Pee Kay: National… the Enemy Within? (Part Two)

PART TWO: The Key/English years

John Key, National Prime Minister from 2008 until 2016 when he suddenly decided he had undertaken enough ‘brand management,” abruptly threw in the towel and passed the baton to Bill English!

John Key and his trusty sidekick for all things Treaty, Attorney-General and Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson oversaw the period when National’s munificence to Maori moved from regional resource deals to a sweeping constitutional surrender of the New Zealand coastline!

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Former National Party Treaty Minister Finlayson damages NZ....

Former National Party Treaty Minister Finlayson damages NZ by describing ACT as a "populist" party in world news.

The "populist" cat-call is being used a lot these days. Its often heard in the context of the US President. Now former NZ National Party Minister for Treaty Negotiations Chris Finlayson has written an article in the UK's Guardian newspaper called, "New Zealand’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill has been Defeated - but the Fight against Populism isn’t over". He states ACT is "adopting increasingly populist policies" and "One can only hope [the National Party] starts asserting itself over its populist smaller partners". What Garbage. Shame on Finlayson for wrongly characterizing NZ politics. What's he playing at?

Bob Edlin: Tarzan shouldn’t forget the Whanganui River’s special legal status....

Tarzan shouldn’t forget the Whanganui River’s special legal status – or how a National MP appeased the taniwha

The team at PoO noted the other day that a bloke named Brenden Hawkins was about to embark on “an extraordinary challenge”, attempting to become the first person to paddle a surfboard the full 235-kilometer length of the Whanganui River.

According to the press statement from I am Hope, he should now have set out on his journey. Or voyage.

The Leighton Smith Podcast: Dr Muriel Newman on the danger to the governance of NZ, the Marine & Coastal Area Act

            Click image to listen

Muriel Newman and her organisation NZCPR (New Zealand Centre for Political Research) have a long standing campaign to prevent a tribal takeover of NZ’s foreshore and seabed.

With Muriel, we cover the danger to the governance of NZ ie, the Marine & Coastal Area Act, a common electoral role, media, radicalisation and its growth and the danger of a return to the Dark Ages.

Mike Butler: Hut burning and tribal control

A purge of colonial buildings in the Urewera park which shows that tribal co-governors act like wolves in sheep’s clothing came to an immediate halt today courtesy of the High Court.

The ruling comes after applicant Wharenui Clyde Tuna sought to halt what he described as “the hasty destruction by fire of the hut network throughout Te Urewera”.1

“Between the burning down of the Kanohirua hut at the end of October 2022, the applicant believes between 15 and 20 huts have been burnt down by employees or contractors of the second respondent [Trustees of Tūhoe – Te Uru Taumatua],” the judgement said.

Mike Butler: Three Waters constitutional racism

Now that we know that Three Waters is about power not water services, now is the time for the National Party to unite with ACT to block a constitutional change by stealth that would embed race-based governance.

A prompt reaction from iwi leaders on Wednesday to an alternative proposal for Three Waters from four mayors is evidence that the water services proposal is about power and not water quality.

The reaction came from Waikato-Tainui chair Tukoroirangi Morgan, who said "I don't know which world they belong to. This is 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand. This is about partnership."1

Chris Trotter: David Parker Rejects Co-Governance.

On his Politik website, Richard Harman reveals how Environment Minister David Parker upset the co-governance project. Labour’s Māori Caucus saw co-governance becoming a central feature of Parker’s Natural & Built Environments Bill – the legislation poised to replace the Resource Management Act. On the all-important regional bodies established by the legislation, it was assumed that 50 percent of the seats would be reserved for Māori, leaving the rest for the rest.

According to Harman, Parker refused: successfully facing-down the opposition of Nanaia Mahuta and the Māori Caucus “in what may be seen as a defining move by the Government, which has been under fire over the Three Waters co-governance proposals.”

Chris Trotter: Nanaia Mahuta’s Super-Narrative.

