Category: Maori Issues
Equality, more than anything else, has always been our country’s ruling principle. But there was no more to the Treaty than that. No equality of Maori and the Crown in governing our country was envisaged. Partnership is an obvious absurdity. The Queen’s subjects cannot be her partners.
Sir Geoffrey Palmer dismisses Citizens Initiated Referenda - an important element of our democratic process - stating that we (the people) are deluded (!) if we think that referenda will improve the quality of New Zealand’s democracy.
Unfortunately Waitangi Day is not what it should be – a day celebrating national unity. “He iwi tahi tatou” - Now we are one people – were the words uttered by Captain Hobson at Waitangi after the signing of the Treaty on 6 February 1840. Those are the words and sentiments we should be celebrating. Instead, it has become a day of division, where fawning and kow-towing politicians seek the favour of Maori radicals.
A polite “thank you but no thank you” was the official response to a request for a meeting with Ministers Bill English and Pita Sharples to discuss constitutional issues detailed in the report A House Divided. Did the Iwi Leader’s Group get to discuss such issues directly with the government? No and yes! The next meeting is on Wednesday at Waitangi and constitutional issues may be on the agenda.
The admission that the Dunedin City Council is facing significant and long-term cost blow-outs over their new $230 million covered stadium should serve as a stark reminder that in local government bigger is not always better.
Auckland’s unfortunate political experiment in having an Independent Maori Statutory Board is being held up as a model for the rest of New Zealand’s fragmented local bodies considering amalgamation into unitary authorities.
We have pleasure in presenting "A House Divided", the newly released report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel. The ICRP was convened in October 2012 when it became clear that the Maori Party was using the government’s constitutional review in an attempt to entrench the Treaty of Waitangi into a new written constitution as supreme law
"A House Divided" is a new report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel, that examines New Zealand's constitutional arrangements, and highlights the threat to race relations posed by the Maori Party's constitutional conversation. We urge every concerned New Zealander to read our report.
The problem for the wider community is that through this process, the government has become captured by the naked ambition of a race-based tribal aristocracy to co-govern the country. That this undermines the government’s commitment to a democratic society based on equal rights - relegating all other citizens to second-class status - appears of little consequence.
The case for ‘co-governance’ between the government and iwi is justified according to cultural recognition and social justice beliefs. However that is to make a fundamental error, one that ignores the dangers of including ethnicity into the political arrangements of a democratic nation.
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