https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/maori-group-take-freshwater-rights-fight-to-court-in-landmark-case-against-crown/
“In a landmark case, a group representing Māori landowners and hapū across the country is fighting the Government in court over freshwater rights.”
“The case centres on assurances given by former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Bill English in 2012 that Māori had rights and interests in freshwater and geothermal resources.”
“It is not about ownership of the water but recognition that Māori were afforded certain rights to freshwater resources under the Treaty”
“The group says successive governments have failed to act on English’s “solemn promise”, instead pushing Māori out of the freshwater allocation process while the country’s waterways, rivers and lakes become increasingly polluted.”
It might not be about ownership of the water today… but it will be TOMORROW!!!
Control of all our freshwater by tribal leaders came very close to fruition under the Ardern/Hipkins governments through the, clearly prejudiced and discriminatory Water Services Entity Act or 3 Waters.
3 Waters established 50/50 co-governance of the country’s entire water infrastructure and iwi, with a little clause called “Te mana o te wai,” were given the power of veto, therefore actual control.
So now Maori leadership are knocking on another door.
So much of the New Zealand that we all, Maori and all others, grew up in, grew up in concurrence, is being eroded away by weak willed, self serving and ideologically driven politicians craving another term in office.
“Māori were afforded certain rights to freshwater resources under the Treaty” Is this not just another, so often repeated “under the treaty” assertion that the legion of “useful idiots” now believe to be true?
However, if the assertion is true, – so what? Did English refer to exclusive rights? Would he be that stupid?
Yes, Maori do have rights, but no more than any other New Zealanders rights to these resources!
“Māori hold an existential, spiritual and intrinsic relationship with water and have long called for the recognition of their freshwater rights.” To me that is nothing more than unadulterated mythical BS! Their spiritual and intrinsic rights are no different to anyone else. We all need water to survive. Nothing more, nothing less!
The only spiritual and intrinsic relationship is the one they tie to financial reward!
That spiritual/intrinsic/ financial reward linkage was succinctly illustrated by Michael Laws when he discovered how Maori tribes hold NZ businesses to ransom by being culturally offended.
Click to view
“It is not about ownership of the water but recognition that Māori were afforded certain rights to freshwater resources under the Treaty”
“The group says successive governments have failed to act on English’s “solemn promise”, instead pushing Māori out of the freshwater allocation process while the country’s waterways, rivers and lakes become increasingly polluted.”
It might not be about ownership of the water today… but it will be TOMORROW!!!
Control of all our freshwater by tribal leaders came very close to fruition under the Ardern/Hipkins governments through the, clearly prejudiced and discriminatory Water Services Entity Act or 3 Waters.
3 Waters established 50/50 co-governance of the country’s entire water infrastructure and iwi, with a little clause called “Te mana o te wai,” were given the power of veto, therefore actual control.
So now Maori leadership are knocking on another door.
So much of the New Zealand that we all, Maori and all others, grew up in, grew up in concurrence, is being eroded away by weak willed, self serving and ideologically driven politicians craving another term in office.
“Māori were afforded certain rights to freshwater resources under the Treaty” Is this not just another, so often repeated “under the treaty” assertion that the legion of “useful idiots” now believe to be true?
However, if the assertion is true, – so what? Did English refer to exclusive rights? Would he be that stupid?
Yes, Maori do have rights, but no more than any other New Zealanders rights to these resources!
“Māori hold an existential, spiritual and intrinsic relationship with water and have long called for the recognition of their freshwater rights.” To me that is nothing more than unadulterated mythical BS! Their spiritual and intrinsic rights are no different to anyone else. We all need water to survive. Nothing more, nothing less!
The only spiritual and intrinsic relationship is the one they tie to financial reward!
That spiritual/intrinsic/ financial reward linkage was succinctly illustrated by Michael Laws when he discovered how Maori tribes hold NZ businesses to ransom by being culturally offended.
Click to view
In this instance it is Oceana Gold’s McCrae mine near Dunedin wanting to extend their goldfield and Ngai Tahu claiming this heinous act offended their Mana, Tapu, Whakapapa and Mauri ora.
