Category: Maori Issues
The great Maori language rort is one of a series of frauds being perpetrated on New Zealanders by part-Maori looters of taxpayer funds and Crown assets (or in the case of the foreshore and seabed, ex-Crown assets).
In the same week that the Coastal Coalition took a step towards forcing greater accountability on Parliament, by initiating a Citizens Initiated Referendum to repeal the Marine and Coastal Area Act and restore public ownership of the foreshore and seabed, National was trying to change Parliament’s rules to reduce accountability! Treaty Negotiations Minister, Chris Finlayson is attempting to gerrymander the Parliamentary process to enable a raft of Treaty settlement bills to be fast-tracked into law before the November election. [1]
There are so many untruths and uncertainties about National's highly controversial Marine and Coastal Area Act that the public has been vindicated for massively opposing it. The Act claims to address the uncertain issue of Maori customary rights in 1840, something that nobody alive today has any direct knowledge of.
There appears to be a growing undercurrent of disillusionment with New Zealand’s system of representative democracy. Some are saying our elected members of parliament are turning their backs on voters who put them into office. Instead of representing the public’s views, they are displaying an appalling arrogance by belittling those who dare to voice a contrary opinion.
Last year New Zealanders were informed a new Marine and Coastal Area Bill, scheduled to replace the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act would mean “nothing would change.” Despite this claim, further down the track New Zealanders were presented with a 101 page Marine and Coastal Area Bill which appears to deliver the contrary and places that statement in the political misinformation file. New Zealanders have every right to rationalize if “nothing would change” then why a 101 page change?
Few know much about a shadowy and powerful group of tribal elite that have become a driving force behind the acquisition of public assets. While they first argued for Treaty settlements to put right historic wrongs, they are now successfully claiming assets as an indigenous right. Most people don’t realise how deeply this group has penetrated the Maori and National parties.
In the last five years there has been a shift in the strategies used by iwi in their quest for property rights and constitutional recognition. The shift is from a Treaty of Waitangi justification to a more comprehensive indigenous group rights argument. The group rights argument is used to claim customary rights, and in an extension, to claim that those customary rights are property rights guaranteed under English Common Law.
After nine months of campaigning to raise public awareness about the dangers of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill, the National Party is on the brink of passing it into law - while the country is still in mourning over the shocking Canterbury earthquake. According to Parliament’s Order Paper, National intends pushing ahead with what has been called the most controversial bill in modern times, on Tuesday.
THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION to rush through the remaining stages of the Marine Coastal Area Bill is as ill-considered as it is dangerous. For this is no ordinary piece of legislation, easily repealed by a newly-elected House of Representatives. It is a bill which confers upon Maori, by virtue of their indigeneity, a new kind of property right (Customary Title), along with a powerful new set of legal powers to enforce that right – powers which the legislation’s many critics believe will undermine the generally accepted principles of liberal democracy.
“The face he showed to the country this week was that of a man who didn't give a stuff what people thought. It may be one that his colleagues and National supporters hope he will not be revealing too often.” Herald Editorial, Sunday 20 February, 2011
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