Category: Maori Issues
In spite of the dedication and hard work of tens of thousands of New Zealanders - and the support of hundreds of thousands - sadly, we have been unable to gather enough signatures to trigger a nation-wide referendum on restoring Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed.
Though our Citizens Initiated Referendum (CIR) has failed narrowly to get to its target, the Coastal Coalition will continue to campaign strongly against National’s Marine and Coastal Area Act (the 2011 Act). So I ask that all Coastal Coalition members stay in touch, and help us with this fight.
Next week the Waitangi Tribunal will be hearing the Maori Council’s claim for the ownership of New Zealand’s freshwater. To most people, water, like air, is part of a natural cycle and is regarded as a ‘common good’ –managed by the Crown on behalf of us all, through Regional Councils.
Race-based policy has been a feature of governance in New Zealand as long as the nation has had a government, and race-based affirmative action has been with us since the 1980s. Where is this heading and can anything be done to stop it? This column seeks to describe what the likely costs will be: when historical redress is agreed to and paid; when co-management agreements are set up with all tribal entities; and when all tribes have social service agencies operating, including Whanau Ora. I also suggest what could be done to reverse the process.
National’s back down last week over school staffing cuts was a significant victory for the union movement. Two of the country’s most powerful unions - the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Post Primary Teachers Association - flexed their muscles and the government caved in. This is bad news for not only for children and parents but for the long term future of the country, since improving workforce skills is crucial for faster economic growth and rising living standards
The reality is that a group of radical Maori sovereignty activists had come together with extreme environmentalists and so-called peace campaigners in the Ureweras, to support the Tuhoe “cause”. Combined they created a potent mix of anti-establishment fanatics and career protestors with a potential for revolutionary action.
The political nature of the Maori Party's constitutional review advisory panel is in sharp contract to the way in which a major constitutional review should normally have been implemented – through an independent Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by constitutional law experts. Instead we have ended up with a politically appointed panel, heavily weighted in favour of former politicians and Maori academics, but light on legal and constitutional expertise.
One unchanging political reality is that review panels are set up to get the outcomes of the interested party. I suggest that the current constitutional advisory panel has been carefully set up with focussed terms of reference, and carefully vetted panel members, to achieve the Maori Party goal of ensuring that the review gives effect to the treaty, and entrenching separate Maori seats.
There is a growing consensus amongst western leaders that policies and practices that divide citizens along ethnic and cultural lines are immensely damaging to societies and nations. British Prime Minister David Cameron, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and former Prime Ministers - John Howard of Australia, Jose Aznar of Spain, and Yves Leterme of Belgium - have all condemned multiculturalism as a failed policy that undermines national identity, promoting separatism and extremism
I have been thinking about ‘culture’, my friends, and am trying to get a handle on this most important matter. Culture is jolly important. We hear a lot about Maori culture, and hear all the time that we are a ‘bicultural nation’, although this is of course disputed by those who insist that we are actually multicultural.
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