Geoff Parker: Freshwater - Who Should Control New Zealand’s Water?

Author’s Note: This article represents the author's research and interpretation of the historical documents, legislation and court decisions cited below. The purpose is to contribute to the public debate over the constitutional future of New Zealand's freshwater resources. The conclusions expressed are the author's own and are not presented as legal advice. The primary sources are cited so that readers can examine the evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

New Zealand is facing an important question that deserves far more public attention:

Who should ultimately control New Zealand’s freshwater resources?

Andy Oakley: For Social Cohesion, Should We Scrap the Terms Pākehā and Māori in New Zealand?

In today’s opinion piece, the question is a big one: Should New Zealand ban the words Māori and Pākehā?

Not just discourage them — I mean remove them from legislation, from government documents, from schools, and from official use entirely. For the sake of actual social cohesion, these two words have become more harmful than helpful.

The Leighton Smith Podcast: Dr Muriel Newman on this year's hugely consequential general election

Leighton Smith and Dr Muriel Newman discuss the ongoing constitutional shift toward iwi influence, co-governance and race-based policies. In this election year, New Zealand is arguably facing its biggest challenge to date.

Click to listen - Audio

Dr Michael John Schmidt: Pragmatic Water Management

In my previous article “WCC’s Actions Are a National Moral Hazard”, the objection to transferring water assets was framed in moral and ethical terms: councils hold critical infrastructure in trust for the public, and irreversible transfers undermine trusteeship and create moral hazards by allowing responsibility to be exported rather than exercised.

Pee Kay: A Biased Survey or Survey bias?

Survey bias occurs when the survey methodology is skewed to systematically favour a prescribed outcome. This, obviously, leads to results that do not accurately represent the correct or true feelings of the target population.

Survey bias can be perpetrated by phrasing the poll questions in a manner that can significantly influence, guide, and determine the answers provided by poll respondents.

Leading or loaded questions steer poll respondents toward prerequired or predetermined answers.

Bob Edlin: Asians could make a case for special governance arrangements....

Asians could make a case for special governance arrangements in Auckland – but they don’t have a treaty

A report with a very curious opening sentence was posted on the RNZ website at the weekend.

It kicked off:

JC: This Racism Has Got Out of Hand

Racism is rearing its ugly head everywhere, especially where where it’s not needed. It is threatening to dominate our lives whether privately or in the workplace. There are far too many woke busybodies around who deem it their business to lecture the rest of us as to how we should live, think or go about our business. Wokeness is particularly noticeable amongst certain generations of politicians. This particular affliction appears to be most discernible in the generations under the age of 50.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Will NZ Centre-Right Voters Forgive National's Grand Coalition Betrayal of Trust on the Treaty in Election 2023?

Last week, American Vice President JD Vance told European Security Chiefs in Munich, Germany, that the threat to European nations lay far more from within, than externally from the likes of Russia & China. In particular, despite a majority of European people wanting to restrict illegal mass immigration, Euro politicians, bureaucrats & academics have gone out of their way to subvert that democratic wish.

Suze: All Aboard the Trump Train!

Politicians on the left are stunned into silence watching Donald Trump’s juggernaut train mow down everything in its path in the quest to remove Deep State corruption and interference from the American Government and restore democracy, national security and freedom of speech to the people.

David Farrar: A hero staffer at Hutt City

Bravo to Joann Ransom, the Head of Libraries at Hutt Council. As you can see above she fought against the decision of the Hutt Council to remove an insert from Hutt News they didn’t like (the insert was a copy of a pamphlet Sir Apirana Ngata wrote on the Treaty).

Geoff Neal: Of ‘The Facts’ Obliterates Biased Racist Mainstream Media

Geoff’s factual reporting of important issues effecting all New Zealanders, not only offers the best statistical evidence available in the country, his data leaves the corrupt, racist, bribed and biased mainstream media for dead.

Centrist: Geoff Neal of The Facts delivers data showing public division over the Treaty debate

New Zealand’s ongoing debate over the Treaty of Waitangi has exposed deep divisions, with polling suggesting strong public support for ACT’s Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, despite opposition from political parties and media coverage.

Data presented by market researcher Geoff Neal of The Facts to Parliament’s Justice Committee showed that most Kiwis feel the country is becoming more divided.

Roger Partridge: The sovereign reality and our path to nationhood

Waitangi day debates about New Zealand’s sovereignty often fixate on a single moment: the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. This focus is understandable, given the Treaty’s significance to both Māori and the Crown.

But is this the full story of how New Zealand’s sovereignty was established? And if not, is there a way for the country to move beyond the endless arguments about sovereignty and the Treaty?

