Category: Maori Issues
Waitangi Day has become national Maori Grievance Day. The Maori sovereignty flag, symbolising the desire of radical Maori to take over ownership and control of New Zealand, now flies from official buildings - with the blessing of the Prime Minister. What was once a family day – and a day of celebration for our unique identity and place in the world - has become a day of protest and division. Threats and intimidation are now the name of the game. The ugliness of the modern Waitangi Day is a reminder of how distant the vision of unity and togetherness that most New Zealanders aspire to has become.
A settlement of the Ninety Mile Beach tribe’s complaints plus Maori politicians posturing over proposed asset sales have awakened interest in the on-going saga of quasi legal claims by a handful of high profile individuals and compensation payments by the government. Although details of Treaty of Waitangi settlements are publicly available, information is more accessible in our Treaty Transparency Research Report here on a spreadsheet or in a document format - as a list of settlements to date with links to summaries and deeds on the Office of Treaty Settlements website.
The Speech from the Throne is delivered by the Queen’s representative, the Governor General, at the opening of a new Parliament. Traditionally, the speech sets out the reasons for summoning Parliament after a General Election by announcing in broad terms, the outline of the new government's legislative programme for the next three years.
Some huge challenges lie ahead. In a country where all New Zealanders, irrespective of racial origin should have equal status and equal rights, the Maori Party - once more a partner in government – wants to take the country further down the path to racial separatism. Using the fallacious argument that they have special governance rights as Treaty ‘partners’ with the Crown – a view that is already endemic within the government service – the Maori Party wants to enshrine the Maori seats and the Treaty of Waitangi in a new New Zealand Constitution. This would give superior rights to the Maori elite in the governance of New Zealand, turning them into a permanent ruling class and everyone else into second class citizens. Their plan must be derailed
John Key was right to take a principled stand to prevent the release of an illegal tape recording of a private conversation between himself and John Banks. If he hadn’t, the whole boundary between what is private and what is public would be forever blurred. Certain members of the media would feel perfectly entitled to snoop and engage in covert recordings across the board in the hope that they could get a ‘scoop’ and the rewards of an “exclusive” story. And those political leaders who are saying that the recording should be released are particularly disingenuous. In fact they should be ashamed of themselves because if they were the target instead of Key and Banks they would probably be calling for privacy too.
Which New Zealand political party poses the greatest threat to harmonious race relations? The parties that assert one law for all, or those demanding entrenched Maori seats, automatic enrolment of Maori on the Maori electoral roll, have Maori language compulsorily available in schools, or an independent Treaty of Waitangi Commission elected solely by Maori voters?
The Maori Party is claiming that New Zealand’s justice, police, courts and corrections processes systematically discriminate against Maori. Co-leader Pita Sharples says that he has based his stance on a series of top-level reports. But it is clear that he is ignoring overwhelming evidence that show his claims of prejudice to be not only blatant electioneering, but blatant racism as well!
For some years I taught constitutional law at the University of Canterbury. I was also a debater, in those days when debating was a more popular activity than it is now ~ and it would happen, from time to time, when I appeared to speak in a debate, that the chairman, in introducing me, would tell the audience that I was a remarkable man, because (among other things) I lectured in constitutional law, and this in a country that did not possess a constitution! I would smile politely at this merry jest and pass on to the subject of my discourse.
A Maori academic who says that immigration by whites should be restricted because they pose a threat to race relations due to their white supremacist attitudes, is leading an Independent Maori Working Group on constitutional reform. According to Iwi Chairs Forum member Margaret Mutu the group will develop a constitution to be given to the Crown as a model for New Zealand. She claims that their working party has the blessing of not only the Maori Party leader Pita Sharples, but also National Party leader and Prime Minister John Key.[1]
The debates over the place of the Treaty in our law, constitution and national life are not legal debates. Maori prefer to phrase them in legal terms, because it would do their cause no good to see their claims revealed in their greedy racist nakedness. But claims are not a matter of law. They are - I say this not as metaphor, but as actual fact - the colossal programme of confidence men, accompanied by carefully-judged doses of hard luck stories, flattery and menaces. It is highly convenient to disguise them as law, and Maori as artless lovable hard-done-by innocents, but it is not true. That is why Treaty claims will not end until we say ‘No’. – David Round (Time to Say “No!”).
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