LETTERS

[Opo 182]

A letter by Mike Butler in today's Wanganui Chronicle in response to Danny Keenan's letter (below 24/6/13)

Danny Keenan’s shrill plea

Pakeha-fear letter writer Danny Keenan appears as if he wants to shut down debate rather than engage with the issues when he complains about the Chronicle publishing letters that do not support his opinions, especially those not from Wanganui.

 

I’m a contributor to Twisting the Treaty, which shows, among a range of issues, how historians paid by the Waitangi Tribunal have twisted history to justify the latest round of settlements.

 

I’m a member of the Independent Constitutional Review Panel that argues that a treaty-based constitution would bring treaty principles, which bring partnership, which brings race-based governance.

 

We argue that citizenship, not whether or not one is Maori, should be the basis of an effective constitutional arrangement.

 

Keenan has had substantial space in the Chronicle to air his anti-wicked-white-coloniser views yet when criticised, he complains instead of debating. His March op-ed piece on the constitutional review essentially argued that Maori seats were bad, but Maori seats are now good, and must be entrenched, because the treaty said so.

 

With his Irish name, one could imagine that Danny Keenan is mostly pakeha, which could mean that the only pakeha immaturity on display is his shrill plea.

 

Mike Butler,

Hastings

 

 

Pakeha Fear

Not for the first time in recent weeks, the Chronicle has published, another letter from someone basing the treaty who lives well beyond Whanganui – this time it was M.Brooks from Tauranga (Saturday, June 22).  Last week, you published letters in a like vein from Napier and even from Katikati (it’s up by Whangamata). As is now patently obvious to most readers, it all smells of a letter – writing cartel looking to bombard provincial newspapers with anti – treaty rhetoric.

M.Brooks gave the game away by suggesting we read Twisting the Treaty, the recent book self published by that group of disgruntled pakeha academics, the Independent Constitution Review, who are so petrified of a “Maori takeover” of New Zealand.

Fear of Maori, of course, goes back to the 1860s. Professor Alan Wards has argued that pakeha fear of Maori was the major reason why the land wars were launched by the crown against maori. For Maori, it’s nothing new – it just speaks of a certain pakeha immaturity.

Why does the Chronicle allow itself to be targeted by such a group? And please don’t insult your readers by saying it’s all about giving all points of view a change.

  

BY   Dr Danny Keenan

 

 

[Opo 182]

Another great letter  (Wanganui Chronicle 26/6/13) in response to Dr Danny Keenan (OP above)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Opo 182]

 

[jack 431]

Equality, fairness and comradeship? Group spends $1000s to undermine the place of Maori and the Tiriti o Waitangi

By DigitalMaori on June 24, 2013

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(Otago Daily Times, Dunedin by Civis 22 Jun 2013) IN recent weeks, Civis has noticed, in passing, large advertisements in the Otago Daily Times headed by a picture of a kiwi standing within a gin trap labelled “A new race-based constitution”, and the words “New Zealand, are we about to be crippled permanently?”.

Last Sunday, kept indoors by rain, Civis read the text below the heading, and found that the advertisement is for an entity called “The Independent Constitutional Review” and was authorised by the “New Zealand Centre for Political Research”.

A glance at the websites of these organisations show that the first was established by the second, and both are headed by Muriel Newman, sometime Act New Zealand MP (though both sites omit ungratefully, given that she reached the House of Representatives via the Act party list to note her party affiliation).

The ICR has been set up to oppose the Constitutional Review which the National-led Government established as part of its agreement with the Maori Party, though its supporters’ rhetoric sometimes wanders off message into climate-change denial unsurprising, perhaps, in view of the Act party’s attitude to global warming.

The advertisement invites us to endorse their “Declaration of Equality”, which begins with a preamble “We, New Zealanders of all backgrounds, having founded and developed our society in equality, fairness, and comradeship, oppose any laws which establish or promote racial distinction or division. There shall be one law for all.”

