Pee Kay: What Was Next Jacinda, Ceding Sovereignty?

The Strategic Tourism Assets Protection article I wrote last week was posted on Breaking Views and one comment said –

“No comment anywhere about the Options Development Group where the objectives of the mostly Maori members are to hand most of our Crown land back to Maori.”

Well, yes there was something, undeniably underhanded, afoot with regards to the Options Development Group. This was another sordid scheme contrived by Ardern’s government that, unquestionably, can do with exposure to some sunlight!

JC: Will Willie Win?

Following Cam’s excellent article on Monday regarding Willie Jackson’s attempt to put the Māori Party on the right track, I thought I would add my tuppence worth. The question has to be: will Willie win over the dissenters?

Has Willie ever won anything in his life? He left school, became a freezing worker and got involved with the union movement, has worked in broadcasting and spent time as a politician, which is where he now finds himself. Where he also finds himself now, by the looks of it, is between a rock and a hard place, as does the party he belongs to.

David Farrar: David Parker’s valedictory

Quite a few interesting things said by David Parker in his valedictory speech:

Dame Anne Salmond describes the Treaty as an exchange of gifts—tuku—between the Queen for her subjects and a rangatira on behalf of hapū. I agree with Dame Anne that Te Tiriti is not a partnership between races. She criticises both the phrase and that legal construct from the decision of Lord Cooke in the 1987 land case. I don’t think those comments from Cooke are a necessary part of the ratio decidendi of that case, and it would be helpful for the senior courts to say so if they are of that view.

John Bell: New Zealand’s Constitutional Crisis - Where to for Treaty Principles?

With the recent defeat of the Treaty Principles Bill, New Zaland faces a constitutional crisis. With the exception of the ACT Party’s MPs, every Member of the House voted to reject both the principle that our democratically elected Parliament is sovereign and the principle that all New Zealand citizens have the same equal status before the law. Worse, the Prime Minister has specifically stated that there was nothing in the Bill that he supported.

Mike Butler: State racism, dysfunction exposed

ACT leader David Seymour has done New Zealand a huge favour through his Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill – he has exposed the racial divide that has been created by successive governments.

The debate and referendum that Seymour courageously pushed for should have taken place decades ago, before former Justice Minister Geoffrey Palmer launched the treaty settlement never-ending story that has apparently not settled anything.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Why Māori & Pasifika Do not Share the Same Basic Economic & Non-Economic Values as Labour & Greens.

Former Finance Minister Robertson told a story in his valedictory speech in Parliament. He said that he "wanted to thank [fellow Labour Party MP] Willie Jackson for his patient & calm advocacy. I genuinely felt his aroha when he said “why do you hate the Māoris” when I had just given him a $1 billion of funding". It got laughs, but Labour actually does hate Māori, even though MMP strategies mean that many do vote for it (but only when nothing else is on offer). Here are three reasons why Labour, and Māori & Pasifika, have little in common.

Graham Adams: Fear and loathing grips the left over NZME shake-up

As a range of commentators on the left of politics pop up to denounce James Grenon’s proposed NZME board takeover, the objections by E tū director Michael Wood seem particularly hypocritical. 

In a press release last week, the head of the journalists’ union complained the Canada-born billionaire had a clear agenda to use NZME for his own interests. “[He] clearly wants to use his financial clout to steer the editorial direction of one of New Zealand’s largest and most important media networks.”

Graham Adams: Storm clouds gather over Tamihere's fiefdom

A likely reduction in Whānau Ora funding rattles Te Pāti Māori.

Alongside the woes crowding in on John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust — including the report into Manurewa Marae due at the end of January and news that the Charities Services intends to deregister the trust over political donations — there has been a largely unremarked move by the Ministry of Māori Development / Te Puni Kōkiri to reopen tenders for Whānau Ora cash.

The news broke in late June, and clearly came as a bombshell to Tamihere, whose organisations have long been recipients of taxpayer money.

David Farrar: Can someone explain the difference to Willie between a judge and a prosecutor.

Willie Jackson writes:

The backlash generated by ACT, National, NZ First, Hobson’s Pledge and other right-wing bad faith actors towards Solicitor-General Una Jagose’s prosecution guidelines, has been nothing short of a race-based moral panic to fan the flames of racism rather than challenge them.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 25/10/24

Yelps tell us Willie Jackson was stung by Beehive news about Richard Prebble sitting on the Waitangi Tribunal

An announcement from the Beehive yesterday had the distinct whiff of “jobs for the boys” about it – the appointment of Richard Prebble as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Nevertheless it’s fair to suppose there will be significant support for the prospect – or hope – of Prebble tempering the tribunal’s zeal for censuring the Crown.