Whether Nanaia Mahuta followed the conflict-of-interest rules set out in The Cabinet Manual hardly matters. A dangerous political narrative is forming around the appointment of, and awarding of contracts to, Mahuta’s whanau in circumstances that, at the very least, raise serious questions about this Government’s political judgement. Enlarging this narrative is the growing public perception that the mainstream news media is refusing to cover a story that would, in other circumstances, have attracted intense journalistic interest. The conflation of these two, highly damaging narratives with a third – the even more negative narrative of “co-governance” – has left the Labour Government in an extremely exposed and vulnerable position.

The Government’s failure to adequately prepare the New Zealand public for what Labour clearly regards as the inevitability of co-governance hasn’t helped. The party did not campaign on the issue, and kept He Puapua, the controversial “road-map” to full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – i.e. co-governance – by 2040, under wraps. Similarly unheralded was the Government’s determination to establish a separate Māori Health Authority. And the application of co-governance principles to Mahuta’s deeply unpopular “Three Waters” project has done nothing to allay public fears that the country is being changed, in fundamental ways, without the electorate’s consent.

Point of Order: Finlayson calls for a robust debate on co-governance – but then he disparages naysayers as “the sour right” and “losers”

Co-governance was aired by The Detail team on Radio New Zealand this morning in a broadcast which featured former Attorney-General Chris Finlayson, who also served as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations.

Reporting on the broadcast, Newroom said The Detail had examined the question “what is co-governance?” and had found out it’s not a new concept.

Really?

Did they not know about the co-governing of the Waikato River as a consequence of the Tainui Treaty settlement, or about several similar arrangements that have accompanied other treaty settlements?

Having acknowledged the concept is not new, the Newsroom report further said

Bryce Edwards: Did Louisa Wall get a fair deal from Labour and Jacinda Ardern?

Scores are being settled at the moment, with Labour MP Louisa Wall going out in a blaze of media interviews to air the dirty laundry of her party. These surprising red-on-red attacks are going to be damaging for all sides.

Wall’s media blitz over the weekend paves the way for her valedictory speech on Thursday in Parliament. She’s been putting her side of the story about why she was de-selected from her safe seat of Manurewa, and why she was never given a Cabinet role when other less experienced and often inept politicians kept being promoted ahead of her.

Why did Labour and Wall fall out?

Wall has confirmed that her lack of political elevation to Cabinet was no oversight, but a deliberate policy of Ardern’s. She claims that Ardern told her that she would “never” be a cabinet minister while Ardern was prime minister. And Wall says that Ardern also wanted her out of Parliament, saying “She was obviously very clear that she didn’t want me in her caucus”.

Mike Butler: Tribes compete in Auckland claim

It was only a matter of time that some tribe would claim the city of Auckland. Then, lo and behold, when the frail, intellectually challenged Maori king did just that on Friday, a second claim for the City of Sails was revealed.

First, Maori king Tuheitia told more than 500 people at his annual speech at Turanagwaewae Marae that he was determined to launch a claim for greater Auckland.(1)

Mike Butler: Treaty negotiator pay update

A new list published today of amounts paid to treaty negotiators that Winston Peters got from Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson may be compared with a similar list from 2013 to see differences, gaps, with one amount being less than two years ago.

Finlayson provided a breakdown of the amounts paid to Government-appointed Crown negotiators for each year since 2008, in response to a Parliamentary written question from Peters.

Sarah Taylor: Race-based plan in HB merger

A race-based Regional Planning Committee imposed upon the Hawke's Bay Regional Council by Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson has been included in the proposed five-council Hawke's Bay amalgamation without scrutiny or debate.

Residents of Hawke’s Bay have a postal vote starting August 24, 2015, to decide whether or not the Hastings, Napier, Wairoa, Central Hawke’s Bay councils, and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, should merge as a single council with a regional planning committee, a Maori Board, and a natural resources board.

Mike Butler: Nursing a grudge Tuhoe style

A claim that Crown soldiers threw Tuhoe children into the air and impaled them on bayonets, reported yesterday, offers a glimpse of how Tuhoe have nursed a grudge and how the facts don’t back their beliefs.

