Karakia: Ritual or Roadblock?

Reporter: "At the local government conference you were going to mention karakia but you didn’t end up mentioning it. Why didn’t you mention it and what did you have to say about it?"

Seymour: "Oh there’s no particular reason, but it’s true, I don’t expect a priest to show up every time I break wind. Um sorry, um, I don’t expect a priest to show up every time I break ground on a new building. And I don’t think that you need a Kaumātua [respected tribal elder] to come and say a karakia either. One of the reasons stuff costs a lot in New Zealand is that to build a new IKEA, to build a Costco or whatever, you require a whole lot of mana whenua [local tribal authority] consultation that doesn’t actually make the boat go faster."

Reporter: "But how much does a karakia cost then?"

Seymour: "Well, it depends. I mean, have you had to pay for someone to come along and do one in the middle of a project that you’re responsible for?"

Reporter: "Me? Have I?"

Seymour: "Yeah."

Reporter: "No. No. No. I haven’t."

Seymour: "Okay. Well, if you don’t know what the price is, just don’t impose it on other people. I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? Someone wants to build a building. It’s actually no one else’s business. They should be able to build a building without having someone come along and say a karakia, just like once upon a time you had to get your local Catholic priest to come along and say a prayer before you did anything. Now, we’ve said actually we don’t like that. We don’t impose our morality on other people. Now we’re saying exactly the same thing."

Reporter: "So, when should karakia be used in your opinion?"

Seymour: "Whenever the people involved in the situation want to do one, not imposed on a third party, because we’re trying to impose our religious beliefs on someone else. It’s pretty simple stuff. I mean, this actually happened hundreds of year ago—we moved past imposing one person’s spirituality on another."

Reporter: "Just back on the karakia, could you clarify what, what the main problem is? Is it the fact that it’s a religious prayer or is it the cost, that its cost, to bring people in? Or is it the fact that it’s, cultural?"

Seymour: "Well, it’s both those things. I mean, since we got rid of enforced spirituality, people have been much better off. I mean, you know, a lot of the arguments for say the prohibition of abortion or euthanasia or even homosexuality were really spiritual beliefs imposed on another person. Now we say, look, we’re not going to do that anymore—let people get on with their lives."

"I’m saying the same thing with building stuff so we can have more affordable stuff in the shops. If you impose your spirituality and say you have to do it according to my spiritual beliefs, it’s going to be slower and more expensive."

Reporter: "Who’s enforcing it though? Cus a lot of councils.."

Seymour: Well, the councils.

Reporter: "..a lot of the companies actually electively wanna do it, they’re not being forced to in a lot of cases though."

Seymour: "Really? You don’t think that it’s actually criteria of their resource consent, because that’s exactly what Simon Court (ACT Party MP) demonstrated that it is. And of course they come and say, ‘Oh, no, we’re a responsible corporate citizen. We love this stuff!’ Cus they’re not going to say anything else, are they? And that’s why I’m standing up for them"

Reporter: "You think they’re lying?"

Seymour: "I think, I think that they’ve discovered that if you got a responsibility to your shareholders, taking on this battle against this pervasive insanity we have in this country, is too expensive. That's why you need politicians to take it on."