The Te Reo Scam

How activist mythology, political cowardice and billions of taxpayer dollars are being used to rewrite New Zealand's identity and undermine its democracy.

Isn’t Te Reo basically a scam? Why are individuals fraudulently claiming to be Maori when they’re predominantly not Maori at all? And why endorsing UNDRIP is a disgrace.

Equally disgraceful in this present climate of cultural bullying is what has just happened to a first-year law student at the University of Canterbury - and to her companions. She had worked hard to achieve a good result but was totally floored when she was asked to list in order the top four courts in New Zealand - the District Court, the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

No problem, one might think. The problem is that the courts were not listed by their English names, but by invented te reo names.

What an utter disgrace, especially since we know that none of the te reo names are even authentic Maori. They are spurious names - as is by far the language now called te reo, bearing minimal relationship to the original Maori language, yet increasingly labelled as Maori - when it is nothing of the sort. For example, if you check the te reo definition for the District Court, you’ll find Te Koti a Rohe. But Maori had no District Court!

Moreover, this whole tower of lies comes crashing down when the definition also states that the court system utilises te reo to make the justice system more accessible. This is palpably untrue. It would be very hard to find any part-Maori individual in New Zealand who cannot speak English, yet apparently only around 4% of New Zealanders can understand or speak te reo with any degree of fluency. How on earth can describing the court system in te reo make it more accessible to New Zealanders? It obviously cannot. But the cultural bullying and the lies simply pile up.

Equally challenging is that Conservation Minister Tama Potaka has instructed conservation staff to use te reo everywhere and anywhere in their correspondence. Why, when he must know very well that 96% of citizens will not understand it?

It is very much part of the moral decline of our successive governments that New Zealand taxpayers have been forced to pay accumulatively billions of dollars in recent years to individuals and iwi – (pseudo-tribes) - which are in reality wealthy corporations claiming to be Maori. In many cases, these continual payouts have been because of supposed race-based need. Yet the real criteria should always be genuine, individual need, rather than a genetic inheritance which in many cases is now basically a farcical claim.

It is well past time we had a legal definition of who is genuinely Maori, based on scientific evidence.

It’s time our cowardly governments faced up to this, instead of constantly crumbling in the face of activist pressure and cultural bullying by individuals who are gaming the system. Predominantly of European or Eurasian descent, in many cases they are themselves extremely wealthy, while claiming disadvantage on racial grounds - or academics who feel they are special and somehow superior - because of one or more Maori ancestor.

It is more than interesting, for example, that the DNA results for prominent, wealthy activist Willie Jackson, foremost in campaigning as Maori, shows him to have as little as 2.04% Oceania Maori. His much more predominant genetic inheritance has him at 33.7% East Asian; 25% Ashkenazi (German) Jew; and 18% European (substantially Welsh).

Moreover, the DNA results for many of those most prominently claiming to be Maori may well be very similar. We already know that some of the most prominent “Maori” activists have as little as 1/16th or even less genetic inheritance.

So why are we being conned into recognising as Maori individuals who are basically nothing of the sort, but who claim special privileges, rights and prior consultation by government and other bodies - along with ongoing extra funding? Why are they given preferential treatment in areas like health and education?

Of course, most part-Maori are not involved in these rorts, with many indignant - even angry - that while they get on with earning a living for their families, like all other New Zealanders, the government constantly kowtows to fanatical activists claiming disadvantage by supposedly being Māori – and who are now actually pushing for co-governance of this country.

They have also heavily promoted te reo, being inflicted on the country through our media - together with the activist substitution of the inauthentic Aotearoa for New Zealand.

Government related organisations have connived at this. New Zealanders did not give the Ministry of Internal Affairs permission to suddenly put Aotearoa on New Zealand passports. When I enquired how this happened without consultation with the country as a whole, I was told that iwi were consulted. So, too, with the Reserve Bank, without our consultation putting Aotearoa on our paper currency.

If you google the words te reo, you are told that te reo is the indigenous, Eastern Polynesian language of the Maori people of New Zealand. There are two lies right there – one is the implication that Maori were indigenous to New Zealand, a false claim which keeps being repeated.

For this we can very much blame the former National Party Prime Minister John Key, who without letting anybody know, dispatched the then Maori Minister Pita Sharples to New York to sign UNDRIP, the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The mainstream media have culpably failed to ask Key to explain why he undertook such a surreptitious, sneaky act without even consulting New Zealanders – which simply couldn’t happen in a country like Switzerland, where international treaties cannot be signed without the consent of the people.

