Comments for Pacific Guardians

Comment on 2014 ELECTION: 3 More Years Hard Labour by Paul

Paul — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:53:53 +0000

Malo le saunoa Tuifa’asisina

Your article is certainly well over due but I am surprised that given the strength and loyalty of the Pacific vote demonstrated that not one of the Pacific Labour MPs is putting their hat into the leadership contest. Are we born to follow and serve?

I can recall the Helen Clarke government pursuing the so called knowledge economy resulting in a huge loss of jobs in many industries. Companies like Nissan, Ford motors which employed thousands of Pacific people directly and indirectly were made redundant. Yes the price of vehicles came down but the result of this policy was devastating to Pacific.
I make this prediction now Tuifa’asina, should Labour (or any other party) assume that it has a stranglehold on the Pacific vote and fail to consider and or deliver, MMP will deliver in 2020 a party that will provide a focal point for Pacific.

2020Pacific…got a ring to it!

Ia manuia lava

Paul

Comment on THREE PEAT: National owns 2014 election as Hone exists by Lealaiauloto Aigaletaulealea F. Tauafiafi

Lealaiauloto Aigaletaulealea F. Tauafiafi — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:46:02 +0000

Hi Paul, we’re writing the post-mortem and there are some key elements that we’ve pointed to from 2012 which have come to pass. We will be posting our analysis and comments by this weekend. Alofa atu.

Comment on THREE PEAT: National owns 2014 election as Hone exists by Paul

Paul — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 06:42:14 +0000

the silence around Labour’s dismal performance is deafening. I am surprised that none of your co- writers including yourself are not looking at the Labour leadership debacle.

Comment on Union applauds NZ supermarkets’ stance on slavery by Eric

Eric — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 04:32:41 +0000

I was just at Countdown in Lynfield, Auckland. *All* the prawns for sale there are from Thailand. It looks like Progressive Enterprises did little but issue a press release declaring themselves somehow ‘not involved’.

Comment on Last minute changes to debate disappoints Minister for Pacific, Peseta by Waiata Artist Trust

Waiata Artist Trust — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 10:59:37 +0000

I think the Minister should be correct in who did the last minute changes?
The organisers went out of their way to accomodate the Minister’s time. Maybe the Minister has the same problem as his leader John Key, not knowling what his office workers have done?

Comment on “Disgraceful” Parata claims state schools send kids to jail by John McCaffery

John McCaffery — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 02:22:56 +0000

I am sorry to say that the claims for how great State schools currently are for Maori and Pasifika Schools is over rated by the actual research to say the least. The ERO has been reporting for at least the last 5 yrs that few schools value the languages cultures experiences and identities that they bring to schooland very few think our children’s languages have any place in schooling.This seems to be why they remain largely unconcerned about the forthcoming extinction of the languages of the Cook is Maori ,Vagahau Niue and Gagana Tokelau and the clear research showing that valuing and including the languages of Samoan and Tongan children as tools for learning in the curriculum will produce greater academic achievements- that is bilingual eduction The NZEI still it seems does not have a National Komiti Pasifika to advise its Executive or a Pasifika position on its National Executive or any substantial action on its 2002 Policy Report calling for Pasifika Bilingual Education . Programmes we do have in schools are constantly undermined by Ministry of Education assessment policies and National Standards wanting to show Pasifika children who speak our languages as failures to meet the monolingual standards set by monolingual peoples with little or no knowledge of bilingualism or language and biliteracy development of bilingual children .Its time for Palagi NZ to acknowledge that the Pasifika Education Plans which has monolingual goals only for Pasifika students is a failure.It’s time to speak up and fight back with research and knowledge we have of our own families

Comment on Politics: Sex, Race, Taunts and Winners by Soga'imiti sau mai Falealili

Soga'imiti sau mai Falealili — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 05:50:54 +0000

this is a most disappointing parody of writing dogma into one sided view of the real world, I say Pacific people’s livelihood will improve when we stop blaming someone else or something else!
Lets get to make our futures with what we have rather than thinking what we don’t have..

Comment on JOHN BANKS: So this is ‘palagi’ law? by Paul

Paul — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 08:52:52 +0000

Interesting views Mike and many thanks

Comment on JOHN BANKS: So this is ‘palagi’ law? by Mike

Mike — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 01:17:56 +0000

Nice post Paul.
With regards your comments about statistics relating to poverty, health and other poor outcomes. They only ever display them as a percentage of a certain race for example; 70% of Maori or 50% of Samoans. If the raw numbers were displayed you would see that there are just as many poor and disadvantaged Europeans in NZ they just get lost in the larger population of Europeans.
Also when looking at reasons why people are disadvantaged in life like lack of education, resources, not valuing education at home, drug abuse, and physical abuse. They have very little to do with racism and more to do with culture and generational abuse.
I have sympathy for people in these situations regardless of race but don’t believe in breaking NZ into different factions. This leads to a us and them mind set and works against the greater good.
If you look at all the tribal people in the world who have been colonized, Celts, Africans, Pacific and American in many cases they would have been able to resist colonization if they had been able to band together but Tribalism (Another form of racism) denied them that. Africa is an example of great potential going to waste due to racism and tribalism.

Comment on JOHN BANKS: So this is ‘palagi’ law? by Paul

Paul — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 13:17:26 +0000

In response to Mikes comment It seems that poverty, lack of power and poor social outcomes have been experienced more by some races within NZ than others. You merely need to logon to the statistics NZ website and search for Maori and Pacific outcomes.

Anyway, the question is whether there was any disparity in the findings of the Court between Mr Field and Mr Banks. Accepting that prior to the court hearing both gentlemen were subject to very different processes by 2 different governments. Obviously Mr Field was subjected to an enquiry and subsequently, his conduct during this investigation, was found to be unlawful and resulted in criminal charges laid by the Police. I may have missed some details in Mr Fields case but I just wanted to make quick comparison.

In Mr Banks’s case, no enquiry nor any interest by the Police until the private citizen action. Although we can quickly draw parallels from this scenario I think it would more prudent to look at the governments of the day and remind ourselves of what they were like especially Helen Clarkes government. Helen Clarke was very big on “public perception as being a key indicator for performance and so when the Thai tiler presented his complaint, Mr Field was immediately put on the back foot because of the desire of that government to be seen as transparent.

In looking at Mr Bank’s case, this current government has taken a very relaxed view on proceedings and afforded their coalition partner a non-harassment pact while maintaining an arms length relationship. 2 very distinct and different processes. If an a commission of enquiry had been conducted into Mr Banks campaign donations and his conduct found to be unlawful (which the Court found) would Mr Banks have been jailed.

So is the disparity a result of government attitude and policy or because of Mr Field’s race?
Paul