It goes on to enunciate, under five bullet-points, what seems to be its main principle:

We reject any reference to the Treaty of Waitangi or its principles in any constitutional document”

It goes on to demand removal of references to the Treaty from existing legislation, and abolition of the Maori parliamentary and local body seats, and of the Waitangi Tribunal. So, while purporting to be rejecting constitutional review, and claiming that New Zealand has, at present, “one of the strongest parliamentary democracies in the world” (praising the “flexibility” derived from having no written constitution and no effective review of the decisions of our House of Representatives), the ICR itself proposes significant constitutional change.

Disregarding that apparent inconsistency, it is worth thinking about the accuracy and logic of the ICR’s statements. To begin at the beginning, does the ICR really believe that our society was founded and developed in “equality, fairness and comradeship”?

In relation to its founding, our society derived from the disorderly settlement of Europeans among Maori iwi at various places in New Zealand, including Kororareka (now Russell) a community which became infamous for prostitution and lawlessness, and was described as the “Hell Hole of the Pacific” where William Hobson read his Proclamations, before moving across the bay to Waitangi for the Treaty negotiations and initial signings.

And although our constitutional foundation was indeed based on giving equality of access of all citizens to the “Rights and Privileges ofBritish Subjects”, that equality was dependent on Te Tiriti, as was the ceding of “kawanatanga” (though not rangitiratanga) to the Crown.

If you don’t want theirs to be the only voice heard, tell the REAL Constitution Advisory Panel what you think! Make your official submission to www.ourconstitution.org.nz.

But the good intentions of the Colonial Office, the Church Missionary Society, many missionaries, and some individual settlers, were subverted by settler disregard for the tangata whenua’s intrinsic right, endorsed by the Te Tiriti, to retain “full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same”. Forcible settler acquisition of land, confiscations following resistance to such unwanted land transfers, and failure to observe the conditions of official land sales, make laughable the suggestion that our society developed in a golden glow of “fairness and comradeship”. The ICR’s preamble in their Declaration is nonsense.

The ICR’s rejection of reference to Te Tiriti in any constitutional document is presumably based on its belief that “democracy should be based on citizenship, not ethnicity all citizens should be treated equally, with equal rights and opportunities”, whereas Article 2 of Te Tiriti guarantees Maori their possessions, and restricts the sale of Maori land.

It is odd to see Act ideologues, to whom private property and contracts are supposedly sacrosanct, rejecting a contract entered into freely by Crown and most iwi, because it has particular provisions based on ownership and authority at the time of the agreement Irrespective of ICR’s wishes, Te Tiriti is New Zealand’s founding and perpetual contract which, in return for iwi ceding kawanatanga and exclusive land purchase rights, does make special long term guarantees, not given to Pakeha, to Maori. A Constitution/Te Pouhere which disregarded Te Tiriti would be dishonest.

[Opo 182]

Letters to the Editor of the Weekend Sun, Tauranga 28/6/13

 

Drawing into the open

It’s easy, Kate MacIntyre! Tired of Christina’s panic-mongering guff?  Don’t read it! Leave it to some of us who are happy being masochists in a good cause.
Unfortunately, there is a good underlying reason for the focus on these divisive matters at present, and I congratulate Christina for her untiring drive to inform the public, one way or another, of dark doings going on behind our backs, driven by the Maori Party hierarchy (oh dear, another ‘them and us’ scenario)
As a democratic nation, we are supposed to be in charge of our law-making process. The above move is designed to take that right from us, to hand it to the legal profession and to lock in the Treaty of Waitangi. It’s been extensively discussed in these letters. And the unthinkable consequences. I won’t bore you, as it is gradually being drawn into the open. Keep your eyes and ears open. Watch out for meetings or advertising.

D. H, Tauranga.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47531-drawing-into-open.html

 

Chiefs ceded sovereignty

It is remarkable what a bit of research will find these days!  Now we have Kate MacIntyre of Wellington discovering (your columns, 21/6/13) that while the Maori chiefs ceded “legal sovereignty” when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they did not cede “political sovereignty”. This is in spite of the fact that the Treaty says “The chiefs ... cede to the Queen of England for ever the entire Sovereignty of their country” - “Ko nga Rangitira ... ka tuku rawa atu ki te Kuini o Ingarani ake tonu atu-te Kawanatanga katoa o ratou wenua.”
There are quite enough falsehoods and lies swirling around the Treaty these days without anybody from a think tank in Wellington adding some more.

