Matua Kahurangi: If Māori are the experts of the moana, why are their drowning rates so high?

The other day I wrote about Green Party figure Celia Wade-Brown, who claimed Māori wards are necessary because Māori “know the rivers, whenua and sea.” It was the usual Green Party sermon, Māori as the all-knowing guardians of nature and the rest of us as too colonised to understand a high tide.

Then I stumbled across an article about Ngātiwai rangatira Aperahama Edwards, claiming the Government has no authority to make it harder for Māori to win customary marine title to the foreshore and seabed. Another familiar refrain: we are the experts of the moana, so give us ownership and control.

Pee Kay: Have you heard of these 3 people?

> Brendan J Duffy ONZM, JP
> Bonita Bigham
> Dr. Sue Bidrose

John Robertson: Scrap “Tangata Whenua” — It’s Spiritual Garbage in Legal Disguise

Let’s stop pretending: tangata whenua has no place in modern law. It’s a spiritual phrase, built on myth, used to justify race-based privilege. And it needs to go — now.

The term means “people of the land,” but it's really code for “special rights through ancestry.” That’s not law — that’s theology. It turns public policy into tribal religion. It hands out legal perks based on who your ancestors slept with. That’s insane.

Gerry Eckhoff: Metiria Turei’s column

Most will still remember Metiria Stanton Turei as a former green Party leader who resigned from parliament due to telling porkies to receive higher payments from the Ministry of Social Development. Some might suggest it is  something of an unnatural progression to now lecture in law at Otago law School and  is a regular columnist in the Otago Daily Times.   

We should all express a vote of thanks to Metiria Turei for her commentary in the ODT 19^th April. In her opinion piece on discrimination against Maori,  Ms Turei illustrates wonderfully well  just how correct one of the world greatest thinkers - Tom Sowell is with his  observation, that “people who have been placed in a privileged position for a period of time, see any withdrawal of privilege as discrimination”.