Commentator Damien Grant slammed former MP Chester Borrows’ report He Waka Roimata – A vessel of tears by showing simply that the root cause of Maori incarceration was not to do with racism or colonialism and more to do with how welfare destroys families.
The Borrows report traces the rise of indigenous prison populations with contemporaneous urbanisation and assumes, without explanation, that one leads to the other.
Writing in yesterday’s Sunday Star-Times, Grant said that the report misses the vital role that parents play, by being uniquely placed to “love and understand their children” and stop them from having children while they are still children.
But “welfare is a merino-covered sledgehammer that smashes these traditional bonds. Teenagers are freed from the financial constraints of their families and can turn to a new parent, the state, who will not judge, lecture, or express disappointment in their life decisions”.
“When you design a system that disenfranchises parents and undermines families you are rewarded with a cohort of lost children and will, in a few short years, be taking babies off teenagers who are unfit to be parents”, he wrote.
Maori lead the charge in the high rates of incarceration and numbers of children removed from their mothers but welfare is an equal-opportunity destroyer that damaged all races once it became a hammock instead of a helping hand.
See also Damien Grant: Prison does not change you. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/106531509/a04--damien-grant--
Muddying health research with grievance
It’s disappointing to see a skilled and trained health researcher muddy research with assertions about colonisation, land confiscation, and repression.
Dr Nichola Shackleton of Auckland University drew on data from more than 250,000 four-year-olds who underwent a B4 School Check between 2010 and 2016 to find that “a loss of traditional food gathering places and practices following colonisation, alongside the introduction of new foods such as wheat, negatively impacted food security for Maori and resulted in a loss of traditional knowledge about food practices”.
This suggests that the solution lies in Maori and Pacific Islanders going back to a “Kiwi-Paleo” pre-colonisation diet of little Maori potatoes, nuts, seafood, and the occasional native bird.
However, her assertion that food security decreased after colonisation shows a woeful gap in knowledge of history.
Her other assessment that, unsurprisingly, “differences in socio-economic position are a main driver of these differences in obesity” could simply mean that everyone could be a lot thinner if they just give up the takeaways and raspberry fiz.
See Poverty partly to blame for high Maori, Pacific Island obesity rates. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12240948
Mediation is not a cup of tea
When notified by the Human Rights Commission that Hobson’s Pledge members had declined an offer of mediation, New Zealand Maori Council executive director Matthew Tukaki intensified his attack, which roped in the ACT Party and cited what he calls “hate laws”.
Early last month, Mr Tukaki on behalf of the Maori Council complained to the Human Rights Commission alleging that we breached Section 61 of the Human Rights Act by causing racial disharmony.
Today, Mr Tukaki appeared upset because we had politely declined mediation after one of our spokespersons, Don Brash, had earlier said that he would be happy to sit down for a cuppa.
We do have to point out that a Human Rights Commission mediation is different from having a cuppa.
Mr Tukaki’s rant, which may have lurched into the realms of hate speech according to Section 61 of the said Act, may be read here. https://www.maorieverywhere.com/single-post/2019/06/17/New-Zealand-Maori-Council-calls-Hobson%E2%80%99s-Pledges-claims-that-they-would-accept-an-invitation-for-a-hui-LIES