Over the past two weeks we have been fighting against a tide of racism that has opened a wound and exposed that even our Race Relations Commissioner believes we are nation of white versus brown.

In our efforts, and with the generous donations of our supporters, we sought to publicise the issue through paid advertisements in newspapers nationwide.

To date NZME have refused to approve the advertisement. They have said it is with their legal department and they are "making changes".

This is what they refuse to publish...

They seem to think they're entitled to rewrite a letter we have already sent to the Race Relations Commissioner!

While the Commissioner admitted to personal concerns about the content of Tusiata Avia’s work, he still refuses to classify it as 'racist'. In a further insult he went on to patronisingly say in a media interview that “white people still have a lot to offer New Zealand”.

His determination that New Zealand is a nation of brown and white is at the core of the division forced upon us.

Despite the inept silence from the Commissioner, the Prime Minister spoke out this week clarifying the position (albeit on a different matter):

“My message is anybody exercising their right to free speech, whatever the circumstances are, should be mindful that we don’t want to incite hateful behaviour or violence, in fact it's illegal to do so, and I think everyone should bear that in mind.”

However, it is more abhorrent when the incitement to violence was funded by your tax dollars.

Our complaint to the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage regarding the funding by Creative NZ has managed only to achieve an acknowledgement with no official response received. We initially contacted the minister, Carmel Sepuloni, but she palmed us off to her Associate Minister Willow-Jean Prime. 

Of further concern is the appointment of Claire Charters, chairperson of the working group that produced the He Puapua Report, to the Human Rights Commission to lead work on Indigenous People’s rights.

Claire has gone on record to be critical of New Zealand’s democracy and race relations. The He Puapua report was founded on the view of a separate state for some New Zealanders based upon their ancestry.

It is this agenda of differentiation based upon skin colour that is an affront to thinking New Zealanders who want to see us all respected and treated equally before the law.

The division of our wonderful country into a bi-cultural identity of Maori and the rest is a tragedy for all of us. Don Brash wrote about this recently, asserting that New Zealand is reaching a crisis point. You can read the article here.

It is hard not to despair.

But with your support we are continuing to push back against this justification of racism if your skin colour is classified as white.

Hobson’s Pledge are challenging this Government’s position on racism. We are preparing a campaign exposing the failure of the Race Relations Commissioner and which will force NZME to clarify their position so that we can present this issue to a wider audience of New Zealanders.

We have had some good news though! Auckland City Council has voted to pull out of the radical and anti-democratic sector body Local Government New Zealand. You might remember the separatist changes to council standing orders we opposed that LGNZ attempted to slide under the radar last year.

With our biggest city saying "no thank you" to the LGNZ agenda, here's hoping we'll see steps towards the strengthening of local democracy.

🚨BREAKING NEWS!

This is an update on the 'Rotorua Bill'. You might remember that last year we called on our supporters like you to speak out against a bill that would have seen equal democracy in Rotorua effectively end.

Through your support, a massive 13,000 submissions were made to the select committee on the matter which resulted in the bill being “paused” in April last year.

Now The Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) bill has lost the support of the council itself!

Rotorua Lakes Council have voted to withdraw support for the legislation that would have marked the end of equal suffrage in New Zealand.

After the local government elections last year, newly elected Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell expressed that she shared many of the same concerns our supporters raised about the bill. Now that her Council has voted to withdraw support for this controversial legislation, Mayor Tapsell will advise the Māori Affairs Select Committee of the decision. 

The Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) bill sought to ignore the foundational principle of democracy that every vote is worth the same. With 21,700 people in the proposed Māori ward and 55,600 in the proposed general ward each ward would elect three councillors. In effect, the general ward would get a normalised 58% of the representation that the population in the Māori ward would get.

This legislation was being railroaded through Parliament shepherded by Labour's Māori Caucus and, had it not been for the public outcry, it would have become law.

We celebrated the victory that the bill was paused back in April, but it is the continuation of pressure from supporters like you that has resulted in the Rotorua Lakes Council withdrawing their support.

It is your support, and that of 140,000 other New Zealanders, that makes victories like this possible. 

Click here to chip in to the 2023 Election Fund

New Zealand has a proud history as a multi-cultural nation. It is inherent in our nature as New Zealanders to be tolerant, accepting and supportive of each other and especially those in need.

Successive governments' policies and bad legislation are driving a wedge between us and forcing racial division that none of us signed up for. The images and stories coming out of local communities in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle are evidence of who we are as a nation. A nation of people who pitch in and help each other when times are tough. 

Hobson’s Pledge continue to make sure your voice is heard and demand better outcomes for all New Zealanders. We cannot afford to be complacent with an election fast approaching. It is crucial that whoever our next Government is, they will not allow us to be treated differently based upon when we or our ancestors came to New Zealand.

This year is critical for us and the announcement today shows that democracy works when we speak up for it. That is why it is so important we continue to defend it.

You may recall from our last email on this issue that LGNZ sends a guide to Standing Orders, along with a template to use, to councils at the start of each term and that this year they have made significant changes from the last version in 2019, without announcement, fanfare, or scrutiny from the media.

