Mike's Minute: Why did we need a directive on race?

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

When a Government has to issue an email directive the way they did on Friday over race, there is something profoundly wrong with the country.

Essentially it says the public service, whether on health, education, justice, welfare etc. - can not act on race.

It says they can't see race as an individual entitlement that allows services, or money, or support to be a determining criteria.

This is part of the coalition agreement - as directed by ACT and New Zealand First. National Party supporters might want to ask why they didn’t have it as part of their criteria as well.

The idea that one race trumps another is absurd, unfair and leads nowhere good, especially if you are after good race relations and harmonious existence.

The Māori Party called it anti-Māori, which shows their level of ignorance, unless the Māori Party argues Māori deserve things no one else gets, and I don’t think even they would be that extreme.

We are all equal. I have never been able to ascertain why that concept is so hard to grasp.

The fact it's taken the Government this long to issue the edict must also be of concern. David Seymour suggested it's been complex.

Has it? How?

What we also need to be concerned about, as we saw last week in Hawkes' Bay, is pushback. For a so-called colour blind public service, we have nothing of the sort.

You can't hand out health care based on race, and yet that was exactly what they were doing.

You can't unilaterally invent Māori seats at council level - and yet councils are threatening lawyers in a local body version of a tantrum.

In the meantime, the Waitangi Tribunal continues to pump out findings like confetti.

Race unfairly dealt with cripples countries. We have enough to worry about these days without something that really is so simple to administer. We are all equal. We all have equal access to everything, whether it be democracy, health, education or welfare.

Needs, not race. How hard can it be?

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.