#New Zealand politics

[balthazarslostlibrary]

Actually deranged behaviour. This guy is supposedly the minister for arts, culture, and heritage, but I guess National is really going mask off on how the only heritage they care about is white coloniser heritage. It also makes this twat look so nonsensical just on its face.

No one can seriously say that National doesn't have an anti-Māori bias at this point and not be lying through their teeth.

[fruitbird15]

recently my dad, who dabbles in writing, happened to see something David Seymour said about privilege, and wrote an article about it in one furious sitting. That post is now gathering a fair amount of momentum on social media such as facebook and instagram. So fuck it, why not share it here:

"David Seymour said on twitter

"If you believe you have special rights because of your ethnicity, you’re going to be disappointed with the Treaty Principles Bill. When you’re used to special rights, equality feels like oppression."

A question I have for those who state that Māori get special privileges in Aotearoa New Zealand, Actually two questions.

1/What are they

2/what decade did they start in this country

Did they start in 1863 when the New Zealand government of the day started the Land Settlement Act? An act that confiscated millions of acres of land from the Māori because the Māori refused to sell, leading to the Māori land wars. An act that by the early 1900s meant that Maori held just 8% of the land they had held when they signed Te Tiriti O Waitangi and that percentage continued to fall. As of 2024 land currently owned by Maori is 5% and that's After Waitangi Tribunal Settlements.

The last bit of land was confiscated during WW2 to make an airfield.

Was this one of their special privileges that settlers to New Zealand didn't get?

Did they start in 1867 when the government signed the Native Schools Act, which decreed that all Native Schools would only be held in English? An act that is often blamed on a petition from tribal chiefs calling for a school for their Moku. Yes they did send such a petition but it asked for 2 things, that they be taught literacy, science, and numeracy and the second was that they be taught both in English and Māori. This act wasn't repealed till 1987 by which time several generations of children had had their language and culture beaten out of them. One of these was my Father, speaking Te Reo still makes his hands hurt and he's 80.

This must have been one of those special privileges that only Māori got as this privilege wasn't offered to Dutch or French or other European children who might have spoken another language at school

Was it being Blackbirded? For those that don't know it was the practice of kidnapping Māori and Pacifica and selling them as slaves in Queensland to work the sugar cane plantations.

Thats a privilege that will make you feel special

Was it in the 1850s when the Crown started confiscating Māori children and giving them to Pakeha families to greater assimilate them into the British way of life, An act that continued until well into the 1980s under the foster system leaving them subjected to mental, physical, and sexual abuse

Its a special privilege for special children

Was it a special privilege that John Ballance transported poisoned sugar and flour up the Wanganui River to sell to Māori an act that got overlooked when he became prime minister of this country

Someone was privileged anyway

Or was it in 1907 when the Government signed the Tohunga Suppression Act which banned Māori from access to their healers and medicines and made them rely on Western medicine instead? Did this get rid of a number of quacks, yes but it also suppressed a lot of local knowledge about medicine from local plants that had worked and it put them into the hands of the Western medical system that didn't have their best interests at heart either. It was also aimed at suppressing Māori religion and culture, after all, you suppress the belief system you suppress the people

The only laws aimed at suppressing a religion passed in this country were made against Māori so that must be one of their special privileges, but they did get to pick what religion they could be forced into, Protestant or Catholic so there's that

Is one of the special Privileges a shorter life span, on average 7 years shorter than Pakeha. Yes, the average life span for Māori in the 1700s was 30 but that was the same for Europeans. Is it because they have the privilege of having their symptoms overlooked in a medical system that has prioritised pakeha males, Is it that Pakeha women are more likely to be offered pain relief during childbirth than Māori women? Is it because they were often paid less than their pakeha counterparts at 81 cents to the dollar and so couldn't afford regular checkups? Is it because they were taught not to put themselves forward and to be noticed by society, to be a good Māori?

Is it a privilege that the New Zealand health system can no longer take their race into account when giving them treatment?

Better-researched people have written more on this special Privilege so I will move on

Was it in 1926 when old age and widow pensions came into this country and Māori were only paid 75 per cent of the going pension rate. In 1937 when pressed on why the Senior Treasury official Bernard Ashwin stated "On the face of it, it may appear equitable to pay the average Māori old-age pensioner the same amount per week as the average European pensioner, but in this matter questions of equity should be decided having regard to the circumstances, the needs and the outlook on life of the individuals concerned … the living standard of the Māori is lower – and after all, the object of these pensions is to maintain standards rather than to raise them.’" Or more simply a grass skirt is cheaper than a suit.

