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Mike's Minute: It's fair to ask questions about He Puapua

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 14 May 2021, 10:30AM

Mike's Minute: It's fair to ask questions about He Puapua

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Fri, 14 May 2021, 10:30AM

Mr Waititi of Waiariki may well be a hero in his electorate, but on the national stage he's doing his cause no good at all.

Getting booted out of the house to add to the other distractions he's caused in his five minutes in Parliament only shows him up to be an attention seeker, not a bloke who seeks any sort of reform, change, or improvement for the people who claims to represent.

Never before have Maori had a greater and more influential voice in our nation's house. And yet what we have seen this week is an angst and rhetoric that seems to indicate they're more about a scrap than achievement.

Given the traction it now has, it is probably worth you reading He Puapua. At 120 plus pages it's wordy and worthy, but there are some good precis about the place if you want to hunt them down. When you read it, you will very easily see what the issue is and why we are where we are.

Once you worked that bit out, you will be grateful that Judith Collins and David Seymour are doing what they are doing.

Yes, it’s a discussion document, or was. In it are a series of ideas ranging from moderately sensible, to radical and dangerous. That in and of itself is not the issue, the issue is the government didn’t release it, and when they did after much delay it was heavily redacted.

We now know the Prime Minister was freaking out about the reaction, and their reaction to the reaction hasn’t exactly helped.

The changes made by the government under urgency or completely unannounced, they all, despite the government saying there is nothing to see here, are to be found in the aforementioned report, which is clearly more than a discussion document.

So, people, whether they be Collins, Seymour, you, or me, all have a right to ask what's going on. And it behoves those in the halls of power to maybe answer some of those questions without breaking out that tired, hackneyed old line about being racists.

If you're going to have a debate or ask questions around policies dealing with race, that is not racist. Asking a question about a report into a level of self-determination or separate race-based agencies or policies does not a racist make.

They're just questions.

If you're a proponent of such ideas you should welcome the questions, because you will, or should have, the answers. Not just that, but you should have the passion to argue your case.

If all you’ve got is anger and a pointy finger, you're a show-boater or you're trying to hide something.

What these past two weeks have shown is that some doth protest just a bit too much. I wonder why?  

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