The Role of the National Party

Every controversy has shown the National Party's lack of care for the Maori people. Why do the Tainui Awhiro people have to pay to get the Raglan Golf Course back? Why has Muldoon been so underhand (secret negotiations with elders) and conniving over Bastion Point? He promised Whina Cooper on the steps of Parliament that he'd ammend the Town and County Planning Act where it hurts the Maori. Why has he not done so?

Why does the Government which makes so much of our "multi-racial harmony" not do anything positive but legislates against the concept? Why did the National Party stack the Maori Council in its early days with National Party members who told the government exactly what it wanted to hear? Why aren't the Maori MP's considered representative of the Maori people by the National Government?

Why? Because the National Party epitomises the pakeha/settler ethic of open market warfare and hence is a party of assimilation not multi-culturalism. Perhaps an enlightened Maori Land Court and the new "Europeanised" mode of leadership emerging in the Maori can combat the trend. Determination to occupy at Bastion Point and Raglan regardless of Court decisions marks a new era in the land struggle.

There is a saying: "Assimilation is what the shark said to the Kahawai before he opened his mouth and swallowed him for breakfast."

Paul McHugh