While reviewing Timaru District Council’s job description for the position of Dog Control Officer an extraordinary requirement stands out.
Timaru District Council now embeds cultural emphasis into job descriptions.
Along with dealing with wandering dogs, barking complaints, animal welfare and enforcement, the successful applicant must demonstrate:
“Commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”
I have a few questions for the Chief Executive.
What is the Council hoping to achieve by this?
If commitment to Treaty principles is genuinely necessary to perform this particular job, Council should be able to explain what practical difference that commitment makes when the officer is called out to deal with a barking dog at 2am.
Presumably the dog won't know the difference.
“Commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”
I have a few questions for the Chief Executive.
- What exactly does that mean for a Dog Control Officer?
- Which principles?
- Where are they defined?
- Are they contained in the Treaty itself?
- Is this a statutory requirement applying to an Animal Control Officer?
What is the Council hoping to achieve by this?
If commitment to Treaty principles is genuinely necessary to perform this particular job, Council should be able to explain what practical difference that commitment makes when the officer is called out to deal with a barking dog at 2am.
Presumably the dog won't know the difference.
There was once a refreshingly simple approach to recruitment: employ the person with the competence, integrity, temperament and experience necessary to do the job, and require that person to serve every member of the public fairly and without prejudice.
Surely that remains a pretty good principle in itself.
Increasingly, however, Council position descriptions contain cultural and ideological commitments that appear to have little obvious connection with the actual work being performed.
Many perfectly capable people who spent their working lives in local government might reasonably wonder whether they would satisfy today's employment criteria.
Perhaps Council could start by answering the simplest question:
What, in practical terms, does “commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” require an Animal Control Officer to do differently?
I look forward to the reply.
Graeme Spencer is a staunch New Zealander who believes in racial equality and one law for all.
11 comments:
A part-Maori owned dog must be accorded treaty rights ...special breeds like their owners...pit bulls owned by pit humans
Perhaps the dog has kuri (or guri) ancestry and given they can't speak, it seems the prospective employee is required to assume they do have such ancestry? Given our judicial system is purportedly systemically racist, maybe the local bureaucrats of Timaru are just front-footing it by ensuring that, to remove doubt over their entitlements, all dogs are to be assumed to have 'indigenous' ancestry like some of their owners and, as such, special care needs to be accorded them on engagement. Of course, to some, they are also 'taonga' - hence the need for an understanding of the Treaty as special privileges should surely prevail in that instance also?
But you're right, Graeme, it is a nonsense.
This is reminiscent of my experience with the Electoral Commission. See my Guest Editorial "Excuse me, what does the Treaty have to do with running an election?", Breaking Views 20 August.
I suspect this will mean they treat part-Maori dog owners more leniently than the rest
I am pretty ashamed to be a New Zealander. Whadda buncha nongs!
Many "moons" ago, on another media site, I cam across the following -
" The more we are complacent, the more they become embolden ".
I did some "research" to find out -
- origins of comment - it was America
- what specific 'group' it related to (then) and why.
It would appear that The Gay Community across America were "exercising the political muscle" against specific targeted groups, who they 'found' would not "put up a fight", but would step back and allow the process of change, as being directed against them, to occur.
Now, I am going to use that same 'quip' against Maoridom, who are exercising " a perceived right [according to their interpretation of the TOW] " and have forced a job description upon a Council, " who have stepped back and accepted, with out challenge", the change sort.
This is not the first time such action has occurred, to which the 'majority' step back with out challenge and allow the change to occur.
I remember your well written piece Barend. While we have cowardly politicians this madness will continue.
It is incredible that such wording is released by the Council. It is symptomatic of the degree of effective maori control which has now permeated everywhere.. The threat of cancellation precludes any questioning. And it is incredible that local news and the msm do not pick up on. Every day I mourn the loss of Bob Jones and Tremain.
Luxon comments, on other channels -
“No, I’ve never read a Nicky Hager book,” he told reporters on Monday, at his last post-Cabinet press conference of the term. “I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what the book’s about.” “I’m much more interested in getting the economy growing, making sure I’m actually restoring law and order, making sure I’m delivering better education. That’s the stuff that kind of matters, frankly.”
Well, if Luxon doesn't know who Hager is, then Luxon is seriously ignorant. Frankly, I don't believe him. Yes, Hager may be a waste of space in some peoples eyes, but for our PM to deny him says more about Luxon than it does about Hager. And what law and order problem exists, exactly, that Luxon wants to throw at us? What, exactly? I don't know of any pressing "law and order" problem seriously troubling NZ. Education, that Luxon says he wants to fix, also isn't a hugely difficult issue to address. What however is the big issue, and what Luxon is avoiding talking about, is the elephant in the room - the racial issue of extremist maori antics. Luxon refuses to talk about that. Instead, he tries to divert and bury it in rubbish political waffle about other supposed problems that are easily fixable and of little concern to true New Zealander's.
This is not the sort of leadership NZ needs. Luxon needs to go. Now.
I have not looked but I fondly imagine that "Commitment to the (nebulous) principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” is the first, last and only requirement for any position nowadays. Maybe a First Class Honours in Te Reo, unelected voting rights and advanced grift enablement could figure somewhere.
Too many of our governance structures and methods are being systematically taken over by Treaty idolatry. All in the mistaken view that the wider culture recognises this idolatry as true and holy and approves of it.
My Oxford Thesaurus relates idolatry to fetishism, paganism and heathenism.
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