Category: Local Government
After decades of making jam as a fundraiser for the local hospice, a Good Samaritan from Kerikeri in the Far North was forced to lay down her wooden spoon and hang up her apron when officials from the local council demanded that she upgrade her kitchen to a commercial standard. They were, the Council’s damage control spokesperson said, acting on a complaint and had no option but to enforce the laws as passed by Parliament - despite there never being a case of food poisoning in the more than 20 years she had been making jam for worthy causes.
Speech at AUT University delivered soon after Don’s appointment to chair the 2025 Taskforce.
As was expected, in its report on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill released on Friday, the special Auckland Governance Legislation Committee did not recommend separate Maori seats for Auckland’s new super city council. While there was undoubtedly vociferous support from advocates for greater Maori representation in Auckland’s governance, the Committee rightly stated that this was a matter for the council and the people of Auckland to determine.
Constant repetition of assertions that Maori have a Treaty of Waitangi right to dedicated seats on the new Auckland Council doesn’t make them correct. It is clear that neither Tuku Morgan nor Len Brown, nor most of the other advocates of separate representation, has read the Treaty, sometimes called our founding document. It is a simple treaty of three clauses. It was written in 1840 when nothing approaching today’s concepts of democracy existed anywhere in the world. There was no parliament, nor any councils in New Zealand. Consequently there was nothing that could be deemed an Article Two “taonga” to be preserved on behalf of Maori. What there was in the Treaty, however, was an Article Three guarantee to Maori that the Crown would give Maori “the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England”. In other words, when it came to politics, Maori rights would be the same as everyone else’s.
Last month UMR Research released a report on New Zealanders’ living preferences. The results showed that 49 percent of us live in the suburbs, 20 percent live in small towns, 17 percent live in rural areas, and 13 percent live in the central city. In response to the question where would you like to live, 39 percent said the suburbs, 26 percent wanted to live in a rural area, 22 percent in a small town, and 11 percent in a central city area. 2 percent were unsure.[1]
Many of us are scared this global depression will lead to the abandoning of free trade and a rash of protectionism – like the last one did.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery” – Winston Churchill.
In recent months, we’ve all been treated to a steady diet of sermons from those who would have us believe that the international financial crisis is all the result of the banking industry being “free and unregulated”. The former Vice Chancellor of Waikato University, Bryan Gould, is one who has made this accusation, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has generalized the accusation by a broad attack on what he terms “neo-liberalism”. Others have demonstrated how weak Kevin Rudd’s position is, so let me focus on the kind of arguments which Bryan Gould makes.
At a time when there is a waiting list for state houses of over 10,000 people, you would think that the Government would be attempting all it could to resolve this issue. To be fair, it has initiated some practical measures that should help landlords to provide good accommodation. However they are also looking into measures that could drive private suppliers of rental property out of the market. There is also the question of whether in fact the 10,000 waiting list is a true indication that there is a shortage of rental property at all.
“Rust never sleeps” nor does the movement opposed to genetic modification. Despite setbacks at the Royal Commission, in the courts and at the polls anti-GM groups continue to chip away searching for that weak link. They have had more than ten years to mount a credible scientific argument against the use of genetic modification yet sadly for them they have not managed it.
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