Interesting indeed. Maybe I need to look at TOP's policies and their chances to implement them :) ;
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The divided society was not created by the Labour government. Their intention was inclusivity, and to include Maori more into mainstream society, rather than being on the margins in some areas. The division was created by whites who saw this as unfair privilege for Maoris. I don’t see much acknowledgement of white privilege by those who oppose these initiatives.
Any attempt to equalise is seen as unfair by some. The actions trigger the unconscious bias against Maori to surface. Division comes from the belief that there is only one way, our way,and we don't want to change. However there are other ways of seeing the world which include Maori values and culture. It is not black and white.
The instances of so-called Maori privilege are magnified and self-righteous anger and outrage pour out. But when whites are tackled about racism I don’t see the same willingness to go into the depth and detail of the instances of unfair treatment of Maori.
I'm not saying the intent is wrong but the implementation and outcome is. From a quick google search defining racism:
"Racism is the process by which systems and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race."
I believe you will find every bullet point on the list I linked pretty much satisfies this definition.
https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/...on/what-racism
Black Peter, are you able to let posters sort out issues between themselves without one of your 'reputation' attacks? You seem to think you are some sort of 'head prefect' of moral behaviour, of which you are the only arbiter. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve but you often get called out on this. It's only you who do this. I'm sure it annoys a lot of people.
When you talk about 'whites', you talk as though we had some sort of enforced segregation in New Zealand on racial lines, and all 'races' (race is an artificial construct, we are all one human speccies according to anthropologists) find each other repellent and are divided. This is clearly not the case as Maori were talking about the numbers mixed race that were around in 1840 and we have had a further almost 200 years of mixing. Maori, European, and Polynesian obviously find each other sexually attractive and have clearly been 'getting it on' in a big way. This idea of 'whites' in modern New Zealand is deceptive. When you consider that David Seymour, Simon Bridges, and Paula Bennett are all Tangata Whenua but could pass for 'white', it is not always clear who is white and who isn't. Anyway, what will divide us is government laws which enshrine one group of people with special privileges above all others, even when these people have 'colonialist' blood pumping through their veins just as much as Maori blood. I think the idea that Maoriness should cancel out the rest of a persons ethnic hertitage is offensive to all decent people, and carries with it a sense of Te Pati Maori's 'Maori have superior genetics' claim.