Barrie Saunders: Exiting the constitutional rabbit hole

Very well-intentioned politicians, judges and others have taken NZ down into a Treaty rabbit hole, from which few know how to exit, without creating more social divisions. The modern interpretations of the Maori version of Treaty have set aside a common understanding of a few decades ago, and there is now heaps of anxiety and aggravation.

We face the reality that some iwi leaders, academics and others, think the Treaty created a “partnership” between the Crown and Maori leaders, and they should have equal say in the governance of the country, even though the terms “partnership” was not in any version. Furthermore, the textual ambiguities in the Treaty have led to Parliament legislating for recognition of the “principles” of the Treaty for which it has not provided any definition. There is an amazing amount of literature for such a short Treaty, which in itself shows up its practical limitations. To some it appears we have infinitely flexible avenues for iwi to ask for more.

Garrick Tremain: Break ins

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on addressing New Zealand's crime problem! 

Thomas Cranmer: Realpolitik and New Zealand's Relationship with the Crown

While New Zealand's transition to a republic may seem inevitable, the influence of realpolitik could potentially dictate otherwise.

On Saturday, King Charles III was crowned in London in a magnificent ceremony steeped in tradition that celebrated the continuation of the monarchy’s long history. Every detail emphasised its ancient past and the link between God, king, and country. More than that, it was a celebration of Britishness complete with pomp, pageantry and wacky eccentricity.

In the Commonwealth Realms, King Charles’ accession to the throne has been greeted in more subdued fashion. Over many years, there was the suggestion that the Queen’s death would trigger reform of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. However, whilst questions of republicanism have inevitably arisen over the last six months, it is notable that both upon Charles’ accession to the throne and his Coronation, the discussion around those questions by politicians and in the media has been muted.

In his final press conference before departing New Zealand for London last week, Prime Minister Hipkins suggested that he was a republican because his belief was that in time we would become a “fully independent country”.

Garrick Tremain: Waitangi

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the ongoing exploiting of the treaty ! 

Denis Hall: The Treaty farce

As I lay here in bed this morning trying to make sense in my head of the conundrum that this Treaty farce has all been turned into by despicable government functionaries - who have simply heaped one lie upon another to completely subvert the intentions of the people who lined up in their hundreds to sign the thing - I am almost in despair - but I have to fall back on the simple thing of it.

I have read it over and over - and the Treaty of Waitangi is a simple document - with simple and obvious and straight forward intentions. It emerged out of thirty years of appalling Maori on Maori bloodshed - and Maori on Maori violence with Muskets that touched every Tribe (See Musket Wars) when they slaughtered 20% of their own population - and the Chiefs who instigated the William Yate letter to set the treaty in motion - were the Maori Statesmen of the time to have done that. We should all know their names.

(See and read the William Yate Letter on Google.)

Chris Trotter: A Bridge Of Insufficient Strength.

A great deal can be learned from the metaphors politicians choose to illustrate the challenges they are required to overcome. At the recent gathering of Māori and Pakeha leaders at the Māori King’s Turangawaewae marae, the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave us the metaphor of te Tiriti o Waitangi as a bridge. Somehow, she suggested, New Zealanders must be brought safely across this fragile structure. Her job is to lead them.

Listening to the Prime Minister, I was reminded of the compelling final scene of the movie The Man Who Would Be King, in which Sean Connery strides bravely towards safety across a swaying rope bridge. Behind him, enraged tribesmen hack away furiously at the anchoring cables. Beneath him, a yawning chasm waits to swallow-up the foolhardy Scottish soldier.

Certainly, it is difficult to escape the notion that the Prime Minister perceives this present moment to be one of considerable historical danger.

Don Brash: One of the worlds most successful democracies at risk

On the night before the 2002 election, when I was a list candidate for the National Party, I was attending a black-tie event in Napier. Before we sat down to eat, the host asked the local vicar to give thanks.

The vicar gave thanks for the food and the drink which we were about to consume, and then said that we should give thanks also for the fact that, in just 24 hours’ time, we would have elected the members of the next Parliament “and nobody will have been shot, nobody will have been beaten to death, and the Army will still be in its barracks”. Let’s give thanks, he said, that we can say that with absolute confidence – “and we are one of only a tiny handful of countries in the entire world where this can be said with confidence”.

He was right, and we should all be profoundly grateful that what the vicar gave thanks for that night is still true. Recent polls suggest that a majority of New Zealanders are opposed to the present Government. And it is clear that a great many New Zealanders abhor the Government with an intensity that I haven’t previously witnessed. But nobody seriously suggests overthrowing it by armed rebellion. And nobody imagines that if, as I hope, the Government loses the next election in a landslide, it would attempt a New Zealand equivalent of the January 6 attempt by former President Trump to overturn that election result.