Aaron Smale responds to a backlash about an article suggesting there was a minority that had special rights over water - Pākehā farmers.
Well, I've now had the rare experience of Pākehā complaining to me about racism.
That experience was kicked off by a piece I wrote last week. In that piece I challenged the argument from the likes of ACT leader David Seymour that Māori were gaining some special rights over water. I stood that argument on its head by pointing out that there is a minority that already has significant property rights over water - Pākehā farmers.
Which, as expected, saw a steady stream of bile landing in my inbox.
I was told that I had no mana. That I should resign. I should apologise. That I was blatantly racist.
Which is nice from complete strangers who know nothing about me. It's also kind of rich when I'm pretty sure I've got a far better appreciation of racism than they have - I've experienced it from my own family.
For the record, and for all the detractors: My parents were/are Pākehā farmers (I'm adopted and my Māori ancestry is via my birth father). The parents who brought me up farmed for over 50 years in the Bay of Plenty and Southland, converting two dairy farms in the latter. The first was in the 1990s when conversions were only just starting and they had to go through the process of getting resource consents for water. Those consents added significant value to their property and was the basis of the loans that the bank was willing to give them. I'm not pulling my arguments out of thin air.
I started milking cows when I was tall enough to reach a cow's udder (on tip-toe) and worked on farms through my teens and early 20s. My mother was milking cows right up to a couple of months before she died of cancer three years ago. I've grown up with their example and that example included questioning everything. One of the main points of my article is that increasing stocking rates, and the need for more water and more pollution, is not necessary to be profitable. That argument is not only based on observing my parents farming but by talking to farmers throughout the country. Many were extremely sceptical of the constant pressure from banks and agriculture service suppliers to borrow and spend more and more.
In my 20-plus years as a journalist I've covered agriculture for significant periods. I've won several awards for my coverage of agriculture, including the top award from the Agricultural Journalists Guild, an award I have won twice in my career.
In my previous article I was drawing on all of that personal and professional experience to make a number of points, which still stand - Pākehā farmers get free access to large volumes of water; that access amounts to a property right via resource consents; this has allowed not only huge expansion of dairying but an increase in stocking rates; those stocking rates don't necessarily make a farm more profitable but they do add to the pollution that is degrading our waterways. But I was also pointing out that politicians are still quite happy to use race as a way to capture votes.
Yes, there are farmers who are concerned about the environment and are trying to come up with ways to mitigate the impact of their business. And yes, agriculture makes a massive contribution to the country's economy. But does it really have to be at the expense of the environment?
Calling me racist or whatever other insult you can come up with doesn't change the basic facts as outlined above. It just shows a lack of willingness to actually engage in a discussion or face up to some realities. The accusation that I wasn't balanced is one I find highly ironic. News has been written by Pākehā, for Pākehā and about Pākehā for a long, long time. When Māori did make an appearance they were (and still are) often trotted out in the guise of various stereotypes, portrayed in ways that were virtually designed to create hostility and invite derision. Media companies themselves are waking up to the reality that this is no longer acceptable. But the legacy of this institutional failure is whole generations of Pākehā have grown up on and imbibed a view of Māori that is blinkered at best, outright hostile at worst. There's a long way to go to balance the ledger.
I could spend the rest of this column talking about the finer details of farming and access to water etc, etc. One of the (few) valid criticisms of my piece was that it lacked nuance, which is a fair call, but then trying to cover such a complex subject in a couple of thousand words is all but impossible. However, something none of the critics of my piece seem willing to address, and it was the main point of that article, is that politicians like David Seymour are cynically using the issue of water to attack Māori in order to attract votes. And the votes being targeted are likely to be Pākehā farmers.
One of the people who responded to my article was terse but civil and we eventually had a constructive exchange (thank you Steve C from Hamilton). He pointed out that farmers often feel publicly maligned by the media and many farmers struggle with mental health issues and, tragically, suicide. He's right. My family have known several people who have taken their own lives. I'm aware that it is a major issue in rural communities when men in particular are often working on their own without support and have access to firearms. But I've yet to hear a politician take this issue seriously either and it's been going on for as long as I've been a journalist. Nor has the issue of Māori suicide been taken seriously. I suspect because it doesn't get the instant gratification and poll traction that racism does.