Key’s actions now have very unpalatable consequences for New Zealanders. And why did he not want anyone to know?

Moreover, when, in recent decades, have our successive governments bothered to consult New Zealanders about the highly damaging policies they have been inflicting on us? It is interesting that Key was also keen to change our flag, reportedly so that the Union Jack would no longer feature on a new flag. A multimillionaire, John Key is also one of the seven former Prime Ministers for whom New Zealanders are compelled to pay ongoing annuities of up to $64,000 each a year – plus other perks – depending how long they have served.

But why? Considering the damage that many would consider most of these seven have inflicted on this country - and their personal wealth – the question inevitably arises: with so many New Zealanders finding it very hard to make ends meet, why are these handouts to wealthy former politicians even being given? How many New Zealanders are happy about being taxed for this extraordinary provision? And why has it been kept so little known?

Only John Key himself can explain why he so deviously undertook to make sure that nobody knew what he was doing by sending Sharples to the UN. So much for our being a democracy. He still has to explain why he signed such a declaration when New Zealand has no indigenous people in the true meaning of the word. Maori, like our colonial ancestors, came from other countries, with various tribes even proudly boasting that they know the names of the canoes in which their forebears came. They were simply prior immigrants.

I am reminded here of the former Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, telling a cheering crowd on the 1988 Australian Bicentenary that “today there is no hierarchy of descent, and must be no privileged descent.” Tell that to our Prime Ministers.

Moreover, on the basis of New Zealand having signed up to this fraudulent nonsense of our so-called indigenous people, Jacinda Ardern’s government promoted dissent by pushing for iwi to achieve co-governance of this country. We would no longer be a democracy, inasmuch as we still are, which is more than debatable, but become further divided on racist grounds. The present, National-led coalition is already accommodating co-government in areas where iwi are, as usual, bullying the government, which, also as usual, is giving way to racist-based pressure.

Following what many regard as Key’s extraordinary behaviour, the signing of this declaration formed the basis of the Ardern government’s 2021 ministerial He Puapua report, which aimed to challenge political and constitutional norms in New Zealand - basically to undermine democracy by giving those with some Maori ancestry a greater say than others in both government and local council’s decisions. The report aimed for full implementation of UNDRIP by 2040.

New Zealanders are increasingly inclined to wonder about the ideological agenda underpinning of some of our politicians’ actions. And although the National Party repudiated UNDRIP, the current controversial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to be signed by our and the Indian government, now includes a commitment to UNDRIP – an utterly superfluous, deeply divisive undertaking to which National and the ACT parties are committing themselves – challenged by New Zealand First.

This will have extraordinary constitutional consequences, an all-too-powerful tool in the hands of those radicalised part-Maori activists (with the help of the inexcusably partisan Waitangi Tribunal - well overdue to be abolished) pushing for a basically separate Maori government. The pusillanimity of this present government in gradually giving way to grant completely unwarranted co-governance of some of the country’s waterways, of Mt Egmont - re-named Taranaki and inexplicably granted legal personhood together with the Waikato river and Urewera forest - is a pretty good indication of the lack of moral courage shown by our MPs in the face of continual aggressive pressure from well-funded iwi. Moreover, these iwi, on the basis of their claims to be mainly charitable organisations, are commonly exempt from the standard taxation other organisations pay, which many regard as another great con.

There is also very strong evidence that Ngai Tahu, formerly known as the white tribe because of issues relating to their ancestry - and perhaps the most powerful of these quasi-tribes - are now pushing to gain formal control and management of the South Island waterways through the courts. Their supposed third and final, multi-million-dollar settlement obtained in the 90s underpins the tribe’s wealth - a settlement which has been described as a swindle, with plenty of evidence showing Ngai Tahu at times simply lied, or fabricated and distorted historical happenings.

What many found utterly inexplicable is that their lawyer, later National Party List MP Chris Finlayson, obtained for them the lucrative, sole rights to whale-watching at Kaikoura, and to the South Island’s greenstone – although this tribe was never in a position to hunt whales, and greenstone was traded long before Ngai Tahu arrived in the South Island.

Their win was basically assisted by Crown lawyers who were meant to examine the tribe’s claims but later admitted that they had no-one historically competent to examine the Ngai Tahu assertions and therefore relied upon what Ngai Tahu told them. It is not the first time this country has been let down by Crown lawyers. Given that this was the case, lawyer Chris Finlayson’s boasting that he had defeated the Crown lawyers seems little to crow about.

