We should make no bones about the fact that lying about the truth of issues for political and personal advantage is a great badness. It is even worse with defenceless children targeted by activists using fear tactics to enlist their support – as with the ‘climate change emergency’ nonsense. And if there is a distinction between badness and sheer evil, it reaches its apex now in regard to two other issues.

Predominant is the lying by hierarchies persuading youngsters they can choose to become male or female. This canard strikes at the very personhood, the mental and emotional stability of particularly vulnerable individuals. Yet Professor Robert Winston, scientist and surgeon, is undeniably correct, asserting, ‘I will say this categorically. You cannot change your sex… it is there in every single cell of your body.’ The physical mutilation of children, disregarding this, can be regarded as criminal, its consequences devastating for so many.

With the apparent passing of the age of reason comes the insidious nastiness of identity politics, with individuals believing themselves superior if they have a Maori ancestor. With Jacinda Ardern’s government instructing all government departments to prioritise impenetrable Maori phraseology in their communications – renaming our institutions so their actual function becomes unintelligible – the deliberate promotion of divisive racism is well underway. Yet the worth of individuals has no relation to their ethnic background. And who can possibly defend instructions to all government departments to teach ‘white privilege’, with the aim of inducing guilt and shame among non-Maori children in schools – supposedly because of some imaginary privilege they have from being descended from Europeans?

Public servants are now required to calculate their ‘white privilege score’. Not only schoolchildren, but educationists are undergoing similar bullying, teachers told their role is ‘to end oppression’. The all-pervasive promotion of white-is-bad/brown-is-good emanates from Ardern’s government, connived at by our media. For whose benefit is this country increasingly being destabilised? Confused children are suffering mental health issues, and a tidal wave of propaganda and straight-out lies is washing over the gullible. Take, for instance, a recent address by a politically active young woman to seven schools, very probably herself believing the untruths she emoted to her audience concerning a supposed historical incident, saying she would never forget the immense grief, ‘the tears rolling down the elders’ cheeks’ when telling how innocent women, children and elderly people were ‘murdered and sent from their homes’. Ignoring the fact that such a sequence of events would need to have been reversed, the evidence suggests none of these murderous acts were committed at Rangiaowhia village, not one innocent slaughtered. What is now acknowledged as a disgraceful lie was, as well-respected historian Bruce Moon illustrates, concocted by rebels furious at being outwitted by the brilliant humanitarian, General Cameron. Similarly, Piers Seed’s new book, Hoanai’s Last Stand –The Real Story of Rangiaowhia, is a must. When the principals of the schools that hosted this emotional, untrue account of this incident had it pointed out by Bruce Moon, asking for it to be corrected, not one reply was received. Is anyone still surprised? One of the most shameful aspects of the constant lies told is the connivance of those to whose advantage it is to keep their heads down.

We therefore owe much to those refusing to be intimidated, as with Emeritus Professor Greg Newbold, who submitted a fine article to a local paper. Rather than print it, the editor instead ran yet another on the supposed importance of learning to speak more Maori. John MacDonald’s Literacy in New Zealand does not stop at English looks forward to when all schools will teach Maori language as a core subject, when competence in te reo will be essential at all levels within the public sector, and even in private areas such as law, medicine and engineering.

However, Dr Newbold observed that ‘as someone who has just finished a 32-year teaching career at Canterbury University, I can see some major problems in this proposal.’ He pointed out that teaching 64,000 teachers to speak Maori properly and providing resources for them to instruct 750,000 children would be immensely time-consuming and expensive, that he himself spent two years studying Maori at university level and there is no way he would consider himself a competent Maori speaker. Proficiency in any language takes years of study, constant immersion in its culture and practice. If all teachers were forced to become fully competent in today’s Maori, to impart that skill in the classroom would have to be at the expense of other subjects.

The shocking decline in numeracy and English literacy standards has been well publicised, and Dr Newbold adds, ‘This was a problem I faced constantly where second and third-year students did not understand the basics of English grammar, and could not even put proper sentences together. Directing time away from learning essential English literary skills will only compound this problem.’ He points out that ‘New Zealand is not a bicultural nation: it is multicultural, and in terms of career advantages, competence in the language of our major trading partners and political allies is essential.’

‘With English at the fore, speaking Maori provides no career advantages on the global scale. Moreover, shortages in areas like health, teaching, engineering and so on are well known. Requiring te reo as an essential prerequisite to these areas of employment would undoubtedly stifle the influx of essential workers to this country and worsen our skills deficit.’ Alternatively, if in future the knowledge of te reo could automatically push a candidate to the front of a job queue – as was suggested would be desirable – highly qualified engineers, medical specialists, and others would be shunted aside,  basically only because of others’ qualifications in Maori. The result would be institutionalised dumbing-down, and systemic incompetence at high levels – a disaster for our country.

The highly relevant points Dr Newbold makes are obviously valid. However, we have already reached a stage of disastrous incompetence throughout this country with Lenin’s ‘useful fools’ enthusiastically supporting the attacks on our once most valued institutions and customs by our now neo-Marxist government hierarchies. But what of F.A. Hayek’s contention that, ‘In government, the scum rises to the top’?