The haka that circled the globe
The gobsmacking view-tally on the challenge to Act's treaty bill led by Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke in the NZ parliament.
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, November 18. That’s 37 days to Christmas. Today’s edition is written by Toby Manhire, filling in for Stewart Sowman-Lund.
In today’s edition: Christopher Luxon meets Xi Jinping in Lima. The Facebook role in the scam pandemic. But to begin, some startling numbers on how a haka travelled the world, and even pursued the NZ prime minister to Peru.
Half a billion views and counting
On Thursday afternoon in parliament, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke took to her feet, tore up a copy of the Treaty Principles Bill and led a thundering haka to protest the Act Party legislation. The intervention, in which she was joined by the public gallery and MPs from across the opposition parties, saw proceedings halted and a 24-hour suspension from the house for the 22-year-old Te Pāti Māori MP. And within hours, footage of the haka was seemingly everywhere.
Just how viral had it gone? Last night I scrolled social media in the cause of research. An Instagram post from the New York Times had 10 million views; the Australian Triple J radio station wasn’t far behind. The BBC had clocked up 6.5 million views. In Germany, Weltspeigel’s post had 4.5 million. Across a dozen social posts by global outlets that I checked, there were more than 75 million views in total – and that’s on top of the scores of stories on the news sites themselves. .
Then there’s Tiktok. The numbers here are even more staggering. The New York Times post has 37 million views, while a pair of local accounts are off the charts. Two posts by Waatea News have cracked 73 million views. But even that is small fry alongside the Whakaata Māori Tiktok, which has now been viewed more than 320 million times. It’s had more than 21 million likes and 370,000 comments. (I haven’t had a chance to read them all but here, and across other posts of the video, most ranged from admiring to adoring, with a sizable minority demurring or jeering.) That’s far from all the activity out there, and already we’re over half a billion views.
Former PM issues ‘civil war’ warning
Jenny Shipley has joined a growing list of grandees rebuking David Seymour’s bill, which would put a new set of Treaty principles to referendum, despite the National Party’s promise to snuff it out at second reading. She also defended Maipi-Clarke’s actions in parliament. The former prime minister told RNZ’s Saturday Morning: "The Treaty, when it's come under pressure from either side, our voices have been raised … I remember Bastion Point – the Treaty has helped us navigate. When people have had to raise their voice, it's brought us back to what it's been, an enduring relationship where people then try to find their way forward. I thought the voices of this week were completely and utterly appropriate. Whether they breach standing orders, I'll put that aside. The voice of Māori, that reminds us that this was an agreement, a contract – and you do not rip up a contract and then just say: Well, I'm happy to rewrite it on my terms, but you don't count.”
Shipley said: "I just despise people who want to use a treasure – which is what the Treaty is to me – and use it as a political tool that drives people to the left or the right, as opposed to inform us from our history and let it deliver a future that is actually who we are as New Zealanders … I condemn David Seymour for using this, asking the public for money to fuel a campaign that I think really is going to divide New Zealand in a way that I haven't lived through in my adult life.” Were it to become law, she said, echoing remarks by James Shaw a year ago, that would be “inviting civil war”.
‘Embarrassed New Zealand globally’
David Seymour countered by saying that, on the contrary, his bill would reverse a system which was "treating New Zealanders [differently] based on their ethnicity". He told RNZ: "Te Pāti Māori acted in complete disregard for the democratic system of which they are a part during the first reading of the bill, causing disruption, and leading to suspension of the house.” In an interview with Newstalk ZB yesterday he said the haka beamed around the world had “embarrassed New Zealand globally … They don't have any solutions, just theatrics.”
Seymour had support for that position – if not for his bill beyond first reading – from Shane Jones of NZ First. The TPM response had been “threatening and ugly”, and Jones was sufficiently appalled to offer an unexpected response: imprisonment. “Parliament has inherent powers to put people in jail and the way the Māori Party are carrying on, that seems to me quite the appropriate response,” he told Newstalk ZB.
TPM co-leader Rawiri Waititi countered: “Haka is a natural tool we use to support our debate. If you can’t handle that, then maybe you should think of leaving parliament,” he told the NZ Herald. After recounting some of the indignities in Jones’s own record, he added: “He can go and have a shit, to be honest, and Winston Peters. Put that in your article.”
