Mike Butler: How iwi smears ratepayer

When local ratepayer Ivan Howe told the New Plymouth District Council’s new public engagement committee that “you’ve got the iwi coming in here … and they’re giving you advice – and the councillors they don’t know what the iwi’s talking about,” the response was predictable.

According to Te Ao Maori News, which is a part of Maori Television, and which is funded by taxpayers, Howe said: “They’ll tell you what they think, and what they think happened and the councillors [have] got no argument to counter it.”

The Te Ao Maori News story is far from objective reporting. The story exists solely to name and shame a critic of the current treaty and co-governance orthodoxy. Howe also questioned whether Maori are indigenous.

Bob Edlin: Lake will be drained to tackle the gold clam threat but (psst!....

Lake will be drained to tackle the gold clam threat but (psst! – we are thinking of Parliament) what else could be emptied of pests?

PoO’s monitors of who has been doing what to whom were fascinated to read that “an infestation of invasive clams has forced the draining of a lake in New Plymouth”.

Forced?

Mike Butler: Waitara leaseholders pressured

A further step in a long-running dispute over leasehold land at Waitara, 16km from New Plymouth, was made last night when the New Plymouth District Council voted unanimously in favour of a proposed local bill.

That bill would give 76 hectares of land to Taranaki tribe Te Atiawa and give Waitara leaseholders the right to buy the land under their homes.

Mike Butler: Iwi lose New Plymouth vote battle

Tribalists lost the latest battle in the war for separate Maori representation on Tuesday when the New Plymouth District Council voted against a proposal that would have seen iwi representatives appointed to standing committees with full voting rights. Proponents of such set-ups either don’t understand or don’t care that extra race-based representation is one quick way to destroy our basic right as citizens of one person one vote.

Moreover, proponents cite “treaty partnership” as a justification without either knowing or caring that references to claimed partnership only go back to 1989, when Sir Geoffrey Palmer opined that the treaty principle of co-operation could mean “the outcome of reasonable cooperation will be partnership”.