| Monday, September 03, 2012 7:31 AM

It’s difficult to know who to shift responsibility home to as regards to the Independent Maori Statutory Authority. The Government forced them on the Auckland Council but then the council didn’t help themselves by funding them to the tune of millions when many would and did argue a great deal less would have been just fine.

They have, I suppose, delivered the sort of report you’d expect. It’s a barrow pushing exercise designed to drum up support for their corner. But the great crime here is not just them doing their job, which they should not be doing due to the fact its separatist nonsense, but the fact that virtually none of this will ever see the light of day there by making the whole exercise a complete waste of time.

When the mayor’s response is lukewarm to say the least and that a lot of the ideas could take years to look at and implement, that’s not particularly tricky code for ‘forget it, it’s not happening’. And this is a liberal mayor, this is a mayor who defended the authority. It then leads you to ask why do we have yet another authority whose role is little more than token, designed to appease the activists, to fly a P.C. sort of flag for the politicians when asked can point to and say ‘look, we have a specialist group set up to advise on just such matters’.

It’s a charade, a state-funded charade in which we all go through the motions to achieve little, if anything. Produce the report, get some news coverage, pretend to look at or inquire about or investigate whatever it is that’s been recommended, and allow enough time to pass so that hopefully most people will forget about it and fail to remember to ask whatever happened to all those ideas that went exactly nowhere. At least last week when the children’s commissioner started suggesting all parents who have kids get money, the Prime Minister had the good sense to call it dopey.

Why the statutory board’s plans haven’t been labelled similar or rejected outright just goes to show how dreadfully delicate we have become around issues of race. Separatism will kill this country and people who promote it are trouble. Yes, we need a tourism strategy but not a race based one. Yes, insulating homes is a good idea but because they’re cold, not because they’re occupied by a certain race. If we keep putting race ahead of common interest and common good we are going nowhere fast.

Photo: Edward Swift

Do you think the Maori Statutory Board's report is a waste of time? Are their recommendations valid? Leave a comment below...