held a Rosary rally Tuesday evening in support of their pastor.

And it wouldn't hurt - it actually would help - faithful Catholics in Palmerston North to hold a Rosary rally to pray for a faithful bishop for their diocese. 

Come mid-June, Fr. James Parker of Holy Cross will be in diocesan limbo, ostensibly for not toeing the company line on the Wuhan virus.

 

Fr James Parker

Just as it seems there's a 'company line' in New Zealand, not just on the Wuhan virus but on the massacre of the innnocents. 

A monsignor in the chancery phoned Fr. Parker to inform him he would not be receiving a new assignment and that he is forbidden to stay at any rectory in the diocese.

One Holy Cross parishioner explained there's more to this story.. "He's been under the crosshairs of Bishop Malloy for quite some time because he wanted to re-introduce a Communion rail; he wanted to bring in a 24-hour perpetual adoration chapel.

Reminds me of the priest I know in NZ who was keen to learn to celebrate the Latin Mass. He's been moved on. The bishops want none of the Traditional Latin Mass which nurtured the faithful and countless saints for centuries. No, they've painted themselves into a corner and they're sticking to the Novus Ordo come hell or high water. Going by Christ's Gospel they can confidently expect the former, and by their climate-change gospel, the latter also.

He's more of a traditionally minded priest. I know of priests that are without a parish; it's limbo."

Malloy has sidelined other tradition-minded priests already, for example, Fr. Michael Black and Fr. John Lovell.

Multiple sources in the diocese confirmed Malloy is hell-bent against faithful priests and will find reasons to sideline them.

Father Parker's unjust treatment comes in the wake of other faithful priests like Fr. Mark White in Virginia, Fr. Paul John Kalchik in Chicago and Fr. James Altman in Wisconsin in what is emerging as a trend of unfaithful bishops canceling faithful priests, using as a pretext anything but the Gospel.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/prairie-state-priest-homeless?fbclid=IwAR3BMLwUK35JJX3x_8mD5A7e7NPRNy5ZDCFg-fxDC5nxZewHy3bp_fB4qfg

From a faithful priest in Rockford Illinois to a faithful lay person in Otorohanga New Zealand:

Leo the Lion was extremely exercised this morning by the Prayers of the Faithful (so-called) - as I was, also, at St Joseph's Waipukurau.

"There was Holy Water in the stoups 

(at Otorohanga) 

... Holy Communion on the tongue, and the Sacred Blood shared. For the first time, to my knowledge, a notice appeared on the OHP inviting non-Catholics to present themselves for a blessing, with arm across chest as a sign for the priest and deacon (the deacon presents the chalice). 

However, two weeks ago I'd got a bit angered by the 'Prayers' of the Faithful, which dealt with poverty and Covid, etc., but no prayer for children in the womb. 

After Mass, I approached the deacon and asked him whether he would’ve expected Catholics in Nazi Germany to pray for the Jews.  And I asked him why the Prayers of the Faithful do not include a prayer for today’s Jews. 

Amazingly, he hesitated as to whether he would have expected German Catholics to have prayed openly for the Jews. I forgive him that; there might have been danger in such prayer at Mass in Nazi Germany. But he had no idea of whom I meant by today’s Jews. Blimey !! I reminded him that Jackboot Cindie has done for children in the womb what Hitler did for Jews. 

I asked him who writes the 'prayers'. He told me he writes most of them, with occasional input from Fr Joe Stack of Te Awamutu. 

In Holy Trinity Parish Central Hawke's Bay apparently there's no one to write the POF so they're imported from the National Liturgy Office, Auckland.  

I alerted him that I would be enunciating a prayer for in utero children each Sunday from now on. He asked me what form my prayer would take.  I spoke the following: 

Almighty and ever-loving Father, please send the Holy Spirit into the hearts, minds and souls of Your people, so that they will recognise the sickening evil of abortion, and will do all they can to protect the lives of children in the womb. 

I suggested he could include it in the Prayers of the Faithful. He said he’d have to speak to Fr George (Te Kuiti) and Fr Joe Stack (Te Awamutu). I told him that if a prayer for the pre-born were not included in the recited prayers I would enunciate it myself, and he should make those priests aware of that. 

I was at Otorohanga this morning. I asked the priest if the deacon had apprised him of my intention to enunciate a prayer of the faithful. He told me that +Joe Stack would have to give permission. I explained that no Catholic needs permission from a priest to utter a Prayer of the Faithful. He instructed me not to say such a prayer !!!  I told him I would do so, and that I’m ashamed of him. 