Moreover, the Maori Affairs Select Committee at the time, which had rejected a previous Ngai Tahu claim, was told to ignore the approximate 400 submissions (many of which challenged Ngai Tahu’s assertions) on the basis that the settlement had already been signed – although procedurally it should not have been, by the then Prime Minister, Jim Bolger.

Many would argue that Ngai Tahu have already had far too much influence on decision-making, and their current push to move past consultation to partnership with the Crown as claimed treaty partners, is completely unacceptable. This myth of a treaty partnership was pushed by Jacinda Ardern herself, whereas in fact, the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi basically established that all New Zealanders, including Maoris, had the same rights and protection as British subjects. There never was and could not legally be any suggestion that the Crown could enter into a partnership with various disparate tribes scattered throughout the country.

However, it is upon this canard that the push for co-governance has arisen. The present coalition government, repudiating this claim before the last election, has nevertheless now endorsed co-governance in various areas. This treaty partnership has been pushed into so many areas of our life that school boards until now had been compelled to act according to the principles of the Treaty – which is sheer nonsense. With this obligation now removed, so very left-wing and radicalised are the teachers’ unions that many boards have insisted on retaining this nebulous activist provision, and Labour have stated that they are going to re-insert this obligation if they win the next election.

Ngai Tahu, in fact, are always trying to rob the taxpayers of accumulatively more millions, and in the eyes of many are having to basically be bribed to agree to certain developments taking place, as well as interfering in the affairs of both Otago and Canterbury Universities. Their push for more and more advantages has them increasingly known as a rogue tribe whose hierarchy are apparently not predominantly Maori at all.

It is likely due to Ngai Tahu’s influence that applicants to Otago Medical School in Dunedin get prior admission if they have any genetic Maori or Pacific Island inheritance - ahead of others, irrespective of merit. Many will remember the case of a father who took the university to court because his hard-working son obtained over 90% in the entrance examination but was denied admission because others who had not done nearly as well had the required racial background. This provision still applies, in spite of the fact that the United States Supreme Court now has shut the door on race-conscious admissions to American universities, which means that race can no longer be a factor in college admissions. Applicants must now be evaluated only on their qualifications. It is to this country’s shame that this invidious practice has been allowed to continue.

So much has gone wrong with a country which once far more resembled a democracy, and the trajectory will continue if the Labour party gets back into power. The Ardern-Hipkins government caused so much damage that it is a severe indictment on the National Party that it is not much further ahead in the polling. So understandably low is Christopher Luxon’s personal rating that is costing the National Party - which apparently would rather risk losing the election than listen to what the country is saying.

When making an untrue claim about te reo being the original language of the Maori people, the Google site, apparently given the opportunity to make an anti-colonial accusation, further adds that the Maori language was banned in schools as a result of colonisation – which is also utterly untrue. I recall my father’s disappointment, when, in charge of what was then known as a native school on the east coast of the South Island, he was asked by the local Maori chief to no longer allow the Maori language to be taught or used in school.

The reason given was that a delegation of high-ranking Maoris had gone to parliament to make this request on the basis that if Maori children were not made to learn English properly, alongside the European children, they would not achieve the same level of competence. When my father asked in some concern who would then teach the Maori children their own language, he was told that the parents would teach it at home. That they did not do so has cost today’s New Zealanders hundreds, if not billions, of dollars promoting what is no longer genuine Maori at all.

I remember telling this to Willie Jackson – that it was Maori elders themselves who petitioned parliament to have spoken Maori forbidden in schools when he was invited as a speaker to our Summer Sounds Symposium (www.summersounds.co.nz) - and intent on blaming everybody else for the language being banned. He didn’t seem particularly keen to hear this. And when another fine speaker gave a very good account of the enormous benefits of colonialisation which saved Maoris from incessant and violent tribal warfare, and the abhorrent practice of cannibalism, as well as slavery, I recalled that Jackson made it difficult to hear the speaker because he himself kept continually and noisily turning the pages of material he was holding.

Te reo is in fact overwhelmingly a made-up language, fraudulently claimed to be Maori, a fabricated academic attempt to provide the so-called equivalents for the 170,000 words commonly used in English. Genuine Maori language has about 2000 words.

