22-10-2023, 11:00 AM
The political hot potato.
https://www.thepress.co.nz/a/politics/35...dum-policy
"David Seymour wants to talk. It’s just a few days after the election, the negotiations to form the new government are but negotiations about negotiations, and party leaders on the political right are cautious about saying too much in public.
But Seymour is on the phone, speaking about ACT’s stance on the Treaty of Waitangi and its demand for a referendum on the issue – perhaps the hottest of hot political potatoes sitting on the negotiation table.
And he’s not holding back.
The Sunday Star-Times had asked what had changed since 2016 when Seymour spoke in very different terms about the state of race relations.
In an RNZ interview about Hobson’s Pledge which had just been formed, fronted by former ACT and National leader Don Brash, Seymour talked about the importance of realising political events happened in a context.
He compared 2016 to 2004 when Brash gave his famous “Ōrewa speech”, and the country was divided over the foreshore and seabed debate.
“Now, here we are 12 years on, at least two members of my family are currently attempting to learn Māori … that’s how times have moved on. You’ve now got mainly white middle class people who are embracing Māori culture – a very different environment from what we faced in 2004.”
And that wasn’t an aberration. In 2014, during an interview with the Listener, he spoke out about previous ACT campaigns around Māori issues. “I reject, for example, having a newspaper advertisement that says, ‘Sick of the Māorification of Everything?’ That was disgraceful.”
Seymour told the Listener he considered leaving the party in 2011 because of that ad. He expressed disdain for how previous leader Jamie Whyte had played the race card in the 2014 election.
But if things aren’t good, shouldn’t Seymour and other politicians who have made an issue of the Treaty take some responsibility?
After all, there have been warnings this week from Te Pāti Māori’s John Tamihere and the Greens’ James Shaw about the possibility of violence if ACT’s Treaty referendum goes ahead.
Earlier in the year, the spokesperson for the Iwi Chairs Forum and Treaty educator had a Zoom meeting with Seymour.
“I thought, ‘I want to find out what the heck he’s on about’,” says Hamilton.
“I’m a really, really patient and tolerant person … but he really frustrated me and it was difficult to have a proper conversation with him.
“He said to me things like, ‘I’m an intelligent man and I’m in this because I know what I’m doing’, and I tried to give him credit for that.”
But in the end the conversation ended without going anywhere, and they agreed to differ.
“I found him to be so … ignorant [and] a bit judgemental … but he was really, really difficult is probably the best way of putting it.”
Is that what we can expect of Seymour in government? Does that mean he will insist on the referendum?
Ben Thomas is not so sure.
“There are always compromises to be made, that’s what politics is,” says Thomas."
https://www.thepress.co.nz/a/politics/35...dum-policy
"David Seymour wants to talk. It’s just a few days after the election, the negotiations to form the new government are but negotiations about negotiations, and party leaders on the political right are cautious about saying too much in public.
But Seymour is on the phone, speaking about ACT’s stance on the Treaty of Waitangi and its demand for a referendum on the issue – perhaps the hottest of hot political potatoes sitting on the negotiation table.
And he’s not holding back.
The Sunday Star-Times had asked what had changed since 2016 when Seymour spoke in very different terms about the state of race relations.
In an RNZ interview about Hobson’s Pledge which had just been formed, fronted by former ACT and National leader Don Brash, Seymour talked about the importance of realising political events happened in a context.
He compared 2016 to 2004 when Brash gave his famous “Ōrewa speech”, and the country was divided over the foreshore and seabed debate.
“Now, here we are 12 years on, at least two members of my family are currently attempting to learn Māori … that’s how times have moved on. You’ve now got mainly white middle class people who are embracing Māori culture – a very different environment from what we faced in 2004.”
And that wasn’t an aberration. In 2014, during an interview with the Listener, he spoke out about previous ACT campaigns around Māori issues. “I reject, for example, having a newspaper advertisement that says, ‘Sick of the Māorification of Everything?’ That was disgraceful.”
Seymour told the Listener he considered leaving the party in 2011 because of that ad. He expressed disdain for how previous leader Jamie Whyte had played the race card in the 2014 election.
But if things aren’t good, shouldn’t Seymour and other politicians who have made an issue of the Treaty take some responsibility?
After all, there have been warnings this week from Te Pāti Māori’s John Tamihere and the Greens’ James Shaw about the possibility of violence if ACT’s Treaty referendum goes ahead.
Earlier in the year, the spokesperson for the Iwi Chairs Forum and Treaty educator had a Zoom meeting with Seymour.
“I thought, ‘I want to find out what the heck he’s on about’,” says Hamilton.
“I’m a really, really patient and tolerant person … but he really frustrated me and it was difficult to have a proper conversation with him.
“He said to me things like, ‘I’m an intelligent man and I’m in this because I know what I’m doing’, and I tried to give him credit for that.”
But in the end the conversation ended without going anywhere, and they agreed to differ.
“I found him to be so … ignorant [and] a bit judgemental … but he was really, really difficult is probably the best way of putting it.”
Is that what we can expect of Seymour in government? Does that mean he will insist on the referendum?
Ben Thomas is not so sure.
“There are always compromises to be made, that’s what politics is,” says Thomas."
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)