Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 31/8/23

$110.783m of highway spending comes from the govt – payments to the news media will come from corporate giants

Transport Minister David Parker today explained what is happening to $110,783,000 of the government’s $419 million Transport Resilience Fund.

Work will start this year on the first 94 projects under a fund dedicated for early preventative works to protect our state highway network from future severe weather disruption, Parker said.

Kate Hawkesby: Everyone seems to know what to do about killer seaweed - except the Govt

Labour announced yesterday that ‘bottom trawling and Danish seining will be banned in most of the Hauraki Gulf as part of a plan to better protect the 1.2-million-hectare marine park.’  

They have four options going for public consultation next week, one of them stipulating that ‘bottom-trawling would be banned from 89 per cent of the Gulf. Currently, 27 per cent of the Gulf is closed to bottom trawling and Danish seining fishing methods.’  

Bottom trawling involves dragging weighted nets over the seafloor to catch fish.  

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 12/8/23

Megan Woods brays about $33.3m. energy funding for big businesses – but how much was spent on warming 15 whare?

Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods, in two press statements, eagerly answers one of the burning questions which concerns Point of Order when we monitor the government’s official website: how are ministers spending (or misspending) our money today?

One statement tells us where $33.3 million will be going: into primary industry sector projects to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions in partnership with Government.

Michael Bassett: The sinister thing about co-governance

The term “co-governance” trips off ministerial tongues with ease but it’s clear most people don’t know what it means. Nanaia Mahuta would have us believe it simply means that Maori would be guaranteed some sort of undefined say in decision-making. Fair-minded Kiwis think that’s OK. When I was Minister of Local Government I urged local authorities to set up standing committees of local Maori which would be consulted on matters of special interest to Maori. Most complied. But that was nothing like enough for Maori radicals who pushed for Maori wards, and then convinced Mahuta to legislate over the top of local referenda where moves to introduce Maori wards had been voted down, usually by large margins. Now that Maori wards are mandatory for all local councils, the radicals have moved to the next stage. It isn’t enough for Maori who nearly all have majority Pakeha DNA in their bodies. They are smarting from the reality that they form only 17% of New Zealand’s population. They now want that 17% turned magically into majority status in all decision making. That’s what the current calls for “co-governance” are all about.

Derek Stubbs: The co-governance agenda visits the Hauraki Gulf

With the Government pushing ahead with its plan to introduce greater co-governance, the Hauraki Gulf Forum is jumping on the bandwagon.

For the fourth time in seven years, the Forum is considering a recommendation to seek legislative changes to the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act as outlined in the report ‘Updating and strengthening the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act’.

This report recommends several significant changes.

NZCPR Weekly: Undermining Democracy in New Zealand

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we investigate how race-based demands for tribal co-governance are threatening New Zealand’s democracy, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Fiona Mackenzie reveals how tribal groups have been using co-governance to gain control of Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, and our poll asks whether you believe iwi co-governance is undermining democracy in New Zealand.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Fiona Mackenzie: A Grab for the Gulf

The feeling of having been totally out-manoeuvred has become a common sensation amongst Auckland regional ratepayers – and they don’t know half of what is going on. This powerlessness extends to some of the well-meaning City Councillors who thought they were being elected to work for the people; they now see themselves as fall guys, taking the rap for conniving bureaucrats, greedy iwi and unscrupulous politicians.

Latest Target

Currently, there’s a scheme being executed to gain control of the Hauraki Gulf and its surrounds. It’ll give a few from 26 tribal groups incredible power over a massive and very critical 4,000km² body of water (from near Mangawhai in the North down to Waihi in the south, and beyond Great Barrier Island to the east), along with the significant land catchments bordering the entire eastern coast of Auckland, the extensive Hauraki Plains, the entire Coromandel Peninsula, and the many islands of the Gulf.