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1 During his speech at Te Tii, Don Brash invoked Apirana Ngata. For Brash & other conservative Pakeha, Ngata has long been a talisman. They see the famous leader as an advocate of assimilation & opponent of statism & race-based policies. But how accurate is such a view? (thread) 
2 Again & again, Brash has insisted that Ngata opposed state funding for Maori-specific projects. It seems that Brash has never heard of the ambitious Native Lands Development Schemes, which Ngata created & monitored after he became a minister in the Forbes govt elected in 1928.
3 For decades Ngata had been trying to consolidate Maori land holdings. After winning his cabinet post in 1928, he was able to acquire govt funds to pay for the development of consolidated Maori land. One iwi after joined his schemes. Weeds were pulled, fences built, stock bought
4 From the beginning, many Pakeha politicians were suspicious of Ngata's land development schemes. They complained of money being aimed at Maori. Ngata pointed out, in response, that for many decades Pakeha farmers had enjoyed subsidies & infrastructure spending denied to Maori.
5 The land schemes were just one part of Ngata's quest to revitalise a nation devastated by war & land theft. He also worked hard to restore his people's culture, founding a school for carvers & teaching dance to young people. How would he feel about Brash's denigration of haka?
6 Brash & other Pakeha conservatives have praised intermarriage, which they see as diluting Maori identity & thereby bringing them into the 'mainstream' of NZ, aka Pakeha, society. Ngata didn't share their enthusiasm. Fascinated by eugenics, he wanted to keep Maori marrying Maori
7 Brash & his ilk have a record of denigrating pre-Christian Maori spirituality, & of wanting it kept out of public ceremonies & off public sites. Ngata felt differently. As Ranginui Walker's biography shows, he believed in the old gods & spirits, & awaited their signals.
8 Ngata talked of the 'amalgamation of the races' in NZ, by which he meant the entry of Maori into the institutions of the colonial state, & a role for them in governing that state. But he did not take this position because of the sort of fondness for colonialism Brash evinces.
9 Ngata accepted the NZ colonial state & opposed Maori separatism only because he believed the defeats in the wars of the 19th C irreversible. When he became minister responsible for NZ's Pacific colonies, he argued loudly against attempts to Westernise Niueans & Samoans.
10 In his speech at Te Tii, Brash presented colonialism & Westernisation as unqualified goods, & conditions for technological & material progress. But Ngata fought against attempts to export capitalism to Samoa, Niue, the Cooks, & defended those islands' traditional economies.
11 Brash & other conservative Pakeha are hostile to Maori-run schools, like the kohanga reo network, & demand insertion of Maori students into the educational 'mainstream'. Ngata, by contrast, fought a long battle to prevent the takeover of NZ's Native Schools by Pakeha Boards.
12 If Brash wants to find precedents for his views in, then he should look not to Ngata but to the men who destroyed Ngata's land development schemes. In 1932 papers condemned the scheme as separatist; in 1934 an all-Pakeha commission agreed. Ngata resigned from cabinet.
13 Last year, during an interview with Kim Hill, Brash invoked the myth of Moriori as a pre-Maori people. He was swiftly rebuked by Hill. Shouldn't our journalists behave the same way when Brash egregiously misrepresents the facts about Apirana Ngata's life & opinions?
