“Well bugger me – now I’m a judge I find I have the confidence to declare that I’m a Maori too”

A curious thing happens to lawyers – apparently – as they progress up the pecking order to become judges.

They discover they are indigenous persons – or become confident about declaring they are indigenous persons.

Alf learned of this phenomenon while listening to some members of the Maori legal profession questioning why the Government’s data on the number of judges who identify as tāngata whenua is out-of-date.

It should be a matter of no concern, in a land with one rule for all, if a judge can identify as tangata whenua, or as Chinese, or as Hottentot… or as anything.

The law is the law is the law and a judge is a judge is a judge.

If we passed the appropriate exams and followed the right career path, we could all be judges. And we should be colour-blind judges.

No shit – the world’s biggest Maori cultural event is being held now, but in which country?

Nope. Alf was not wrong when his ears pricked up this morning at some babbling from Radio NZ.

He has revisited the news item and it confirmed that the buggers who write the stuff for Te Manu Korihi News just love to portray the country’s indigenous persons as achievers of the the biggest, the brightest  and the best.

Not only in this country. They are big globally.

And so the listening audience was told this morning:

The stage is set; the kapa haka crowds have booked out accommodation, and Hagley Park in Christchurch is the venue for the biggest Maori cultural event in the world – Te Matatini – which begins today with a massive powhiri just before midday.

The biggest Maori cultural event in the world?

No shit!

Now – stand up anyone who thought the biggest Maori cultural event in the world might have been held in – well, let’s say Bosnia, or Syria, or maybe  China.