So what is actually happening is that 98% of te reo – (setting the 2000 genuine Maori words against the 170,000 which must be now produced as supposed “Maori “) is not Maori at all. And yet it is being inflicted at an accumulated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars on training teachers in te reo, on children in our schools and promoting it in the media. A few simple examples show how absurd are the supposed Maori equivalents for our words and phrases. For example, the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Inland Revenue Department (apparently known as Te Tara Taake by today’s part-Maori ancestors), first-class airfare to Dubai, public hospitals, Accident and Emergency Parking. And, to the eternal shame of St John’s, this organisation is now calling itself Hato Hone – although Maori had no word for saint and no word for John. No wonder people are withdrawing their financial contributions to this organisation.

The simple dishonesty of all this nonsense is breathtaking - the farcical, so-called Maori equivalents of, say, coffee…apparently known as kawha by the original Maori – although they didn’t know coffee… peanut butter, jam, vegemite, sandwich, cocoa, lemonade…and the many thousands of items we use or refer to in our everyday life of which Maori had no knowledge, but which academics have invented, and which Maori activists are trying to compel the country to embrace. The equally shameful thing is that our Members of Parliament are conniving at this - and that the government is acquiescing to this rort that sees so many millions of dollars spent which are badly needed elsewhere.

This country is no longer at a crossroads – it has progressed too far from maintaining the standards and principles which a genuine democracy should be upholding. We do not have government by the people, for the people. We are not being genuinely consulted at all with regard to the important issues of the day. We are being ruled by a parliamentary oligarchy now in virtual partnership with influential part-Maori academics and powerful iwi who have used their wealth to buy influence in our universities and other important institutions.

For example, it is an added disgrace that at the University of Otago, applications for research grants in various subjects also have to be approved by Ngai Tahu representatives who decide who takes priority. To the annoyance of many of the alumni, this university has now given itself a te reo name as well, although, needless to say, Maori did not have any universities. The University of Auckland, too, has brought itself into disgrace by the various racist activities in which it has engaged.

And now Ngai Tahu are at it again, arguing that their third full and final settlement should be renegotiated, because of major conservation reforms. Moreover, according to the head of Santana Minerals, Peter Cook, Ngai Tahu have reportedly sought $180 million dollars to approve the open cast mines in Central Otago, apparently for damage to their mana (their pride, sense of prestige) among other issues, as well as requesting a substantial investment be granted to them.

The sheer gall of it all is extraordinary – the mines are predominantly on private land – nothing to do with this quasi-tribe - but Ngai Tahu are claiming wide-ranging cultural and environmental concerns if these mines go ahead. But somehow, granting $180 million would make it all come right – stand over tactics?

Because of the sheer moral cowardice of so many of our politicians and bureaucrats, we have as a country long been bending the knee, practising the politics of tribalism, with too few objecting in case they should be accused of being racist. Yet our forebears fought for our democracy – for all to have equal rights so that nobody should be more special than anybody else.

Our parliamentarians and city councils who now allow part-Maori preferential seats and voting rights on the basis of race – including those not even voted onto councils – should be ashamed of themselves. They have succumbed to being bullied in order to avoid the highly unpleasant, aggressive treatment handed out to those brave enough to stand up to this bullying, inflicted to deter others. We have already seen the disgraceful behaviour of members of the Maori Party in Parliament performing aggressive hakas, advancing confrontationally on opposition members and pointing fingers as if with a gun when meeting opposition to their agenda.

This brings us to two other very important issues.

First, it is no wonder that we have become an impoverished country, unable to afford even medications for treatment such as cancer which are freely available overseas and which cause some New Zealanders to fly to Australia, as they are not available here. A shortage of money for health care; for more facilities for those with mental health problems; to make sure that our public hospitals are properly staffed; and that we have sufficient teachers who are actually competent in the subjects they are supposed to be able to teach can all be attributed to the billions of dollars now paid to compensate part-Maori individuals for claimed wrongs to their ancestors – some genuine, some fraudulent, in the past. However, those wronged are long gone, and those constantly forced to pay more and more compensation were not responsible for these. Many question the justice in this.

In other words, a major reason for this downgrading of so many of our facilities is because so many billions have been poured into areas supposedly to benefit Maori only, or rather, those who are part-Maori. The list is extensive. For example, in the 2024 budget, the coalition government committed $48.7 million over three years, funded until 2026, to support kapa haka (Maori festivals incorporating songs and actions) including regional competitions and the national festival structure. However, when Te Pae Kahurangi haka was led by the former president of the Maori Party, it was perceived to be racist, misogynistic, and derogatory, targeted at an individual politician.

