Peter Williams: Te Pati Maori End Game

Could they claim the balance of power?

The country’s youngest MP has revealed the answer to the question many have been asking for some time.

What is the end game for Te Pati Maori?

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke told us succinctly in her speech at Parliament after the hikoi.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 22/11/24

More young offenders will get boot camp, bus drivers will get some protection – and there’s relief for southern farmers

The Government has struck more blows to show it is tough on law and order.

One announcement advised us of a bill introduced to Parliament to deal with young offenders and introduce more boot camps.

David Farrar: Do the KCs believe in democracy

Liam Hehir points out:

Forty-two senior lawyers, known as King’s Counsel, have written to the government with a scathing critique of the Treaty Principles Bill. Their letter raises a number of concerns with which I am in full agreement. However, they also make a statement about Parliament’s law-making authority that contains a fundamental and egregious error.

Barry Soper: The hīkoi was Māori Party's crowning glory

The Māori Party will be well pleased with the hīkoi this week. 

There was the long-planned haka in Parliament’s debating chamber last week, for which they’ll be slapped on their wrists with a wet bus ticket, but the hīkoi was their crowning glory. 

This was all about politics, grievances aside, and they’ve got what they craved, publicity. The march could easily have turned ugly with a good representation of bikies, legally showing their patches for the last time before they’re made illegal on Thursday. 

Olivia Pierson: A Hikoi vs A Country

New Zealand’s history is messy, fascinating, and occasionally absurd. The Maoris weren’t exactly sitting around in a utopia when the Europeans turned up. They were busy having a go at each other in tribal warfare and, yes, usually eating the losers.

The British didn’t arrive with halos over their heads either, but they did bring literacy, a legal system and building standards for a life above the dirt. They also brought an uncanny knack for signing treaties which actually meant something substantial when they were signed. The representatives of Queen Victoria would never have signed a treaty in her name without guaranteeing her full sovereignty over that colony. To say otherwise is part of the 'occasionally absurd’ bit.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 17.11.24

Friday November 22, 2024 

News:
Te Pāti Māori files complaint against Gerry Brownlee as coalition targets haka
Te Pāti Māori has laid an official complaint against the speaker of the house Gerry Brownlee following Tuesday’s Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, Aotearoa’s biggest protest on parliament grounds.

Te Ao Māori News reported that the complaint comes as all three parties from the coalition Government have also issued a complaint against Te Pāti Māori co-leaders for doing the haka in parliament last week.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Does the Treaty Hikoi signify the birth of a new Māori nation?

On the first day of the Coalition Government’s parliamentary term in December of 2023 Te Pāti Māori called for a National Māori Action Day, which co-leader Rawiri Waititi described as “a day of activation”. Waititi then led 300 protesters on a hikoi to Parliament where they performed a haka on the forecourt. The small activation foreshadowed something more significant for the quickly evolving Te Pāti Māori.

Graham Adams: Seymour’s opponents need better arguments

Academic and legal elites embarrass themselves in the Treaty debate.

It is always astonishing just how dumb very smart people can be. A week after Donald Trump’s stunning win in the US presidential elections — that many saw as a repudiation of elite metropolitan opinion being imposed on ordinary citizens — a 44-strong phalanx of King’s Counsels thought it would be an excellent idea to denounce David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill in an open letter to the Prime Minister and his government.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: NZ Descends into a S*!# Show on the World Stage.....

NZ Descends into a S*!# Show on the World Stage. MPs Mock Judges. Legal "Royalty" Mock MPs. Other MPs Mock their own Parliament. We're not a serious nation.

Let there be no doubt. NZ has turned into a world laughing stock. A nation without a clue what it stands for - what is in, or out of, its constitution - if it even has one - whose MPs can't explain & debate issues - is a country that cannot long endure. The question for the PM is not why he didn't address the hīkoi - it is why he didn't join it. After all Luxon's key objective is the same as Te Pāti Māori: Kill the Bill.

Kerre Woodham: Should we be raising the alarm over drug use?

