Because every time he talks about it, he dances on the head of a pin.
It was suggested that the draft bill was headed to Cabinet for discussion yesterday. So a little bit of frothing at the mouth from the media as they fired off question after question as to where this thing might be heading.
Where it is heading, by the way, is to first reading, then to select committee and, if David Seymour can't turn the tide, it will die at that point.
For something that most likely won't see its conclusion, we have spent a lot of time and energy angsting over it.
It has been a long time, if ever, that we have waxed and waned and twisted and bent ourselves into a knot over something that is basically just a debate. It's an exchange of ideas driven by the concept that being equal based on race is something we should aspire to
To show you how mad it's all got, the Prime Minister was able to bat away virtually all questions by simply stating he doesn’t talk about what happens in Cabinet.
But then he said, I think mistakenly, that he hadn't actually seen a copy of the draft bill, meaning if he hasn’t seen a draft, it can't really have been talked about at Cabinet. Or can it?
Someone then asked whether there actually was a draft bill at all, at which point I think he had worked out his error and returned to talking about things that may or may not have been talked about in Cabinet and how he doesn’t talk about them outside Cabinet, or indeed whether anything to be talked about even existed.
The sad thing about all this is it shows we are not really up to much by way of big debates.
Big debates should not be feared. But when you have a three party Government with two parties seemingly against an idea from the start, and one in particular looking increasingly anxious, not to mention the wider panic from the Waitangi Tribunal to the churches, it reaffirms this is a country where bold thinking doesn’t often find a space to be aired.
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.
For something that most likely won't see its conclusion, we have spent a lot of time and energy angsting over it.
It has been a long time, if ever, that we have waxed and waned and twisted and bent ourselves into a knot over something that is basically just a debate. It's an exchange of ideas driven by the concept that being equal based on race is something we should aspire to
To show you how mad it's all got, the Prime Minister was able to bat away virtually all questions by simply stating he doesn’t talk about what happens in Cabinet.
But then he said, I think mistakenly, that he hadn't actually seen a copy of the draft bill, meaning if he hasn’t seen a draft, it can't really have been talked about at Cabinet. Or can it?
Someone then asked whether there actually was a draft bill at all, at which point I think he had worked out his error and returned to talking about things that may or may not have been talked about in Cabinet and how he doesn’t talk about them outside Cabinet, or indeed whether anything to be talked about even existed.
The sad thing about all this is it shows we are not really up to much by way of big debates.
Big debates should not be feared. But when you have a three party Government with two parties seemingly against an idea from the start, and one in particular looking increasingly anxious, not to mention the wider panic from the Waitangi Tribunal to the churches, it reaffirms this is a country where bold thinking doesn’t often find a space to be aired.
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.
7 comments:
I listened to Luxon's high speed babble this morning.
He seems to think that by going flat out and not allowing Mike to intercede, that he can evade talking about the big brown elephant in the room.
Sooner or later, he is going to have to address this huge issue before it virtually blows up in his face.
I think Mike is missing the big picture. Seymour has shone some daylight on the fact that we are well and truly ideologically controlled by forces that sit outside democracy. There is a sham of free speech and a sham that we have a free media. The future is a dark and depressing place for this country.
Mike, you seem to, indeed, missed the point. If ever there was a time to discuss this matter, it is now! With nearly half the Parliament thinking Maori never ceded sovereignty and where Seymour's discussion will hopefully take us eventually in clarfying that, and if you can't see the importance of that right now, I've clearly misjudged your level of intelligence. NZ is undoubtedly at a crossroads and the two paths from here diverge markedly. One will lead us to corruption and oblivion, the other hopefully to find us in unity in the future.
For Luxon to reject the proposed bill from Seymore is a major mistake on his part. Putting the politics aside, stating the TOW principles seems a no brainer. Without stated principles, the TOW can mean anything and often is, as we have been seeing for many many years.
One would think that stating principles would clarify so much for all parties of the treaty. On the other hand, stating principles might have adverse effects and negate benefits accrued by inventing TOW principles as and when required.
The debate is needed. While we are at it, debate the place of the Waitangi Tribunal, it is long past its usefulness in our modern and supposedly colorblind society.
You're right Ray S, but let's not try to run before we can walk. Get the 'Principles' sorted and these other things will have to fall into line. That's precisely why there is so much pushback. The gravy train is about to reach the final station, and not before time.
Maybe it is time for a bit of lateral thinking and root cause analysis? What is the root cause of this unfathomable mess. I'll skip some of the process. It is probably the TOW Act 1975. If so, and because NZ First want to tackle this issue by removing all references to the TOW in legislation where it is not directly appropriate, perhaps the root cause needs to be removed. So, let's look at repealing the TOW Act and all its subsequent amendments. "Solutions" atop "previous solutions" simply spawn/compound into more problems, so why not go to the heart of it and take out the root cause. Pareto had it sussed 80% of the problems can be attributed to 20% of the causes which are therefore deemed the significant few. It seems a no-brainer that ripping out this flawed bit of legislation would rub the fur of a few the wrong way but as the saying goes, you have to crack eggs to make an omelette. Take out that Act so the other ACT and the rest of the sane World would not need to worry about Principles of the Treaty. We could all move on, define the principles by which we want to governed (and David Seymour has those to hand) and stick them where needed to replace the 1975 tosh. Would PM Luxon go along with that given he did not think of it?
Luxflakes doesnt want to talk about it because he knows where we are heading giving away customary rights to iwi is just the beginning welcome to New Zimbabwe
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