The Politics of the Brown Table
The Political Studies Department of the University of
Auckland and the Bruce Jesson Foundation
2010 Bruce Jesson
Lecture
Annette Sykes
Ngäti
Pikiao Lawyer and
Activist
"The Politics of
the Brown Table"
A self-annointed Iwi Leaders Group, a Maori Party that supports a National/ACT government, and a group of Crown mandated intermediaries drawn from retired politicians and bureaucrats are today's agents for the manufacturing of consent and the management of discontent amongst Maori.
The commercial deals on Treelords, the Emissions Trading Scheme, geothermal resources, national parks, private prisons, mining, whanau ora are all harnessing Maori to a global capitalism that impoverishes the mass of working class Maori and making them dependent on its survival. Most whanau and hapa are excluded from decision-making and denied the rights over their resources just as they always have been. Bruce Jesson foresaw these trends back in the 1980s. This lecture challenges this agenda and identifies the basic principles for a politics that genuinely empowers the people.
Professor Margaret Mutu, chairperson of Te Rananga-a-Iwi o Ngäti Kahu, will be the discussant on the lecture.
Wednesday 27 October, 6.30pm, Maidment Theatre, University of Auckland. Bar opens at 5.30pm
ENDS