Category: Maori Issues
It’s not at all empowering to be dependent on the state for your income but far worse would be dependency on a tribal leadership lacking democratic check and clear rules.
As you read this newsletter, the New Zealand Centre for Political Research’s public information campaign outlining the government’s intention to allow Maori control of fresh water is getting ready to roll off the printing presses.
A $1-billion “capacity building” fund plus tribal ownership of freshwater, of all Crown owned river and lake beds, and the water column, are among proposals the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group is taking around the country for tribal ratification.
Congratulations to the All Blacks for a wonderfully successful Rugby World Cup campaign – they did us proud! But now the Webb Ellis trophy is safely back home, it’s time to turn our attention to domestic affairs - in particular, the control of fresh water.
There is absolutely no legal, moral or common sense justification for any Maori claim to fresh water. The legal situation is that no-one owns water, and no-one ever has. This was the situation at common law, and the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 and now the Resource Management Act 1991 start off from the same assumption.
There is an old saying that ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. In a democratic society like New Zealand, that means being on constant guard against those who seek control through unelected power. Right now Iwi Leaders are demanding the ownership and control of New Zealand’s freshwater. That is their new agenda.
One of the objectives of the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group (a group representing most of the major iwi in the country) is to ensure that all Crown-owned lake beds and river beds, together with the related “water column, the space through which the water flows” are vested in the relevant hapu or iwi.
Judicial activism is indeed a serious problem in New Zealand. In 2003, the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias caused a constitutional crisis by overturning the established common law principle of Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed through a Supreme Court ruling that some customary title may still exist and that the Maori Land Court had the jurisdiction to determine such cases.
While David Cameron has high aspirations for a united Britain, things are very different in New Zealand. Here, successive Prime Ministers have turned their backs on equality under the law, focussing instead on appeasement policies that divide our country along racial lines.
If there’s one thing that unites New Zealanders it is a love of nature and our natural environment. It explains why hundreds of thousands of Kiwis spend so much time and money planting trees, flowers and shrubs to create habitats for native birds.
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