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

Chris Lynch: Unelected council members to lose voting powers

The Government has moved to stop unelected appointees from voting on council committees, saying decision making should rest with representatives chosen by voters.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts announced changes to the Local Government Act 2002 that would mean voting rights on council committees would be made only for elected councillors.

David Farrar: Pay us off or we’ll oppose it

ACT released last week:

“An iwi group’s alleged demand for $180 million in order to approve the Bendigo Santana gold mine exposes how New Zealand’s resource management system has been warped by standover tactics and backroom dealing,” says ACT Resources spokesman Simon Court. 

Mike Butler: How iwi smears ratepayer

When local ratepayer Ivan Howe told the New Plymouth District Council’s new public engagement committee that “you’ve got the iwi coming in here … and they’re giving you advice – and the councillors they don’t know what the iwi’s talking about,” the response was predictable.

According to Te Ao Maori News, which is a part of Maori Television, and which is funded by taxpayers, Howe said: “They’ll tell you what they think, and what they think happened and the councillors [have] got no argument to counter it.”

The Te Ao Maori News story is far from objective reporting. The story exists solely to name and shame a critic of the current treaty and co-governance orthodoxy. Howe also questioned whether Maori are indigenous.

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.

Insights From Social Media: National’s ‘Service Delivery Plan’

Re National’s ‘Service Delivery Plan’ Graeme Spencer writes.

Since the inception of the "Local Water Done Well" reforms, I have always questioned what the end game is.

Forgive my scepticism, but anything involving water reform now tends to raise the hackles. After years of "improving water quality", we’ve seen millions, possibly billions, flow steadily into consultants, strategies, delivery plans, reform programmes, governance models, transition frameworks, and then revised versions of all of the above. None of this expenditure has reached our pipes, plants, or reservoirs.

Bob Edlin: We should avoid talking about “tribes”.....

The challenge of trying to be inoffensive – we should avoid talking about “tribes” (but how did the Romans do it?)

PoO has been wondering about rewriting our history books for a New Zealand audience.

For example, when it comes to British history, our books say that – before the Roman invasion – Britain was a mosaic of different tribes, each with its own leaders, territory, and, in some cases, distinct customs.

Bob Edlin: Have Councils ceded to iwi the power to tell you (without explanation) to stay away....

Prayers and prohibitions – how councils have ceded to iwi the power to tell you (without explanation) to stay away

Police officers, fire fighters and ambulance staff were not the only people called in when one person died and another was seriously injured after a vehicle fire in the Lower Hutt suburb of Taitā a fortnight ago. People granted the power to impose a “keep out” prohibition for cultural and spiritual reasons were brought in, too.

A Lower Hutt Council spokesman was quoted as saying:

David Farrar: Let Ruapehu fall

Newsroom reports:

New Pure Tūroa Ltd chief executive Jono Dean has written to ministry officials seeking their assistance, after iwi on both the north and south sides of the mountain lodged High Court challenges to the company’s concession to operate a private business in the national park. …

Graham Adams: Hey presto… Three Waters becomes Five Waters!

The media fails to notice the select committee bombshell that will hand iwi control over coastal and geothermal water.

Nanaia Mahuta must not be able to believe her good luck in being blessed with the most gullible and incurious mainstream media any quiet revolutionary could hope for.

Her good luck has continued after Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee dumped its report on Three Waters into the public arena on Friday afternoon.

Such timing is normally seen by journalists as a screaming red flag that the government wants to bury contentious information.

Fiona Mackenzie: A Grab for the Gulf

The feeling of having been totally out-manoeuvred has become a common sensation amongst Auckland regional ratepayers – and they don’t know half of what is going on. This powerlessness extends to some of the well-meaning City Councillors who thought they were being elected to work for the people; they now see themselves as fall guys, taking the rap for conniving bureaucrats, greedy iwi and unscrupulous politicians.

Latest Target

Currently, there’s a scheme being executed to gain control of the Hauraki Gulf and its surrounds. It’ll give a few from 26 tribal groups incredible power over a massive and very critical 4,000km² body of water (from near Mangawhai in the North down to Waihi in the south, and beyond Great Barrier Island to the east), along with the significant land catchments bordering the entire eastern coast of Auckland, the extensive Hauraki Plains, the entire Coromandel Peninsula, and the many islands of the Gulf.

Michael Coote: Iwi plans push tribal supremacy

In its draft Unitary Plan (UP), Auckland Council slips in mention that it will, “Require [land] subdivision, use and development … to incorporate the outcomes articulated by mana whenua through consultation and within iwi planning documents.”

This statement would ordinarily be a recitation of basic legal obligations on Auckland Council under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), except that the UP is proposing an entirely political commitment to privilege and facilitate the interests of Auckland’s Maori tribes over the rest of the community.

Elizabeth Rata: New Zealand Constitution - why iwi have got it wrong

*The NZCPR WEEKLY newsletter is delivered free each week - register here. This week's Guest Commentary extract:

There is deep disquiet throughout the country about iwi claims for water rights. However by focussing on the resource itself; previously the foreshore and seabed, this time water, next time airwaves, geothermal energy, and so on, we are in danger of overlooking the source of the issue, of overlooking why such claims can be made in the first place. To find the fundamental flaw in the tribes’ case for the ownership of  public resources such as water we need look not only at what is to be owned but at who is claiming ownership. The essence of the tribal claim is that iwi represent a separate ‘public’ – the Maori people - and are therefore entitled to own the resources of that ‘public’... Read More

Muriel Newman: Are we one or two?

*The NZCPR WEEKLY newsletter is delivered free each week - register here. This week's extract:   

Masquerading as servants of their people, an elite group of tribal leaders have persuaded governments to give them public riches that they do not deserve. Today they are claiming the ownership of New Zealand’s water. Last year they were given the right to make secret deals for the ownership of our mineral-rich foreshore and seabed. Before that, the Clark Government gave them a slice of the electromagnetic spectrum – hardly something that tribal leaders could claim they “owned” at the time of the signing of the Treaty... Read More