Venu Menon
Wellington, December 5,2023
“I encourage everybody to be lawful, to be peaceful, to be respectful. Everyone is entitled to their right to protest,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said while addressing media following the Cabinet meeting on Monday.
The prime minister made the statement in reference to Te Paati Māori’s call for a nationwide protest on December 5.
Luxon added: “Our government is deeply committed to improving outcomes for Māori and non-Māori…….In the last six years, the outcomes have not been good for Māori under the Labour government.
“Economically, Māori have been really challenged by a cost-of-living crisis that has got out of control. We have seen Māori in terms of participation on welfare, on state housing, education, healthcare – all of those things have gone backwards. We are determined as a coalition government to improve our outcomes for Māori and non-Māori.”
Luxon said Māori have “done very well, particularly [under] National-led governments, in the past, and they will continue to do so.”
Asked if he was concerned about a possible wave of protests over the next three years, and that they would “plague his prime ministership,” Luxon replied: “No, because we are going to demonstrate to Māori and to non-Māori across New Zealand that we are focused on outcomes. This country needs a turnaround. The one word we have to focus on is delivery, and actually getting things done for Kiwis.”
Clearly, the Luxon-led coalition government was facing the fallout for policy positions perceived to be unsympathetic to Māori, such as tinkering with the bilingual heritage, challenging Treaty principles, dismantling the Māori Health Authority, rejecting co-governance, and so on.
The week-old, three-party government of National, ACT and NZ First would appear to be inheriting the Ardern-era legacy of a period of prolonged and disruptive protests, echoing the three-week occupation of Parliament grounds by protesters in February 2022.
For now, the prime minister is presenting a cautious response to the protest call by Te Pati Māori, preferring a wait-and-watch approach.
“I’m reacting to what I am hearing, and what I’m reading, from what people are talking about, as to the scope and scale [of the protest]. What the issues actually are, we’ll find out [in due course]. We are a government that is going to deliver for Māori. That is a big focus of ours,” Luxon stressed.
He invoked negative stats to buttress his stand.
“It is unacceptable to me that we’ve actually got, I think, 30% more Māori on welfare. We’ve got 50 % of Māori kids not going to school regularly. And 50 % of the state housing wait-list are Māori.”
This was followed by the inevitable apportioning of blame to the predecessor Labour government.
“That means, we’ve had a Labour government [that], over six years, despite all the rhetoric, actually hasn’t delivered for Māori.”
The protest call by Te Pati Māori could not have come at a more inopportune moment for the new government. Aside from the potential disturbance to public order, the protest diverted attention from the mini-Budget that Finance Minister Nicola Willis was poised to announce at the 54th Parliament.
Willis, who accompanied Luxon at the press briefing, said the mini-Budget aimed to deliver three things.
“First, it will set out the funding implications of some of the immediate, time-sensitive decisions the government has taken, both in terms of our 100-day plan and other issues that we need to implement quickly.
“Second, it will set out a range of new practices we are going to introduce as a government to restore fiscal discipline. This will include, for example, the establishment of a Cabinet Expenditure Control Committee. It would also potentially include amendments to the Public Finance Act.”
Thirdly, the mini-Budget will highlight “what our fiscal approach is going to be, and ensure New Zealanders can keep more of what they earn, and get our books back in order.”
But economic management went hand-in-hand with cultural obligation.
Despite the protest called by Te Pati Māori, despite the perceived rupture in equations (or perhaps because of that), Prime Minister Luxon has expressed his intention to spend his first Waitangi Day in Waitangi.
Venu Menon is an Indian Newslink reporter based in Wellington