Kaumatua Taane Rakuraku “remembered” this story for the benefit of reporter Michael Fox of Stuff news as the Crown prepared to apologise for land confiscations, indiscriminate killings, including of women and children, and scorched-earth warfare. (1)

Mike Butler: Ngapuhi dollar amount declines

The dollar amount for any Ngapuhi settlement is declining after a prediction yesterday from Labour MP Shane Jones that the government offer would be $250-million -- when the total demanded by claimants on Waitangi Day was up to $600-million.(1) From the Far North, Jones is of Te Aupouri and Ngai Takoto descent, as well as having Croatian, Welsh and English ancestry. Both Te Aupouri and Ngai Takoto have signed deeds of settlement. Jones even worked out for Ngapuhi the amount they would lose each year by not settling.

Without the Waitangi Tribunal's tortured arguments, the Ngapuhi claim for such a vast sum of taxpayers money cannot be justified. Note also that this claim is being negotiated before the Waitangi Tribunal has completed its inquiry into Ngapuhi claims. The government has made a decision without regarding the inquiry.

John Robinson: Killing rewards rubber stamped

A truly bizarre Treaty settlement Bill which is moving inexorably through parliament provides Wellington region tribe Ngati Toa with a wide range of special powers, holding reserves in fee simple, granting of governance arrangements with 11 councils giving special involvement with planning and control of large swathes of the coast.

One “redress instrument” is the right to apply a nga paihau or an overlay classification that “acknowledges the traditional, cultural, spiritual and historical association of an iwi with certain sites of significance”, and thus to set out limitations for access and use by others.

Mike Butler: Pauanui opposes reserve giveaway

Residents of the small Coromandel town of Pauanui are upset that the beachfront strip of land that encircles their town has been offered as part of a settlement to local treaty claimants, Ngati Hei. Pauanui, located just over 40km south of Whitianga, is a popular destination for Auckland holidaymakers in the summer, when the town’s population swells from 740 to 15,000.

The Pauanui Ratepayer and Residents Association said that government treaty negotiator Mike Dreaver, with co-operation from the Thames Coromandel District Council, had offered Ngati Hei sites including the entire Pauanui beachfront reserve and Estuary reserve, effectively “ring fencing” Pauanui from the water.

Fiona Mackenzie: Sycophantic Journalism Undermines Democracy

In a normal working week, I’m like many others when it comes to the news.  It’s a quick flick through the headlines, appraising the articles as “not relevant, relevant, or salacious gossip”.

Busy people rely on journalists to find out the important news, the stuff we really need to know and do something about. Unfortunately, this era of quick sound bite entertainment has turned the focus from the profoundly investigative to the superficially sensational - a “shark, babe or tears” level of news.

Mike Butler: Top-ups to make richest tribes richer

The two richest tribes will become $138.5-million richer since treaty settlement top-ups were triggered, the Otago Daily Times reported this week, with a former tribal negotiator in charge of handing out the settlement spoils. (1)

The Ngai Tahu and Waikato-Tainui tribal corporations, which operate as charitable trusts, negotiated relativity clauses of the sort that used to characterise union wage negotiations, entitling each to a percentage of all future treaty settlements once they exceed $1-billion in 1994 dollar terms. The government has calculated that the amount payable to Ngai Tahu was $45.6-million, or $68.5-million when adjusted for inflation. Waikato Tainui will receive a cash payment of $70-million.

Mike Butler: $170m Tuhoe deal looks like a U-turn

An agreement to pay Ngai Tuhoe $170-million to end their complaints has no mention of a lump sum payment of £100,000 made in 1958. The transfer of the Urewera National Park out of Crown ownership into a co-governance entity looks like a U-turn after Prime Minister John Key had already ruled out giving the National Park to Tuhoe.

The Dominion Post thought the deal heralded a brighter path while noting that if hunters and trampers found access impeded or fees charged, and if there is any hint that the state has connived in creating a slush fund through handing over delivery of social services to tribal providers, the government of the day and Tuhoe will feel a backlash. (1)