MORALE, NOT MONEY, NEEDED BY MAORI

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Night night, Chippy

If you suspect you've been hornswaggled by the Waitangi Tribunal and the Crown, you're damn tootin' right: there's no evidence that Maori health has been adversely affected by racism or colonialism. The main drivers of poor Maori health are smoking, obesity and risk- taking (as in heavier drinking). New Zealand has been tricked into throwing $millions at a problem that doesn't exist.

Maori morale is the underlying problem, not racism. But Maori morale just might have been adversely affected by being treated like children by Pakeha.

Last night the unlovely Kieran McAnulty, Local Government Minister - making the most of his last 3 months in the job - tried to put another one over us with a Bill lowering the voting age for local body elections to 16, simply because this Government needs all the dopy, uninformed voters it can get.

Meanwhile Bob Jones unsurprisingly reckons that in the coming general election two out of three votes will be anti-government. Because it's the worst government in the seven decades post-WWII. And that Jacindamania will be remembered as the most shameful and embarrassing phenomenon in New Zealand's history.

The Crown and the Waitangi Tribunal have no evidence of a causative link between racism, colonialism, and Maori health, so they don't want to talk about it, says economist Ian Harrison.

Racism, colonialism, and Maori health: A review of the evidence examines claims in the Waitangi Tribunal’s 2021 Hauora Report on Stage One of its Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry that a gap in life expectancy of seven years between Maori and non-Maori had not “meaningfully” changed over 20 years.

Harrison (ex-NZ Reserve Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements, concluded that there was “very little robust empirical evidence that racism contributes materially to the gap in life expectancy”. 

“The main drivers are different smoking and obesity rates. Other behavioural differences such as higher risk taking (such as higher alcohol consumption rates) may also contribute,” he wrote.

Having faced this objection for decades, the de-colonisers countered by saying that “this is a superficial understanding and that the differences are driven by more fundamental causes such as differential access to resources, which are in turn are the result of colonialism”.

“This claim is never substantiated, and on the limited data on the issue it appears that resources are not really the issue. The gaps primarily come back to behaviour”.

This could be all you need to read about racism and Maori health, but there is more. Harrison puts an intellectual blowtorch to the dodgy rhetoric around New Zealand’s attempt at race-based affirmative action.

For instance, Harrison found that the Waitangi Tribunal’s 2021 Maori health report presents a “very different perspective” from its 2000 Napier hospital report. The tribunal appears blissfully unaware that it is contradicting itself.

The 2000 report “rejected the argument that different health outcomes were in themselves a breach of the treaty and emphasised the relevance of individual agency. ....The treaty did not establish a permanent Maori entitlement to additional health service resources as distinct from that of New Zealanders as a whole”.

The Tribunal’s claim that there had been no discernible improvements in Maori health from 2000 to 2020 was simply false. “Between 2000 and 2017 Maori life expectancy increased by about three years and the gap to New Zealand European fell by around one a half years”.

 “The Crown accepted without argument that colonialism had a negative impact on Maori health”. Thinking people have come to expect uncritical acceptance of nonsense about Maori negative social indicators from government employees and departments.

Survey data shows that “experience of racism by Maori was not high (around 8 percent) and have been declining over time. About 4 percent claim to have experienced racism in the health system”, Harrison wrote.

“Essentially the inequity claims often reduce to little more than an assertion that any disparity in Maori health outcomes is ‘unfair and unjust’”, he wrote.

Money continues to be poured into “by Maori for Maori” schemes without any noticeable turnaround in the claimed negative outcomes.


According to the stats, Asians in New Zealand live longer (85.1 years for men), are thinner (18.5 percent obesity) seldom smoke (3.2 percent) and drink less alcohol (six percent). Maori, at the other end of the spectrum after New Zealand Europeans and Pacific islanders, live shorter lives (73.4 years for men), are fatter (50.8 percent obesity), often smoke (19.2 percent) and drink more (33.1 percent). 

A seldom-considered fact is that there are many more poorer European New Zealanders than anyone else. Stats show that they make up a 60.4 percent share of the lowest household income quintile, while Maori make up 16.7 percent.

The New Zealand Medical Council runs the same narrative as the Waitangi Tribunal’s 2020 Te Ora report into health services and outcomes for Māori, “that systemic racism and privilege exists in the health sector”.

“All that the Medical Council has presented to justify their structural racism claim in substance was: A higher ASH (ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations) rate for Maori without any enquiry as to cause; ‘doctored’ evidence on death rates following operations; (and) a recitation of the standard life expectancy data without any enquiry as to cause.” 

So-called Maori negative social indicators continue to be used as the reason why taxpayers should continue to provide additional and arguably unnecessary revenue “for Maori”

.https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/08/mike-butler-racism-maori-health-link.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR1aOQaUxlen81pGJniZZoYhepdE3wPRlpnQn8KS8oVfYEUt4EPx5FKX10A

Above are Sir Bob Jones' poll predictions, net of the nutter under 5% riff-raff (Tamaki, Opportunity Party et al).

Including NZ First as anti-government, those numbers amount to 2 in every 3 voters being anti-government.

Much of Labour’s lost vote will go to the Greens and the Maori Party, while many others will simply not vote.

