Bruce Moon: Charlie Martin and the Bigger Issues

“Oh, what a tangled web we  weave when first we practice to deceive” - Sir Walter Scott

As I read between the lines ….

Charlie Martin, published in “The Press” 10 September 2023, tells us a story about Julian Batchelor, a man he describes as having romped over New Zealand with the spirit of a doomsday preacher warning about the apocalypse.  Well?  In brief, Martin’s style is florid, personal to the man and tone deaf to the message delivered.

Mike Butler: Iwi leaders feeling heat?

A comprehensive rant from a spokesman for the National Iwi Chairs Forum is a rare display of a privileged and powerful elite apparently feeling the heat of public criticism.

In a piece titled “Co-governance is good for us”, published in E-Tangata on August 27, 2023, Te Huia Bill Hamilton tries to counter Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance campaign. (1)

Hamilton, who declares that his ancestry is “Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Raukawa, Nga Rauru, Scotland”, is described as “a Treaty of Waitangi and human rights specialist and a lead adviser for the National Iwi Chairs Forum, who has spent 25 years educating Pakeha and tauiwi about Te Tiriti through his company Treaty Solutions”.

Mike Butler: The denigration of Julian

The beneficiaries and supporters of “co-governance” have stepped out into the open, courtesy of Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-governance tour. And that is what powered the chaotic meeting in Hastings, on Monday, July 24, when the local iwi chair Bayden Barber sent in his people to resist this “attack on our identity”. (1)

That resistance took the form of persistent heckling which posed substantial difficulties for Batchelor to get through his three-hour plus presentation. When a heckler starting smashing Batchelor’s gear, police closed the meeting.

Iwi chair Barber’s interference preceded the meeting that was first booked at the HB Racing Centre. Without speaking to the racing centre, Barber released an open letter urging the centre to cancel the booking.

Gary Judd: “We were here first,” is no justification for anything

That, at root, is why racism is irrational and evil. It pretends that a category of people distinguished in some way by the nature of their ancestry are a collective mass with collective ideas, behaviour, etc.

10 July’s debate between Julian Batchelor and Buddy Mikaere, skillfully moderated by Sean Plunket, helped to highlight some of the issues in the co-governance controversy with particular reference to Batchelor’s meetings around the country.

Hopefully, New Zealanders may be starting to have a debate we should have had a long time ago. Major credit must go to The Platform for enabling discussion to take place. There are many places -- such as much mainstream media and, I regret to say, within legal organisations such as the New Zealand Law Society and the New Zealand Bar Association -- which promote one side of the debate but refuse to share the platforms they have with those who disagree.

Mike Butler: What triggered Julian?

The day that correspondents on the tail of an email from Heritage New Zealand gloated about getting control of a picturesque Bay of Islands homestay property via “wahi tapu” legislation was the day Julian Batchelor launched his Stop Co-governance crusade.

Batchelor, a former teacher turned real estate salesman, has held dozens of hall meetings throughout New Zealand and distributed hundreds of thousands of booklets.

At those meetings he tells his story of an attack on his two-storey villa at 2am on January 1, 2016, that involved a haka by 20 Maori men on his front lawn, death threats, and $10,000 worth of damage.

That was just one of a series of incidents since 2008, when Batchelor bought the villa on 3.5-acres of land at Rawhiti on the Cape Brett peninsula about 35 minutes from Russell.