FULL SCRIPT – PM’S STATE OF THE NATION SPEECH JAN 2013

Although his critics, well over the honeymoon period with NZ’s PM dubbed his new state of the nation korero as “underwhelming,” with Metiria Turei even going as far to say: “It’s no longer credible for [NZ's PM] to blame his economic failures on the rest of  the world when unemployment is rising here while it is steady or falling in most developed countries.” A good point as cruel ageist greed is what NZ’s PM upheld the last two years. Youth got very angry. Families too. We were on the cusp of violence, anarchy, destruction, vandalism – unless reality kicked in for the NZ’s PM’s political stance.

[Metiria Turei is a politician, a New Zealand citizen who also happens to be of Maori lineage. She serves all people's interests in Wellington, just like the PM is meant to as well. Photo: Herald on Sunday].

We had created a very divisive and unsafe NZ. In a game where it’s really the world’s 1% wealthy now vying for all of the world’s best future resources (irrespective of a nation’s borders), it was a very unsafe game NZ was playing at home. We divided our own people, making NZ very vulnerable to be seduced by the carrots of the 1% globally. I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel like NZ either at the time. Although we learn from our mistakes at varying rates and levels (I know I am a slow learner on some things), NZ is fundamentally at our heart, a just people. So it was a double shock to see happen for those of us who know NZ. White greed soared out of control. It was excused time and time again.

For Maori it was like an invisible economic holocaust. We lost lots of teens to suicide during those years, we lost Maori families abroad at an alarming rate. Maori were almost buried (it’s sad to say, Christchurch never cared one iota about Maori citizens largely, during those years either). It felt like we’d (Maori NZ citizens) had been muzzled, we couldn’t appeal to those citizens around us, as they were drunk on electric digital market numbers and property snap ups games. They were the loneliest years to be a Maori citizen, I have ever encountered in NZ. It was a cold witchunt against Maori shutting Maori out (bar a few pets) from the wider economic inclusive structure of a robust NZ future.

During those years, I felt more Maori in the USA than I did in New Zealand (the last two years in NZ) and the USA were not pretty years for me in part. They were beyond tough, yet on some levels there was more recognition of one’s Maori identity in the US, than there was allowed to be, back in NZ during the last two years. It was a complete culture shock to return to the ‘new’ NZ after five years out of it. I’m still trying to understand the ‘new’ NZ two years on. Still in shock about it.

Thankfully it’s starting to move in a more just direction, as they (our wealthy) see beyond the greed they (we) perhaps have all been a bit drunk on, as the wealthy increased wealth by 30% last year at the expense of a nation’s youth, young families and largely brown populations too. Sorry to spell it out like that… yet that was the truth of our racist greed on show in the modern years of NZ in 2011, 12, 13. Frankly, it was heartbreaking. Brown people also were shocked that the white majority of NZ were all in on it too. It was hard to breathe or accept for many.

So, we’re moving ahead though, in 2013.

Anyway, here’s what NZ’s no.1 man had to say:

January 25, 2013 | Categories: Christchurch, construction apprenticeships, Economic Engineering, Economic Teen Bullying, Economy, Infrastructure Technology, John Key, Metiria Turei, New Zealand, New Zealand Citizens, Pakehas, Parnell, Politics, Wellington | 1 Comment »