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Leader's LetterFebruary 2002Leader's ReportAt the commencement of a new century New Zealand is confronted by a range of obvious challenges – some the result of misguided policies of the past (how many of our state assets sales have gone bad?), some that are the result of increasing globalisation and foreign ownership of our resources, some that are ongoing problems of scarcity: the problems of finding enough resources to properly and affordably educate our population, provide adequate healthcare, or ensure that we will be able to live with dignity and in safety in our retirement. Some of our problems are developmental. In all cases the solutions lie in our hands. Ours is a country of diversity but sadly it has also developed into a country of divisiveness and increasing intolerance and disharmony. This is a situation worsened by tried and failed immigration policies, by the Treaty settlement process, by separatist ‘closing the gaps’ policies promoted by successive Labour and National Governments, and backgrounding this are many of the misguided economic reforms of 1984-1996. It is time to say ‘STOP’ and to seek a new direction from that offered by both of the tired old parties. There is a pathway to racial harmony. We are many people with differing customs, religions, languages and cultures – but are we one nation …. the “family New Zealand”? Our diversity should be a strength – only our weakness will make a sin of that virtue. We have reached not just a critical point but a crisis point in the development of race relations in New Zealand. It is time that we matured as a nation and saw ourselves as New Zealanders first. We have become a country of hypenated New Zealanders; European-New Zealanders, Samoan–New Zealanders, Maori-New Zealanders, Chinese–New Zealanders and so on. Economic and social conditions are breeding resentment, distrust and fear. From within that cauldron we confront a direct clash between races for control of their own destinies. Such an incendiary environment bred the level of animosity that led to the horrendous events in New York and Washington DC in 2001. The racism emanating from both Maori and European is an alarming recent development in our midst. There are some radicals who do not want a shared future. They want us apart in thought, deed and law – separate universities, separate schools, separate hospital wards and separate medicine, separate courts, separate government, and separate development, and now even separate drivers’ licences, passports and money! Are we prepared to see this country divided by racial hatred and prejudice? The means to a unified future is education. Education is the key to upward mobility. Without it our citizens are condemned to a narrow range of options and certain failure to reach their potential. Rather than pour resources into separate development we should focus on providing high quality education for all our youth on the basis of need. And rather than looking back at injustices of the past we should look forward to travelling on a positive, rational and tolerant path towards social cohesion. Today, the Treaty of Waitangi continues to cast an overt influence on the direction of this country. Were some radicals to have their way we would have apartheid in New Zealand. That is not what any of us would wish on the major balance of New Zealanders, Maori and non-Maori alike. The time has come for us to shrug off the security blanket that the Treaty has become, and to make the constitutional leap forward that marries the best that is Maori with the best that is of all our peoples who live in New Zealand. Cultures that do not adapt die. Future prosperity lies in unity. When we are all New Zealanders first we will be able to celebrate our ethnic diversity – as an asset we share with pride. The pride of being a New Zealander. Rt Hon Winston Peters MP
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