The Year 2025 - KA MUA, KA MURI

1. Introduction: Walking Blindfold

The ancient whakataukī

“Ka mua, ka muri”

tells us we walk backward into the future, our eyes fixed on the past as our guide, as explored by Journal of Sustainable Fashion & Design and Common Purpose.

It is a warning as much as a wisdom:

if you cannot see where you have been, you cannot know where you are going.

In late 2025, the Coalition Government is attempting to sever this connection. They are forcing Aotearoa into a future defined by “equality” rhetoric while aggressively erasing the history that explains why inequality exists. By dismantling Te Aka Whai Ora, slashing over $1 billion from Māori funding as detailed by The Spinoff and the Labour Party, and subjecting the Waitangi Tribunal to a “refocusing” review confirmed by 1News and Te Puni Kōkiri, they are not just ignoring the past

—they are actively suppressing it.

This is not governance;

it is a colonial reboot.

The hidden connection here is not just ideological; it is structural. From the ideological alignment with foreign think-tanks discussed by the NZ Herald, to the fast-tracked destruction of wāhi tapu exposed by RNZ and E-Tangata, the mechanism is the same:

blindfold the public to the past (ka muri) to manufacture a future (ka mua) where Māori rights are extinguished under the guise of “one law for all.”

See Where You’ve Been, To Figure Out Where You Are Going

2. Background: The Rhyme of History

To understand the violence of 2025, we must look to the 19th century.

The Native Land Court was established not to serve justice, but to “simplify” land ownership into individual titles that could be easily sold.

Today, the Fast-track Approvals Bill mirrors this perfectly. It simplifies “red tape” (environmental and Treaty protections) to accelerate extractive industries, explicitly allowing the destruction of wāhi tapu and bypassing Māori consultation as analyzed by E-Tangata.

The Treaty Principles Bill, though defeated in April 2025 by a vote of 112-11 as reported by 1News and the NZ Herald, was never just about legislation.

It was an Overton Window maneuver—a tool to legitimize the debate that “Treaty principles” (partnership, active protection) are the problem, rather than the Crown’s failure to uphold them.

David Seymour’s vow to “never give up on equal rights” recorded by the NZ Herald ignores the 184 years of unequal wrongs that necessitate those principles.

The Rhyme Of History

3. Translating the Timeline: 3 Western Analogies for Ka Mua, Ka Muri

For those whose worldview is linear—always rushing forward, leaving the “dead past” behind

—the concept of walking backward into the future can seem foreign. Yet, the Western world relies on this exact principle in its most critical systems.

Here are three examples to make the concept undeniable:

I. The Rower (The Navigator’s Paradox)
Imagine a rower in a single scull. To move the boat forward, they must sit facing backward. They cannot see the finish line; they can only see the wake they leave behind. To row in a straight line, they fix their eyes on a specific landmark on the shore—a tree, a rock, a house. By keeping that past point in perfect view, they ensure their future trajectory is true. If they ignore the landmark, they drift off course or row in circles.

• The Lesson: The Treaty of Waitangi is our landmark. The Government is forcing us to turn our heads and row blind, ensuring we crash, as explained in navigation metaphors by Greater Auckland.

The Navigator’s Paradox

II. The Auditor (The Balance Sheet)
In Western capitalism, a company’s future value is entirely dependent on its past records. You cannot issue a “true and fair” view of a corporation’s health without auditing its historical transactions. If a CEO deleted the debt records from Q1 to Q3 and claimed the company was “debt-free” in Q4, they would be jailed for fraud.

• The Lesson: Aotearoa is the company. The confiscations and breaches of the 19th and 20th centuries are the debts. The Coalition Government is the corrupt CEO trying to shred the receipts and claim we are all starting from “fiscal zero.” As noted by accounting historians, you cannot have truth without auditing the evidence of the past.​

The Balance Sheet

III. The Common Law (Stare Decisis)

Law (Stare Decisis)
The entire Western legal system is built on ka mua, ka muri. The principle of stare decisis—”to stand by things decided”—means that every future judgment is determined by looking back at past precedents. A judge does not invent the law anew each morning; they look backward to High Court and Supreme Court rulings to determine the path forward.

• The Lesson: To ignore the Treaty is to ignore the “Supreme Court precedent” of our nation. Even Winston Churchill, a hero of the Western canon, admitted: “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward,” a sentiment echoed even by conservative voices today.​

Stare Decisis

4. Deconstructing the “Reset”

The Coalition’s strategy is a three-pronged attack on ka muri (the past):

1. Delegitimize the Messenger: A “review” of the Waitangi Tribunal to “refocus” its scope, implying it has gone rogue, as outlined by 1News.
2. Defund the Resistance: Stripping resources from Māori housing, health, and language revitalization detailed by The Spinoff and the NZ Herald.
3. Overwrite the Narrative: Replacing co-governance and partnership with a “needs-based” approach that ignores the specific, Treaty-based rights of tangata whenua.