I guess being able to make do with less is a special privilege

Was it during the early to mid-20th century when signs saying No Māori's on pubs, hotels, theatres, and even drinking fountains were not uncommon and cinemas and pools had separate use days? In many places, Māori were only allowed to use the pools on Friday as they were cleaned on Saturday. It must have been that Privilege of trying to rent a property and seeing advertisement after advertisement saying Europeans only. Was it that privilege of being denied bank loans because they were Māori?

Being treated as lesser in your own country must be a privilege

Is it the privilege that Māori are jailed at 3 times the rate of Pakeha for the same crimes that will get a paler-skinned person a non-custodial sentence or no charges at all? They do get a special privilege that their race is taken into account when arrested, or charged or sentenced but that comes with the privilege of their race working against them every step of the way. During the mid-20th century often young Māori men were seen socialising together and harassed by police until they committed an antisocial crime like swearing in public and were sent to borstal

Is it a privilege that unjustified force is disproportionately used against Māori in police encounters and arrests

Constantly being under the watchful eye of the law must be a special privilege indeed

Was it a special privilege that Māori had to start occupying confiscated land in 1977 starting at Bastion Point in an effort to finally get some redress to the massive loss of tribal land, An occupation that lasted for over a year before it was brutally put down by the police and Army

Bash our heads, it's our privilege as Māori

And then there's that special privilege that Māori love and enjoy called the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act an act that takes the aforementioned and places them in the hands of the crown as opposed to the public domain or as was guaranteed by Te Tiriti and then promptly confiscated from guardianship and ownership of Māori. Luckily this bill was repealed in 2010 and replaced with the Marine and Coastal Act 2011 which guaranteed the right to access justice through courts but only if Māori could exercise that special privilege they have.

Can they show that their rights to the foreshore and seabed have been exercised since 1840, in accordance with Tikanga Māori, without substantial interruption and was not interrupted by law, say a law passed in 1863. Then if so, by special privilege then they can put it before the courts. In 2024 they got even more special privileges when the Government ignored the courts recommendation to lower the threshold of proof and required Māori to prove they had had continual exclusive use and ownership since 1840 to have a chance to get confiscated foreshore lands back

Yay the privilege of ever-moving goalposts

Did the privilege start in 1988 when the Crown returned Bastion Point to Ngati Whatua after a prolonged court case or was it in 1989 when the first Ti Tiriti O Waitangi settlement was done giving Waitomo Caves back to Uekaha Hapu or was it 1987 when Te Reo was recognised as an official Language or was it the early 2000s when Bilingual signs started being put up around Aotearoa or was it in 2024 when the Government banned Bilingual signs on roads and in government buildings?

Was it in 1867 when the Māori were granted 4 parliamentary seats, given the Maori population at the time compared to Pakeha it should have been more although it could have been 1868 when Māori men got the right to vote? Oddly it was 11 years before pakeha men were given that right, before then, only landowners could vote and because Māori held land in common all of them could vote

Was it in 1880 were several hundred prisoners from the Māori peaceful protest group Parihaka were held and treated to 2 years hard labour without trial and their settlements burnt and confiscated

Was it in 1977 when race was added to the Human Rights Commission as something you couldn't discriminate against as well as gender, religion or beliefs?

Was it in 1977 when a section was added to the Race Relations Act that made it illegal to publish, broadcast, or make public statements that were likely to incite hostility or ill-will against a group of people based on their: Color, Race, and Ethnic or national origins

Was it after 130 years of being ground down and stepped on and murdered and marginalised and robbed, that laws were made that said, you know we probably shouldn't have been doing that

Is the privilege the knowledge of what 184 years of all of the above does to a people, the hurt that it causes deep into the bone

Is it that in the 40 years since that Human Rights Commission rule that Māori have begun to hold up their heads, to be proud of who they are, to speak their language and to rediscover their culture?

To speak out against things that are wrong in the health system, the education system, the justice system, the welfare system and the political system. To demand, not ask but demand redress for the crimes that the Crown has not only done against them but encouraged others to do to them.

Did the Privilege start when the Waitangi Tribunal awarded 6 cents for every dollar of land confiscated? If you want that broken down, for every million dollars worth of land confiscated, the reparations were only $60000

Is it because New Zealand as a society got used to seeing them be shy, and humble and hard-working and lost amid the diaspora that pakeha society caused?