B M, Nelson.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47528-chiefs-ceded-sovereignty.html

 

Cultural PC garbage

There is always something ‘folksy’ about Wellington people many of whom seem to have little else to do but collect Government, bureaucratic, tertiary pay cheques for undertaking so-called ‘research’ usually with a view to criticising those who live in the real world .
Enough said!  On cue out of the woodwork pops Kate MacIntyre, Social Anthropologist, at one-time with Department of Anthropology, Victoria University and more recently a Scoping reporter with the widely discredited Waitangi Tribunal giving her slant on things Maori from the ‘intelligentsia’ viewpoint. Her use of words like jurisprudence (law) and normative (setting a standard) to muddy the waters give us a clue on the mindset.
It appears Ms MacIntyre is the author of ‘Distributive Justice and Indigenous Restitution in New Zealand and South Africa, a brief history’, I ask what the hell do South Africa and New Zealand have in common, pray, tell? - it is chalk and cheese territory.  Ms. MacIntyre, please stick with your cloistered academic clique and leave the commentary on real issues in the real world to real people, free from the cultural PC garbage you and your ilk spew forth.
Go read some of the writings of Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) a noted anthropologist and in particular his views on the evil of separatism.  Oh, yes and while we are at it, the Treaty of Waitangi has never had any constitutional significance and Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand.

R P, Matapihi.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47522-cultural-pc-garbage.html

 

Rude and patronising

Kate MacIntyre asks if we are tired of reading C. Humphreys’ letters warning us of the dangers of a  written Constitution.  No Kate, we are not tired of reading them and your letter is unnecesarily rude and patronising.      Then the light bulb clicked, and I read you are from Wellington - home of the Beehive inhabited by overpaid drones who sit around (if they show up of course) pontificating on ways of - not governing the country - but how they can forward their careers.   C. Humphrey and others with brain power, are doing their best to alert apathetic NewZealanders to the dangers of a Maori-instigated written Constitution based on the Treaty.  We accept that the Treaty is significant but, with our weak Government, Maori will try and twist it to enable them to take more power.  This is what C. Humphrey and others are fighting against.

M B, Avenues.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47525-rude-and-patronising.html

 

Responses to Kate MacIntyre: Pleased to have rattled your chain

So pleased I have rattled your chain Kate MacIntyre and great you have taken the time to read and maybe learn something.
The Treaty of Waitangi was never recognised in international law and was never part of our municipal law. Generally, the Treaty does not create any legal rights that the courts can enforce despite the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act. So it still has no legal standing as such in NZ so get over yourself!
Certainly nothing about the Treaty legitimates NZ governmental authority; it was first acquired by a British Empire Act and falls into the category of Colonies acquired by occupation. Then the 1852 Act, Westminster institutions of Government established in New Zealand. So the NZ government was established nothing to do with the Treaty!
All of this is history and New Zealand needs to grow up and move forward as ‘One People’, which is what 85% of us want?
But no the ‘Maori Party’ with their select minority group of radicals want to keep on with these separatist actions to create more division all in the name of power and greed! Now it’s to enshrine the ‘Treaty of Waitangi’ in a ‘Written Constitution’ so it can never be changed! What about the trip to United Nations to sign up as the Indigenous People of NZ with no mandate from the NZ government or people. Its relentless these separatist agendas all to acquire Sovereignty or self-rule.
You Ms MacIntyre have to be an academic socialist who can’t see the bigger picture here!
What a joke, better call Susan Devoy I am accused of bad punctuation! Well I am sorry, but the tolerance of 85% of NZ people is wearing a bit thin now and the aim of a few of us is to warn the people of what is happening here. This Constitutional Review was another thing that was set to go under the radar so we have made it our business to inform the public and we haven’t finished yet!

C.H, Katikati.

www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47519-responses-to-kate-macintyre-pleased-to-have-rattled-your-chain.html

 

What anti-Maori letters?

