It’s 6.30pm. The state-funded propaganda machine, otherwise known as 1News is droning on in the background while I’m half-listening, half-scrolling, slowly eating my dinner and getting sidetracked like usual. Then I stumbled across this little gem on RNZ that stopped me right in my tracks…
Ngāti Toa launch new agency to distribute Whānau Ora funds
Ngāti Toa has just launched a new Whānau Ora commissioning agency to funnel “health and wellbeing” funding to Māori and Pasifika only. Not the poor. Not the vulnerable. Not the struggling. Just Māori and PI. If you don’t tick the right ancestry box, you can get stuffed.
This is apartheid. Full stop. Race-based public funding, race-based agencies, and race-based eligibility. It doesn’t matter how it’s packaged. It doesn’t matter how many te reo words they throw over it. If this was happening in reverse, if there was a system "for Pākehā only", people would be marching in the streets.
The state is pouring millions into building a parallel system where access to basic services is determined not by need, but by race. This isn’t "culturally responsive care". This is institutionalised racism rubber-stamped by the government. Whānau Ora is no longer about helping families. It’s a political tool to carve out power and privilege for iwi elites while the rest of the country drowns in a broken, underfunded health system.
The worst part? You’re still paying for it. Every taxpayer in this country is helping fund a race-exclusive model that their children may never be allowed to use.
This is not "equity". It’s apartheid dressed in an expensive korowai, which was probably made in India in the first place. This is a segregated system designed not to help the most vulnerable, but to divide us further under the sick logic that some lives matter more than others because of who their ‘whakapapa’.
Minister Tama Potaka seems proud of this direction. He wants more race-based commissioning agencies. More separate pipelines. More apartheid. And not a single mainstream journalist is asking why we’re building two healthcare systems in one country. You're in luck. I’m not, and never will be, another puppet working for the mainstream media.
The people defending this mess will tell you Māori need different solutions. That white people can’t understand. That colonisation is why Māori suffer today. That’s all very convenient, but it’s not good enough. We’re not in 1840. We’re in a country where poor Kiwis of every colour are getting screwed by the same broken systems. The idea that only Māori deserve a special lane is not only racist, it’s fucking repulsive.
Every child in this country should be equal in the eyes of the state. Every sick person should be treated based on urgency and need, not whakapapa. But Whānau Ora has thrown that out the window. Now it’s bloodlines first, healthcare second.
While all this money is being handed out to race-based agencies and iwi bureaucracies, Māori children are still being murdered, neglected, and abused in their own homes. That’s the brutal truth none of the iwi wants to talk about. I hardly believe this funding pipeline will reach the kids who actually need saving. Where is Tama Potaka when it comes to that? When is he going to front up and talk about the Māori children being buried instead of being helped?
I guess it’s easier to launch yet another glossy agency than to deal with the uncomfortable reality that the real crisis is happening behind closed doors, and all the Whānau Ora branding in the world won’t stop it.
To celebrate my birthday this year, I’m offering something special to everyone who’s been following along, all free subscribers can now upgrade to a paid Matua Kahurangi subscription for 50% off.
If you’ve been enjoying my writing, now’s the perfect time to take that next step. Paid subscribers get full access to the complete archive, exclusive posts, deeper commentary, and, most importantly, the opportunity to join in the full conversation.
Whether you’ve agreed, disagreed, laughed, or winced at what I’ve written, your support means the world. And if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, this birthday deal is a good excuse to jump in.
This offer will last until this Sunday, so if you're keen to see it all and back the work I do, now’s your chance.
Once again I feel compelled to comment. Another great heads up from Matua!!
Why do Iwi need massive hand outs when they are super rich and Iwi corporations only pay a top tax rate of 17.5% (if at all in some cases) when the rest of us have to suffer 39%?
Where does their money actually go? I suspect they use that money to lobby the Govt to get more funding and then the elites in the corporations pay themselves massive wages while their people get nothing.................. most Maori, at least the mates of mine have nothing to do with Iwi, they are just like the rest of us who have their heads down, working and paying tax to survive (Kiwis).
Simple question: What is the average life expectancy of Maori now compared to 200 years ago?
I suspect it has improved in the past 200 years or at least since they stopped the tribal wars.
I agree! Wouldn’t it be great though, if this provided an opportunity to detect abuse of children within the family. For example, unexplained bruises on a child! I’m dreaming!!!!