This is a rejection of whakapapa as a valid framework for policy. It treats Māori identity as a “need” to be managed rather than a constitutional status to be honored.

Fast Track

5. Analysis: 5+ Hidden Connections Verified

I. The “Independent” Neuter of the Tribunal

The Government has launched a review of the Waitangi Tribunal, led by an “Independent Technical Advisory Group” chaired by Bruce Gray KC as noted by Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Ao Māori News. While framed as a “maintenance check” to make the Tribunal “match fit” by 1News, the Terms of Reference reveal the true intent:

to “refocus the scope” back to the “original intent” of 1975.

• The Connection: This mimics the 2004 foreshore and seabed legislative override—changing the rules when the Courts/Tribunal find against the Crown.
• The Reality: The Tribunal has been the only effective check on Crown power. By appointing a review group to question its “jurisdiction” and “claim categories” found in the Communications Plan, the Crown is preparing to legislatively silence the only body that holds it accountable to history.

Hidden Connections Verified

II. The Atlas Network & The “Equality” Trojan Horse

David Seymour has ideological ties that mirror global conservative movements. The Atlas model, used globally, frames indigenous rights as “special privileges” that threaten democracy, a pattern discussed by the NZ Herald.

• The Connection: The Taxpayers’ Union provides the “grassroots” pressure, while ACT provides the legislative vehicle.
• Verification: These ideological ties prioritize marketization over indigenous rights, a stance consistently highlighted by E-Tangata.

Seymour And His Crew Will Not Survive The Next Election

III. Fast-Track as the New Confiscation

The Fast-track Approvals Bill is 2025’s Public Works Act.

• The Connection: It empowers Ministers to approve projects rejected by the courts. Crucially, it excludes “unsettled Māori land” from automatic protection, opening it to development before claims are resolved, a risk identified by E-Tangata.
• The Harm: Despite 95% of submitters opposing it as reported by RNZ, it proceeds. It prioritizes short-term extraction over intergenerational kaitiakitanga, literally destroying the whenua that holds the history we need to see.

Remember The Public Works ACT?

IV. The “Fiscal Cliff” Myth & Te Aka Whai Ora

The disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora was justified by claims of “bureaucracy” and “failure”.

• The Connection: The Waitangi Tribunal found this decision was made without evidence, purely on political ideology, and breached the Treaty principle of good government, a finding released by the Waitangi Tribunal and analyzed by the Science Media Centre.
• The Lie: The Government claimed to save money, yet the cost of entrenched health inequities (preventable diseases, hospitalizations) far outweighs the operational cost of the Authority. They cut the ambulance to pay for the hearse.

The Govt Love Breaching Te Tiriti All The Time

V. Weaponizing “Maths” Against Reo

In a cynical trade-off, Minister Erica Stanford cut $30 million from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori (teacher training) to fund new maths resources, as reported by the NZ Herald and RNZ.

• The Connection: This pits core subjects against cultural identity, a classic assimilation tactic. It suggests Māori knowledge is an “optional extra” that can be discarded when the budget is tight.
• The Irony: Prime Minister Luxon previously defended using taxpayer money for his own Te Reo lessons as noted by the NZ Herald, yet denies that same professional development to the teachers of our tamariki.

Visualizing the Assault:

RNZ, E-Tangata, Waitangi Tribunal, NZ Herald, 1News.

Stanford Deserves The Boot, But She Will Be Their Next Leader

6. Implications: The Cost of Blindness

The refusal to look back has a quantifiable price tag.

• $1 Billion+ Removed: Over the 2024 and 2025 budgets, more than $1 billion has been stripped from Māori-specific initiatives, according to the Labour Party.
• Housing & Land: $32.5 million cut from Māori housing supply programmes reported by The Spinoff, ensuring the housing crisis—rooted in land confiscation—continues.
• Health: The Tribunal warned that removing Te Aka Whai Ora will “entrench Māori health disparities” as cited by the Science Media Centre. We are paying for this ideology with Māori lives.

This Is The Outcome Of White Supremacy

The Budget 2025 Slash-and-Burn

The Woven Rope

7. Turning Our Eyes Back

To walk blindly into the future is to fall into the abyss. The Coalition Government demands we face forward, ignore the “grievance industry,” and embrace a “colourblind” New Zealand. But ka mua, ka muri teaches us that the only way to navigate the future safely is to know the terrain of the past.

We are not walking away from the Treaty;

we are being dragged away from it. But the resistance—evident in the 112 votes against the Principles Bill reported by 1News and the urgent Tribunal inquiries—shows that many in Aotearoa refuse to put on the blindfold.

The Ring is lit. The research is done. We see you.

We See You

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Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right