Uffindell tries his hand at equal rights

Imagine this being your first member's bill

Sam Uffindell after being cleared of assault allegations by an independent investigation in 2022. (photo: NZME)

Sam Uffindell is in the news after his private members’ bill, introduced March 12, came under fire for being discriminatory against Māori. Uffindell claims his bill is about equal rights for everyone.

According to a story in RNZ

Uffindell said his private members' bill lodged last week was aimed at ensuring equal voting rights in local and central government.

The draft bill was intended to stop any move away from the principle of equal suffrage, where each person gets an equal say in electing people, Uffindell said.

"I hear a lot of concern from members of the community that councils, like Tauranga City Council, want to move away from equal suffrage and give special rights and voting power to people based on ethnicity.

"My response to that is we are all Kiwis; we should all have equal rights and responsibilities."

Someone has been taking a page out of the David Seymour playbook. I couldn’t have scripted this any more perfectly if I had tried. The bill is about equal suffrage. Right. Who can argue with that? After all, we should all be equal.

And Uffindell, being the diligent MP that he is, has been out talking with his constituents, and boy, he has heard a lot of concern. There are so many people talking to him about how the Tauranga City Council wants to move away from equal suffrage. I mean, the guy can barely go to the gym or to get a coffee without people running him down with complaints. The damn city council wants to give special rights and voting power to people based on ethnicity. It’s amazing how all of these people are talking all of the time to both Uffindell and Seymour.

What’s an MP to do when his constituents harass him day and night about how unfair it is that Māori get special rights and privileges simply because of their ethnicity? Why, introduce a member’s bill of course. Stating clearly that we are all Kiwis and as such we should all have equal rights and privileges. What a hero.

What do those pesky Māori who are always agitating for special treatment have to say?

Ngāi Te Rangi chief executive Paora Stanley said he didn't agree with the bill and it "ignores the fact that Māori still face political disadvantages".

"Māori seats ensure indigenous representation, not privilege."

The political disadvantage in its "simplest form" was not having a Māori voice, he said.

A Māori voice represented Māori interests and was chosen by Māori, said Stanley.

Stanley said the equal suffrage rhetoric was not new.

"It gets tiring. Why do you have to continually fight just to have your head above water?"

Matire Duncan chairs Te Rangapū Mana Whenua o Tauranga Moana, a group representing local hapū and iwi, which works with the council. She had "deep concerns" about the bill.

It risked undermining the Crown's obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and legal and constitutional frameworks recognising the rights of tangata whenua in governance, she said.

"This bill misrepresents Māori representation mechanisms as special rights rather than corrective measures to address the ongoing effects of colonisation and ensure meaningful partnership between the Crown and tangata whenua."

Wait, so Māori are disadvantaged due to colonisation and are therefore not represented politically? This seems like something that someone would have been taught in a New Zealand history class.

Oh wait, Uffindell was too busy beating the shit out of a boy 3 years younger than him and generally being a huge bully when he was in highschool. Maybe he missed that lesson.

How about Uni? Oh, that’s right. He was too busy getting drunk and high and yelling and threatening to break down his flatmate’s door. Possibly missed that lecture as well.

Now, to be fair. He did admit to assaulting the 13 year old. And he offered an apology for his behavior, conveniently right before he ran for election, although he did hide the assault during his election campaign.

And to be fair, he was cleared after an independent investigation by Luxon revealed that, darn it, people just couldn’t get their stories straight and so the accusation by the woman who claimed that Uffindell threatened her with physical violence in such a way that it left her traumatized wasn’t able to be substantiated. Oh, and the report wasn’t made public even though his accusers said they would be fine with it.

So really, we can’t be expected to assume that Uffindell knows about the deficits in Māori political representation.

Now, I’m being snarky, and some might say being a bit too petty, but I’m pretty irritated at the kind of people that keep showing up on National’s bench. Uffindell criminally assaulted another person. Nothing happens. In fact, he campaigned on law and order. Last year, Minister Andrew Bayly was out with some business chaps and called a worker who was staying late at the place they were eating a “loser” multiple times while making the sign of an “L” on his forehead, telling them to “take some wine and fuck off.” He retained Luxon’s confidence only to resign (not be sacked) after laying hands on a staffer earlier this year.

Between this, and the pettyness and constant condescension and shit-eating grin of Simeon Brown, I’ve about had it with the bro squad of National MPs and Ministers. They all seem to be “for the boys” and willing to overlook anything.

Let’s be fair, David Seymour and ACT caught some heat for a culture of sexual assault and rape at Young ACT, which led to a string of resignations, but curiously, Seymour emerged unscathed, although people were a bit unimpressed with him snapchatting teenagers. And then there was the revelation that the former ACT president Tim Jago was a charged sex offender who had his name suppressed. Somehow we are to believe that Seymour knew nothing of the allegations or the history.

I’m ranting, but I just find it rich that these people are speaking of equal rights and treatment, all the while enjoying special treatment at the hands of their superiors and the law. And when confronted about things, they lie and dissemble and claim that they’ve changed, or they said they were sorry, or they were drunk, or there was no way for them to have known about that, or isn’t it a bit unfair to bring that up after all of these years?

But yeah, it’s special treatment of Māori that is the real issue.