But as I pointed out to one of my critics, one of the main intentions of the article was to expose the double standard that is applied by politicians (and simply repeated by most media) when it comes to debates on water and quite a few other issues. Māori are singled out because they're an identifiable group, but when Pākehā behave in certain ways or take certain positions their race is not mentioned or regarded as relevant. Why? Why is it okay to talk about Māori in a political discussion on something but the word 'Pākehā' is not mentioned in the same breath? Is it because Māori are being regarded as some kind of dangerous foreign entity that is a threat but Pākehā are regarded as normal and neutral and safe and therefore it's not necessary to mention or question them about their beliefs and assumptions? Is it that Pākehā never have to justify their existence but Māori always do? As someone who is both Māori and Pākehā I constantly pick up on this inconsistency and it has always bothered me. By using the phrase "Pākehā farmers" I was simply holding up a mirror to this ugly behaviour.
I've been around long enough to see a pattern repeating itself of opposition politicians trying desperately to get media attention and discovering there's a lot of mileage to be made from playing the race card. Nothing gets attention like controversy. But when that controversy is around race, there are few journalists who are equipped or interested in challenging those tactics. Often they'll get the popcorn out and encourage the shitshow, but with very little regard for the impact this has on Māori. Māori have been used constantly as a political football for decades and a lot of Pākehā aren't bothered by that and often respond positively to it.
So when are farming leaders going to stand up and give politicians a slap for indulging in the kind of racist dog whistling that has been all too common over the years? Or stand up and demand better for Māori? Farmers might be a minority but they have huge economic and political power beyond their numbers. When are they going to send a clear, public message to politicians that they want no part in their divide and rule tactics? When are they going to demand better from their political leaders not just for themselves but for Māori? When are they going to sit around the table with Māori and actually listen to their position and try and find ways forward that are mutually beneficial to both? To reduce it to one question - when are they going to lead on this issue instead of griping about it? Yes, it's happening in small pockets but it needs to happen a lot more.
It's worth noting that the word "māori" in its everyday usage before it became an ethnic designation simply meant "normal". When Māori encountered strange, pale people getting off a ship the only way they could define themselves in relation to them was to refer to themselves as "tangata māori" - normal people - as opposed to these strange looking people they'd never seen before. But the way Māori is used now as a label, you'd think the translation was "abnormal."
I'm writing this following Anzac Day which gives me an excuse to mention the greatest Māori politician in the country's history, Sir Apirana Ngata (Okay, I'm Ngati Porou so I might be a bit biased on that one). He spent his political career serving in the Reform Party, the forerunner of the National Party. He was also thoroughly rural in his outlook. Among his many achievements was his recruitment of the Māori Battalion, although that achievement came at a massive cost to his own people. Whole communities were devastated by huge losses. Two of my uncles served in C Company of that battalion and put their lives on the line to fight Hitler's facism. Those who went were often children, as young as 14. Those who did come back - and far too many didn't - were not just battle hardened but damaged. They were also worldly wise men who had experienced life in all its intensity, not just Māori kids from the sticks.
In the first half of the 20th Century Māori were on the periphery of New Zealand society, out of sight and out of mind. In some quarters they were regarded as a dying race. However, the exploits of the Māori Battalion launched them into the consciousness of Pākehā New Zealand in a positive and dramatic way. The word Māori when it was attached to the 28th Battalion had overwhelmingly positive connotations. They were organised in separate tribal units. They acted differently from Pākehā. They fought differently. In many cases their first language was Māori. And they didn't conform to the expectations of the Pākehā military leaders. But they were celebrated for that. Ngarimu was awarded the Victoria Cross and there were several others who arguably deserved the same honour.
Ngata's logic was that by paying the ultimate price, Māori might be regarded as equal citizens with Pākehā for a change. Equal does not mean the same. But that promise has yet to be fulfilled. The mokopuna of the Māori Battalion are not on an equal footing, despite making up 24 percent of the nation's children. The word Māori is used pejoratively in political discourse. Māori difference from Pākehā and desire to do things their way or be involved in the national conversation is seen as some kind of aberration or threat, instead of self-determination. Pākehā can impose their way of doing things, but Māori can't suggest trying their way of doing things.
Māori means normal. Let's start treating it that way.
* Editors note: This piece had earlier been incorrectly labelled as being funded by the Public Interest Journalism Fund. *
