In 2019, under the guise of implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government adopted “Vision 2040” – a blueprint by radical Maori to replace democracy with tribal rule by 2040.Drafted by a panel appointed by then Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta, He Puapua was so explosive that Labour kept it hidden from their Coalition Partner New Zealand First – and also from voters – in the run up to the 2020 election.
Once Labour won an outright majority, He Puapua was bulldozed across the State Sector and beyond by Labour’s Office for Maori Crown Relations – an agency of over 200 staff that worked in collaboration with iwi leaders.
The outrage that followed He Puapua’s discovery did not stop Jacinda Ardern from forcing illegitimate co-governance and Treaty partnership arrangements into the country’s legislative and regulatory framework. Those actions played a key role in Labour’s downfall.
Once the new National-led Government was established, it was heartening to find “Stop all work on He Puapua” was one of their policy commitments.
And while the Coalition’s main focus has been on reversing key He Puapua measures including repealing Three Waters and the Maori Health Authority, the tribal push for power has now switched to a new target - local government.
He Puapua outlined a strategy for the tribal takeover of local government. The measures included: expanding Treaty obligations to local government, transferring Council Resource Management Act consenting powers to iwi and accrediting tribal Hearing Commissioners, increasing the number of Maori Seats to 50:50, giving tribes effective control of freshwater along with royalties for water usage, and exempting Maori freehold land from rates.
Maori wards have created the pathway to achieve a number of these goals – at speed.
By abolishing the petition right, Labour opened the door for councils to change the voting system and introduce Maori wards - without the public having any recourse. Changing the way electors elect their representatives, without giving electors a say, is inconceivable in a modern democracy - yet not when Labour was in charge.
While separatists argue the tribal voice around the council table is still in a minority, they ignore the fact that Maori are now seriously over-represented in local government at 21.6 percent. As a result, when Maori elected in Maori seats join forces with Maori Councillors in general seats, through the support of sympathetic Councillors pushing environmental and social justice causes - they often have a majority.
As a result, an effective tribal takeover of local government by stealth is now underway.
The Northland Regional Council provides a case study of how it works.
Their Council of nine has two Maori seats and three councillors who campaigned on environmental concerns. This ‘coalition’ of radical interests, which now controls the council, is responsible for on-going dysfunction including leadership coups and counter coups.
In addition, the Council has a Maori Advisory Group of 21 members representing competing tribal interests throughout the North. There’s also pressure from the Northland Iwi Leaders Forum.
As a result of tribal coercion, in April the Council adopted “Vision 2040”, their Maori Advisory Group’s Treaty Strategy and Implementation Plan – a local government equivalent to He Puapua. The council is now effectively co-governed by Maori.
Their objectives include increased voting rights for the Council’s iwi advisors, more funding for tribal involvement in Council activities, more staff time allocated to facilitate Maori engagement, more iwi employed by Council, more iwi contracts with Council, more funding for tribal economic development, greater Council use of Maori cultural values including tikanga and Matauranga Maori, greater tribal control of freshwater, the transfer of the Council’s resource consenting powers to iwi, and the allocation of funding grants of over $2,000 per person for three iwi members a year to become certified as Resource Management Act Hearing Commissioners.
Taken together, the initiatives demanded by the Maori Advisory Group will cost the Council over $1.5 million a year.
It is little wonder that rates around the country are now almost double the OECD average!
In addition to all of this, there are three Mana Whakahono a Rohe agreements with the Council that have been independently set up under legislation passed by the National Government in 2017, giving tribal groups further rights of involvement in local government decision-making.
All in all, tribal capture is now crippling the Northland Regional Council. That means it is crippling Northland. In fact, the Council opposed the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals legislation in spite of the potential benefits to Northland, on the basis that it would “severely constrain iwi and hapu participation in decision making”.
Some will say things can be sorted out at the council elections in 2025. But it’s not as simple as that.
Firstly, a great deal of damage can be done over the next 12 months when the motivation of the controlling group on a Council is self-interest.
And secondly, there’s an expectation by these powerful Maori advisory groups that they will be retained from one council to the next. While some new councils may hold a vote on the matter, in reality most new councillors would lack the confidence to oppose their reappointment - especially when there are 21 members of the group!
In light of the Coalition’s announcement that the four local government wellbeings – cultural, environmental, social and economic - are to be abolished, surely it makes sense to also abolish all formal council cultural advisory groups as well. This would free up councils from the oppressive influence of the powerful tribal groups that are now in control of local government in their area.
It should be very clear to the new Local Government Minister that a serious problem of ‘capture’ now exists within councils. It will be no easy task to return control of local government to local communities - and Commissioners may need to be appointed in extreme cases.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Northland will be happening all around the country to a greater or lesser degree. The fact that 45 of the country’s 78 councils have introduced Maori wards - in spite of their communities being opposed - is an indication that most have been captured by tribal interests. Furthermore, many of the 33 councils that haven’t introduced Maori wards, are already controlled by their powerful advisory bodies – like the Gore District where the Council’s Ngai Tahu advisory committee persuaded Councillors to designate their entire region as significant to Maori.
In other words, special rights for Maori are corrupting councils from making decisions in the best interest of their community to making decisions in the best interest of tribal corporations.
