Thinking about that one Wendy Carlos video where she's boymoding and has the big fake glued on sideburns and the suit, but with beautifully shaped eyebrows and that t-girl voice, and shes completely and utterly unconvincing trying to pass as a man, but also shes just so excitedly infodumping about moog synthesizers and batting her eyelashes its hard not to fall in love with her.
Okay, now reporting back from one research deep-dive, the recent context as I understand it is this:
Last November, a conservative right-wing Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, assumed office. He's got a lot of less than stellar right-wing policies, and that includes making cuts to the Ministry of Social Development and opposing co-governance with the Waitangi Tribunal and other Māori leadership organisations over the administering of public services such as education, health, and infrastructure. He's been openly critical of Māori seats in Parliament, though he hasn't (yet) opposed them. Over the course of his administration, there's been an initiative to omit or cut mentions of the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document of New Zealand that forms the basis of arguments for Māori protections, from official language.
Which brings us to yesterday, May 30th. Budget Day. The day the new administration would announce their first budget and a day of mass action for supporters of te Pāti Māori protesting the treatment of Māori under the new government. I don't have any concrete numbers, but RNZ reports thousands of protestors, while the NZ Herald estimates "tens of thousands" turning out nation-wide, and a walking protest that delayed rush-hour traffic in Auckland for hours.
You may have already guessed that the budget was Bad. As I understand it, the budget effectively cut any kind of targeted funding for Māori health or education, and decreased funding for Māori cultural festivals and celebrations. And again, I cannot stress enough how much I am not an expert on this topic, so there's probably a lot more in there I don't know about.
In response to the new budget, Māori Party MP Rawiri Waititi issued a Declaration of Independence to the New Zealand Parliament, (video of his speech in link) with the support of his fellow te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
There doesn't seem to be any concrete plan in place yet for the organisation of the new Māori parliament, but MPs Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer met with protestors to collect signatures for the Declaration, which they plan to bring to a hui taumata (meeting of congress) today, Friday, May 31st. The text of the Declaration can be found on te Pāti Māori website.
“There's already American contractors here, bidding to rebuild this joint. You're gonna tell me. You know, that's all the defense department is. We're bodyguards for American contractors. [...] The U.N.? They don't... We own the U.N. The U.S government owns the U.N. We foot the bill for the U.N. The U.N. does what we want it to. Except for who? Libya and Cuba. So what. We wanted to go in there in a week, we'd take those over if we wanted to anyways. But we foot the bill for the U.N, they'll vote how we want them to vote. That's just our, that's, that's the U.S puppet. You guys should know that you're, you've been in college, I haven't!”
my utopia has disability in it. my utopia includes free healthcare and no-questions welfare and state-funded carers. my utopia includes building requirements that centre disabled bodies — ramps and lifts and dimmer switches and braille signs. my utopia has disability in it. because without disability, it’s not much of a utopia at all