The principal thing voters crave is stability and certainty, thus as our post-war political history shows, government has been dominated by National who simply “mind the shop”.

But after three or even four terms voters develop a time-for-a-change mentality and elect Labour who in their first term usually introduce overdue reforms. The danger lies in giving them a third term in which madness, naivete and misplaced idealism come to the fore.

Helen Clark was an exception in running a National type, don’t rock the boat government and thus gained three terms. Under Michael Cullen we enjoyed quality economic management, arguably the best in the post-war years.

Their moments of madness were relatively trivial, my favourite being Judith Tizard’s announcement of an “unemployed artists benefit”.

 

 

Judith Tizard - abortion supremo

Three days after that announcement I ran across her at a cocktail function. “For God’s sake Judith,” I said, “there’s no such thing as an unemployed artist, just unsuccessful ones”.

“It’s not a concern Bob,” she said, “Our people (Internal Affairs) tell me they’re only expecting less than twenty applicants”.

From memory within two months the scheme was dropped after several thousand applications were received from the East Coast, a plainly organised affair. They were artists all right; bullshit artists.

The current government will go down in history as the worst of the post-war seven decades and Jacindamania as the most shameful and embarrassing phenomenon in our history.

From Jordan Willliams (Taxpayers' Union):

Chris Hipkins said he’s put Jacinda Ardern’s Labour’s most controversial policies on the ‘policy bonfire’ – at least until after the election. But as you’ll see below, it’s a ruse.

The Labour Party are getting desperate. They are trying to trash democratic norms to ram through a stalking horse for their own electoral self-interest. 

Last night we spotted that Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty has very quietly introduced to Parliament a last minute bill to change the voting age for local body elections from 18 to 16.

Kieran McAnulty - making the most of his last 3 months

The Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill was given just a few seconds of time for the title to be read out in Parliament and tabled. Incredibly, this move to change the voting age has barely been mentioned by the media. Normally, a Ministerial press release alerts media when the Government is introducing a significant bill to Parliament. But Kieran McAnulty’s media team have been unusually quiet. There is not a single piece of Beehive communications that mentions the Bill. What is clear is that a significant amount of work has gone into this Bill and Labour are not simply kicking the tires on the idea. Labour are gambling on just slipping this one through – probably under urgency next week. Labour may be betting that if they can get this through quietly, it’ll just stay on the books after the election without public outcry to repeal it. This is a stalking horse to ready New Zealand for 16 year olds to vote at elections – a change that would greatly benefit Labour and the Greens. Instead of having a national conversation to build consensus for change (or not), the Government is abusing the final few weeks of its absolute majority in Parliament. The voting age is one of the most fundamental decisions in a democratic society. Any changes should be decided through a referendum, not sneaked through unnoticed or under urgency. Without a written constitution there is nothing New Zealanders can do except to call it out for what it is and ensure this skulduggery is politically costly.   Labour has form in trying to screw the scrum in local elections. When Nanaia Mahuta was Minister, she changed the law to ban local referenda on Māori wards. And then there was Tāmati Coffey’s Rotorua Council bill that would have given the 19,791 Rotorua citizens on the Māori roll 2.6 times the voting power of the 51,618 Rotorua citizens on the general roll. Reasonable minds may differ on whether 16 years old should be able to vote, but we say the change should be put to the people to decide – not sneaked through Parliament by the political party most likely to benefit from such changes. At absolute minimum, we must force Chris Hipkins to commit to putting the Bill through a full six-month Select Committee process to ensure it is not rushed through under urgency before Parliament raises in two-and-a-half weeks. Personally, I believe in letting kids enjoy the latter stages of childhood without the responsibilities of civic duty. I also resent the idea of letting politicians into schools to indoctrinate campaign for the votes of 16 and 17 year olds. Maybe you don’t agree, and to be frank it’s not in the mission of the Taxpayers’ Union to have a position on the voting age. But as democrats, the principle we can agree on is that it should be the people, not the politicians, in charge of how our voting system and franchise works.  There’s been a vocal minority who have been championing a “make it 16” campaign. Nanaia Mahuta’s “Future of Local Government” hand-picked cronies fell over themselves to call for the change a few months back. The judiciary are captured too. Our politicised Supreme Court claims that 18 is an arbitrary age that cannot be justified, so judged in favour of the “Make it 16” group. But if 16, why not 14, or 12? The good news is that the public will be furious when they find out what Labour are doing. As part of our monthly polls we’ve asked New Zealanders whether they support reducing the voting age to 16. Overwhelmingly Kiwis want the voting age to stay 18. Even Labour voters hate the idea of reducing the voting age – that's why we need to spread the word. Labour will know the public would never support this, that’s why they are trying to sneak this through. But with the media asleep, the only way to ensure that these important decisions are left with the people and not self-interested politicians, is to ask for you to support this campaign. >> Click here to make a secure donation <<

Thank you for your support. Jordan Williams Executive Director New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.  P.S. The team in Wellington are contacting the newspapers about last minute advertising for this weekend and early next week.  But we can’t book anything until we know what funds we have available. Click here to make a secure donation, or click here for the account details. Saint Hyacinth of Poland (August 17) teaches us to spare no effort in the service of God but to rely for success not on our industry but on the assistance of the Holy Eucharist and the prayer of the Immaculate Mother of God.