Feeding our future
What will we be eating in 20 years’ time, and how will the way we eat change? The Aotearoa food community is finding innovative solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing the planet – and many of those solutions are being created right here in Canterbury. Join host Sophie Gilmour and guests Ross Milne (Leaft) and Angela Clifford (Eat NZ) for a lively discussion about science, sustainability, and the future of our food supply.
To reserve your seat now, RSVP to commercial@thespinoff.co.nz
Luxon meets Xi in Lima
The prime minister was not in the house on Thursday, and though he did convene a press conference before his departure for Peru and the Apec summit to underscore in the sternest terms yet his opposition to the bill that National is supporting no further than select committee, Christopher Luxon must have departed with some sense of relief. His most important task among the Asia-Pacific leaders’ gathering in Lima: a bilateral with Xi Jinping – Luxon’s first in-person meeting with the Chinese president.
The encounter followed a year in which, under Luxon and Winston Peters, New Zealand foreign policy has discernibly moved to solidify ties with the US, with a second-tier link to the Aukus alliance a very real, if nebulous, prospect – one which raises hackles in Beijing. Among the press pack in Peru was Sam Sachdeva, author of The China Tightrope. “By this point, the need to manage differences is baked into bilateral ties and does not appear to be undermining the relationship, with the prime minister confirming he intended to visit China sometime in the first half of next year following an invitation from Xi,” Sachdeva writes for Newsroom. “Maintaining strong relations without pulling punches may be crucial in the coming years, particularly if Trump tariffs take a toll on Kiwi exporters and lead them to invest even more in New Zealand’s top trading partner.”
As for escaping the controversies of home, no such luck for Luxon. Not just because the New Zealand media were asking about domestic matters – that’s a given. But because, as Jason Walls reveals in the Herald, half the summit attendees seemed to be watching that haka video on their phones.
The banks versus Facebook on scam epidemic
The big, highly profitable, Australian-owned banks rarely elicit much sympathy for anything, which may have something to do with them being big, highly profitable, and Australian-owned. But in this age of interminable predatory scams, are they copping more than their share of flak? The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive has spoken to the CEOs of two banks (one, Kiwibank, is not, of course, Australian owned), and both reckon that one corporate giant, beside which they are minnows, could be doing a lot more.
“Those running banks in New Zealand don’t dispute that they have a crucial role to play in stopping scams. They say they have doubled investment, and introduced significant new controls and reporting channels which have helped prevent the problem from growing further,” he writes. “But they feel strongly that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is completely indifferent to the harm it’s visiting upon its own users and the banks’ customers. Their statements are unusually strong, for the normally mild language of corporations – particularly those which interact with one another, on advertising or as bank clients, every day.”
Read the full piece here, and keep an eye on The Spinoff for a related opinion piece from Duncan, pointing up something of a void in government.
Support longform journalism in New Zealand at The Spinoff
Published yesterday, Joel MacManus’s investigation into the urgent race to solve homelessness in Aotearoa is the kind of vital journalism that is impossible without funding from Spinoff members and donors. If it matters to you and you are able to, please donate or become a member today.
Click and Collect
Tracy Watkins, the editor of The Post and Sunday Star-Times, writes on local newspaper closures and the challenge of persuading readers news is worth paying for.
Helen Clark is appalled at the prospect of charging for access to public conservation land.
1News reports on calls for a fresh approach to dealing with Tom Phillips and the search for the Marakopa children.
Protests have been held in Timaru in response to concerns about clinical leadership being relocated to Dunedin.
Hopes of a clean sweep for the All Blacks’ end-of-year tour evaporated on Sunday morning with a thrilling 30-29 loss to France.
As the hīkoi pauses just north of Wellington, Liam Rātana writes on a generational change in leadership. What Now’s Chris Kirk on smuggling gunge out of New Zealand. Relive the weekend’s Trans-Tasman Scrabble Challenge. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith explores the hīkoi fits. And the most intelligent, challenging thing I’ve read for some time is Maddie Holden’s esssay The Nobel Prize in Not Beating Up Your Kids.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. See you back here tomorrow morning.
Want to get in touch? Join the conversation in the Substack comments section below or via email at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz if you have any feedback on today’s top stories (or anything else in the news).
If you liked what you read today, share The Bulletin with friends, family and colleagues.
Seymour claims TMP '"...don't have solutions. Just Theatrics." The Treaty is not a problem needing a solution.
i think it is great that the haka has put NZ on the map and shown that there is a place in politics for for real people with indigenous traditions and that British colonial ideas are not paramount . and that Shane jones can go and hire another porn video like the wanker he is.