Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

god I'm so fucking furious at the removal of Te Reo Māori names from organisations around Aotearoa. it's a complete non-issue, every organisation has the English name directly underneath the Māori name. I have never once as an English speaker been unable to understand what an organisation is for. Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is literally Māori himself, said “Te Papa is a historic name but tell me this waka kotahi, how many boats have you seen going down the road?”. Waka does not just mean canoe. it means vessel, and waka kotahi (the transport agency of Aotearoa) explains this VERY SIMPLY on their official website. waka kotahi means to travel together as one. Can you see how fucking upsetting this is. A Māori person in power who is in agreement about banning his own language, being so cocky about something that he does not even understand due to the suppression of the language of his people. It makes me sick. I've seen reports from Māori people all over Aotearoa speaking out about how upset and furious they are, how decades of progress have been undone in the fight to restore the rights of their people who have for so long been oppressed and have suffered the effects of colonisation. Please share this if you can, I hate knowing how few people will hear about this, I know there is so much injustice in the world right now and it is so exhausting, I know. I love you all, keep it up.

https://waateanews.com/2023/11/27/te-reo-public-service/

shoutout to our poor minister for health who accidentally told the whole nation today to. spread their legs. instead of stretch their legs

TODAYS PRESS CONFERENCE SJSKSKSJKSDKKD

New Zealand is entering a level 4 lockdown after one case of COVID appeared in the community. When asked about the why such a quick and hard lockdown was important Jacinda Ardern literally pointed west to Australia.

Rumour has it it came from NSW. If that's true, sorry guys :/

Full-page add spotted in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (main newspaper for Sydney/NSW). Context: now that the trans-Tasman bubble is about to open, we can travel to New Zealand again.

Today in NZ Politics, a woman threw a dildo at the economic development minister

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Welcome to New Zealand’s Parliament.

@new zealanders i know what’s happening in ferguson seems extreme but please be aware that maori and islanders in new zealand get persecuted unfairly every day by the law purely because of the colour of their skin and institutionalised racism isn’t a far off concept it’s alive and well in our own country so don’t take the high road before looking @ yourself

we live in a country where armed police got on a school bus in an almost entirely maori community to check for non-existent terrorists and it took the police commissioner 7 years to apologise. 

that would never have happened in a pakeha community. 

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. A few years ago we had a massive earthquake and the centre of town basically just collapsed. 3 years on, the rebuild is embarrassingly slow. Local democracy has been circumvented, giving some top down appointed people huge power to get things rolling. This hasn’t been the case. The negotiation between keeping a facade of consultation with the people who live here, while actually pandering to the interests of property developers has been slow - but surprisingly barefaced. At one point, a plan for the city was generalised out of thousands of submissions from people who live here of all ages and backgrounds. It wasn’t a socialist utopia. But it was actually impressive. It was actually looking to utilize public space in a way that isn’t just the ‘illusion’ of space, but actual space which can be harnessed by the people. Extensive public transport, very very green and pedestrian/cyclist friendly. This was basically taken, given a gold star - everyone got a pat on the back. Then we turn to business as usual. The big project the government has decided on is a MASSIVE sports stadium, costing abhorrent amounts, when we already have a massive sports stadium which, if repaired for a tiny fraction of the cost of a brand new one, would still be world class for at least a decade. Meanwhile - overcrowding of housing is at an all time high. Homelessness is rampant, and is even bleeding into social classes who would self identify as ‘middle class’ (often just white collar working class folks).  Rent in this city is now only $20/week cheaper than Auckland (the most expensive place to live in NZ) - but weekly household incomes are $220 less per week.  CHCH is a notoriously white-anglo-saxon kind of city. But it’s not entirely homogenous. The Eastern suburbs - which were effectively built on marshland because regulations on building standards were steadily removed (as was the supposed Green Belt around the city limits where suburban development was legislated against - basically because property developers just became city councillors) - these suburbs are working class, PoC, and actually fucking strongholds of community in a generally very WASP-ish and hyper-individualised culture.  Phillipstown school is being threatened with closure - a school in a working class community which functions so much as a hub for the entire community. Breakfast programmes, a community garden, shoes for kids, they have god damn vans organised to help families get to the grocery store cause car ownership in that area is one of the lowest rates in the country. On top of this, the school has some of the best learning outcomes for Maori and Pacific Islander kids. It’s a fucking MODEL that should be being emulated - instead our government is flirting with these Charter Schools models (imported from the USA) which commodify education even further, and can basically be hijacked by whatever interests so long as you have the $$. And I just dunno what to say about any of this. I am fucking sick of the rest of the country calling us ‘resilient’ or ‘stoic’ we aren’t stoic we’re fucking furious. And exhausted. What can you do in these situations? A renters union was floated, but considering the massive influx of short term jobs for tradies at the moment landlords are just begging for a reason to kick people out and shift to high priced short term rentals. Folks only living here for a few months before a new lot move in? Way more opportunities to bump those prices up slowly.  I actually just want to weep when I start thinking about all this shit I know I missed a heap of particular things. And there are signs of resistance and of hope and all this but god fucking damn it everyone is just hitting walls one by one 

New Zealand's racist doctors

This is from the Human Rights Commission in New Zealand about institutional racism in the NZ’s public health system. Pakeha is the word for white people in NZ.