So, the Prayers of the Faithful came around, and, at the conclusion  I loudly spoke my prayer for protection of children in the womb and added, “let us pray”. And the congregation all responded: “Let us pray to the Lord”. One bloke gave me the thumbs up and spoke to me after Mass, thanking me. 

So, who's the Catholic? This priest who forbade me to utter a prayer for the protection of in utero children, or the bloke who gave me the thumbs up? This priest is just another of your Church of Nice – more a faithful public servant than a faithful servant of God.

So I’ll be uttering my prayer at every Sunday Mass that I attend in Otorohanga, until they include such a prayer in their 'Prayers' of the Faithful.

Just thought that this would interest you. 

As it does. So much so, I intend to do the very same thing at Mass at St Joseph's next Sunday if, as today, the omission is once again glaringly obvious. We prayed for 'children who have no parents'. But not for children whose parents intend to kill them in utero. Not murdered children. Not children murdered at the hand of the state which pays the Catholic Church an untold amount in subsidies for the Catholic schools which are largely not Catholic.

P S: How is it happening that our parishes are now returning Holy Water to the fonts, distributing the Sacred Blood, etc?  Has there been a lowering of Jackboot’s Covid alert level? Or have our Church “leaders” quietly and sheepishly begun to acknowledge that their stance has been unacceptable?

No, Jacinda Jackboot's Covid Alert remains at Level One. And we still have no holy water or even fonts, no chalice, and Communion on the tongue is given only last of all, and after others in the queue have been touched by Father's hand in blessing.

But the collection baskets are still passed from hand to possibly-infected hand. Funny that.

Today, our parish feast, is named by the National Liturgy Office in its POF as 'Trinity Sunday'. Not 'Most Holy Trinity Sunday' or even 'Holy Trinity Sunday'. Nup. Just 'Trinity Sunday'. But the Most Holy Trinity was never referenced in the homily. No. We attended Mass on our parish feast day, apparently, "to celebrate the parish". I kid you not. 

This blog has been castigated for being 'always critical', 'always negative'. Oh, if they only knew how many punches have been pulled ... May those bishops and priests who complain note that this post started by praising a courageous physician and went on to praise several courageous priests, all who dare to witness to the truth, to Jesus Christ and His Church. 

When same bishops and priests ask accusingly and angrily, in regard to the schism no one seems to want to acknowledge in the Church, in New Zealand at least, "who broke away from whom?" let them consider which party is faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, to her teachings; and which party it is who has "itching ears"?

Who, for example, has just appointed a woman as undersecretary of the synod of bishops? Jorge Bergoglio, that's who.

  

Nathalie Becquart - breaking with tradition

 

Breaking with tradition and opening a new door in the synodal process, Pope Francis has appointed a woman, Nathalie Becquart, a member of the Xavière Sisters, Missionaries of Jesus Christ, in France, as one of two new undersecretaries of the synod of bishops. As such, she will have the right to vote in the synod. It is the first time this right has been given to a woman in the synod and raises the prospect that the right could be extended to other women participants at future synods.https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/02/06/pope-francis-women-synod-voting-nathalie-becquart-239941

 

Bergoglio, the 'Pope' approves civil unions for homosexuals


"For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables"  (2 Tim: 3,4).

Saturday, 29 May 2021

WE'RE ALL IN THE SAME WAKA, BRO

 To comment please open your gmail account or use FB or Messenger. Scroll down for other comments.


Hands up, anyone who objects to radio and Tv announcers foisting te reo on our nation of New Zealand by night, by day, by Radio NZ National and TVNZ.

RNZ National is fully funded by Parliament. That is, by taxpayers. TVNZ is 10% funded by same; 90% (as is woefully obvious) is funded by advertising and it's highly doubtful said advertisers are thrilled to bits about te reo.

Have taxpayers been asked if they want to be taught te reo?

"In February last year, RNZ introduced a new Māori strategy - one aspect of which was “personalised language plans for key executives, presenters and journalists”

"We want to promote the use of te reo across all RNZ's platforms and make it an integral part of the work we do. Ahakoa he iti he pounamu - while it may be a small step, as a public broadcaster we have a responsibility to protect and promote the language."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018623484/te-reo-on-the-radio-too-much-for-some

Oh, so RNZ wanted to promote te reo. While it may be - it is - one of NZ's three official languages, who pays RNZ? The taxpayer. Did RNZ consult the taxpayer? No. 

