Mike Butler: Hunting the 5000BC moa hunters

Just down the highway from where I live in Hastings, New Zealand, exists the evidence that people trapped, cooked, and ate giant Moa birds there more than 7000 years ago.

But New Zealand’s “indigenous people” have only been here since 1250 AD, some may say.

Moa hunters in Hawke’s Bay 3000 years ago may seem like a conspiracy theory but I do recall the headline in the Napier Daily Telegraph, on April 5, 1969, which said “Bones show Poukawa was inhabited 3000 years ago”.

Mike Butler: English treaty text what to know

Auckland researcher Martin Doutré wanted to know how an English text signed at Waikato Heads mission station on April 11, 1840, came to be regarded as the official English text. After all, New Zealand’s first governor, William Hobson, had declared that Te Tiriti, the text in Maori, was the official treaty. So Doutre obtained under the Official Information Act high-resolution photos of the backs of the originals of the two texts signed on that date. What he found left him gob-smacked.

“The photos show that the smaller sheet was subsequently wax glued and paste glued, as well as pinned, to the large sheet . .. rendering the two pieces of paper adjoined into one treaty document,” he said.

“At some stage these two sheets of paper were torn apart, causing duplicate damage to both sheets.”

Mike Butler: Disinterest in pre-Maori history stuns

Official disinterest in pre-Maori New Zealand history stunned Australian-based researchers Peter Marsh and Gabi Plumm in Part 1 of their new documentary series titled Skeletons in the Cupboard.

Episode 1 The Redheads assembles evidence that Aryans from India migrated to the islands of the Pacific, including New Zealand.

Mike Butler: Maori TV ambushes blogger Ansell

Native Affairs tried to host a debate on Monday night on the Littlewood Treaty, on New Zealand’s “alternative history” and on groups critical of the treaty industry. What this state-funded television service delivered was a two-on-one ambush featuring Mana Party candidate Annette Sykes and Maori TV presenter Mihingarangi Forbes against Treatygate blogger John Ansell.

If the debate was an attempt to show that Maori TV was making a genuine effort to present other viewpoints, as is required in broadcasting, staff there need some guidance. The two-on-one harangue was framed by an anti-Titford tirade by Reading the Maps blogger Scott Hamilton plus a repeat of comments by grievance specialist Ranginui Walker, who spoke on the previous week’s feature on the same subject titled “What lies beneath”.

Mike Butler: Maori TV shows anti-white bias

Bias is prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair. Maori TV showed anti-white bias as it launched an attack on jailed Northland farmer Allan Titford and supporters on Monday night, failing to treat the subject fairly and accurately as required.

What lies beneath revisited the Te Roroa claim at Maunganui Bluff north of Dargaville, Titford’s battle with claimants, his conviction for allegedly burning his home, and included interviews with claimant Alex Nathan, Maori rights academic Ranginui Walker, activist/unionist Justin Taua, treatyism critic John Ansell, pre-Maori New Zealand researcher Martin Doutre, treatyist academic Paul Moon, and old footage of former MPs Muriel Newman and Ross Meurant.