What is it all for? $48.7 million is a hefty amount to take from New Zealanders’ pockets for basically social functions, when added to the billions of dollars being paid out to various Maori groups and organisations over the years. But why? With the Maori economy worth about $126 billion, celebrations for part-Māori should not be paid for by the taxpayer.

Why is money being diverted from areas which are well and truly impoverished in this country to bestow it upon individuals claiming to be Maori or for Maori causes? For example, the cost to the country of the destructive Jacinda Ardern’s invention of Matariki Day as a holiday was estimated to between $377 and $448 million dollars. Little wonder New Zealand’s levels of productivity are so low. Little wonder we cannot afford so much that other countries take for granted.

Why are those self-identifying as Maori - despite what other genetic inheritances may be dominant - being prioritised for special treatment within our health system? Our governments need to face up to the fact that there are no longer any Maori as a separate ethnic grouping. So successful was intermarriage in this country that the one remaining woman in the country who claims she is Maori, because of her high DNA, still has European ancestry. In fact, well-represented among those most loudly claiming disadvantage because they are part-Maori are those (like Willie Jackson) who have as little as 1/8 or 1/16 or even less Maori genetic inheritance. Yet until the mid-70s, logically enough, individuals had to be at least 50% Maori to be considered Maori. If not, it was acknowledged that one was largely European or Euro-Asian, or whatever applied.

It was a well-planned move by an activist, part-Maori MP to get this definition removed. However, to those pointing out that individuals with below 50% Maori genetic inheritance are not predominantly Maori at all comes the nonsensical reply that you are Maori if you feel Maori …or that it is not “the blood quantum” which matters, but “a living thread”. Both are basically dishonest claims: Wishful thinking or jargon-ridden replies simply don’t change facts. And it takes a certain arrogance to regard oneself as deserving special treatment, because one has some Maori ancestry.

Many, including many fine part-Maori who have worked hard to achieve a great deal in the professions and trades, think it is basically a disgrace that anyone self-identifying as Maori can receive special rights, privileges, scholarships, grants and funding on the basis of this claim. Moreover, many part-Maori also do not favour the claims of activists that meetings and addresses should be preceded by te reo greetings, prayers, and incantations – as is now the case. Nor that activist judges should be virtually rewriting our laws to incorporate the nebulous concept of tikanga, overriding common law to do so.

It is high time that our governments woke up to the fact that te reo is basically a scam – a costly farce. Why have they allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on inventing and promoting this language, far removed from the genuine Maori language? We need to emphasize this: te reo is not the Maori language and there is no possible excuse for inflicting it upon schools, teachers and the country at large.

It is incontrovertible that te reo is almost completely inauthentic. It is spoken nowhere else in the world, for good reason. To keep promoting it by saying we must preserve the Maori language is basically a con. It is simply the truth that it bears very little resemblance to that original Maori language with its understandably very limited vocabulary, all that was needed in a restricted environment where a basically stone-age people who had not invented the wheel, or even bows and arrows, and relied largely on woven plant fibres to clothe themselves in winter. And understandably, needing to survive, far from being environmentally concerned (as is now claimed) Maoris hunted moas, burning forests to do so, as well as hunting the giant Haast eagles, and some native birds and seabirds, to extinction.

New Zealand children in school are constantly told a highly sanitised version of the pre-European occupation of this country with our colonists demonised, when in fact it was the arrival of the colonists that put a stop to internecine warfare - to the overwhelming advantage of the then resident Maoris. But considering the cost to this country of the billions of dollars constantly showered on those with any genetic inheritance of Maori, and the fact that the country has been considerably impoverished by doing so - our productivity lessened and money diverted on racist grounds from where it is badly needed (as with the $10 million that Shane Jones recently bestowed on the Ratana people as a gift from taxpayers) it is high time all this was challenged.

Although John Key hastened to endorse UNDRIP, our governments have been very slow in waking up to the fact that the United Nations Organisation is implacably opposed to the democratic West. Recently, outrage has been expressed by the independent Geneva based, non-government organisation UN Watch, that monitors the United Nations. It has called upon Canada, France, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia and other democracies to explain why they joined in the election of serial abusers of human rights to key bodies at the United Nations.

