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RockyJ

234 comments · +6,350 / −1,035 · rank #44 of 40,276

So, if we accept that this view of our history is accurate, my question to Maori is: what would need to happen to recompense the wrong? To the point where the sense of grievance goes away? I am seriously interested in the answer. What would put it right?

+174−7

The tragedy is that Serena, who now thinks she is bigger than tennis, has set the standard for how all women can behave when they dont get their way. The baying mob in the Womens Tennis Association have reinforced this. It is the ultimate act of playing to the crowd as victimhood is now the means to gain influence, power and control. Its a bigger issue than just tennis.

+162−5

I think the Rogernomics economic reforms had more analysis and a broader consensus than the decision to stop oil and gas exploration. That oil and gas decision was purely to build the coalition, in other words a pawn to sacrifice to win power. Rogernomics was the inescapable outcome of the likelihood New Zealand was going bankrupt like Argentina did.

+173−22

Some years ago my wife and I operated a job search service for migrants. We told a client from India he had a very low prospect of employment in his field in NZ. Despite our warnings he paid us to carry out a job search.When he didnt get a job he went ballistic at us. I now realize that his understanding was that by paying us he was buying a job offer.A good learning for us and maybe for him.

+125−2

I spent my career in the employment field and for a while specialised in finding work for migrants. It is too easy to fire the racist accusation at employers. The difficulty migrants have are not just language barriers. There are big cultural differences in areas such as willingness to make decisions, attitudes to women and inflexibility in taking on lower level tasks. Many migrants come from a background where they are seen as superior in their home environment and this arrogance carries over here.You might see this as stereotyping and it is. Stereotyping is a legitimate strategy for decision making in hiring because mistakes are costly and a kiwi is a safer risk.

+98−4

The social Marxists inhabiting our universities see indoctrination of our young as the means to elevate minorities and bring down the white middle class. Compulsory Te Reo would be accompanied by a heavy dose of distorted history and cultural re education, you can be sure of that.

+96−12

Gromet77That is a very good question. History tells us that the totalitarian version of socialism (USSR, Cuba, Communist China, Venezuela) at worst resulted in millions of deaths and at best stagnation. People like to cite the Scandanavian version as the exemplar. Unfortunately the Scandinavians are culturally quite different to kiwis. They have, until recent times, been able to maintain the high level of state involvement and cost due to their higher work ethic, better education and social cohesion. So I think for us to aspire to their model is an illusion. That is my opinion. What do you think?

+72−2

Jacinta blew away the trust of the business community when she said capitalism is a blatant failure in her first interview on becoming prime minister. Since then the actions of the coalition have confirmed that her actions still support this view.

+76−8

My advice is to get online and look up child abuse gangs UK, numbers of attempted terrorism attack s in Europe and how the Koran advocates assassination of non-Muslims. This religion has an openly stated aim of overthrowing western culture and replacing It with a caliphate. Many Muslim refugees see the kindness of the West as our weakness. It is an existential threat to western culture. You should be ashamed of your ignorance and cowardice, this is not racism.

+72−4

Personally I am all in favour of my children learning Te Reo if they want. Unfortunately I believe this is being driven by a sector with a totally different agenda to language. Many leading Māori have the aspiration of a partnership arrangement for the governance of NZ. This means some sort of equal power sharing Māori and the rest of us. This is totally unacceptable to mainstream. But it does appeal to a number of white progressive liberals who actively despise the western democratic principles on which our democracy was founded. The progressive left see this as a long term strategy to subvert democracy by indoctrinating our next generation with white guilt, contempt for western values and acceptance of an apartheid form of government. The Te Teo curriculum would be heavily laced with these ingredients, the teaching profession wont be able to resist it. We must resist compulsory Te Reo in high schools at all costs

+72−8

The reason why learning Maori should not be compulsory is contained in your article as it has been in nearly every Stuff article on Maori Language week.You could not resist making an assertion regarding the ill treatment of Maori in the past as part of your argument.Teachers of Te Reo would do the same. The curriculum will come with a heavy dose of white guilt, our obligations to Maori and denigration of our treasured western values such as democracy, rule of law etc. It will be an agenda to indoctrinate the young to gain political advantage in the next generation and must be resisted.

