Graham Adams: Hikoi threat over Treaty clauses review

Fighting talk from a TVNZ journalist.

The government’s review of Treaty clauses in legislation has mightily displeased one of the resident Māori activists at 1News. A column by Te Aniwa Hurihanganui that accompanied her televised news segment last week is titled “Govt risks another colossal hikoi if it weakens Treaty obligations”.

JC: Hīkoi No More Than a Hiccup

The politicians, particularly those on the right, with the exception of ACT, need to realise that those who put them in power did so in the belief the necessary courage was there to fix this festering sore. We are now left in doubt and that is not good enough.

Another hīkoi has come and gone. An unknown number of unemployed travelled, mainly in motorised transport (the invention of the despised white man). If their media mates appeared with a camera they would leap out and pretend they had been consistently on the march. But we weren’t fooled, any more than we were fooled by this political stunt pulled by people who had nothing better to with their time. You might recall the old saying ‘the Devil finds work for idle hands’.

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.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Good luck convincing us of impartiality

Good luck to TVNZ.  

Good luck to TVNZ trying to convince anyone that they are unbiased, given what's just happened with them in the last week.  

I just played you the clip of the Breakfast reporter singing with the organiser of the Hikoi - which I think any right-minded person would interpret as an endorsement of the Hikoi.

Ele Ludemann: Playing to the separatist gallery

The hikoi, or as Shane Jones called it on The Country yesterday, the car koi, is not just about the Treaty Principles Bill.

Any Māori grievance you could ever think of will be embraced by the hīkoi which is wending its way from the Far North and the deep south to converge on Parliament next Tuesday. . . .

Trying to find out, from those trudging along the Auckland waterfront under the snarled-up Harbour Bridge, what exactly what their gripe is was met with a frowning, blank stare or a cold shoulder. . .

Barry Soper: The hīkoi organisers already lost the argument

Any Māori grievance you could ever think of will be embraced by the hīkoi, which is winding its way from the far north and the deep south to converge on Parliament next Tuesday.

We're told by the organiser Eru Kapa-Kingi that the Treaty Principles Bill, which is about to receive its first and last debate in Parliament today, is a minor part of the hikoi. That's surprising, given the large number of placards that are being lugged across the country denigrating the bill.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Disrupting people won't make us sympathetic to your cause

I've actually been surprised at the level of anger I've heard expressed today at that Treaty Principles Bill hīkoi crossing over the Harbour Bridge - and I don't think it's a good thing for this particular cause.

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, I got an email from a mum I know complaining about the impact it will l have on kids trying to get to their NCEA exams on time.

Graham Adams: TVNZ hīkoi documentary needs a sequel

20 years on, judges are quietly awarding coastal rights to iwi.

Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account of 2004’s hīkoi from Cape Reinga to Wellington — narrated by Tāmati Rimene-Sprout, who marched as a 10-year-old — is undeniably atmospheric and will certainly be rousing for those who support Māori nationalism.

For others, Hīkoi: Speaking Our Truth will look like the opening salvo in a propaganda campaign to head off attempts by the government to amend the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011, which repealed Clark’s legislation.

Kerre Woodham: Gangs are not the victims here

As you have heard in our news, a hikoi has begun from Northland to Parliament to oppose National and ACT’s gang policies and to highlight the negative impact those policies could have on the Whanau of gang members.

The hikoi is also stopping off at marae and gang houses along the way to encourage people to vote (presumably not for National or ACT). The policies the hikoi organisers are concerned about include National’s proposal to make gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing, with the intention of gang members facing tougher consequences for their crimes. The banning of gang patches in public places, boosting police numbers to enable warrantless searches, preventing some gang members from communicating and restricting public meetings. ACT wants to introduce gang control orders to crack down on gang members and increase the power police have to seize assets of members found with illegal firearms.