I was going to write a piece on the Pakeha Party, but I have to say that a post by Steve Tollestrup on his Facebook page has pretty much summed it up for me, so why reinvent the wheel.

The Pakeha party is not a giggle.

Growing this evening at a rate of 3000 per hour on facebook ( up to 30,000 at time of writing ) the Pakeha Party is really about privileged white people trying to protect their patch. Harmless fun and satire? Go to the facebook page and you’ll find the Pakeha Party considers itself a viable political force that will soon have policies. The Pakeha party is just one giggle away from becoming the NZ equivalent of the British National Front party and is certainly bigotry cloaked as ‘Friends on Facebook.’

There is such a thing as positive discrimination and rightful restitution that recognises the undermining of Maori well-being through colonisation and close to a hundred and fifty years of alienation – marginalisation and oppression that the ‘Friends’ of the Pakeha party haven’t faced.

I’m not sure the Pakeha Party have thought through their infantile motto

‘If Maori get it we want it too – no matter what.’

But OK, if they really mean that, let’s begin. This is what Maori get; shorter life expectancy, lower per capita income, poorer housing, 4 times more likely to receive a conviction with a longer sentence, higher unemployment, land confiscation, higher incidence of diabetes, higher infant mortality, lower educational achievement, higher per capita mental illness, and addiction, dismal child health.

As a Christian and as a Green party spokesperson I find that appalling. In other parts of the world those same statistics have translated into conflict and violence. I think we Pakeha should be thankful for Maori patience and Aroha. Like it or not sometimes it takes a little extra to make things right. I look forward to a day when it is no longer needed, but unfortunately that day is yet to arrive, and the rise of Pakeha Party is part of the proof it hasn’t.

To my Maori brothers and sisters I say that I am ashamed.

If nothing else the one part of Steve’s post that I’d really like to bring your attention to is the stats for Maori

This is what Maori get; shorter life expectancy, lower per capita income, poorer housing, 4 times more likely to receive a conviction with a longer sentence, higher unemployment, land confiscation, higher incidence of diabetes, higher infant mortality, lower educational achievement, higher per capita mental illness, and addiction, dismal child health.

If you really want what Maori have, and all they ‘have’ then this is where you may end up.

Many sectors in society have ‘rules’ or ‘advantages’ just for them like over 65’s, like under 6’s like students, like the poor, like the rich, like those with children, like ethnicities (as in grants for tertiary study) but we seem to ignore all those and go straight to how unfair it is that Maori get advantages in some arenas. Get truly consistent, or get over yourself.