Pointing out the Maori Party has Stockholm Syndrome is not race baiting

Goff accused of using race card
Phil Goff has been accused of sparking racial divisions with an "Orewa-style" speech after he attacked National-Maori Party deals signalling the foreshore and seabed will again be a political football.

Goff’s speech has had an interesting response.

Tim Watkin over at Pundit fears race wars and blood in the street (I’m being factitious) over Goff’s supposed race baiting, even The Standard seemed to jump to conclusions…

I just can’t believe that Goff and his advisers didn’t know what they were doing with this speech. And in doing so they’ve alienated much of the left and done huge damage to Labour’s relationship with Maori. To much of the rest of the electorate he just looks desperate.

..ouch, did we read the same speech? I don’t think pointing out that the Maori Party is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome is race baiting. I don’t agree with Goff building Hone up further than it needs, Christ Phil there’s much more Pork to slice off Rodney than Hone for Mill grist. But the Emission Trading Scam needs a response that is critical and claiming the race card won’t deflect that criticism.

I also think claiming this is Goff’s Orewa speech is just bullshit. Read the Hollowmen and see the emails at the time when Brash’s spin Dr’s knew that the Maaaaaaori get too much line was just a lie but they used it anyway. Goff is actually pointing out the bleeding obvious, that’s a planet away from what Brash attempted to do.

I think Gordon Campbell has the best take on this speech,

On one level of course, this is merely postmodern politics : ie, Goff is trying to pre-empt criticism by acknowledging its likelihood. Goff is not politically naïve. He knows he is playing to a gallery that includes racists, and that Labour can expect to reap a political advantage from that quarter. Yet the issues he was raising in Palmerston North were also substantive, and not reducible to mere dogwhistling to rednecks. Given the nature of the deal done between National and the Maori Party in Parliament this week over the ETS, he was in something of a ‘damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t’ situation when it came to mounting an attack on it. Calling the deal ‘ shabby’ and opposing its benefits to particular Maori tribes ( and large iwi corporations) at the taxpayer’s expense is not playing the race card. It is more like truth in labeling.

His critics – especially those on the left – need to consider where they stand on the issues he dealt with in the Grey Power speech. Do we think that ‘ full and final’ Treaty settlements should be open to further compensation if and when unforeseen events – like an ETS – lower the value of some of the components of that deal ? Given the historical grievances at the core of those settlements, there is a strong case for doing so. Goff does himself few favours by waving around the legal opinion by Helen Aikman QC that the Crown has no legal obligation to do so.