Fiona Mackenzie: Open Letter to Mr Little, Leader of the Labour Party

Dear Mr Little,

As an Aucklander, I am disappointed that you recently criticised the removal of the Sites of Significance overlay and requirement for CIAs in the region’s Unitary Plan (Waatea News 11/8/16). But then again, you may not be aware of the facts.

There is already a well-established process for properly identified and substantiated heritage and/or waahi tapu sites to be recognised and protected. I do not have a problem with that.

Mike Butler: Tribes first up for social housing

New tribal corporations appear to have the first right of refusal for all state houses the Government plans to sell because such rights to surplus Crown properties have existed in treaty settlements back to the Waikato-Tainui deal in 1995.

Housing was the main subject of Prime Minister John Key’s state of the nation speech last week. A proposal to sell between 1000 and 2000 Housing New Zealand properties over the following year for use as social housing run by approved community housing providers was the standout among five proposals that included:

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.