I have never understood where this idea of
Māori politics as being inherently ‘conservative’ comes from. It seems to come
from this idea, present in other places in the Pacific such as Fiji and Samoa,
where voters in isolated rural areas administered by tribal structures are
essentially told who to vote for by chiefs. So many Māori do not belong to a
tribe that this thesis is simply untenable in the first place by association. I
think it is an imaginary made up by many people to justify other ridiculous
ideas about ostensible ‘Māori opinions’ – do we remember the junk produced in
the media about Māori and Pacific Island communities in South Auckland as
somehow being a regressive bulwark against gay marriage? And how then-Prime
Minister John Key pandered to this apparent tendency? Of course, it was
absolute nonsense. My partner gleefully tells me that of all the Anglican
parishes, it was the Pākehā in Nelson that constituted the sole vote barring
Anglican celebrants from being able to service same-sex marriages. The Māori
and Islander parishes uniformly supported lifting the ban.
This idea that Māori are ‘conservative’
persists in idle talk about the voting intentions in Māori electorates. I know,
however, that of all people in this country the marginalised Māori population
can spot when they are being deceived. They have had a track record of dealing
with governmental deception in the first place. The poor communities will ditch
a party that is seen not to be helping them or prolonging their immiseration.
Hence when, at the time, the radically emergent Winston Peters split from
National and took every single Māori seat from Labour with his new party, New Zealand
First. Despite the popular view that Peters is ‘anti-Māori’ (or, in a
reprehensible riposte from Gareth Morgan, an ‘Uncle Tom’), New Zealand First
was essentially a ‘Māori party’ that sought to compete primarily with Labour in
the Māori seats. Ron Mark, Pita Paraone, Tuariki Delamere and Tau Henare were
each powerful forces in Māori politics when they were members of that party.
Labour’s stasis and inability to move on from its neoliberal surprise of the
1980s led to a desertion of the party by long-time Māori supporters. It has
largely carried this stasis today without the transformative power of Helen Clark
– only just starting to shake this off. When Labour was in government, and
implemented the divisive foreshore and seabed legislation in 2004, Māori
consciously ditched them again – to vote for a splinter, the interestingly
named ‘Māori Party’.
This dissent against the liberal
capitalist elite is now rife in politics the world over. John Moore refers to
it as “the anti-Establishment zeitgeist”. Māori have again reflected this
dissent, but this time is different. The reaction comes from conflicts within the Māori voter constituency
rather than ‘Māori against Pākehā’. The biggest and most egregious habit of
political commentators that has persisted like an annoying gnat has been to
refer to Māori as a kind of homogeneous community who all think in the same way
and do the same things. They are all tribal-oriented, family-oriented (this
stereotype promoted by separatist huckster academics that brown people care about their whakapapa and white
people don’t!) and, the view of some Pākehā, politically radical, ‘outside’ of
Pākehā society which is conceived by contrast as not that radical. This is a
long-standing media trope as well as one that Māori, mostly the elite, have
promoted about themselves. The promotion of the ‘indigenous perspective’ in
academic discourse has been a convenient way to disguise those indigenous
people who have been absorbed into the political-economic elite. The Māori
Party, despite not appearing as such from the outset, has increasingly come to
resemble a project of this new capitalist elite. The Kingitanga, Tuku Morgan,
Mark Solomon, Naida Glavish, and of course many others in and out of the Iwi
Leaders Group, work for and support this party. Its alignment with the National
government coalition since 2008 has thus moulded into the party’s natural home.
This is why one rebel inside the party, Hone Harawira, could no longer bear to
represent it as an MP, which was hostile to him anyway. He was eventually
ousted by a complaint from Te Ururoa Flavell (who became a co-leader). With
Flavell’s tactical move that removed his greatest challenge from the Left to
the co-leadership vacated by Pita Sharples, finally the Māori Party was free of
the burden of left-wing radicalism.
Harawira’s genesis of a new party, Mana,
brought the increasing class divides among Māori into the light more than ever
before. Left-wingers from Alliance, the New Labour Party, Mana Motuhake and
such joined the party. Although it became a confusing mess of socialism and Māori
nationalism (some representatives of whom were ostensibly not left-wing), it
represented a stark contrast from the elite edifice of the Māori Party. Mana
hung on to the Te Tai Tokerau seat in the 2011 election but was defeated in
2014 due to the further confusion wrought from an alliance with the dubious Kim
Dotcom and his stitched-together ‘direct democracy’ movement that included an
obviously cosmetic choice of a new-look Laila Harre, former leader of the
left-wing Alliance, as leader. This strange pact failed drastically and
Harawira lost the seat to Labour’s Kelvin Davis. Now wiped from Parliament, the
far-Left in Aotearoa continues to be hopelessly lost, engaged in agenda
confusion between class politics, Māori nationalism, and now, of course, the
stupefying forms of identity politics that has occupied a great and increasing quotient
of the Left’s attention since the 1980s. Māori nationalism, as the Left seem to
be blissfully unaware of, is not automatically politically progressive. Neither
is identity politics. The Māori Party demonstrate this increasingly as arbiters
of the Māori capitalist elite, snidely redeploying the power of tino rangatiratanga as a slogan in
favour of neoliberal policies. Class politics focused on the abolition of class
and capital, however, is the basis of the ‘Left’ label. Yet it is perhaps no
wonder that hardly anyone on the Left voices this concern with identity
politics as it is, of course, a great offence to criticise in the gambit of
identity essentialism, whether you belong to the ‘identity’ or not.
