Joe Trinder

Mike Butler is the amateur historian of the hate group Hobson’s Pledge. Unfortunately, Mike wouldn’t know the meaning of the word “objectivity” if it hit him in the face. Butler’s entire New Zealand history revolves around British colonial benevolence that New Zealand Aotearoa was somehow the exception to the countless land theft invasions and raced-based privilege British colonists offered themselves throughout the British empire.

The denial of the effects of colonisation is obvious in how he squarely blames the failures of New Zealand society on Māori for not taking  “personal responsibility”. The loss of land, economic base and the population decline of the Maori race by 47% within 50 years of signing the Treaty of Waitangi are entirely overlooked by Butler.

Butler’s convenient amnesia of the effects of British colonisation on indigenous people is so large you could drive a bus through it. In fact, Hobson’s Pledge denies Māori /Polynesians are indigenous to this part of the South Pacific. They have trumped up a conspiracy theory that the Welsh arrived in Aotearoa prior to Māori Polynesians.

In an irrational moment, Butler’s  sent an official information request to the former Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson. The request had the following questions in regards to the alleged rapes committed by the New Zealand Armed Constabulary on the 5th November 1881.

I took the opportunity to answer these ridiculous questions on behalf of the Minister

1.The date or dates on which these alleged offences occurred. 

The 5th of November the same day we celebrate a Parliament being blown up in another country on the other side of the world while we hide the significance of this date in our own country so we don’t hurt British NZer’s feelings.

2.The specific location where these alleged offences occurred. Ie Where at Parihaka?

Yes Parihaka

3.The number of such offences.

The NZ Armed Constabulary neglected to count or interview the victims

4.The names or description of the alleged offenders.

The offenders were all wearing Police uniforms the offender’s did not record their own names

5.The names or number of alleged victims.

NZ Armed Constabulary neglected to file a report listing their atrocities.

6.The ages of the alleged victims.

Many of the victims were children that would mean the NZ Armed Constabulary committed paedophilia

7.The date when the alleged offences were first reported.

The Armed Constabulary did not run an investigation into themselves after defiling their victims so no date was recorded.

Mike Butler’s line of questioning is nonsensical because he deliberately evades a simple truth. The law enforcement agency of the day committed mass rape.

No one was going to report this crime because there was no one to report it to and all the victims were forced into slavery. The event itself is considered shameful ..but still in the memories of grandchildren.

In Butler’s rewrite of the history of Parihaka in this statement

“soldiers “took the women and made use of them, cohabitating with them,”

Butler ‘s own words”took the women and made use of them”, confirms his personal acceptance of taking women without consent, and compliance to the culture of rape.

For Mike Butler, the brutal mass rape of Parihaka are supposed allegations, because none of the villains publicly admitted to rape and their paedophilia,  therefore no criminal act took place. This statement by Butler makes light of British colonial rapists.

“There appears to be no end of calls to acknowledge all wickedness by coloniser forebears.”

The victims of Parihaka were then enslaved for decades without trial and used to build infrastructure in Dunedin and Christchurch. These acts of slavery were a blatant breach of human rights and the Treaty of Waitangi that promised Māori the same civil rights as British citizens and undisturbed land rights.