What anti Maori letters?  In response to Peter Dey’s letter, I do not think that the letters over the last few weeks are, or were, intended to be anti Maori, they are just what people are feeling about the way this country is heading and a belief that we all should live under one law, one people, one rule system. And that they are fed up with struggling while a minority group seems to have it handed on a plate in some aspects.
You stated that treaty settlements are not costing that much, seen the total combined Maori assets has passed the $7 billion mark, you will not mind that Maori should stand on their own two feet, rather than the using of the taxpayers’ dollar.
And finally as for getting better recognition, get over it, we all deserve that. The whole idea of a constitution and a republic is to change the system and leave the old behind, if you’re too hung up on the past then we can never move forward.

R. S, Te Puke.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47507-what-antimaori-letters.html

 

While we were sleeping: Apartheid

The suggestion that Kiwis don’t need to worry about the Maori Party-initiated review of our constitution is ill-advised.
Under MMP, we’ve seen both sides of the House tip-toeing around all things Maori, and passing related legislation without any hard questions being asked about the truth, the justifications or the long term ramifications for all of us. In our own little worlds, it can be easy to think all is OK. But looking a bit deeper into undemocratic Maori influence on councils, government department propaganda, education and health organisations and you’ll be amazed at what’s going on and what it’s costing us.
While we were sleeping, Apartheid has been securing itself. How can a racist regime be a good thing for Maori if it destroys New Zealand in the long term? The strategy for the constitutional review so far has been based on warm and fuzzy language that doesn’t upset the punters.
So when the new constitution is passed by unprincipled politicians on both sides of the House, the truth will only gradually emerge as judges make their decisions on what it means in every day life. Judges who can’t be voted out at the next election. Only at that point, will Kiwis realise that they should have taken more interest.

F M, Whangaparaoa

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47504-while-we-were-sleeping-apartheid.html

 

Treaty of Waitangi

Quite apart from the fact that her own punctuation and syntax aren’t exactly crash-hot, Kate MacIntyre’s complaint about C. Humphreys’ correspondence was uncalled-for; she may disagree with, and be tired of, what he writes, but he has a right to express it: that’s what free speech is all about. For example, I sometimes gag at the racist utterances of Harawira, Turia, Mutu and others, but I’d be the last person to suggest that we should silence them.

Ms MacIntyre further suggests that C.Humphreys should investigate in greater depth the issues that he raises; well, she too could focus her mind better, particularly in three areas.

Firstly, there are several versions of the Treaty of Waitangi, each of which is open to its own interpretation, especially as we can only hazard a guess as to what the intentions of the signatories of those were. Conflict of opinion is driven largely by self-interest, so resolution of the differences is most unlikely; on the contrary, lawyers will prolong the debate because it is lucrative to do so, and politicians will exploit the uncertainty in order to lift their own profiles. It would, therefore, be disastrous to embody “The Treaty” and its contentious “principles” in a written constitution, because the wrangling could go on for generations.

Secondly, Maori identity is, in the eyes of the law, an “opt-in” concept; that is, to qualify as Maori, one must have Maori ancestry (no matter how remote) and also identify with Maori culture. Two things flow from this: any separatism is, by definition, to be laid at the feet of those who choose to call themselves Maori; and, in an egalitarian democracy, where consideration for the preferences and rights of individuals - as opposed to groups - is supposedly of paramount importance, such self-selection for separate treatment (as in voting rights, educational opportunities, health initiatives, and so on) is morally unacceptable. Of course, this country may be deluding itself - perhaps we’re not an egalitarian democracy, after all - in which case, we ought to own up to it.

Thirdly, when she refers to the issues of sovereignty and property rights, she should be very wary: these are legal and ethical minefields. Much of the debate (and the substantial “Treaty settlement” process) is predicated on the ideas of “ownership by first occupancy” and “self determination”; the former is open to serious theoretical challenge, and the latter is too nebulous to mean much, especially in a modern nation-state where we have advanced welfarism, a complex economy, and inescapable social interdependence.