With the far-Left struggling against
itself, repeatedly failing to capture the spirit of the political moment (often
encased in the fatalism of identity essentialism) – and being more out of step
with unifying the working classes than ever before, Mana, perhaps out of
desperation, has apparently abandoned its socialist roots and formed a new pact
with the Māori Party. At the time this seemed confusing to me, but in any case
dealt a serious blow to the idea that Mana represented the Māori working class.
Harawira signalled the idea of working with the Māori Party early on in the
formation of Mana, but I wrote this off as unity rhetoric that would never be
acted upon. It seems desperate times call for desperate measures. However, this
alliance has itself been dealt a real blow with the defection of Willie Jackson – and presumably
with him John Tamihere – to the Labour Party. Jackson and Tamihere were a vital
force in Labour and on the radio; while at times controversial, at least they
were able to rouse the working classes out of political apathy. It is
interesting that this switch to Labour has happened. What is most hilarious
about it is the reaction of the elusive Dover Samuels, a former MP in Helen
Clark’s Labour government and recently ousted Far North councillor. The threat
of his life membership resignation is probably welcomed by Labour itself –
Samuels did not even vote for the party in 2014 because of – and this is
unbelievable – its opposition to the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway. This was happily
reported on and covered by the irritating right-wing blogger David Farrar.
Samuels is no great casualty for Labour’s evolving image.
Mana again has been caught in a bind, as
well as, perhaps, Māori voters themselves who are unwilling to support the Māori
Party. Mana has already thrown its lot in with the Māori Party and cannot
realistically back down now. Even, perhaps, Harawira’s comeback is in doubt now
that this new alliance will inevitably be portrayed by Jackson as a marriage of
convenience. Although it is not unlike the Labour-Greens pact, that pact will
be seen as one that can govern in its own right with at least some Left
concern. The Māori-Mana pact leaves us increasingly unsure of their leanings.
We can only go by their track record, which is, of course, adding extra votes
to crucial National Party legislation – which has set about destroying the economic
ability of impoverished Māori and entrenching inequality. The gentrification
projects in Glen Innes and Point England, the reluctance of local councils to
seal roads in Pipiwai that give off toxic dust clouds, the acceding poverty in
South Auckland suburbia, the bypassing of Huntly and Ngaruawahia (wait for the
collapse of those towns), the unemployment in cities like Whangarei and
Wanganui and towns like Murupara and Kawerau; these are just some of the
concerns Māori voters have had thrown at them since 2008. Housing affordability
has dropped dramatically in the Far North and Auckland as the government,
including the Māori Party, does their best to avoid the problem. This has worsened
overcrowding in often inadequately built homes, and the ability of Māori to
afford rents. The prison population has increased drastically – Māori are
over-represented in prisons. ‘Māori issues’ are now class issues as the
Waitangi Tribunal treaty settlement process, which is one of the only things touted as
a genuine ‘Māori issue,’ has now, frankly, been exposed as largely a fraud
entrenching the economic power of tribal elites.
This defection by Jackson has created an
odd scenario in Māori politics. Labour, which was seen as the obvious go-to for
Māori, is now likely the radical, left-wing option this coming election.
Although Labour Māori MPs are quite right-wing by comparison to predecessors –
Peeni Henare, Nanaia Mahuta, and Kelvin Davis are all either quite conservative
or neoliberal – there are others, like Rino Tirikatene and Meka Whaitiri, that
have a distinct radical edge to them. Perhaps this is why the Greens are
wanting to stand in Māori seats with increased vigour – they see a potentially
fertile climate of interest in the party’s agenda as the Māori-Mana edifice
backs itself into a corner. Incidentally, the far-Left has all but abandoned
Mana for new projects ostensibly on the way. Matt McCarten and Laila Harre have
since signed up to help Labour get elected, others like Sue Bradford are
working behind-the-scenes in other quarters. And, additionally, I consider it a
victory that the Māori Party potentially faces being utterly wiped out. They
have been exposed, in my view, for the charlatans that they are. The ‘Kaupapa Māori’
ideology they followed was a sham that merged revisions of the powerful
concepts of tikanga with neotribalism and neoliberal ideas of individual
autonomy, personal responsibility, and the accumulation of capital as the great
aspiration – a most highly toxic and contradictory combination. I have still
not gotten over Marama Fox yelling at me at a university debate for objecting
to and ‘disrespecting’ her lack of care for rife tax evasion (millions of
dollars of fraud that the government simply allows to happen) and her want to
concentrate on ‘funding the solutions to issues in her communities’ – of course,
not noticing the fundamental connection between the two. That sort of extreme uncaring
incompetence should be enough to invalidate any prospective parliamentarian.
Anyhow, perhaps the demise of the
parliamentary anti-capitalists represents a new ‘desert’ of choice for Māori
voters. I certainly think this is so. But what we do know is poor Māori are in
fact politically conscious and will switch to whoever is best set to lend
support to helping them and their whanau out of poverty. Additionally, this new
concentration on Labour from all facets of the Left could potentially be
another force that drags Labour to adopt increasingly left-wing positions. It
is highly unlike me to have a little faith in the Labour Party, as it has been
so utterly disappointing and drab over the last few decades, and still is, and
perhaps it will not drop the careerist pretentions to reinvigorate itself
enough – but in a time of relative inaction on the far-Left (although watch
this space!), we have to put our faith in something
this election – even if it is parliamentary.
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