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Download AudioAn Auckland University Law School lecturer who’s studied critical race theory a Harvard says the use of coded racial ideas by National and ACT was a significant feature of the election.
Dylan Afaso says the public has been bombarded with messages that Labour was beign soft on crome and peole shuld be afraid of policies that wrnet punishing young Māori and Pacific people who were somehow out of control.
National and ACT also whipped up fear with their campaigns against the Three Waters infrastructure reform and by association with co-governance.
“It’s a tale as old as time, especially with colonial politics, really generating fear around this racist idea that Māori are inferior savages who are incapable of governing their own waters and their own lands so there was this need for us to be scared of Māori being able to have power and there was a need for pakeha councils to retain that power,” Mr Afaso says.
He says the well-funded fear campaigns drowned out the inspiring visions put forward by the Greens and Maori Party.
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