Finally, let me remind Ms MacIntyre, and others, that this is not simply a matter of dispute between those of Maori and European ancestry, respectively; New Zealand is now also home to many folk from Oceania, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and elsewhere - and they must not be made to feel shut out of the discussion and decision-making. If we cannot abandon, once and for all, the idea that this nation comprises “Maori and the rest”, it will tear itself apart.

Dr G C, Katikati.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47441-treaty-of-waitangi.html

 

Rose coloured glasses

Weekend Sun 21 June. Peter Dey has his rose coloured tunnel vision glasses on. He writes about “anti-Maori letters based on false information and irrational fear”. If he believes everything he writes, he is naïve. “Maori’ are approx 15% of NZ population. A small percentage of these  want to take total control of NZ. They are racist radicals, anti everyone else, who want to have for their own everything everyone else has worked hard to accumulate. Many “Maori” are now speaking out against the proposed new constitution for they can see if it becomes law  they will also become disenfranchised and second class citizens. Robin Bishop is correct to state that a number of “full and final“ Treaty settlements have been paid up to five times already. When will this end ?

I have Welsh, French, English ancestry am English with NZ citizenship. Why cannot our mixed blood “Maori’ be content to call themselves New Zealanders ? Where does the Treaty settlement money go ? It certainly doesn’t go into “Maori” education and health as “Maori leaders” still expect  taxpayers to pay for these. Now Harawira wants taxpayers to build 10,000 new houses annually for “Maori” alone ! If that is not racist policy I don’t know what is.

Think about it.

R B, Papamoa.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47438-rose-coloured-glasses.html

 

Settlement of Treaty claims

Despite what Peter Dey (21 June) thinks, the manner of settlement of Treaty claims is indeed a threat to democracy. Sure, at the end of the day details of all Treaty settlements are publicly available. But that is the final step of a long process during which negotiations are carried out behind closed doors to hand over our public property and moneys, to give special race-based inherited rights to family groups based on wilful misinterpretation of history. It is only an empty formality.

I have been concerned with the fate of my neighbourhood, in Island Bay, Wellington, for many years and have written many times to the Minister of Treaty Settlements. The Ngati Toa claim, including $10 million for loss of marine empire around Cook Strait and ownership of Taputeranga (the island in the bay), is based on bloody attacks in the 1820s.  It is no wonder then that the historical account was not even written as negotiations continued, and it turns out to be pathetic.

My efforts have included an article “The battles of Tapu te Ranga” for the Wellington Southern Bays Historical Society (2004), articles “Chance to create and island of peace” and “Spoils of war behind Ngati Toa settlement for Wellington coast” in the Dominion Post (2009, 2010) and chapters in three recent books: “A case study: Ngati Toa” in The corruption of New Zealand democracy, a Treaty overview (2011), “The new apartheid society” in When two cultures meet the New Zealand experience (2012) and “Wellington settlements and consequences” in Twisting the Treaty, a tribal grab for wealth and power (2013).

Yet only now can I take any part in decisions, by sending a submission to the Maori Affairs Select Committee, which Minister Finlayson assures me will be ignored, as by the time they reach Parliament settlements “stem from legal agreements that are already entered into”. If a democracy is not open, if decision-making is not transparent, if citizens cannot have a say on the disposition of their property and their rights, surely that democracy is under threat.

Dr J R, Wellington.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47432-settlement-of-treaty-claims.html

 

National Wealth

Is it right that 42% of the Nation’s Fisheries and 36% of its Forestry have been given to 14% of the population? This has created an ethnic plutocracy of extravagant and alarming proportions. The Fisheries, given to Maori to provide work for Maori youth, were immediately sold off to overseas interests. As for forestry, it is doubtful if pre-Treaty Maori planted a single tree let alone a State Forest.

Te Tiriti O Waitangi or the version in Maori signed on February 6th 1840 is the only true version of the Treaty. Article 2 in this document gave Maori the specific right of ownership of their Lands, Dwellings and Taonga (property gained by the spear , {something tangible} the definition in the Maori/English Dictionary published at Cambridge University in 1820)  The version of Article 2 giving control of their Lands, Forests and Fisheries is the Freeman version which was never signed and is therefore a nullity. The Littlewood version,which was lost but rediscovered in 1989, is the English draft that was used by Henry Williams and his son, Edward to translate into Maori. There is no differentiation between the Littlewood version and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 

This inequitable state of ownership has been the result of the actions of successive  governments to the detriment  of the rest of us, 86% of the population. They have cursorily given away our national wealth for imagined injustices to Maori that were suggested by Maori activists and Treaty revisionists.

