Prime Minister Luxon and members of the coalition cabinet,
For how long do you think our country can allow its treasury funds to be plundered, for the country’s social services such as health and education to be run down to a point to where they are barely able to service the populaces needs? For how long will you allow the nation’s infrastructure to deteriorate due to a deficiency of funds?
For how long will you allow one of the worlds most attractive places to live slowly descend into 3rd world status all because of spurious and illegitimate claims lodged by the Waitangi Tribunal that have seen and continues to see billions of dollars be shoveled into Maori tribal corporation pockets.
Established in 1975, arguably very naively, by a Labour government to right perceived claims by Maori against the crown, the Waitangi Tribunal has now morphed into a “Maori gravy train.”
To further enhance the tribunal's ability to siphon money from the Crown, or more accurately the taxpayer, in 1985, the Labour Party nonsensically and unnecessarily, amended the Treaty of Waitangi Act to allow the Tribunal to hear claims dating back to 1840, that when the tribunals jurisdiction was limited to claims arising from events since 1975.
The flood gates then opened and from that point Maori discovered they had unearthed a well spring of easy money!
To the point we now see the tribunal believing their authority supersedes your governments and that they are able usurp your governments authority at will. Surely you can see the inanity of that situation. But it will continue as long as you allow it!
In the first six months of your coalitions governance this farcical tribunal accepted 5 of the 6 controversial applications for an urgent inquiry into your new government's actions.
Witness this tribunal summoning Children’s Minister Karen Chhour to provide evidence at its inquiry into the Oranga Tamariki Act, all because she had the temerity to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.
The irrationality continued as the High Court ruled ministers could not be required to give evidence by the tribunal but the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling, confirming that as a commission of inquiry, it is within the tribunal's jurisdiction to summons a minister of the Crown to give evidence if it is relevant. I would hate to think what the cost to the taxpayer was for that preposterous charade.
Then a matter of days later, the tribunal announced it had accepted another request for a priority inquiry, this time into the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority!
But your government says and does nothing!
Did not the coalition agreement between National and New Zealand First include an agreement to “Amend the Waitangi Tribunal legislation to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent of that legislation”?
When will that process begin? How long will you allow the farce to continue? You are now, essentially, allowing the tail to wag the dog!
When you read an article such as this https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/12/18/new-report-reveals-more-than-2500-treaty-settlements-yet-to-start/ that highlights there are more than 2500 Treaty settlements yet to start, surely you must be able to understand that this travesty must be brought to a halt and the pretence of wrong doings by the crown be brought to an end.
Surely a modicum of political judgement would allow you to see that the voting public are thoroughly dissatisfied with the way the Waitangi Tribunal is pushing your government around!
Just as surely a modicum of financial intellect would tell you that these treaty settlements are unsustainable!
While your government borrows billions of dollars to keep the country afloat, borrowings that will see Crown debt increase by nearly $20 billion over the last financial year, you are essentially borrowing to help pay for the spurious claims of the Tribunal! Why do you let that absurdity continue?
I have posed what I believe are very serious questions to you Prime Minister, serious enough to warrant your considered response.
Yours faithfully,
To further enhance the tribunal's ability to siphon money from the Crown, or more accurately the taxpayer, in 1985, the Labour Party nonsensically and unnecessarily, amended the Treaty of Waitangi Act to allow the Tribunal to hear claims dating back to 1840, that when the tribunals jurisdiction was limited to claims arising from events since 1975.
The flood gates then opened and from that point Maori discovered they had unearthed a well spring of easy money!
To the point we now see the tribunal believing their authority supersedes your governments and that they are able usurp your governments authority at will. Surely you can see the inanity of that situation. But it will continue as long as you allow it!
In the first six months of your coalitions governance this farcical tribunal accepted 5 of the 6 controversial applications for an urgent inquiry into your new government's actions.
Witness this tribunal summoning Children’s Minister Karen Chhour to provide evidence at its inquiry into the Oranga Tamariki Act, all because she had the temerity to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.
The irrationality continued as the High Court ruled ministers could not be required to give evidence by the tribunal but the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling, confirming that as a commission of inquiry, it is within the tribunal's jurisdiction to summons a minister of the Crown to give evidence if it is relevant. I would hate to think what the cost to the taxpayer was for that preposterous charade.
Then a matter of days later, the tribunal announced it had accepted another request for a priority inquiry, this time into the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority!
But your government says and does nothing!
Did not the coalition agreement between National and New Zealand First include an agreement to “Amend the Waitangi Tribunal legislation to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent of that legislation”?
When will that process begin? How long will you allow the farce to continue? You are now, essentially, allowing the tail to wag the dog!
When you read an article such as this https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/12/18/new-report-reveals-more-than-2500-treaty-settlements-yet-to-start/ that highlights there are more than 2500 Treaty settlements yet to start, surely you must be able to understand that this travesty must be brought to a halt and the pretence of wrong doings by the crown be brought to an end.
Surely a modicum of political judgement would allow you to see that the voting public are thoroughly dissatisfied with the way the Waitangi Tribunal is pushing your government around!
Just as surely a modicum of financial intellect would tell you that these treaty settlements are unsustainable!
While your government borrows billions of dollars to keep the country afloat, borrowings that will see Crown debt increase by nearly $20 billion over the last financial year, you are essentially borrowing to help pay for the spurious claims of the Tribunal! Why do you let that absurdity continue?
I have posed what I believe are very serious questions to you Prime Minister, serious enough to warrant your considered response.
Yours faithfully,
John Porter,
Napier electorate
Napier electorate
John Porter is a citizen, deeply concerned about the incremental loss of democracy and the insidious promotion of separatism.
4 comments:
A humble thank you John. You know you speak for hundreds of thousands of us as we gratefully wait to see what more we can do to make Christopher sit up and take notice. Another protest anyone?
And still Luxon says nothing, and pushes his head deeper into the sand.
“Established in 1975, arguably very naively, by a Labour government to right perceived claims by Maori against the Crown”.
On the 8th November 1989 Attorney General, David Lange instructed Richard Hill of the Justice Department to write a report on “Settlements of Major Maori claims in the 1940’s”. As Chief Justice James Prendergast had ruled in 1877, “the Treaty of Waitangi was a simple nullity,” and the Privy Council had ruled,” the Treaty was not a legally binding document” the Treaty could not be used by the claimants to support their claims before the courts in 1940. They were heard in open court by a Judge who gave his finding to parliament and if successful, parliament negotiated a “full and final” settlement with the tribe. These 1940 settlements are fully documented in Richard’s Hill’s report.
All claims from 1840 to the 1940’s had been fully and finally” settled by the courts when the government was under the watchful eye of the Privy Council, and by the way, by 1840 the tangata Maori were only minor land owners anyway.
So who really broke the Treaty, well, read John Robinson’s book by the same name to find out the truth.
Agree with every word, thank you for having the courage to say it. I certainly do disparage these Maori gravy trainers, but hey! it is government and Councils and the woke who are guilty of allowing it - fostering it!
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