That society got used to being able to exploit the bits of Māori culture we liked, like the music and the humour and the strong back and compliance and when they found their voice and took it back and that redress was happening and suddenly, they were privileged because how dare they not be happy with scraps from the table.

That Māori were no longer being the Good Māori.

Is the privilege that in 2024, 184 years after the signing of Te Tiriti, Māori are finally getting a fraction of what they should have had if Te Tiriti had been honoured

One other question to the Pakeha of Aotearoa New Zealand

If all of this looks like a Privilege. Do any of you want to swap places?"

[mucking-faori]

Me when I definitely don't have a history of adding underage girls I meet while visiting schools on social media and sending them personal dms

[irawhiti]

kia ora! i would like to suggest the coining of a term that would hopefully help a large demographic of mostly-forgotten-about māori to connect with each other and share our experiences to feel less alone, congregate around a concept regardless of country of origin and upbringing, and organise as activists.

i politely ask as many people to spread this as possible to help indigenous people organise with each other and to get the largest amount of interactions possible.

anyway, with all that being said,

i would like to coin the term "ngāti rangiātea" for māori who do not know their iwi to use.

this is based on the well known whakataukī/proverb, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed which was sown from rangiātea." i chose this whakataukī due to the spiritual significance of rangiātea as a place in māori culture, as well as to emphasise that no matter how it feels, we are not lost, we can find ourselves in each other, we can experience strength and self-realisation, and that we will exist with mana and without whakamā as rightful tangata whenua.

i've put my reasoning, personal experiences shaping my viewpoints on the matter, and various statistics under the cut to make this post reblog-friendly and i would suggest fellow māori read it regardless of whether or not they know their iwi. i also ask for the opinions of other māori, ESPECIALLY AND SPECIFICALLY other māori who do not know their iwi. in fact, i politely ask māori to share this with their whānau and people in general to share this with māori they know, especially any they know who do not know their iwi. a wide reach is what i am going for to get the largest amount of voices, critiques, and opinions on the topic and to avoid this from just becoming a very small thing that stays in an online echo-chamber.

to begin, the 2018 aotearoan census shows that, of the 775,836 people identifying as māori in aotearoa, roughly 17% are unable to identify their iwi in the census. this has gone up by 1% since 2006, showing that we are a considerably stable percentage of people. along with this, there are more than 170,000 māori living in australia and, while there are no solid statistics, there are an estimated 8,000 māori living in the UK, 3,500 in the US, 2,500 in canada, and 8,000 in other countries where there's no option for māori or any polynesians on the census.

this number adds up to 967,816 total māori and while there's no census in these countries asking for your iwi, i would go as far as to assume that there's a larger number of diaspora māori who are no longer able to identify their iwi than there are in aotearoa. of course, this is just speculation based on my lived experiences and conversations with other diaspora māori, however even assuming that it's the exact same amount globally, 17%, this is roughly 164,532 māori worldwide who do not know their iwi. nearly one in five māori do not know their iwi.

regardless of the specific statistics, the hard fact here is that there is a large percentage of māori who are unsure of their iwi for whatever reason. it's extremely easy to feel unsure of yourself, lost, disconnected, and uncomfortable speaking on issues regarding te ao māori when you're unsure of your iwi (or your hapū, whānau, waka, or anything else, but there is heavy emphasis on the iwi) and it's very easy for whakamā to take hold, especially when many māori who can recite their whakapapa aren't very polite or understanding about your situation to say the least.

and there are a lot of those people.

unfortunately, i've spoken to many māori who are of the opinion that not knowing your iwi due to colonialism, assimilation, forced disconnection, etc. means that you should not, cannot, call yourself māori. this is a disgusting viewpoint to have and in my opinion it spits on the fundamental concepts of māori culture and worldviews. thankfully this is a small yet vocal group of people, but even so, they add to the collective experience that makes it extremely difficult to navigate a world while full of whakamā and internalised racism. it can feel like there's no space for you, no term you can use, nobody you can relate to, no mana you can claim, nothing. when you cannot recite your whakapapa, it can feel like there's a part of you that's fundamentally missing.

