I judge "affirmative action" hiring as a bad thing.

You have this one law saying you mustn't discriminate based on race. This is as it should be. Then you have this other law saying you *have* to discriminate based on race, as long as it's in FAVOUR of a particular group.

In a hypothetical situation where everything else was equal between two applicants, if a person missed out on being hired solely because of their race, I would be FURIOUS. Whether the successful person was black or white, I fail to see any difference in why it's WRONG.

Maoris make up around 13% of the population here and there is a lot of current effort to increase the percentage of them in university education, the professions, etc. When I was going through university (I don't know if this is still the case, but I bet it is) the medical school had an "affirmative action" policy whereby students identifying themselves as Maori could be accepted into the course on much lower grades than other students.

Now, to me, what this says to a bright Maori kid who's worked their butt off all through school with the dream of being a doctor, is "You're Maori, so you must be pretty dumb, but we'll let you into medical school anyway because we're so nice."

To me, what this says to non-Maori medical students is "You worked your butts off all through school to get a place on this course, and the only reason it was necessary is because you're white or Chinese or whatever."

Worst of all, what it says to highly qualified and intelligent doctors -- AND THEIR PATIENTS -- is "If you're a doctor and you appear to be a Maori, there's an excellent chance it's because you were allowed a pass mark of 35%. Thanks mate, I think I'll go to the white guy instead."

Yay. Before this policy came along, you'd go to a doctor and not care whether they were brown, white, or purple with green stripes, as long as they had a degree stuck to their wall. Now it's introduced a whole new wonderful world of racism.

And I'm not even going to mention Hinemoa Elder. Well, OK, I will. She decided to go to medical school for a change of career. At the time, she was a well-paid TV personality, in addition to being married to a grossly overpaid TV personality, living in what can only be described as a mansion. She was also lucky enough to have some faint iota of Maori blood, and therefore blazed into medical school on a Maori scholarship, in spite of the fact that she probably could have paid the full tuition costs ten times over and not noticed.

Anybody is welcome to correct me on this, but if bright Maori kids aren't becoming doctors, it's not because they can't get the grades. It's because they're from families who CAN'T DAMN WELL AFFORD THE TUITION, and having scholarships stolen from them like this doesn't help. The concept of scholarships based on scholastic achievement and income doesn't seem to have filtered through to the geniuses who make the policies, though.

Brunnen-"feeling nasty and cynical again"G