B J, Omokoroa

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/47435-national-wealth.html

[Opo 182]

Mike Butler's letter sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 30/6/13 in response to H Norton (below)

Ignorance incubates partnership myth
H.Norton (Wangaui Chronicle letters, June 29) has not realized that a system of government in which the Crown deals with “treaty partners” on one hand and everyone else on the other is a two-tier race-based system.
 
In fact, there is no partnership in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Justice Robin Cooke conjured up partnership in his set of treaty principles in 1987.
 
Norton assumes a “need for a supreme, legislated constitution” when we have had a fully functioning legislated constitutional arrangement since the royal charter of November 16, 1840, allowed for a system of government here.
 
His claim that all of Taranaki was confiscated shows he is hazy on history. In fact, much of Taranaki was deserted by 1840. Occupants had been driven out by marauding Waikato tribes.  Settlers bought the land from willing sellers and the settler presence made the area safe for tribal refugees and freed slaves to return.
 
Norton seems unaware that the land numerous chiefs sold included trees, lakes, rivers, and minerals.. Once sold, those areas became the property of the purchaser.
 
Therefore, his grizzle about the government failing to include water in the lakes and rivers recently given to tribal corporations appears to be based on a misunderstanding.
 
Mike Butler,
Hastings
 
 
NZ constitution:
John Robinson  (Wanganui Chronicle letters, June 26) opines that Maori being in rebellion caused the New Zealand wars. He has to ignore the conceit and deceit of the Crown’s agents and settler governments to justify the extra- legal confiscation of the whole of Taranaki for European settlers.
Mike Butler (Wanganui Chronicle letter, June 26) interprets the Treaty from the same redneck treatise – Twisting The Treaty being both its title and its content.
Suggesting the inclusion of the agreed partnership principle of the Treaty of Waitangi in our constitution would “bring about a race-based governance” is not an honest rebuttal to the need for a supreme, legislated constitution for New Zealand .
Including Treaty principles would bring awarness of promises and the obligation we all have as New Zealanders, being an obligation to accord all people the same respect, one law for all – promises that have been ignored by successive administrations.
Since 1852, some 100 acts of legislation treaty Maori separately, negatively, have made it into law.
No? Then explain recent legislation, such as that passed by successive governments over the foreshore and seabed  - or the legislation that gives back lakes to their Maori owners, but less the water (Crown stratum) – or the legislation that returns leased land management to its Maori owners, but then sets “market rates”.
Basically, what these correspondents really appear to fear is any recognition of Maori.
 
Sent in by H.Norton
               Kaitoke

[Kiah 13]

Congrats Opo. You persuaded your "cousins" to write to a few editors.  Well done for organising a letter writing campaign.  Given the incestuous nature of your dribblings you should all desist from breeding with each other.  Your rants get progressively worse. It gets tiresome ...

[Opo 182]

Great letter in the Wanganui Chronicle today 2/7/13

 

[hedley 1,900]

..we'll i'm a fifth(20%)..and your ill informed gattle's like a hackysack of hatred and begrudgement..reLentless and daily., like a quest of some sortee

 

..just sayin'

[Opo 182]

Great letter in NZHerald today  (3/7/13)

 

 

[Opo 182]

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Letter in Otago Daily Times 5/7/13

 

 

 

 

 

[Opo 182]

Letter to the Wanganui Chronicle 5/7/13

 

[Opo 182]

A letter in the Otago Daily Times 8/7/13

 

[Opo 182]

Mike Butler's letter sent to the Wanganui Chronicle in response to an article (below) in the Wanganui Chronicle (9/7/13)

Gutsful of treatyist guilt-trip

If the government-appointed Constitution Advisory Panel is not pushing for any particular conclusion, as David James and Jillian Wychel of the Rowan Partnership would have you believe, why would co-chair Sir Tipene O’Regan characterise “those who wish to reverse Maori influence” as “extremist groups” and “Nazi sympathisers”?
 