as well as this, even when people mean well, when you are in this situation, you're usually told to just do some genealogy work, do some research, ask your family what they know. sometimes, these steps are simply not possible. other times, we've already done everything suggested over and over and over again. we're generally told "oh, that sucks, but one day you'll find out, keep looking!" in response to our lack of iwi. sure, they mean well, but i have never once been told anything along the lines of "that's okay, some things are lost to time through no fault of your own. don't beat yourself up over something your whānau had to hide to survive, what you do now to uphold your family's mana, what you do know about your whānau, and who you ultimately become is more important than what you no longer know."

and why? why is it seen as shameful to say matter-of-factly that i don't know my iwi? i'm not looking for comfort, i'm not looking to be told that, aww, there there, i'll find it eventually. i'm stating a fact. i do not need pity, i need my mana and voice to be respected.

this concept is what i want to emphasise by coining ngāti rangiātea. some things are lost to time, but we aren't. our loss of knowledge does not mean that we are unworthy of being māori, that we are unworthy of basic human respect. it does not mean that we have lost everything that our whānau knows. it is a scar, a reminder of what colonisation took from us, yes, but we cannot allow it to continue to be an open bleeding wound. we will not be lost to time and we should not bow our heads and act like we do not exist, that we're inconvenient, that we damage the "image" that māori have. in fact, we are an important aspect of māori culture and ignoring our existence does harm to everybody.

and of course we can't speak on some topics regarding te ao māori. this seems to be a topic that comes up frequently as a strawman. yes, there are some topics that would be irresponsible to speak on when we have no experience with them. this doesn't mean we can't speak on anything. having a collective identity, an "iwi" to congregate around even just politically, would help us speak on topics that we are more qualified to speak on than māori with knowledge of their iwi (yes, those topics exist, shockingly.)

we will never be lost, for we are a seed sown in rangiātea.

by identifying as ngāti rangiātea, i wish to emphasise that it's important to accept that sometimes, someone just won't be able to find every piece of information. loss of family knowledge is literally one of the primary goals of forced assimilation! we all went through it as colonised peoples, why must we continue to attach shame to those of us who were forced to obfuscate our history to keep our children alive? it's not a personal flaw, it's not a dirty secret, it's a fact of life that must not continue to be kept quiet out of shame, and the sooner we can focus on healing this subsection of our community, the stronger māori as a whole will become.

so, this is why i'd like to coin a term for māori who are unsure of their iwi. this is what i intend to achieve by giving us a name, our own "iwi" to congregate around, to identify ourselves as. instead of hanging my head and saying "i'm not sure what my iwi is, i'm sorry", instead of feeling inclined to beg like a dog to be treated with respect, i would like to look people in the eye and tell them that i am ngāti rangiātea. i would like this label to be synonymous with strength and not shame, that i refuse to let my whakamā swallow me, that i am just as worthy of calling myself māori as anyone else, that there are many others in my iwi (or lack thereof). i would like other people to have that as well and i would like those like me to feel less lost when all they've been told is "well, you'll learn your iwi eventually!" as if that's going to help someone feel better if they can't find their iwi.

and even if a person finds their iwi eventually, it's absolutely disgraceful that people are treated that they're not allowed to access many basic parts of te ao māori until they discover something they are not even 100% destined to find. i think that this view contributes to a lot of people who eventually find their iwi becoming unnecessarily arrogant towards those who truly cannot find this information, that they're just not putting enough effort in. if a person finds their iwi after identifying as ngāti rangiātea, they are fully welcome to continue to identify as this political label along with the iwi they now know they belong to as i wish for it to be a term that describes your experiences, your upbringing, and your community. you don't suddenly lose your whānau or your lived experience when you discover your whakapapa.

finally, this hopefully goes without saying, but ngāti rangiātea is not meant to function as a real existing iwi does. the term will hopefully be used as a way to identify yourself and other people and organise but i don't expect nor do i want this to be treated like a coordinated iwi. i expect and hope for this to be a decentralised way of identifying and experiencing community to make it easier to organise as a people. think of this the way the terms ngāti kangaru, ngāti rānara, ngāti tūmatauenga etc. are used.

-----

so, the tl;dr is that i feel like coining a name for a phenomenon that nearly one in five of all māori experience in quiet shame, to make it easier for us to congregate and find each other, speak on our experiences, organise as activists, feel less lost, and ultimately give us the ability to regain our mana as a community with shared goals and experiences. i have spoken to many māori who feel this way and my suggestion for this term is ngāti rangiātea, to show homage to the well known whakataukī, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed sown from rangiātea", to give us a community to work with, and to give us an "iwi" to list when asked instead of fumbling for words and feeling whakamā.

i would like to take the emphasis off of constantly looking to the future for what you may or may not even find with this identity. we are not broken, we are not lost, for we are seeds sown in ngāti rangiātea.

