Former Finance Minister Robertson told a story in his valedictory speech in Parliament. He said that he "wanted to thank [fellow Labour Party MP] Willie Jackson for his patient & calm advocacy. I genuinely felt his aroha when he said “why do you hate the Māoris” when I had just given him a $1 billion of funding". It got laughs, but Labour actually does hate Māori. Here are three reasons why Labour, and Māori & Pasifika, have little in common.
First, the Treaty of Waitangi is a document about protecting property rights and keeping authority decentralized (at hapū level). The last thing anyone wanted - indigenous and non-indigenous alike - was an overbearing Central Authority in NZ giving orders. Yet that philosophy is at the core of Labour & Greens philosophy. Labour wants health-care centralized. Education centralized. It wants to concentrate power. It wants control. It hates Charter Schools, even when Māori youth benefit. An economist's ideal of decentralized markets & institutions, including indigenous ones, guiding resource allocation, is anathema to it. Labour has only given way to Māori to some degree on this front not because the Party believes its right to do so, but because of dirty political deals done to retain power. The Treaty's decentralized authority ideal and the Central Planning ideal of Labour stand in stark contrast. Protecting private property rights is miles from Labour philosophy - presently seen in the Party's desire for asset & capital taxes. Iwi will never pay those taxes. They are right not to. None of us should pay. All of us should enjoy property rights & unfettered control of our assets as much as Māori. No-one should be stripped of their wealth by a Government that wants to steal from us, so it can pay bureaucrats and make others beg for handouts. We should join Māori in their tax revolt.
Second, Labour has little interest in defending traditional family values & structures. Former PM Ardern pursued nearly every morally liberal cause in the book. As for the Greens, they make Ardern look like a nun. A bunch of the crusades that Ardern embraced are disliked by a majority of morally conservative indigenous throughout the Pacific, many of whom are devout church-goers. Even for those who are not religious, the closeness and strength of whānau, and long-held beliefs and values about the importance of family, lay at the core of such cultures. A Pasifika mum in a class told me how during Covid she was upset about the time her children were spending on the Web. Meanwhile Ardern has publicly stated at Harvard's Kennedy School that worries over such screen time during pandemic lockdowns were wildy exaggerated. Not so for this Pasifika mum. Her concern was a family morals one - namely that her young children were being corrupted by the Internet. Such concerns are of little interest to Labour, a party more than happy to have smart phones flying around schools.
Third, Labour wants low earners to be dependent on its own politicians & the State for their survival. It buys votes that way. It is the feeling of being welfare dependent that locks many Māori & Pasifika into voting Labour. The Party wants to keep it that way. But there's nothing in Pacific culture shouting State dependency and everything shouting the opposite. Being able to live independently off the natural environment, being practical, standing proud, not suffering the humiliation of being supported by an alien impersonal State, form much of Pacific Island culture. When one is propped up, support mainly comes from private sources - close friends and family - not dodgy, anonymous, unknown State bureaucrats. The Māori & Pasifika private whānau support ideal forms little of Labour policy - which is "bring on the social worker". Furthermore, since personal savings lie at the heart of a family's ability to stand on its own feet, you would've thought after six years of Ardern's government Labour had helped people build savings. Not at all. Kiwisaver balances are small. A fifth of people aren't even members. Low earners became more dependent under Ardern.
In summary, Labour may try swinging votes by pretending it stands with Māori & Pasifika. Jackson may be able to spin lines that a vote for Labour in Election 2026 is better than a vote for Te Pati Māori, let alone National, ACT or NZ First. Don't buy it. Willie knows how Māori have little desire for the Patronizing, Centralizing, Dependency Producing, Non Family Values Model that NZ-style Labour offers. That Party's ideology shares barely a single indigenous value. Former Minister Robertson thought his joke about Jackson was a cracker. But many a true word is spoken in jest. What was Robertson saying? That he wanted Jackson to be oh-so grateful for his Big Man generous largesse? That he wanted Māori to bow down & thank him for handing out a pot of State gold he controlled - money Robertson never made on his own? This Blog doesn't want to commit the same mistake of patronizing others. I'm sure my great grandfather, Hori, would've related to all of the things in it, even though he couldn't read, write, and signed his name with an "x".