Maori-influence promoter O’Regan made his “Nazi sympathiser” remark in a recent speech in Dunedin marking the Maori New Year.
 
The Rowan Partnership, similarly, is big on extending Maori influence through the treaty workshops the group runs, which include psychodrama role-playing to teach how wicked and racist the white coloniser has been.
 
James and Wychel allege a letter-writing campaign and accuse the Independent Constitution Review Panel of alarmism but fail to see that very many people have simply had a gutsful of the guilt trip treatyists are pushing.
 
Around 40,000 Facebook “likes” gained by the “Pakeha Party” in 24hrs shows how unpopular treatyism has become.
 
Mike Butler
Hastings


We need a conversation not a stoush

David james and Jillian Wychel of the Rowan Partnership reply to  letters prompted by their article about New Zealand’s constitutional review in the Chronicle last Month.
  
Most letters focused only on the Question of whether the treaty of Waitangi should be the basis of our constitution.
 
Our comments on this occupied four of the total of 24 paragraphs. However , there is an organised campaign by the Independent Constitution Review, headed by former Act MP Muriel Newman, to spread alarm about any role for the Treaty in the constitution. Some of the published letters carry the hallmarks of that campaign.
 
The evident opposition to a written constitution seems to be based on the campaign’s supposition that the government  appointed Constitution Advisory Panel is pushing for a Treaty-based written constitution. In fact, the panel is not pushing for any particular conclusion, but is carefully not committing itself in any direction until public consultation has ended on July 31.
 
As for the way our constitution is working under present governments – to quote Jane Clifton (Listener, July 6) – the law Society has just issued a report that makes this country sound distinctly Albanian in its trajectory.
 
In the society’s assessment,  our Parliament has passed five laws that remove the courts’ constitutional role of judicial review, three giving the Cabinet unjustified powers, three that give rise to serious human rights concerns and five laws that the Government’s own Attorney- General refused to give a tick to under the Bill of Rights.
 
We recognise that there is no unanimity well- informed people about a written constitution or whether parliaments can be trusted with the treaty in a constitution, given their past record. But these are matters that require more serious discussion, not dismissal.
 
Most of the comments in the letters on historical issues and the origins of the treaty are inaccurate, but to respond would sound like nit-picking. We refer readers to any reputable and unbiased modern historian of the period.
 
Governments are addressing their treaty responsibilities in various (and Limited) ways, not because they are naïve or ignorant but because they have both legal and international requirements to do so.
 
Government exists here by right of the Treaty, and our governor was told in 1845 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies: “You will honourably and scrupulously fulfil the conditions of the treaty of Waitangi.” Nothing has altered that obligation.
 
The really sad thing about many responses is the rigidity of them and the dismissive tone, on both sides. This is neither constructive nor mature, and we have to move beyond this way of conducting conversations to have a future as a nation.

[Opo 182]

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Letter in the Otago Daily Times 12/7/13

 

 

 

[Opo 182]

Letter to Sunlive paper (Tauranga) 12/7/13

Selling us out to stay in office

Contrary to Tommy Kapai’s claim, the government bailout of South Canterbury Finance (SCF), under the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme, did not cost us taxpayers $1.7 billion; with assets realised, it amounted to half that ($805 million, to be exact).

That’s still a heck of a lot in anyone’s money, but it’s less than the total paid so far (and climbing) to Maori in settlement of Treaty claims.

There’s another difference. Whilst five former SCF directors are to face trial next year for alleged dishonesty, fraudulent Treaty claims (for chapter and verse, read “Twisting the Treaty”) will go unchallenged. This is because we have a government that will do anything to secure the continuing support of the Maori Party; it will cheerfully sell us out in order to stay in office.

Never mind the long-term implications: political probity doesn’t come into it.

Mr Kapai may deride (in his quaint way) those of whom he disapproves, but name-calling is childish and achieves nothing.