For example, the UN has nominated the Islamic Republic of Iran to a committee which shapes policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament and terrorism practices. China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Sudan have also been elected to an influential committee of NGOs which oversee the accreditation and UN access of thousands of human rights and civil society groups which enjoy consultative status with the UN. Only the US has stated that these countries are unfit to do so. As UN Watch points out, by their cynical actions these Western countries have betrayed their own human rights principles, severely undermining the rule-based international order they claim to support - as with our former left-wing Prime Minister Helen Clark, railing against the important US attack against Iran to prevent it developing a nuclear arsenal.

So why have our governments been so keen to endorse UNDRIP, launched by the UN – a move largely responsible for the government’s promotion of te reo – which was never even the language of Maori- who were not even indigenous to this country?

Isn’t it time to challenge the basically neo-Marxist Ministry of Education, which has worked so indefatigably for so long to dumb down the quality of education in this country?

Why is it insisting that children and teachers learn this spurious language at the cost now of multimillions of dollars – instead of languages which would be really useful to them, such as Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, even Latin - which has far more relevance as it is the language of taxonomy, of science, or medicine - and it is from Roman Law that our own legal system is derived. Five of the world’s languages are directly derived from Latin - French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian - which makes it much easier to learn them later - and many English words have a Latin origin. But our destructive Ministry of Education has done its best to ensure that as far as possible New Zealand children do not have the chance to learn the subject I found more valuable than any other in my schooling.

Moreover, many New Zealanders are becoming increasingly irritated about emails written to them with te reo greetings and containing words which are actually incomprehensible to the 96% of the country which does not understand, nor wish to learn, this language.

Some correspondents are downright rude, such as InternetNZ. When I recently received a communication from them incorporating te reo words I politely wrote back and said that as I was not Maori, I would prefer them to use English, the language of the majority of the population when writing to me. I had no idea what some of their te reo words meant – as, for example, being told to korero them to make contact. Even the police are now inserting te reo words which are basically gibberish to so many into their communications.

The reply I got from Internet NZ/Ipuranga - (apparently the Maori word used two or more centuries ago when referring to the Internet) - was that “InternetNZ /Ipuranga Aotearoa will not be changing our policy on the use of reo Maori. All complaints about the use of re Maori will be disregarded by staff”.

How’s that for a courteous reply?

It’s about time that New Zealanders who are fed up with this cultural bullying start to boycott institutions, companies and firms which use the word Aotearoa instead of New Zealand. This applies to our television channels whose presenters constantly greet us in te reo, also referring to our country as Aotearoa. So do Stuff and the New Zealand Herald, who do not deserve our financial support but are constantly looking for it. Telling them why you will not give it, nor watch their news channels is a very good idea. If we do not fight back, we will get only what we deserve.

Very few New Zealanders think that the government genuinely knows what it is doing in relation to issues of the day. Such as its foolish endorsement – against all the evidence, that CO2 causes global warming. It is acknowledged that even if this were the case, the cost that New Zealanders are being forced to pay is damaging us hugely in economic terms and could not possibly make any difference at all to the global warming scenario – small as we are as a country. Yet Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon behaved superciliously to the one National Party MP that raised this issue.

In other words, in so many areas, our government has lost its way - with things getting worse, not better.

Nor are they going to improve while we are still virtually ruled by successive governments which, behind the scenes have lobbyists pressuring governments and providing considerable financial handouts to get what they want.

There’s only one possible but very realistic way which we New Zealanders can claim the achievable right to decide the directions of this country, and that is to adopt what the clever Swiss people fought for and won – so that our governments can no longer run with the bit between their teeth and constantly pass laws detrimental to the interests of the country.

It is detailed on the website www.100days.co.nz.

It is worth checking out, especially today when people are understandably calling out for genuine electoral reform.

What it would ensure is that any legislation passed by Parliament has to sit for 100 days to allow New Zealanders themselves to either endorse it, or say no.

Check it out for yourselves. It is very doable, given a tipping point of New Zealanders to endorse it. A helpful philanthropist willing to donate make its possibilities more widely known would be a great asset.

If you are one or know one - and would like to help make it more widely known, you would be doing your fellow citizens a great favour.

Please help where you can by fighting back - even by supporting this Substack or sharing it to make it more widely known.

© Amy Brooke

New Zealand children’s author, poet, and socio-political commentator can be found at www.amybrooke.co.nz