Cam Slater: Tau Henare Spits the Dummy

Brown-mail and intimidation seems to have become the Maori way

We are seeing a sea change in our democracy, and it is being done right before our very noses, with nary a peep from a complicit media. That sea change is the wholesale abandonment, by Maori, of democracy in favour of threats, bullying, intimidation and outright brown-mail if they don’t get their own way.

Mike Butler: Treaty book tells of grievance, greed

If you want to know about treaty politics, grievance and greed, and how we got into a position with a tribal elite routinely claiming half of everything, Tribes, treaty, money, power – a guide to New Zealand’s treaty issues is the book for you. This cannot be a review of the book because I wrote it. But I can tell you what it contains and what it set out to do.

This book, published this week, started in mid 2008 when I put in a written submission opposing the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill, and drove up to Wairakei to present my submission orally to the Maori affairs select committee.

Mike Butler: The gay-marriage self-parody

The phrase “gay rights for nuclear-free whales” quite accurately parodies the shallow, trendy, bumper-sticker campaigns of the New Zealand left. Shallow trendiness dominated parliament this week as Labour MP Louisa Wall’s Marriage (Definition of Marriage Bill) Amendment Bill passed its third reading 77 votes to 44.

Mike Butler: Mokomoko and the gullible MP

When a select committee chairman appears to have offered a signed blank cheque to a claimant to fill out the amount, you know that emotion has trumped reason in the highest level. That is virtually what happened as the Maori Affairs committee heard a submission from Pita Tori Biddle at Waiaua Marae, Opotiki, last week, on a bill to restore the character, mana, and reputation of chief Mokomoko and his descendents.

Mike Butler: MPs wise to reject oaths bill

The rejection of Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell’s Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill may indicate that the claimed political unanimity on treaty matters is not so united. A closer look at what Flavell was trying to achieve shows that his oaths bill was part of a wider Maori Party campaign to weave a “cash cow for Maori’ version of the treaty into law and into the day-to-day activities of as many people as possible.

The purpose of Flavell's bill was "to ensure that a person taking any oath set out in statute may, in addition to the words of the oath, elect to state that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi", which would recognises "that the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document and the Government is committed to fulfilling its obligations as a treaty partner". (1)