As a māori, yesterday was embarrassing for me.
TPM polled at under 3%, Māori in nz population, 15%. They don’t represent all māori, and whilst I respect their right to protest & in fact welcome it (a country with no ability to protest is a dictatorship), yesterdays antics at parliament overstepped the mark.
There are rules & standards within those 4 walls and these were not upheld.  haka, whilst I adore the purpose and tradition, is used to intimidate and scare any opposition, usually incapable of a response. Parliament is not the right place for such & I believe they’re playing firmly into the hands of the act party.
I’m not going to attack or shoot down anyone in support of TPM, as a democracy you’re within your rights to vote and support who you please. But with TPM unwilling to even listen & have a debate actually resembles closer to a dictatorship where you cannot voice your concerns under the guise of supposed morality & racism.
Luxon has no backbone & is fence sitting on the issue, which is doing him no favours in the polls. Disclaimer, I’m not sure if I support acts bill but as a society we should respect their opinion and voice, as we should TPM.
Intimidation & acting how TPM did yesterday does not sit well with me, simply because they don’t believe something should be debated, does not mean you’re entitled to act in such a way. Again, TPM do not represent all Māori, and need to stop acting like they do. There’s also an underlying feeling that I’m a traitor & turning my back on māori by not agreeing with them, which is a shit feeling of guilt tripping, but I don’t. I believe that everyone in NZ deserves a fair go, and that privilege based on skin colour is an extremely slippery slope that has never, ever ended well for nations.