JC: The Left Are Showing Their True Colours

The headline above is intended to highlight their behaviour but, unsurprisingly, it all also reflects the colours of their parties. I discovered this when researching the colours of the Maori Party. I came across the relevant information on a site called ‘The Fount’. The Fount is a team of designers with skills in the area of branding, web and graphic design. Before starting on the article proper it is worth noting how the party colour reflects the characteristics of the MPs who belong to it.

Cam Slater: Make Your Mind up Willie

Willie Jackson is a motor mouth with a poor memory. Just a few weeks ago he was attacking Melissa Lee and calling her ‘useless’, ‘stupid’ and ‘incompetent’, and yesterday he was waxing lyrical about her skill set after Christopher Luxon sacked her as Broadcasting Minister. Make your mind up Willie!

Cam Slater: No Willie, It’s You Who Is Stupid

Willie Jackson, who regularly engages his mouth before his brain, has called Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee “stupid”. He is making out that Melissa Lee has no idea of how to save the media, while he has all the answers.

Graham Adams: The tohunga suppression myth that won’t die

Few will acknowledge the 1907 law was a Māori initiative.

Jonathan Swift’s observation in 1710 that “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it” seems entirely apt for last week’s parliamentary debate on disestablishing the Māori Health Authority.

No fewer than three MPs — MPs Cushla Tangaere-Manuel (Labour), Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke (Te Pāti Māori), and Steve Abel (Greens) — referred to the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907, conjuring an image of an oppressive settler state dedicated to crushing mātauranga [traditional knowledge] and “Māori spiritual leadership” — as Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi has described it.

“What is the strategy?” asked Hauraki-Waikato’s Maipi-Clarke. “What does that mean, by taking out mātauranga Māori? Is that Tohunga Suppression Act 2.0?”

Peter Williams: Seriously Willie?

Jackson cashes in with dumb reporters

Willie Jackson is an illogical, irrational, hypocritical political clown.

(He once called me an anti-vax, climate denying racist so I figure I owe him one.)

Think for a moment about this.

Cam Slater: Using the PIJF to Justify the PIJF

It takes a special kind of stupid for a politician to call up a mate to run a story decrying the ‘attack’ on the Public Interest Journalism Fund, when that journalist and his stories are paid for by the very same PIJF. Then again it is Willie Jackson.

JC: Let’s Get This Maori Thing Straight

The election has been had. The coalition agreement is in place. For those of us on the right there is much to like; for those on the left it is a different story. Many of their expensive ideological policies have quite rightly gone. These include the racist policies brought in at the behest of the Labour Maori Caucus. Most voters were awake to the games Willie Jackson, Nanaia Mahuta and John Tamihere were playing. The type of policy arrangements they were trying to progress were very much a contributing factor to Labour’s devastating defeat.

JC: Willie Needs His Gob Smacked

Willie, Willie, Willie… when will you learn?

Willie Jackson, once again, has made the mistake of opening his mouth. Willie is something of an arsonist in the sense that his comments are designed to be inflammatory and have an incendiary feel about them. He aims to light a fire under the topic he is speaking on.

Willie’s latest effort in this regard concerns the Treaty of Waitangi. In Willie’s world, this document is not up for discussion. He is incensed that a little so-called Maori upstart by the name of David Seymour wants a referendum to let the people determine the meaning of the principles of the Treaty so that they apply to modern times. This, of course, is not democracy as Willie understands it. He’s already enlightened us to the fact that ‘democracy has changed’. Democracy, in Willie’s view, appears to be ‘the world according to Willie’.

Mike Hosking: How democracy can thrive

I think part of the comfort we should take around the so-called "rabid outbreak" of free speech this week is that words don’t automatically lead to anything

You've got your two prime examples: Chloe Swarbrick and her outburst on Palestine, and Willie Jackson and his outburst on a potential vote over the Treaty.

The difference is one has an implied threat and the other doesn’t. Swarbrick should never have said what she said, it's inflammatory.

Chris Trotter: Threatening “Consequences”

“CONSEQUENCES” – it’s a word that acquires an ominous quality in the mouths of political radicals. As in: “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from its consequences.” Or, as Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa Packer expressed it, when asked what would happen if the Act Party secured its referendum on Te Tiriti from its new coalition partners: “We have always said there will be consequences.”

In both contexts the word is freighted with menace. It is impossible to miss the threat which the word is now required to bear. What the political radical is saying to the person about to avail herself of what is perhaps the most fundamental of all human rights is chilling.