Mike Butler: Flaky Ngati Whatua report fisked

Sometimes, light-weight bleeding-heart commentary needs to be taken to task. Today, Brian Rudman of the New Zealand Herald is in the gun for his article “Joe Hawke gains victory”. A “fisking”, according to the Urban Dictionary, is where a commentator is beaten through his words, often interspersing criticisms with the original article's text. The term is named after Robert Fisk, a reporter known for anti-western writings.

Rudman: Yesterday in Parliament, the long struggle for justice, reignited by Joe Hawke and his fellow squatters in the 1970s, finally came to an end with an apology from the Crown, and ritual compensation by way of cash and land.

Mike Butler: Devonport snub one of many

A submission by Devonport residents opposing the inclusion of Narrow Neck land in a treaty settlement failed to impress the Maori Affairs select committee, the members of which alleged mistrust and misunderstanding. Three months after a heated hearing at Orakei Marae, the committee recommended that the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Claims Settlement Bill should pass including 3.2ha of Defence Force land as commercial redress, and told the residents to establish a good relationship with Ngati Whatua because they will be neighbours. (1)

Local board chairman Chris Darby said he was not surprised by the outcome because “the line of questioning from the committee was laced with so much predetermination”. Perhaps Mr Darby does not yet realize that this “predetermination” characterizes all select discussions of treaty settlement bills, because all treaty settlements become legally binding once the agreement is signed and the passage of the bill through parliament is a drawn-out time-consuming rubber-stamp exercise.

Mike Butler: Finlayson’s furtive deals infuriate

A secret briefing on the deal to give $13.8-million of land in Devonport to Ngati Whatua has infuriated Auckland Mayor Len Brown. A copy of the secret briefing to the Hauraki Gulf Forum was used to berate Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson and National Party MPs at a public meeting at the Devonport Navy Gym on Saturday, the New Zealand Herald reported. (1)

Hauraki Gulf Forum members come from three government ministries, six councils and local iwi. Christine Fletcher, Sandra Coney, Mike Lee, Denise Roche, Paul Downey, Des Morrison and Wayne Walker were Auckland Council's members. Roche and Coney had left by the time the secret briefing occurred, the NZ Herald reported. Takapuna-Devonport Local Board chairman Chris Darby revealed the secret briefing.

Mike Butler: Takapuna deal shabby

A row that has erupted over the sale of a $41.7-million block of prime Auckland waterfront land cheaply to Maori as part of a big treaty deal shows the sort of shabby unintended consequences resulting from a flawed attempt to right alleged historical wrongs.

The New Zealand Herald reported that the 3.2ha Takapuna Head site, used by the New Zealand Navy as an officer training school, is being sold back to Ngati Whatua for $13.8-million - but the iwi has been given freedom to do what it likes with the land.