The Art of War by ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu has a few things to say that are relevant not only to physical combat but to the political arts as well. One piece of advice from Sun Tzu: fight on the battleground of your choosing.
Māori tīpuna already knew this. There are many examples of battles in Māori history, including with the crown, where warriors lured their enemy into a trap by letting them think they had the upper hand, only to ambush them and dish out a hiding, or at least a bloody nose. It’s called boxing clever.
You’d think Te Pāti Māori would apply some of those lessons from its tīpuna, whose values its MPs constantly say they’re living by. But they’re often not. Often, it’s more theatre than script. Te Pāti Māori seems to get caught up competing in theatrics and posturing with the likes of Act and New Zealand First MPs, while a whole raft of issues that affect Māori go begging for attention.
A haka has many purposes and is performed on all sorts of occasions. But if your haka is drawing derision from the other side then you’re not exactly winning the battle. You’re not even winning the opening salvo. Getting yourself on the home page of the New York Times is not a victory. It’s just a Western media outlet fascinated by a bit of exotica, which is a depressing tendency of overseas media.
While Te Pāti Māori has been getting a public telling-off for breaking parliamentary etiquette, the government is getting away with far more serious crimes.
In many respects, Te Pāti Māori ran a clever election campaign. For a start, it targeted younger voters, which showed it understood the demographics of Māori far better than Labour did.
But an effective election campaign is not the same as being effective in opposition. Its MPs have let Act define the territory of battle, which is defining the narrative, not just for core voters, but the wider public. The protest against the Treaty Principles Bill notwithstanding, Te Pāti Māori has been reactive rather than proactive. You could argue it won that battle but is losing the war.
Arguing Māori should get superannuation at a younger age because they die on average seven years earlier is a terrible way to frame the case. It is a defeatist position that assumes Māori dying earlier can’t be changed and that’s okay. It has an air of self pity and echoes the 19th-century myth that Māori were a dying race.
Why not launch an incursion into the territory of the government and Labour by arguing superannuation should be means-tested? The government has already telegraphed it has to tighten its belt in the coming Budget. So, why not cut back on the rising cost to the country of superannuation? If people are retiring with huge wealth, why should the government subsidise them further at the expense of everyone else?
The parties in government, and Labour, are scared to get offside with the growing retiree demographic. Yet the coalition’s argument that policies should be about need not race falls down when you look at NZ Super.
The core issues that have always affected Māori – housing, education, cost of living – are bread and butter ones that any member of the public can understand. And these issues are now beginning to bite the middle class, especially a younger generation of Pākehā.
Māori have always been on the sharp end of these issues. Yet Te Pāti Māori seems to miss the chance to articulate any clear vision for the country, despite a mandate to challenge the major parties.
It could be explaining how disparities between Māori and Pākehā have come about by showing the long history of race-based policies peddled by Pākehā politicians, which have created the statistics we’re dealing with today.
It also has an opportunity to expose the structural issues that affect Māori and Pākehā alike but which are ignored by the main parties and treated as the status quo ‒ topics not up for debate.
As a party in opposition, Te Pāti Māori has resources that a journalist could only dream of in terms of extracting information out of the government: time, for one thing, and staff at their disposal to do the work. If Māori MPs were doing their job, particularly in Te Pāti Māori, they would be using those resources to actually inform the wider public on the issues that affect their people.
And if Māori are renowned for their humour, why isn’t Te Pāti Māori tapping into that? There are plenty of targets.
Media coverage of Māori issues is generally abysmal but some younger journalists are far more willing, well-informed and interested. Māori MPs could be doing some of the donkey work of gathering and collating information and putting journalists in touch with people in their networks. This would broaden the stories the general public is exposed to.
Te Pāti Māori can perform all the haka it likes, but this isn’t Te Matatini. At some point, you’ve got to actually go into battle. Otherwise you’re all song and dance.
Aaron Smale is a journalist specialising in te ao Māori issues.
