Radio NZ reports that numbers are down at Waitangi by more than a third. But Radio NZ should never have risked being the first with such news. It gives the game away. They're gloating.

They've spent the entire day working hard to make sure there'll be even fewer there next year. Sure they also reported John Key's urging of people not to stay away from Waitangi celebrations. Radio NZ think they've put us off the scent.  But it's not enough.   Key's plea is just too pathetic. If he sounds that way he must have meant to.  Perhaps the PM is now playing his part, just as Radio NZ is.

With its cover blown we can reveal just how clever has been Radio NZ's psyops. Those with eyes wide open might have realised that something was up when Richard Griffin was secreted onto its Board.  But few of us thought he'd be cunning enough to maintain exactly the existing pattern of weekend programming.  Brilliant!  Nothing could better strengthen the determination of the people to steer clear of anything to do with the so-called "celebrations".  After listening to RNZ today, no healthy New Zealander will want anything to do with the kind of people who would waste a sunny day generating or listening to the kind of intellectual piffle to which the Treaty worshippers treat each other on Waitangi Day.

Even without  the mistake of RNZ's report (of numbers down) perspicacious listeners will have joined the dots if they'd managed to listen for most of the day. Hours of whiny interviews this morning with indigenous persons from around the world. 

Admittedly there was a refreshing interview with a descendant of Henry Williams. She is drawing on family letter troves to write about what actually happened 160 years ago. That must have been inserted at the last minute to fend off a leap in the national suicide rate. Because I can't find her name or a reference to the interview on the RNZ website. I guess promoting her might have given the game away.

After more hours of driving New Zealanders to demand that Waitangi day become just a summer holiday, as welcome and as innocent and joyous and empty of significance as the provincial anniversary days, RNZ finally got to humour at 4 pm.  Radio NZ  hilariously called this late afternoon prayer session the  2011 Treaty Debate Series.  The people chosen to "debate"  today could not, surprise surprise,  find anything at all on which to disagree. So they did not try. Just like last week.

Forcing myself to listen to Joris de Bres today I realised the true genius of this covert scheme. They've used 100% people with no sense of irony, and no committment to historical integrity. So they will never realise that they are being used as 'dog whistles'. Marvellous. The brain dead  regular listeners hear it all  as one  stimulating call to self worship after another. The rest of us, accidentally stumbling onto weekend National Radio hear the 'dog whistles' for what they are – urgent commands to  to the great majority of our citizens to "go way out". The whistle tells us to get as far away as we can get from the State's dreary Ceausescu inspired annual promotion of the "new New Aotearoa". In this world of virtual history, political privilege and power are  unashamedly allocated according to race.  As in Romania, our State has enlisted the arts and culture elite, nearly all on the State payroll,  to make it look as if the people are celebrating their masters' wisdom.

Only a few short years ago we called  that kind of state and that kind of constitution by its simple name – racist.  New Zealand signed up to a United Nations declaration calling for us to end all discrimination on the grounds of race. We appointed a Race Relations Commissar to ensure we were a colour-blind state. Thousands of people marched to demand an end to racially defined voting and privilege and political entitlements in South Africa.

Today's inheritor of that role, Joris de Bres was one of the comedians in the so-called "Treaty Debate".

1840's He iwi tahi tatou did not get a look in. Instead our Race Relations Commissar  prayed for constitutional changes to ensure the "just and equitable  status of Maori as the indigenous people of this country…. with a special constitutional status under our constitution".   

Still, I am reassured by the depth of the cunning now being unveiled. The National government is leaving all the academic pseuds in their favoured positions on bodies such as the so-called Human Rights Commission. It is promoting a nakedly racist Marine and Coastal Areas Bill, completely inconsistent with the Treaty's promise of equality before the law, and respect for genuine property rights. That must be to create long-lasting hatred amongst neighbours around our coasts. A dreadful cost, but perhaps the architects of this scheme feel they must try  to discredit the whole Treaty. The grubby piece of work has already blown up the Maori Party, leaving its more decent and practical MPs hostage to the bullying racists in Maoridom.

In my opinion discrediting the Treaty is an unnecessary over-reaction, verging on the disgraceful. The Treaty itself, without the fraudulent principles, is a rather thin but still relevant and  sound set of honourable promises, which should be kept. But let's be charitable. Given how well the psyops scheme is succeeding at Radio NZ,  Chris Finlayson may have volunteered to sacrifice himself to this dirty work. If history mistakenly reviles him I hope some insider will some day reveal his true motivation. Then, if it works, it might all be worthwhile.