+71−8

I support Maori Language week.I oppose compulsory Te Reo teaching in schools.The reason for opposing compulsory Te Reo is that I do not trust the government or the teaching profession to resist the temptation to overlay the curriculum with themes of white guilt, contempt for western values like democracy and the advantages of a Maori approach to the governance of our country. The philosophy of cultural marxism flourishes in our universities and permeates much discourse in the media and schools. It is a deliberate attempt to use diversity to indoctrinate our young to give minorities advantages over the white mainstream.Many leading Maori such as Pita Sharples, the Maori king and others plus white liberals like Andrew Judd have stated their vision of our constitutional arrangement as a partnership between Maori and the rest. No more one person one vote. Knowing the pakeha majority would resist this the strategy is to indoctrinate our young via compulsory Te Reo along the lines i described.They have also stated that this will take generations to achieve, so it is very real. Cultural Marxists also oppose free speech and label anyone who disagrees with them a racist. This article shows the authors contempt for people who dont like Maori language week I try to resist negative views of Te Reo and Maori. I love democracy.

+78−15

To reply to your specific question at the end of the article, I support people striving for equality. Most kiwis, including Don Brash, I am sure, do. We do object to equality being awarded or enforced as the current regime seems to want to do.As for the rest of the article I found it unclear exactly what you were trying to say except you sure seem to not like Don Brashs opinion. Unsure whether you think his opinion should be banned. I have news for you: most New Zealanders support Don Brashs opinion that the Treaty settlement programme needs to end quickly. That includes me and I do not think being in support of equal opportunity makes me a racist.

+59−1

This is a clear sign the government knows it has bungled this and is desperate to claw back some goodwill.Dumping on our third largest export earner because of an unproven future hypothesis called global warming is stupidity. Recall how climate science has been predicting temperature increases since the 1960s as snow falls in the South Island.

+64−7

Thank you for a balanced view. In the words of Mark Twain âTo arrive at a just estimation of a renowned mans character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not oursâ. From his book Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

+59−3

I had a lifetime of self employment where my earnings stopped when I went on holiday, got sick or had a period of bad business. Now my wife and I are retired and we get a fortnightly salary payment from the taxpayer.I cant believe my luck.

+56−2

Doesnt a university degree require a high IQ and hard work to attain? It is probably a good thing about a third of the students fail as the standard needs to be high. I had this discussion with a university lecturer who thought anyone who works hard enough should be able to get a degree. Whereas I think it needs to have a high academic standard so you would expect a failure rate

+52−0

In my lifetime I remember my father finding Hori funny as heck. All the pakeha coots were uptight duffers , the same with BillyT. We need to stop taking ourselves so seriously and have a laugh at ourselves.As regard the distant past Mark Twain in his best book, The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc wrote: To arrive at a just estimation of a renowned mans character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

+53−2

Lets face it, feminism now is all about advancing highly educated women into positions of power and influence. Its advocates are elite women already. Women who are struggling to survive economically and emotionally day to day are ignored. It just goes to show that feminists are as self-serving as any other minority interest group.

+53−4

There is a world of difference between running a government funded by compulsory taxation and a business that has to makes sales to generate revenue. That is why her comment that the government is the biggest employer was a clanger

+53−4

Hang on, theres another stage after Implementation. This is Renegotiation where new grounds for a claim are thought up or a top-up is needed to keep up with later claims by other tribes.Then the whole cycle repeats.

+51−9

the reason it works in Wales is because they are all Welsh. I guess the reason so many Maori dont speak Re Reo is it is not relevant. They are not stupid, after all.I love it when this government says we need to change our attitudes on so many issues. Please dont make me change my attitude Kelvin.

