“Kiwi Before Iwi” and the Logic of Equality
In New Zealand, the slogan “Kiwi before iwi” comes from a speech delivered by Don Brash in 2004, where he argued that the government should treat everyone equally. According to Brash, measures targeted specifically at Māori people grant them privileges that others do not benefit from. Instead, he believed that government policies should apply to everyone equally, meaning good measures or policies should also apply to Māori people without treating them in a special way. This is the logic of equality: everyone should be treated equally and have the same opportunities.
I wasn’t aware of this slogan in New Zealand until it resurfaced in government discourse 20 years later, like a vampire resurrected to haunt the community. It reappeared recently with Seymour and Peters, responding to affirmative action aimed at uplifting the mana of Māori people in the health system. They even equated designated spaces for Māori and Pacifika students at the University of Auckland to Apartheid, as if providing a safe space for a group of students was like preventing an entire population from accessing public services like education. Peters went as far as saying that the Labour government and its affirmative actions are akin to Nazi Germany.
The logic of equality, taken in a strict sense, leads to these catastrophic conditions. Imagine a family with children: one is a successful citizen with a high income, while another requires full-time assistance due to a health condition and cannot work or fend for themselves. Is it unjust for the parents to provide for the latter child and not give equally to the wealthier one? If the parents spend money on the child in need, must they give the same amount to the rich child to ensure equal treatment? Or should they only provide for the child in need with measures that also benefit the rich child? Using Peters' inflammatory logic of equality, are the parents like Nazis because they provide special care for their child in need?
Normally, I would think asking this question is uncharitable and creates a strawman of Peters’ view. Surely he doesn’t believe in such a strict reading of the logic of equality! I’m afraid he’s committed to it, however, because he has applied it unrestrictedly. The logic of equality is not only about caring for all Kiwis equally but also about considering measures that apply to disembodied individuals—neutral beings with no special identity or needs. If you generalise the “Kiwi before iwi” slogan to characterise the logic of equality, what do you get? “Individual before people”? “The one before the many”?