We told you then that these new guidelines assert a new special status in decision making for Maori and iwi that will limit the democratic authority of those who were elected by the voters at large (which included Maori).

LGNZ have a role, ultimately funded by ratepayers, to advise councils. With these guidelines, however, they have recommended divisive, anti-democratic approaches to council decision-making processes that are not only not required by law (as they heavily inferred) but may well breach the law.

We were so concerned about the claims and recommendations pushed by LGNZ that Hobson’s Pledge engaged prominent public law firm Franks Ogilvie to provide a legal opinion on the advice provided.

Their report can be found here.

It makes a compelling case for rejecting the LGNZ advice. I can particularly recommend the summary from paragraphs 4 to 11.

Hobson's Pledge have sent this report to all local and regional councillors and mayors in New Zealand, so they are armed with the case for equal citizenship in their councils rules.

Some may ask, why is this important?

Simply, it is because at the foundation of our democracy lies the assurance that every vote holds equal value and every citizen has equal access to their governing institutions.

An election is the opportunity for we, the people, to deliver accountability from our elected representatives. After that election, no one should get in ahead of the rest to set the agenda or screw the scrum.

LGNZ’s Standing Orders guidelines are promoting a form of co-governance that goes beyond mere consultation, attempting to incorporate an obligation to unelected representation.

You might expect a dramatic change in the law from Parliament or a policy change from the Government to cause this kind of shift in how LGNZ's Standing Orders guide is written, but none of that has occurred. They're simply making it up as they go.

LGNZ are promoting co-governance by stealth with dire legal and democratic implications.

Their advice holds weight with your councillors, who will have assumed LGNZ have provided reliable guidance.

That's why we've presented the Franks Ogilvie advice, so your councillors will know equal citizenship is on the line here.

Before our democracy is eroded further, LGNZ should be required to explain on what legal basis they have advised councils of this new approach.

Already, some councillors are replying, thanking us for raising the issue and saying they will be pushing back at their next council meetings.

Today, Three Waters was rammed through Parliament to become law.

Ignoring the lack of clarity, the outright mistakes, the many deceptions, the failures to follow due process and the concerns of nearly 100,000 New Zealanders - the controversial Water Services Entities Bill (AKA Three Waters) has been forced through by Labour.

No other party – not even the Greens or the Maori Party – voted for it.

As the media and most politicians dance around the central issue, Hobson’s Pledge will continue to clearly declare that the control of everyone’s water has been handed over to an unelected and unaccountable co-governed minority.

A minority who claims its dishonest mandate by virtue of their ancestry alone, while also being unaccountable to their own people. A doubled-edge sword piercing the very heart of our democracy.

Labour's blatant lies around 'ownership' are now irrelevant – let me be as clear as the water Mahuta is stealing, New Zealanders now have no control of their own water assets.

The justification given for this legislation was the claimed need for urgent investment in infrastructure and fear-mongering about water quality.

It has long since been clear that, in fact, this was and will remain a clear, naked and blatant power grab to transfer control of public resources to a select group of Maori, as foreshadowed by the infamous He Puapua Report.

This is clearly the ambition of He Puapua come to life, enshrined into New Zealand law. 

What has been delivered is a complex bureaucracy that will operate, for at least half of the water entity boards, without any direct accountability to the people of New Zealand. And that half will have an effective veto, as the only ways to make decisions are either by consensus or by 75% majority.

Make no mistake, this is a dark day for New Zealand –

Our voices have been ignored

Unworkable and divisive legislation has been passed into law

No accountability has been delivered for countless mistakes and deceptions

Our democracy has been dismantled

Your support for the work Hobson’s Pledge is doing has become more important than ever.

As a nation, we are being reduced to “us” and “them”. We cannot allow this to continue or let this Government’s powerful Labour Maori Caucus operate unchecked like schoolyard bullies.

There is a better way. A way of living together where every New Zealander is equal under the law and the decisions about our collective property are taken by leaders accountable to the people at the ballot box and through public scrutiny by our institutions.

A way that is, in short, the promise of liberal democracy that is the heritage of all New Zealanders. A heritage that has been handed down to us by every generation before us.

Our Government is continuing to avoid accountability for failing to deliver a single positive outcome while it pushes through a storm of divisive legislation that it pretends will fix the failings of its spiralling and even more divided bureaucracy.

We know the Government does not speak for all New Zealanders, just as the Labour Maori Caucus and the Maori Party do not speak for all Maori.

Our mission now becomes to ensure severe democratic consequences for Jacinda Ardern, Nanaia Mahuta and Labour for this flagrant betrayal of our democracy.

Hobson’s Pledge will redouble our relentless efforts to make every New Zealander understand what is being done to their democracy and what that means for them and the country’s future. 

We have already moved co-governance from the issue that politicians would rather leave unmentioned to a major topic of debate (even in the mainstream media!). 

The next step is to make this theft of our democracy a key decisive issue for the next election – one that the major parties are forced to contend with at the ballot box.

We are currently planning our election year activity to push back against the division of New Zealanders euphemistically called "co-governance". This must be in front of every voter as politicians seek their votes.

It is more critical than ever that the average New Zealander understands just how dire the stakes are this coming election. Your support is essential in making this happen and bringing us back together.