At this rate, within a couple of generations New Zealanders (er, Aotearoaians) will be speaking pidgin English. Or pidgin te reo. Whichever. 

All of the above is by way of introduction to a column on his website by my brother Karl du Fresne which republished by BassetBrash&Hide this week. It's thoughtful, nuanced and bends over backwards to be fair, but although he objects to the wholesale te reo renaming of European-origin place names, he doesn't mention the question of an overwhelming proportion of the population being addressed on air in a language they know not, and do not wish to know. 

Having vented on that, here below is "We're all in the same waka":  

Karl du Fresne

One thing that struck me about the background profiles published about Dame Cindy Kiro

... comment was made on this blog in "A TALE OF TWO CINDYS - BAD START, SAD ENDING? https://juliadufresne.blogspot.com/2021/05/cindys-dame-cindy-our-lady-help-of.html ...

this week was that while listing her tribal affiliations, they also mentioned that her father came from the north of England.

 


It was only an incidental point, but it stood out because prominent Maori often don’t acknowledge their Pakeha antecedents.

It has become the norm for people of part-Maori descent to recite iwi connections, but without any reference to their European lineage. That inconvenient part of their ancestry is routinely erased.

I say “inconvenient” because I suspect it suits many part-Maori activists not to acknowledge their bicultural heritage, the reason being that their bloodlines demonstrate that New Zealand is a highly integrated society. This conflicts with their aim of portraying us as intrinsically and irreparably divided, with one side exerting dominance over the other.


Here lies a central paradox of Maori activism that is never confronted, still less explained. It has possibly never been more relevant than now, when a radical agenda of change is being aggressively promoted by people whose mixed ancestry ironically gives the lie to the notion at the heart of their grievances – namely, that this is a country indelibly stained by racial prejudice and divided along racial lines into privileged and disadvantaged.


The truth, to put it in simple terms, is that we’re all in this together. We’re all in the same waka.

If this were truly a racist country, those “Maori” activists with distinctly European features and Anglo-Saxon surnames – testimony to a high degree of historical intimacy between Maori and Pakeha – would not be here. They exist because somewhere in their past, Maori and European partners were attracted to each other and procreated on equal and willing terms. That hardly seems indicative of a racist society.


It suits 21st century agitators to overlook the fact that they carry the DNA of their supposed colonial oppressors and therefore have inherited their supposedly racist legacy. But if those of us who are descended solely from European colonisers carry the taint of racism, then so do they. Have they disowned their Pakeha bloodlines, or are they in denial? Do they, in dark moments of the soul, confront their forebears’ wicked acts as colonisers? I keep waiting for someone to explain how they reconcile these contradictions, but I suspect it’s easier to ignore them.


Of course it’s the absolute right of anyone of part-Maori descent to identify as Maori if they so choose, and to take pride in that side of their heritage; no one should deny them that, and to my knowledge no one wants to. But when they exploit that point of difference to procure political advantage over their fellow citizens, despite sharing the same stain of European ancestry, I think we’re entitled to be sceptical.

 



This selective exploitation of racial heritage seems to illustrate the powerful allure of the politically fashionable culture of grievance and victimism.

Grievance and victimism arise where forgiveness is forgotten, as it is in a nation which has forgotten God, as New Zealand has. 

It's just one of many awkward incongruities and half-truths that go unremarked in the divisive propaganda with which New Zealanders are bombarded daily.

Because New Zealand is a pagan nation. The most pagan nation in the world.

Here’s another one. We’re told that Maori were profoundly disadvantaged by colonialism, and that’s true – but only up to a point. Pre-European Maori were a warrior culture that lived by violent conquest and showed no mercy to tribes that were subjugated. Cannibalism, mass murder (including of women and children) and slavery were the norm.

That's because pre-European Maori had no knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They were authentically pagan in the sense that unlike New Zealanders now they had no inherited wealth of Christianity to live on.

So while it’s incontestable that colonisation resulted in Maori being dispossessed of their lands,

Many however, do contest that. 

