We didn't have to wait long for another example of gross racism from a Government official...This time a Minister of the Crown!

This weekend, Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Marama Davidson proudly declared on camera: “I am the prevention [of] violence Minister, and I know who causes violence in the world, and it’s white cis men.”

As alarming as it is to once again be confronted by how easily and happily our Government differentiates us based on skin colour, it is also an example of how this kind of racialised politics doesn't help anyone.

It certainly doesn't help all of the victims of family violence that was not caused by a white man. Does the minister not consider them in her work? New Zealand has some of the worst statistics for family violence in the OECD!

Her abhorrent statement is actually receiving endorsement from groups and individuals who clearly have a warped and inaccurate picture of the world and no understanding of how family violence dominates our violent crime statistics.

 

If Chris Hipkins fails to sanction Minister Marama Davidson, he will be demonstrating that his Government endorses racism and hateful behaviour so long as it is directed at the 'right' people.  

Last week our Prime Minister boldly proclaimed: “My message is anybody exercising their right to free speech, whatever the circumstances are, should be mindful we don’t want to incite hateful behaviour or violence, in fact its illegal to do so, and I think everyone should bear that in mind.”

What will he say about a minister of his Government inaccurately painting a racial group as a unique threat to the safety of New Zealanders? 

Our Government and media see no harm in dividing New Zealanders by skin colour, inferring different rights dependant on which side of the classification you stand.

While every effort is being made to convince us that the delivery of public services will be enhanced by racially split governance arrangements, it is clear that this is a wedge that is being used to divide our diverse population.

When legislation and policy establish systems that do not demand the delivery of better outcomes, but do demand that citizens be treated differently based on race, is it really surprising that a minister would voice those same stigmatising views? 

Violence and issues of law and order are serious concerns for New Zealand as we see gun violence and gang crime escalate. The Government has been unapologetically soft on crime and now their failed policies are bearing the fruit of unsafe communities. How convenient that ministers like Marama Davidson can blame colonisation and "white cis men" for the situation instead!

It seems that this racism will continue unless we do something about it. The time to stand up to racism in all its forms is now. 

Will you join the fight?

I denounce Marama Davidson’s claims. They are blatantly false. All kinds of New Zealanders are represented in the crime statistics. Yes, men commit a lot more violent crimes than women, but "white cis men" are far from the only perpetrators. 

With over 14 years of police service, mostly in South Auckland, I witnessed violence and incomprehensible cruelty. Allocating accountability to a skin colour is offensive to the victims, to the vulnerable, and to those who are trying to deliver solutions. Not to mention to men who happen to have white skin!

• When we called for the Race Relations Commissioner to denounce racism and the endorsement of violence against people of white skin, the response was an eerie silence.
• When we expressed concern about the potential for increased intolerance and violence, the Race Relations Commissioner used the defence of the “trauma of colonisation”.
• When we tried to go public and expose the lack of accountability and lack of response from Meng Foon, NZME refused to publish our commentary through paid advertising.
• When we demand equality before the law, we are confronted with legislation that is founded on differentiating rights based upon when your ancestors arrived in the country.
• When we demand a conversation about co-governance, it is we who are called racist.
• Enough is enough: we cannot allow our nation to be ripped apart by those who hide behind a shield of faux-moral superiority.

We are in an election year and as the political posturing gains momentum we must send a clear message that we have had enough. We cannot allow the media and those seeking to be elected to tell us what the election issues this year will be. We must tell them what matters to us. 

Join the fight to end racism. All racism. Not just Marama Davidson's version. 

A fair and equal New Zealand that tolerates no racism, of any kind, is my bottom line.

Every New Zealander must be afforded the same dignity and respect. The same rights. 

With your help and continued support our voice can only grow louder. 

Taxpayer money was used to fund violently racist content and with your support we forced the Race Relations Commissioner to not only acknowledge it, but to say he personally does not agree with it.

You can read the Race Relations Commissioner's statement here.

We are actually still engaged in a battle with media companies to get the letter printed! It has been with the "legal department" at NZME for a number of days now and we are getting radio silence... 

Even our offer of a legal opinion as to whether the letter breaches advertising standards hasn’t been accepted.

This is incredibly frustrating, but while the pearl clutchers search for reasons to silence us, we have continued to push forward in exposing this hateful racism.

Undeterred by the New Zealand media's attempts to ignore us, we had an opinion piece published in the Spectator Australia on the matter. 

Initially, in response to the number of complaints the Human Rights Commission has received relating to Tusiata Avia's racist poetry, Meng Foon was dismissive and the Human Rights Commission simply posted a statement on their website that provided justification for the racism on the grounds of hurt caused by colonialism.

This response was appalling, so we were preparing to write to Justice Minister Kiri Allan as the Human Rights Commission falls under her responsibility. We intended to fill her in on our significant concerns about the failure of Commissioner Meng Foon to approach his role impartially and without prejudice. 

At Waitangi this year, Minister Kiri Allan said that we cannot let another generation of New Zealanders grow up with racism. Our hope was that she would remember this.

But then Meng Foon made the Human Rights Commission's second statement!

Prior to this statement, the commissioner had made it clear that he was willing to stand up for victims of racism only when it suits his own discriminatory views, leaping on any small skirmish and commenting in the media about every microaggression, except when the target of the racism was white.

It is a substantial improvement for Meng Foon to say:

"I personally do not agree with the tone of the piece, the words used and the imagery it evokes."

"I will continue to advocate for vulnerable communities and promote positive race relations, hold people to account, and help inform and educate New Zealanders around human rights."  

"I will be reaching out to Creative NZ, the Classifications Office and Stuff Media, among other parties, to discuss this matter further."

However, we aren't letting the commissioner off the hook completely as his refusal to explicitly call the poem "racist" demonstrates that he still doesn't think white people can be the target of racism. His careful choice of words are very telling. He does not say "this is racist", he says "this has caused offence to some people who may consider it to be racist."

Additionally, he seems to express some empathy for the racist poet's position saying: "I feel for those who have been, and continually are, impacted by the trauma of colonisation."

The future of our country must be one where New Zealanders of all backgrounds can prosper. We should all strive for mutual respect of other cultures and a society free of discrimination.

Unfortunately, Commissioner Foon has not been working towards that future. He has provided cover for those endorsing hatred and discrimination towards white New Zealanders. This statement is a step in the right direction, but he still has a long way to go in demonstrating that he is committed to fostering racial harmony among all New Zealanders.

We will continue to hold Commissioner Foon to account, but we now turn our focus to following up our request for an investigation into racism at Creative NZ. Our letter to Minister Carmel Sepuloni was palmed off to Associate Minister Willow-Jean Prime who has not responded. We will be following this up as a matter of urgency. 

 

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.