Ngai Tahu wrote an 84 page Cultural Assessment Report, but surprise, surprise, they included a section documenting how their concerns will evanesce if offences imparted on Mana, Tapu, Whakapapa and Mauri ora were to be assuaged through “COMPENSATION,” by way of either land or money!
Don’t forget, this is not Nagai Tahu’s first rodeo.
Remember when, in 2024, Meridian Energy was reluctant to reveal the exact amount it paid Ngāi Tahu as it sought to renew resource consents for its Waitaki Hydro Power Scheme.
Laws, in the video, revealed it was $100 million dollars, to be paid over 50 years, that Ngai Tahu were able to extract from Meridian as a consequence of…. “Many of our wāhi tapu (sacred sites) and wāhi taoka (sites of significance) have been lost due to raised lake levels, and our connection to the whenua and awa has been weakened.”
New Zealand is going to disappear beneath the waves of bankruptcy because of our race-based grievance industry!
Surely a modicum of political judgement on behalf of the government would allow them to see that the voting public are thoroughly dissatisfied with the way tribal leaders are able to intimidate the government!
Just as surely a modicum of financial intellect would tell them that these “cultural offences” are unsustainable and ultimately, fall back on the consumer and taxpayer!
We are being milked dry by tribal greed!
Is this any different to the mafia protection racket, known in Italy as pizzo, where payment is extorted from businesses or individuals by the Mafia in exchange for not harming them.
We are being subjected to a prodigious graft arrangement!
An arrangement that is delivering remarkable returns to the perpetrators!
This “pay the money and you can have your cultural assessment…” goes against all that is egalitarian and fair for all New Zealanders.
This is unequivocally hypocritical and shallow. Ngai Tahu extorting corporations by using cultural objections only accentuates disrespect for the law and the absence of personal integrity by tribal leaders.
Their greed blinkers them to the extent they are unable to recognise it actually diminishes their own mana!
Unsurprisingly, other tribes around the country have caught on to this “protection racket. In Hawkes Bay the High Court has temporarily blocked a 29-hectare quarry development near a river after objections from local iwi.
The quarry was given a resource consent last year by an expert panel but Justice Andru Isac has determined the panel’s approach was wrong as a matter of law, therefore he would set aside its decision to grant the consent.
“The application for consent … is remitted to the panel for reconsideration in light of this judgment,” he said.
It might be “wrapped in law” but I think Justice Isac made clear his, and so much of the Judiciaries, interpretations and political leanings clear when stating “There is no real attempt to grapple with the true effect of the proposal on mana whenua, or how the conditions imposed met the requirements of the Treaty,” he said.
“What the panel was required to do in the present case was identify the relevant Treaty principles, identify any aspects of the proposal that were not consistent with those principles, and explain, even if briefly, why mitigation or off-setting matters … were sufficient to meet the bottom line of the treaty provision.”
Mana whenua had expressed deep concerns about the impact of the quarry on the surrounding environment and “cultural landscape” of the site. Adding “the quarry site was close to burial caves and had been the scene of an inter-hapu battle.”
Being the scene of an “inter-hapu battle.” On that basis 2/3 of Europe would be deemed sacred!
I have not heard of any financial arrangement being struck regarding this quarry that is “…close to burial caves and had been the scene of an inter-hapu battle” but I have no doubt negotiations are being conducted behind closed doors!
As Michael Laws pointed out, these “cultural offences” give Maori the opportunity to block any commercial ambition on cultural grounds unless a ransom is paid.
Laws said he no longer blames iwi for the behaviour, arguing the problem lies with politicians who created the system. “It’s not their fault,” he said. “We gave them the power to corporatise, monetise and weaponise their culture for profit.”
If Bill English did assure Maori, as Maori interests claim, that “Maori had rights and interests in freshwater and geothermal resources” then his name is now posted alongside Bolger, Graham, Key, Finlayson and Luxon as National Ministers who have infected New Zealand’s democracy with a cancer!
A cancer called ETHNIC PRIVILEGE!
Pee Kay writes he is from a generation where common sense, standards, integrity and honesty are fundamental attributes. This article was first published HERE
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