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa, and if you got this far, thank you for reading.

[lilliths-not-just-httyd-blog]

isn't this shit fucking illegal??????

get me out of this fucking country

[sapphia]

waitangi dildo incident 2.0 incoming

the girl who threw the dildo at new zealand politician steven joyce has been spotted in this shirt

[purrassicjet]

Pro tip: protest your school's ban on phones by playing poker at lunch times instead

[charliechats]

first, christopher luxon congratulates trump on his win regarding the presidential election

second, nz first are trying to implement new policies regarding inmates in prisons which borderline the label of slavery (looking at the statistic which says ~63% of inmates are māori and pasifika, its another example of this discriminatory government)

third, the treat principles bill made by act has been announced and is completely abandoning the concept of equity - further enforcing white privilege and an almost "more for you, less for you" attitude - which is to be presented and debated in parliament next week

i am so fucking disappointed in our country right now.

toitū te rangatiratanga

[geekariffic]

Fuck this government and their austerity measures! See what the Tories did to the NHS? Don't let NACTF do that here!

Get out in the streets!

[airyairyaucontraire]

Good summary from dear old John Campbell of the truly dire state of things we can expect over the next three years.

I work, you might remember, for the Ministry of Justice (please do not mistake this for me supporting everything about the justice system in New Zealand, I have a limited range of skills and I need to get paid) so I get a pretty clear view of how poverty and alienation drive criminal offending. These policies are going to make that worse.

It doesn't even get into the fact that they're going to try to make it harder for people with disabilities to access benefits. Because apparently they've had it too easy.

It's so bloody discouraging to foresee the damage this is going to do to individual lives and to our society overall.

[coralfestmoon]

New Zealand MP performs haka in powerful maiden speech🤣😂😍🤩👇👇👇👇

[alexanderpearce]

oh i've been following this (screenshots ~16 nov 2024/~25 nov 2024)

[head-post]

Thousands arrive at New Zealand parliament to protest against Maori treaty bill

Tens of thousands of marchers took to the streets of New Zealand’s capital Wellington on Tuesday to oppose legislation that would change a fundamental treaty between the Maori people and the British crown.

For many, it was more than that – a celebration of the revival of the indigenous language and identity that colonisation once nearly destroyed. Shanell Bob said as she waited for the procession to begin:

“We’re just fighting for the rights that our tupuna, our ancestors, fought for.”

Using Maori words for children and grandchildren, she added:

“We’re fighting for our tamariki, for our mokopuna, so they can have what we didn’t have.”

It was probably the country’s largest protest in support of Maori rights – a theme that has troubled modern New Zealand for much of its history – following a long tradition of peaceful marches across the country that have marked pivotal moments in the history of modern New Zealand.

Some marched across the country, and for many the turnout reflected the growing non-Maori solidarity on the issue of indigenous rights.

The march, which began at Cape Reinga and travelled across the North Island, reached Wellington. Before marching to Parliament, tens of thousands of people gathered in Waitangi Park, colouring the skyline with tino rangatiratanga flags, a symbol of Māori sovereignty. Protesters carried placards demanding compliance with the treaty and calling for the bill to be cancelled.

The crowd stretched for almost two kilometres, filling the area around Parliament. Marcher Hayley Komenet emphasised the unity of protesters from different walks of life and condemned the government’s policy as “absolutely ridiculous,” calling the Treaty of Waitangi the country’s constitutional document.

Maori bill

Maori Queen Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki called for dialogue on nationhood and unity, but opposed the unilateral bill, which she said undermines the Treaty of Waitangi. On Monday, her spokeswoman Ngira Simmons said the Queen was not in favour of a bill questioning the historic treaty.

The document, signed in 1840 between Maori and the crown, plays a key role in protecting indigenous rights.

The proposed bill is strongly resented by the public, academics, lawyers and Maori rights groups. Critics fear it will create division, undermine the treaty and damage the relationship between Maori and the authorities.

For 50 years, the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi have evolved through court judgements, tribunals and government agreements to govern Maori and authority relations. Core principles such as participation, partnership, protection and redress have been applied to address Maori social and economic inequalities. A new bill introduced by the libertarian ACT party seeks to replace these established principles.

