The Politics of the Brown Table: Annual Bruce Jesson Lecture

Maidment Theatre, University of Auckland 2010
Bruce Jesson Lecture Annette Sykes Ngti 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'sagents 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 hapu are excluded from decision-making and denied the rights over their resources just as they always have been. Bruce Jesson foresaw these trends backin the 1980s. This lecture challenges this agenda and identifies the basic principles for a politics that genuinely empowers the people. ProfessorMargaret Mutu, chairperson of Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngti Kahu, will be the discussant on the lecture.