... a loss that had enormously damaging and demoralising consequences, it’s also incontestable that the British Crown treated Maori with far more respect and dignity than pre-European Maori tribes demonstrated to each other before they were pacified by colonisation. Dare I even mention the peaceable Moriori of Rēkohu (the Chatham Islands), who were massacred and enslaved by invading tribes from the mainland?


It’s also a fact that some Maori chiefs were themselves instrumental in the process of dispossession, sometimes for personal gain and without their peoples’ consent. But don’t expect any of these truths to be highlighted, or even mentioned, when the teaching of New Zealand history becomes compulsory in schools next year (as it should be, but only if the teaching isn’t ideologically skewed in favour of the woke interpretation, as seems likely).


And since I’m on the subject of inconvenient truths, what about the determined campaign – with tacit if not active government endorsement, but no public mandate whatsoever – to replace the recognised names of towns and cities with Maori ones? Like them or not, names such as Auckland, Christchurch and Hamilton reflect the fact that these cities are colonial, not Maori, creations. That’s an historical reality.

The fact that the locations where these cities sprang up were once occupied by villages called Tamaki Makaurau, Otautahi and Kirikiriroa – the names now bestowed on them by media such as RNZ and Newshub – is neither here nor there. The cities are not Maori and never were.

By all means, rename these places if that’s what the people who live there want to do. Personally I’d be very happy if New Plymouth were changed to Ngamotu, Napier to Ahuriri and Levin to Taitoko, to give just three examples. Any significance the English names may have had when they were conferred in colonial times has long been forgotten. But these decisions must be left to the people who live in these places, not foisted on them by virtue-signalling elitists in the media.


The same applies to "Aotearoa" – but even more so, since it’s a name of doubtful authenticity. If the country votes to adopt it in a referendum, fine.

"Aotearoa" is far more euphonious than "New Zealand" and just, well, suits it bettet. But what do you call the occupants of "Aotearoa"? Surely not "Aotearoaians"? Eight syllables? Really? Four, as in "New Zealanders" is enough of a mouthful surely.

But it’s an act of supreme arrogance to introduce Aotearoa into official usage without even a pretence of seeking, still less obtaining, the people’s consent. Such contempt for the public tells us a great deal about the prevailing cultural ethos.

None of this should be taken as meaning we shouldn’t honour and respect our Maori heritage. It is a rich part of our history and one that’s too often invisible, certainly to most Pakeha.

We still tend to think of our history in monocultural terms, assuming it began with the arrival of Tasman, Cook and de Surville. New Zealand’s centuries of pre-European history and its imprints on the landscape are largely ignored. Likewise, there is too little appreciation of the Maori achievement in navigating across the Pacific and establishing a society that, while technologically still in the Stone Age, was otherwise remarkably accomplished and sophisticated – a fact recognised by the first Europeans, who quickly grasped that Maori were not to be trifled with.


There is much about Maori culture that I respect and admire, and I’m sure I am not alone. I believe the Maori heritage has rubbed off on all New Zealanders. It’s one of the distinctive qualities that defines us as a country.

The clichéd example is the All Black haka, but you can see the Maori influence elsewhere – for example, in the armed forces, which have traditionally had a high Maori participation rate (the army especially), and which are beneficially imbued with the Maori spirit of pulling together. The Maori influence is one of the reasons New Zealand forces are so respected overseas, especially in Third World countries; they have an easy affinity with locals that Australian forces apparently lack.


As an aside, I was recently reading about the exploits of the British army’s Long Range Desert Group, which initially consisted largely of New Zealanders, in the Second World War. Many of the soldiers in the LRDG were Pakeha farmers, but I found it interesting that they proudly painted Maori names on their vehicles – a tiny thing, perhaps, but indicative of pride in New Zealand’s Maori heritage and a telling signifier of cross-cultural solidarity.

 



We forget, too, that Maori men were able to vote 12 years before Pakeha males and that a Maori politician, Sir James Carroll of Ngati Kahungungu (Timi Kara to Maori, though his father was Irish) not only won election in a general seat as long ago as 1893, but twice served as acting prime minister. Mention these facts next time an ill-educated young zealot tries to tell you what a racist past New Zealand has.

 

Sir James Carroll (Timi Kara) 


The truth is that a great deal of beneficial cross-fertilisation has taken place between Maori and Pakeha, and a deep reservoir of mutual goodwill accumulated. Most New Zealanders would probably agree this is something unique in the world and worth preserving. We should steadfastly resist those who place it at risk by trying to drive us into angry opposing camps.