+41−4

Anne Salmonds comment that âif women lead like men then they have lost❠showed a disappointing level of ignorance from such an exalted leader. I have spent 30 years coaching leaders using an internationally recognised 360 feedback questionnaire that provides data on a leaders personal leadership style. Over several thousand individuals I have found NO significant difference between the quality of leadership between women and men. The supposed superiority of women in the areas of empathy and caring is a myth. The is great variation within the two gender population but not between them

+37−2

The economics of creating employment are simple. Employing is a cost which, as the government raises wages and conditions, reaches a point where it becomes more profitable to relocate to a cheaper country or automate. The choice for the nation is low cost employment or unemployment. Education is a long term solution. Lets not kid ourselves, our workforce is not very literate and too many kiwis lack a work ethic. Jacinda said âthe capitalist model is brokenâ. Lets see whether her formula can create high value employment in the short to medium term. I doubt it.

+41−6

The difference is not what they do, its who they are. Having lived a while in Denmark I can say the culture in the Nordic countries is quite different to ours. They place a higher priority on vocational education, have a higher work ethic and a higher sense of personal responsibility than we do. They turn up for work on time for a start.In addition they have a stronger level of social cohesion, that is, âwhat is good for Denmark is good for me.❠Until many kiwis, not all, wake up and take responsibility for themselves simply replicating the systems of Nordic countries will fail.As a PS, the attributes I pointed to above are eroding in Denmark under the relentless influence of decades of welfare and corrosive immigration.

+35−1

Excellent question. At the end of the day the answer to it is so ugly not many commentators are prepared to stump up with the answers.From replies to this question I put in another article I got replies like equal partnership Maori and the rest in the governance of this country (in other words no more one person one vote), and direct payment from the government to all Maori to lift their personal wealth to the level of Pakeha. Very dangerous as we go down the path of Zimbabwe.

+38−5

Hey, Im not saying dont learn Te Reo, Im saying dont beat yourself up if you dont\cant. As for individualism even the most connected person only has power over himself or herself. Allowing others to determine your sense of self worth can be difficult. But Im not a shrunk so what do I know? I do a lot of coaching and often see, in both Pakeha and other ethnicities, people who rely too much on meeting their perception of what their families or whanau think of them. This is common for Maori, other polynesians and asians.Learning to become comfortable with yourself as you are, not how you think others want you to be, is the path to emotional health.

+34−1

I have a lot of experience working as a recruitment consultant and helping migrants find work. At a management and professional level issues arise when speech is so heavily accented the migrant has to repeat everything. Plus the cultural differences, for example, migrants are frequently over specialised and not willing, or able to be, as flexible as our small scale businesses require. Also the attitude to working for and with women can cause problems. It is hard to check qualifications and references in non English speaking countries. So, overall, they are a greater risk and the retraining in our ways can take time. Many employers simply avoid the hassle.

+37−5

As far back as the 1920s George Orwell identified the Labour polititians as upper class socialists with contempt for the working class whom they purported to represent. I would guess National parliamentarians would be similar with regard to small business owners and farmers. Too many can enter politics via university degrees in political science rather than the real world where you work for a living.

+36−4

Its not so much the compulsory Te Reo that bothers me. Its the associated PC slant on history that is designed to engender white guilt and that will be served as a side dish that really upsets my digestion.

+34−2

Experts who predict that people will live longer will be proven wrong. The average life expectancy in the USA is declining due to obesity and consumption of opioids. We will follow suit. Also in NZ people are not living longer, they are dying later. They are just as broken down at 65 as they ever were, medical science is delaying dying.

+32−0

I feel sorry for young women today. Their heads are filled with ideas about how special they are, how being better than boys is important and how they are expected to define success in terms of career progress and nothing else.At the same age i was learning duty to society and care for others.Much better lessons.

+33−6

The last paragraph in this article makes me despair. Everyone who works with human improvement knows that the key to growth lies with the individual accepting responsibility for their own problems and committing to taking action for themselves. Expecting the government and the rest of us to do it for them is self-defeating and a cargo cult mentality.The damage done by this series of articles being so one-sided is that it reinforces the Maori identity as a helpless victim. This ensures that the social dysfunction Maori inflict on themselves will only get worse. The victim hood statements run through every article. I have no problem with the Truth but how about the other side of this story?

