Pages

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Mike’s Minute: The Waitangi Tribunal strikes again


At a time when the office that looks after the money that gets handed out to Māori to head off to court is in real trouble because they have run out of money, the Tribunal is pumping out report after report, costing Lord knows how much, to achieve virtually nothing.

This latest report deals with the Government's actions around a Tomorrow's Schools Review, in which the Tribunal has decided they breached Treaty principals.

By the way, the report is a first in the sense it is printed entirely in Māori. There are English versions of chapters 3-7, which is nice of them, but the approach gives you some indication of where their heads and world view is at.

It also deals with a review that happened over the period 2018-2022.

So, a couple of things about that - that's another Government. That Government is no longer running the joint. So, what was it the Tribunal was expecting Labour to do?

The second fairly significant point is that not only does it deal to a Government that no longer exists, like all its other reports, it's non-binding. In other words, it's an opinion and that’s about that.

Given what we saw last week from the Government with the customary rights decision by the Court of Appeal, which is an actual court that makes binding decisions, you have to wonder just how hard the Tribunal is pushing the envelope and asking for trouble.

All of this is taxpayer funded and in a country that has less than no money and purse strings that are constantly looking to be tightened, how much longer can urgent hearings be held that offer taxpayer funded opinions with little, if any, standing and deal to a time that has passed with absolutely no chance of anything at all coming out of them?

50 years ago, the Tribunal was set up to deal with historic grievances. It made some sense and did some good work and righted some very large wrongs.

In the modern day, this whack-a-mole report, gravy train isn't so inspiring.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

All that PM Luxon has to do to save us all this money and grief is wake up, stop the gravy train, put the tribunal back in its box, stop it making up the principles (of which there are none) and get us back on track to all being colour blind equals. Oh and stop using that "A" word, the Country is called New Zealand as its leader should know.

Anonymous said...

And the report is a recommendation to the Government and how many of them are fluent in te reo? I'd say beggar all, so the first thing that has to be done is translated back. More cost/more jobs for the boys! Time the WT was gone.

mudbayripper said...

50 years ago, the Tribunal was set up to deal with historic grievances. It made some sense and did some good work and righted some very large wrongs.
Are you sure Mike.
The tribunal was set up to extract millions of dollars fraudulently, no, not from the British crown but hard working kiwi tax payers.
It's been a rort from day one.

Tom Logan said...

In his article in this forum on 16th April this year Dr Eric Crampton presents data analysing income decile against net tax paid.

The data suggest the lower 5 income deciles are not tax payers and that the bulk of tax is paid by the top 10% of earners.

No doubt the majority bringing their grievances to the Waitangi Tribunal fit into those lower 5 deciles.

And Comrade Clark absolved many Maori owned tribal based business entities of any tax liabilities.

So at least Maori as a whole could thank the hand that feeds them !

And It is a wonder that the Crown ever puts up a defence againt issues brought against it in the Waitangi Tribunal. How many times has the Crown won ?

So why don't we just concede the case , save the money and do what we do now, just ignore the Tribunal anyway ?

Anonymous said...

Mike, thanks, the pendulum is swinging. I have noticed that a lot of things that get raised here by the likes of you and others seem to get a bit of attention. We are now holding these racists far left radicals to account.

So, next on the list is the Waitangi tribunal . Long overdue for some intense scrutiny I feel. Keep up the good work Mike, these losers are squealing .