One recommendation was appointing 'mana whenua' appointees to 'sit alongside elected Maori ward councillors' thereby allowing for greater involvement of iwi and hapu in local decision making, 'giving effect to responsibilities under Te Tiriti' and recognizing 'the special place of Te Tiriti in New Zealand’. Other recommendations included reducing the voting age to 16 years old, centralizing the management of local body elections, and changing the voting system to Single Transferable Voting in order to increase diversity among councillors.
Panel chairperson Jim Palmer said in a Radio NZ interview "Hapu, iwi Maori and ourselves think more needs to be done to ensure that (te ao Maori) becomes embedded into the way local government thinks", and "We need to see te ao Maori reflected in the way local government operates...”, and that the law should change to make it clearer what are councils' responsibilities in respect to giving effect to Te Tiriti, and that the panel wanted the law to ensure “there is a willingness to partner", and that councils need more resources to bring this all about. He said the panel had interviewed numerous iwi and hapu who wanted to “inculcate tikanga into the way in which councils operate”. He was separately reported as saying "We think it's a more nuanced conversation than just 'one person, one vote'".
After arguing for:
- unelected, race-based appointees able to vote on councils;
- making councils conform to fake Treaty principles and obligations;
- greater central government control over council elections, operation and 'thinking'; and
- moving away from 'one person, one vote', Mr Palmer claimed that the panel's focus was on 'strengthening democracy' and giving 'more power to people' through being more inclusive. He has clearly been a cooperative student of the Ardern government's double-speak duplicity. Like Putin, just keep saying the opposite of what you're really up to and rely on the gullibility and shallow thinking of much of the population plus their indoctrination by controlled mainstream media, in NZ’s case (so far) through bribery to the tune of at least $52 million.
More importantly, after describing their current report as proposed recommendations before a final report is prepared and presented to the Minister next year, he stated that the panel would love all the proposed recommendations to be supported and that "...the Minister has actually made it very clear to us that she would love future governments of whichever colour they are to take the recommendations of this report forward..." Wow! This admission makes it clear that Minister Mahuta already knows the so-called proposed recommendations and they are exactly in line with her wishes. Towards that end we bet that Minister Mahuta made many things even beyond the terms of reference 'very clear' to the panel. Is it not corrupt for a government to claim a panel is independent when in fact it has been designed and shepherded simply to do that government's bidding?
Full consideration of the panel’s recommendations would take more than this short essay. Maori tikanga as a basis for civilized government really stretches credibility when one looks at what tikanga involves. Lowering the voting age to 16 years old is something Ardern has previously said her government is looking at for general elections. This appears to be yet another attempt to gerrymander our democracy towards ensuring her government remains in power for a very long time. Starry-eyed 16-year-olds tend to support socialist ideas like smashing an alleged oppressor group (in NZ’s case, white people) and achieving a utopia of equity for all regardless of effort. 16-year-olds have not yet had adult life experience likely to challenge their certainty that they know better. They are susceptible to hollow slogans and shallow arguments that support fashionable causes in line with Ardern’s socialism, wokeism and climate activism. Most of them will vote Labour, so of course Ardern’s government will want them to vote. The social and economic damage that 16-year-olds will help to extend will simply give this government an opportunity to impose greater control and to reduce individual rights and liberties, as socialist regimes do.
Providing for undemocratic tribal rule is another change likely to help Ardern’s government to stay in power. The wealth, power and privilege such changes will provide to Maori elite will ensure they encourage their people to go back to voting Labour. A majority of the Maori 17% of the population’s vote will provide an almost unassailable advantage in the next and subsequent elections.
Ardern’s government has been busy introducing its racist policies and corruptions of democracy in its departments and every administration possible. This will be designed to get the public used to those policies and their underlying falsehoods in preparation for introducing co-governance into central government in parliament. She will be hoping this can be achieved before next year’s election, having criminalized opposing viewpoints and inconvenient facts as ‘hate speech’ and having established an obedient mega-media through merging Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand.
We ain’t seen nothing yet; Ardern’s lot will have more plans up their sleeves to corrupt our democracy across the board. Let’s hope enough people will see what’s happening before Ardern’s self-serving plot sees her politburo in power indefinitely.
A.E. Thompson is a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.
4 comments:
There are two ways to stop the country becoming a "banana republics"
One is at the polling booth.
Seems to me, 'the Maori world view' could best be interpreted as 'we are owed a living' , and now they've found the mugs to support that belief, they'll do anything to embed it in law. We oughtn't have a bar of it.
As for tikanga, one only has to look at Maori life pre-1840 to realise this is no aspiration for a modern world. Unless, of course, one endorses activities undertaken by the likes of Putin; take whatever you like and nevermind the misery caused, but last time I looked he stopped short of actually enslaving and eating people. But, I admit, in his case the enslaving is arguably debateable?Anyway, let's put on our rose-tinted spectacles and pretend they were much more noble and make up other fairy stories - after all, those living today have been so patently wronged by those others currently living, and it would be both churlish and petty not to give them that extra or special treatment this Govt clearly believes they're entitled to. Where's the public mandate you might say? Wash your mouth out!
Significant maori involvement in governance, partnership or consultation leads to maori control and very positively so in the case of 50/50 arrangements. The modern trace maori bloc act as a coordinated body and at least one of the other parties invariably sides with them. For a variety of reasons, but especially to avoid cancelation. This latter disastrous to ordinary lives, as the maori activists are very astutely aware.
It is ludicrous that so called mana whenua now have so much influence
Sundry tribes devoured occupiers and otherwise displaced all predecessors in the area except for any directly or indirectly enslaved, or any who managed to remain concealed (as in the swamps of the Horowhenua). Yet today in most areas several of the waves of occupant tribes and not just the last are granted mana whenua status. Thus on the basis that in 1750 or whenever a few hundred transiently eked out a stone age mostly hunter gatherer existence in a basically unmodified landscape, their descendant trace maori representatives are today consulted or entrusted by Councils and govt on a myriad aspects affecting life in unrelated populated, industrialised, post stone age, modern NZ.
Further, mana whenua, as merely a chance sample of tangaata whenua, have great difficulty caring for their infants, ensuring attendance, diligence and achievement at school, seem unable to discourage ram raiders, have many youth incarcerated and many more who should be if it were not for special lenient tailored application of the law of civilised society. Begs the question of IQ and ability in a modern world generally.
Yet, absurdly, these (paid) reps hugely influence and determine conditions in today's world for the great majority colonist descended others, very many of considerable ability, and on average seemingly more adapted to the modern post stone age world. No directly equivalent or directly balancing consultation with non maori majority is provided for, despite it being the colonists and descendants who made present day civilised NZ.
Most generations of colonist descendants aware of the culture which advanced them from the stone age, and with significant contact with maori, considered the embracing te ao and tikanga and all the attitudes that involves, a total anathema.
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