+26−1

These are the reasons for prisons:1. Rehabilitation. Our elite leaders seem to think this is the only reason Fail 2. Stop bad people harming the rest of us. Tick3. Deterrence. Any sane person would not want to serve prison time. Tick4. Punishment. Totally justifiable when you are the victim of crime. This is the reason our ruling elites regard as abhorrent but society justly needs to feel the scales have been balanced somewhat. TickThree ticks out of four in favour of more prisons.

+27−3

A very constructive approach in this opinion. Some commentators have accused business people of being overly frightened but trying to predict the future business environment is vital for a businesss personFor a small business it can be a question of whether to increase the mortgage on the house in order to buy equipment or hire staff. Knowing the government will not pull the rug out of your industry, as they have already done with one, will make all the difference.

+31−8

The culture problem at councils is driven by two factors. Staff are overpaid and there is no accountability. The result is that there is every incentive to display the most dysfunctional behaviours in order to work your way up the hierarchy and hang on to your job.

+23−1

Oh my goodness, so much wrong with this article. Firstly, Scandanavia is currently collapsing under the weight of immigrant violent crime so they are not the role model. Secondly pre European New Zealand was vioilent, tribal and cannibalistic so that is no role model.If you ask the average joker he would say build more prisons, not fewer. But then the participants at this conference would probably regard the average joker as a red neck bigot.

+27−5

I been spending some time in Denmark and have to say they are way ahead of us in so many ways. Very few natural resources and they seem to be happier wealthier and healthier.Why is this? Very little down to government and a lot more a result of superior societal values. This has been an evolutionary process over generations. Nothing to do with diversity. We kiwis need to wise up.

+22−0

If judges are able to establish social policy in sentencing then they need to weigh the impact of their rulings on the wider community. As this ruling becomes a precedent for sentencing Maori it will create a strongly negative reaction, both predictable and justified, from the wider community. Our legal system will be held in contempt and it will be the judiciary themselves who will bring about erosion of respect for the law. Frankly I wonder how a qualified lawyer of such a low caliber and poor understanding of the principle of equal application of the law was ever appointed a judge in the first place.

+23−2

Tying your sense of self worth to your proficiency in a language is self defeating, Kris. You are worthwhile because you are a person, not a dictionary. Even if you never learn it look at all the other things you have done I am not a Maori but I cannot believe your value is determined by your knowledge of anything, it is determined by your character.

+31−12

The PM is asserting a need to impose a quota of 50/50 women and men in senior roles in the public service. The demise of Curran and Meka Whaitiri demonstrates that promoting people based on gender rather than ability is a dangerous strategy. Now her cabinet of eight only has two women including herself. Another flawed PC policy

+21−2

Yes it will come to pass when the older generation have died off and the new generation have been indoctrinated via compulsory Te Reo lessons. Hopefully our younger generations will be able to think for themselves. By the way I love it when the reasons people like me oppose compulsory Māori language education are ascribed to âracismâ. Shows there is need for understanding from both sides of this debate.

+20−3

If they can kneecap oil and gas they can do the same to dairy. The signals about the coalitions antipathy towards the dairy industry have been clear. That would be two out of our three largest export earners down. We cannot trust this lot with the economy.

+19−2

The dance venues were a great way to meet. Boys on one side girls in the other. You could pick out one and give her a try for 5 minutes. You got to talk to them, touch them and even catch their smell! If it didnt work out it was a polite thank you and no hurt feelings.

+18−1

These kinds of initiatives may sound great on the surface but they suffer from two fatal flaws. 1. They create a wave of resentment from the accused party. How long do Pakeha have to put up with constant Pakeha bashing before they do develop the racist behaviour they are being accused of? 2. By taking responsibility for their health off individuals targeted the health outcomes get worse, not better. Please, do not facilitate this folly.

+19−2