The reality is that He Puapua is alive and well in local government and in spite of the coalition pledge to “Stop all work on He Puapua”, it is now so rampant that it is threatening to take over the sector entirely, with very significant consequences for ratepayers! What is even more galling is that many tribal landowners do not pay rates.
While successive governments have contributed to the dangerous situation we now face, it was the former Labour Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who set the ball rolling when he included in his new Resource Management Act, special rights for Maori to be involved in resource consenting including - through the transfer of council powers - as a Consenting Authority.
The problem is that over the years, as a result of taxpayer-funded treaty settlements, tribal groups have grown into powerful multi-billion-dollar business conglomerates, that run numerous operations that come under the regulatory umbrella of local authorities. That’s why they are so focussed on influencing local government - not only to gain control of the resource consenting processes, but also to ensure their representatives become authorised as Resource Management Act Hearings Commissioners, so they can directly influence outcomes.
This matter was discussed in the Annual Report of Ngati Whatua – the billion-dollar tribal business corporation that orchestrated Maori seats throughout Northland. Their report makes revealing comments about the use of Maori Hearings Commissioners:
“The Dome Valley Landfill application by Waste Management was the second most important issue for the Runanga. The first hearing was held at the office of Ngati Manuhiri in 2020. In that hearing we lost our case. In my view we lost because we had commissioners with strong pakeha views making the decisions. It was clear from their judgement they didn’t care about anything we had to say. The only Maori commissioner on the panel, Sheina Tepania, supported Ngati Whatua on everything we said.
“Our appeal against the decision was finally heard in the Environment Court in April this year at Te Ao Marama Community Centre in Te Hana. It was pleasing that we had two strong maori commissioners who sat on the hearings panel, and we had two Environment Court Judges who are familiar with maori values and tikanga.”
What this confirms is not only that tribal groups are targeting the resource consent process, but the judiciary as well. In effect, this will ensure decisions are being made in the interests of tribal groups rather than for the benefit of the wider community.
It’s time the Coalition Government took this corruption seriously. The only way forward is to remove cultural considerations entirely from the resource consenting process.
In reality, Sir Geoffrey Palmer should not have created any special rights for Maori tribal interests in the Resource Management Act. Instead, like its original predecessor – the 1953 Town and Country Planning Act - Sir Geoffrey’s legislation should have remained colourblind.
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, Constitutional Law Expert David Round, a former Law Lecturer at Canterbury University, is highly critical of Sir Geoffrey’s legacy:
“Sir Geoffrey seems strangely unaware of the insane complexities and delays and preposterous expenses of the present Resource Management Act system, which is often little more than a gigantic racket and can easily descend into outright corruption.
“The latest news is that there has been an agreement for Meridian and Genesis Energy to pay Ngai Tahu, the Department of Conservation ‘and others’ over $180 million in return for them not objecting to applications to renew resource consents for electricity generation from Waitaki River waters. Those payments, of course, ultimately come out of our power bills.”
The reported payment of well over $100 million to the $2-billion Ngai Tahu corporation in return for resource consents is so extortionate, that an inquiry should surely be held into the deal. Shareholders of Meridian and Genesis should be calling for it – as should taxpayers, since the Government is the majority shareholder in both companies.
In a similar case, the Herald’s investigative reporter Kate MacNamara has revealed that Auckland Council’s water services company Watercare agreed to “$20 million worth of payments” in a secret deal with another $2-billion iwi – Tainui - in return for access to water from the Waikato River until 2032. This was on top of an earlier $40 million agreement with the iwi.
Like the Ngai Tahu extortion, it’s not the companies that pay these bribes – it’s the end users.
The fact that this sort of coercion now forms part of the consenting process illustrates only too clearly why vested interest groups should play no role in consenting decisions - and have no role in the replacement legislation to the Resource Management Act that is currently being drafted by the Coalition.
David Round believes New Zealand is now in a perilous position: “New Zealand now is at a very dangerous time. Now is about our last chance to turn the tide against the divisive racism which fanatics in the Labour Party have long been pushing, and which cowards in the National Party have for far too long been tolerating. If we do not turn the tide back now we are goners as a nation.”
He’s right. The Coalition has a big job reining in tribal groups, which have now captured most of our institutions, including local government.
Lip service will not be enough to sort out this mess. Real action and real reform is now needed.
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3 comments:
Well written Muriel. The damage being done in New Zealand runs parallel with apartheid practices in the old South Africa, which appalled most Kiwis. We were once one and the envy of the world until Comrade Ardern introduced her “divide and conquer” poison.
There is no place for separatism in NZ. The never ending grievance handouts must cease immediately. I know where David Seymour sits but he can’t do all the heavy lifting on his own. His co Govt partners have got to lend a hand or resign themselves to being kicked out at the next election by disillusioned voters.
Absolutely.
Concur: Our coalition must get busy and deal with this head on, Luxon's lacklustre performance is a sad indictment of his inability to read a room, while Winston is correct in saying there are no principles in the ToW, Palmer et al stuffed that up and that genie can only go back in the bottle with affirmative action to define exactly what our governing principles must be, else the Marxism BS will prevail - 'cos it is at the moment!
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