ACT argues that the current principles have distorted the original purpose of the treaty by creating a dual system of rights and privileges for Maori over other New Zealanders. The party favours ending the “racial divide.”

New Zealand’s parliament was temporarily suspended last week due to Maori politicians performing their ritual haka dance in protest.

MPs were angered by the controversial bill and performed the haka in protest. New Zealand’s youngest MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who started the ceremonial dance, also tore up a copy of the bill. Parliament was briefly suspended as people in the gallery joined in and the shouts drowned out others in the chamber.

Read more HERE

[generallemarc]

Look, I'm Catholic. I don't believe there can be any divorce that maintains God's commandments outside of this specific situation at all, aside from the related situation of "my spouse is actually a murderer/rapist/terrorist" or the like. But in a democratic society, personal religious beliefs have no business informing government policy unless you've got a secular reason on top of it(ie, I think hard drugs should be illegal because their use is sinful and also because they destroy the lives of the users, and if that "and also" wasn't there my belief would have no basis being policy), and I cannot think of a secular reason, or any reason for that matter, for making people wait two years for a divorce. What right does the government of New Zealand have to dictate this to people? None, that's what. Utterly absurd.

[lilliths-not-just-httyd-blog]

As much as I think it's fucking bizarre and weird that David Seymour would be replying to Snapchat messages from minors, props to the fucker who sent him this unprompted

fuckin' kiwi legend

oh yeah one of our politicians was responding to minors on snapchat

[sapphia]

Can I get more info about what's going on in nz? I watch global news regularly and nothing about this has come up and I find this highly disturbing.

we elected a neoliberal nightmare of a government who are destroying our health system, water system, ferry and rail system, environment and democracy for profit. people are literally dying in hospitals because there is no doctor in hospitals in multiple rural towns and they just have a consultation on an ipad. the government are trying to frame Health NZ as having a budget deficit of 1.5 billion when in reality that deficit exists because they provided like 3 billion dollars with of tax cuts they couldn’t afford. National cuts spending to health every time they get in government and the disjointed DHB system has been unable to keep up financially with the growing population and health needs.

i personally have just been FUCKED by national as for the last two years i have been navigating our labyrinth of a health system, not working due to being intensely suicidal, trying to find therapy to get better and there just isn’t any available. so i payed for a private autism diagnosis to try and access funding for therapy through the ministry of disability and also get under their umbrella because they actually treat you like a person there and also don’t actively seem to want you dead like they do in the mental health system. but the process took so long that by the time i got my diagnosis and through the referral system, national had yoinked the funding and deemed that therapy will no longer be covered by the disability funding system. all therapies. for disabled people.

oh also they’re like trying to start a race war or something as both minor parties in the 3-way coalition government are trying to negate the Treaty of Waitangi in law, and they’re also attacking the judiciary and had to be told to stop by our attorney general, who they ignored obviously.

our prime minister answers every question with “i say to you” followed by just a literal lie, they’re all just lying through their teeth, i literally have an OIA request about when David Seymour, our deputy-PM-in-waiting (don’t ask) said that preschool education needed to be reviewed because they were being prevented from teaching phonics. they’re not. someone just expressed concern that that might be happening to him, and apparently he is basing government policy on that?? or at least using it to falsely justify it to the nation.

their ideas are all bad and disproven by evidence-based studies, despite their slogan being “we’re going to make evidence-based decisions”. New Zealand has hit a funding wall where we’ve kicked the can too far down the road on like everything and it’s all starting to collapse at once and this government are not only letting it happen, they’re actively helping it along because they’ve all got shares in private rival companies or mates they want to give contracts to (our former national PM got paid insane money to write an insanely biased report attacking our ministry of social housing) or they’ve had their careers helped along by lobbying firms or they want to work for lobbying firms after they leave parliament.

the speaker of the house (who is right now being accused of not dealing with racism within his own party because of course he isn’t, he’s gerry fucking brownlee, the most hated man in christchurch) has allowed lobbyists unprecedented unrecorded entry to parliament. the minister for conservation keeps “forgetting” to write his lobby dinners in his diary. one of them told an mp “he’s not in mexico anymore”. no one is getting in trouble for this shit while the left are being raked over the coals. there’s like so much more. no one can keep up. and nothings being done about it.

tldr; help