Remember yesterday when we were talking about the declining rates of hazardous drinking among young people? Good news. And then so many of you posting that it's because they're popping pills and taking other drugs. Bad news. It looks like you might be right.

Lindsay Mitchell: Sharp departure in child poverty approach

Released today, the government's new Child and Youth Strategy might, at first glance, look like a rehash of Jacinda Ardern's child poverty reduction plan. However, it contains some major differences.

For one, it will track the number of children in benefit-dependent households. This recognises the obvious pitfall of simply increasing benefit payments to parents, which only draws more onto benefits and makes it harder for them to get off. Hence, under Ardern's plan, we saw a 26% increase in children reliant on benefits between 2017 and 2023.

Thursday November 21, 2024 

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Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 21/11/24

Three minutes after midnight, police make arrest under new gang patch law – but the boot camp news is disappointing

The good news on the law-and-order front today came from an ebullient Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Police had made their first arrests under the new gang patch legislation, with two gang members arrested, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

Just before 11 this morning, Police in Wairoa apprehended a gang member for wearing a patch to the supermarket. He had been arrested and would face “enforcement action”.

Mike's Minute: The ComCom Transpower decision is madness

It's ironic that we mention the Commerce Commission yesterday and here we are today, indulging in a bit more of its madness.

Lines charges, the cost of getting power to your house, is going to get more expensive.

Your bill will rise for the next handful of years by up to $85. That’s over $1,000 a year.

Brendan O'Neill: Why they refuse to see Jews as victims

The left’s pitiless cynicism about the pogrom in Amsterdam confirms how morally lost they are.

It was the speed with which the racism fearmongers became racism deniers that was most unnerving. Virtually overnight, as men whose only crime was their Jewishness were still being patched up in Amsterdam hospitals, the preening racism denouncers of what passes for the Euro-left were saying this wasn’t racism. The very people who see racism everywhere could not see it here, in the broken teeth, black eyes and bloodied faces of Israelis who became the prey of a self-described Jew hunt earlier this month in Amsterdam. Confronted with beaten, bruised Jews, they said, for the first time I can remember, ‘Maybe it wasn’t a hate crime. Maybe it was something else.’

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Lessons for Australia in NZ's polarising Treaty debate

For decades, Australian advocates for indigenous reconciliation have pointed to New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi as a model. Where Australia lacks a foundational agreement with its First Nations peoples, New Zealand has had one since 1840.

Yet current developments across the Tasman suggest that having a treaty is no guarantee of settling complex questions of indigenous rights. In fact, New Zealand’s experience shows how such documents can become focal points for ongoing – and often polarising – debates about national identity and governance.

Dr Eric Crampton: Finally proposals to set access charges

Getting from Auckland to Cathedral Cove means a two-and-a-half-hour drive over 178 kilometres, the last third of which is a windy path through the Coromandel.

Inland Revenue sets a $1.04 per kilometre mileage rate for business travel – a figure meant to include wear and tear on your vehicle as well as running costs. Running costs will include the charges the government sets for using the roads, which help to recoup the cost of building and maintaining those roads.

Guest Post: A submission in support of the Treaty Principles Bill

Ann Arnold's submission first published on Waikanae Watch

The original Treaty of Waitangi February 1840 was written in English and translated exactly word for word into Maori (often called the Littlewood version) and was signed at Waitangi. It consisted of 3 Articles. There were no principles in the original document. The only difference between the Maori and English versions were the date and the word Maori, inserted to make sure it was understood Maori were citizens too. The original version brought all peoples of New Zealand under the sovereignty of Queen Victoria and was what Maori and Pakeha wanted, and signed on that auspicious day 6 February 1840.

Ele Ludemann: Public must have trust and confidence in police

Soon to be Police Commissioner, now deputy, Richard Chambers has a welcome perspective on policing by consent:

Simon O'Connor: The path to irrelevance

With so much media reporting at odds with public sentiment or clearly one-sided - be it in New Zealand or as we have seen recently in the United States - the direction of travel is not positive.

There are many lessons to take away from the United States’ elections, but one that has immediate relevance to New Zealand is the yawning gap between the views of mainstream media and the public.