First the head of Women's Refuge, then the Commissioner for Children, reveal they have been told by Ministers of Maori Affairs to soften their references to the incidence of abuse among Maori. To her eternal credit, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait refused outright to muddy her message. The Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, unfortunately complied, redrafting his report on the terrible death of little James Whakaruru. At least now Mr McClay has helped to alert the country to an attitude on high that does nothing to protect Maori women and children.
The new Minister of Maori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, and an Associate Minister, Tariana Turia, would prefer that the likes of Ms Raukawa-Tait and Mr McClay remind the public always that abuse of women and children is not confined to Maori households, as indeed it is not.
But when Maori women are seven times more likely than others to need treatment after an assault, and Maori children are four times more likely to suffer deliberate injury, it becomes dangerous to bury your head in the sand of ethnic sensitivity.
If any other category of our citizens suffered from such statistics, the discovery would be freely discussed, making it much more likely that the reason would be found and something done about it. Mrs Turia seems to be in no doubt of the cause of domestic violence among Maori.
She ascribes it to "colonisation" and she told Mr McClay that his report should not draw attention to the statistics except "in the context of colonisation and its social and economic effects on the whanau."
Perhaps it is not so surprising that he preferred to cull the figures from his report. "I didn't want them to become the focal point of media coverage," he explained. He can only mean he did not want the context suggested by Mrs Turia to distract attention from those who failed James Whakaruru. By themselves, the statistics would not have overshadowed little James' treatment, they would have given it more weight.
Mrs Turia had no place putting pressure upon the Children's Commissioner to tone down his report. If she believes that "colonisation" can excuse or shift the blame for what happens in so many Maori households, she could have said so once the report was published in the form the commissioner intended. He is on the public payroll to be an independent advocate for the interests of children. He is not there to be censored by a junior minister, or anybody else in the Beehive.
And Ms Raukawa-Tait is not even on the public payroll. She leads on organisation that may receive substantial finance from the state but it is not answerable to the Government for its views.
Acknowledging that, the Prime Minister explains that the Maori Affairs Ministers are "inexperienced." It is hard to credit their behaviour entirely to that. Unless Helen Clark speaks much more sternly in private it seems very likely Mr Horomia and Mrs Turia will continue to discourage informed public comment on this subject if they can.
And the Prime Minister herself must take some of the blame for the attitude exhibited by her ministers. A stifling political correctness infests this Government from the top.
But what was Mrs Turia on about anyway? "Colonisation" has become a catch-cry of academics who want to blame the whole community for all the statistical gaps between Maori and the rest. The intention no doubt is to see that the majority cannot wash its hands of the problems of a minority.
Maori are not a nation apart; their crime, illness and unemployment rates are problems we must all embrace, just as we can all celebrate their successes. This country can stand some plain speaking on this subject and a couple of cabinet ministers should not forget it.
Herald Online feature: violence at home
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