We shall continue to expose the weakness of an unprincipled National-led administration, the deviousness of iwi claimants, and the anti-democratic nature of Maori separatism (including co-governance).

In time, the people of this country will come to realise the wrongfulness of it all. Fashions, like governments, come and go.

Dr G C  Katikati.

[Opo 182]

Letter in the Sunlive paper (Tauranga) 12/7/13

 

Cultural heritage

When I taught at a country school in Hawkes Bay many years ago, I spent a full term on the study of Maori in some depth, language, weaving, legends, history, waiata and customs. I also attended two extra-mural courses in Maori where we were taught basic Maori carving by Dr Chris Whiting.

I never believed that this was my personal heritage, Irish/Swedish, but accepted it as a part of the heritage of my country. I did not teach  these lessons to the exclusion of other peoples and other cultures. I am therefore concerned when I hear that Maori culture and language is being introduced to children as young as five, apparently to the exclusion of the other 86% of the cultures of the other ethnic groups that make up our country. I am reminded of the Jesuit maxim, ‘Give me a child to age seven and I’ll give you the man’.

Ms Keeling-Styles, karakia is not our cultural heritage, it is the heritage of the 14% who elect to call themselves Maori even though they are at most half-castes.

Ms Keeling-Styles’ euphoric attitude to Maori culture indicates how widely Maori customs, language and culture have permeated a large number of public institutions and government departments and impinged upon our national activities, from the welcoming of overseas dignitaries to the opening of public buildings and to the exclusion of the officiating of other ethnic groups. It is time to take stock and cater for the rest of the population and for us to regard ourselves as primarily New Zealanders and for the heritage of all nationalities to be celebrated.

BJ. Omokoroa.

[Killafornia 65]

[Opo 182]

A letter in the Sunlive paper 12/7/13

 

All in the same boat

I am tired of this collective guilt foisted on us by Chris Findlayson and the Maori party. I do not feel responsible for events which happened 100-150 years ago, nor should anybody.

The way I see it, the Maori have two arms and legs, and brains, just like any other ethnic group and can make their way in life just like the rest of us, without the exceptional privileges and magnificent payouts. The fact that they get these, and the failure rate is still high, is an indictment, and their demands for more are unreasonable and counter-productive to our country’s advancement. The billions they have received have come from the taxes of people who have worked and who would far rather see their hard-earned dollars going into our ailing health and education systems, where all Kiwi’s benefit.

Our national standards rating has gone from number 3 to 33 in the last 50 years and it’s overdue to ask why? It is time to stop this apartheid nonsense, abolish the titles of European and Maori and act as united New Zealanders , after all we all sailed here in different boats and at different times, but are all in the same boat now, so pull together to get us back on course! 

 

B L, Otumoetai.

[hedley 1,900]

..playing his one and only redball, so that we 'get' his see_circus

[hedley 1,900]

><> ....[nonu~nonu"boom"]

[Opo 182]

[Opo 182]

[Opo 182]

 

[Opo 182]

Dominion Post letter 18/7/13

Is this what we want for NZ?

OPINION: Karina McKenzie (Letters, July 13) asks when New Zealand Europeans will stand up and demand equality. Many thousands of us do, and are immediately squashed. We're called racists because we ask for equality for all. We're described as having Nazi sympathies. We're dismissed en masse with a derogatory remark by the minister of treaty settlements, who also prevented us from speaking against one of his proposals at a public meeting. We're denied representation at hearings of the Waitangi Tribunal, which reinterpreted the Treaty quite differently from the meaning of the original document.

 

Thousands signed a petition against the recent foreshore and seabed law to no avail. The brave few who appeared before the biased select committee were openly laughed at.

 

The suggested constitutional review is following the same path - a heavily biased advisory panel, a lack of publicity from Government sources about its activities, and no notification that submissions from the public have been open for months. This is perhaps one of the most important issues in the definition of the nation's democratic future. Do New Zealanders really not want equality, and would they prefer a system based on racial preference? That's called apartheid.

B C

Wadestown

www.ConstitutionalReview.org

http://www.nzcpr.com/