Bob Edlin: Prime Minister's position on Maori seats.....

How the PM wriggles when asked to declare his position on the future of the Māori seats

Can the PM support something which he regards as senseless?

The answer is yes, when it comes to supporting the Māori seats.

An RNZ report in January 2023 was headed

Matua Kahurangi: End the Māori seats debate properly with a binding vote

New Zealand First has done something most parties are too timid to do. They’ve put a hard, controversial issue back in front of the public and said you decide.

You would have seen last week that Winston Peters announced NZ First will campaign on a referendum on the future of the Māori seats ahead of November’s general election. That matters, because for years this topic has been treated like a political no-go zone, even though plenty of ordinary Kiwis have opinions on it.

But here’s the key point. A referendum that isn’t binding is just political theatre.

Insights From Social Media

Posting on the Voters’ Collective FB Group, Julia du Fresne makes an excellent and compelling case for the Coalition Parties to man up, gird their loins and shoulder the burden of calling a referendum on the immediate abolition of the racist, anti-democratic, unfair, corrupt Maori sests in Parliament -we know it would pass with a massive majority, its s No-brainer ‘

JC: Maori Seats Need to Go Pronto

The Maori Party need to be gone from Parliament. Most Kiwis are fed up to the back teeth with their despicable behaviour. Their latest childish, illegal prank – to have Maori strike nationwide on Budget Day – is frankly the last straw from a mob who don’t give a damn about anyone or anything except themselves. Most of their commentary is racist, divisive and full of lies. They are not at all representative of the majority of their race, bar the racist activists and those, like themselves, who have no interest in contributing to the prosperity of this country.

Cameron Luxton: Activist Mayors On A Hiding To Nothing Over Māori Wards

A group of mayors have written to the government claiming that reintroducing referendums for Māori wards is an 'overreach on local decision-making'. Responding to this, ACT Local Government spokesman Cameron Luxton says:

“This is absurd. Allowing local communities to have a say on their democratic structures is the epitome of local decision-making.

Mike Butler: It’s a vote on co-governance

Anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond persists in claiming that ACT’s David Seymour proposes rewriting the Treaty of Waitangi from scratch while the ACT Party website actually says the referendum is on co-governance.

Dame Anne dashed off yet another column that was published by NewsHub yesterday asserting that Seymour was being “disrespectful”, “arrogant”, and “presumptuous” in the extreme.

Its ironic that Dame Anne appeared to disrespect Seymour in her characterisation of him while asking for respectful debate on the issue. She did not do what she wants others to do.

Mike Butler: Why does David wind up Moana?

Why does ACT leader David Seymour’s proposed referendum annoy television presenter Moana Maniapoto so much?

Her latest rant titled Words matter, published yesterday in E-Tangata, is a jumbled version of the current anti-referendum narrative recited by go-to “experts” on all things Maori whose writings are reproduced in Public Interest Journalism Fund publications.

Robin Grieve: Government Climate policies are falling apart

The Government has fallen foul of its own new carbon zero law. The Carbon Zero bill was passed into law by the Labour-NZ First, Greens Government in 2019. It was passed almost unanimously and to wide acclaim. 

The law introduced requirements for the Government to reduce emissions and established the Climate Commission as an independent advisory body. 

The main goal of the legislation was to legally bind both the Climate Commission and the Government to ensure that New Zealand achieves net-zero emissions by 2050. Making emission reduction a legal obligation of the Government was the key to its success they said because it would bypass the political obstacles of the day. However, the Minister of Climate Change James Shaw is discovering that it is not as straightforward as he thought it would be.

John Franklin: “One People, One Language”

Recently I learnt that Te Reo Māori and Sign Language are the only Official languages of New Zealand.

That’s despite over 95% of the population using English in their everyday lives, compared with Māori (4.1%) and New Zealand Sign Language (0.5%).

Like many New Zealanders, I was under the false impression that both English and Te Reo Māori were official NZ languages, but English is only the “De facto” language.

That means that Te Reo Maori is the only “Official” spoken language of New Zealand.

Melanie Phillips: A referendum should be for the whole nation

 

The Scots have no right to amputate the UK

Once again, Scottish nationalism is on the march.

The Scottish National Party wants another referendum on independence from the rest of the UK. A referendum on this was held in 2014, when on a turnout of more than 84 per cent more than 55 per cent of voters said “no” and almost 45 per cent said “yes”. 

Point of Order: ACT makes commitment to a referendum on co-governance

The Stuff team didn’t bring out the big headline type to report on a party political commitment of profound importance to anyone who cares about how and by whom we are governed. That – of course – should be everyone.

Stuff didn’t mention this commitment in the Dominion-Post (flagship of the Stuff fleet) – at least, Point of Order failed to find an account of it in our copy this morning, but maybe it was tucked away somewhere between some ads. Or maybe the press release around 7:09 last night was too late.

An online Stuff report did report it but its headline brought the Maori Party’s highly predictable response into the reckoning: New ACT Party policy branded ‘divisive’ and ‘bigoted’ by Māori Party

The online report opened:

NZCPR Weekly: Ministry of Truth

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we expose the sinister plan by the Minister of Justice to undermine our freedom of expression by establishing a unit within his own Ministry to police the information available to voters ahead of next year’s referenda – and we also look into the bizarre decision by the Advertising Standards Authority to ban an ad saying ice cream makes you happy; our NZCPR Guest Commentator Mike Hosking explains why he thinks Andrew Little’s plan to monitor referendum information is the sort of scheme you would expect to see in North Korea; and we have two polls this week – the first asks whether you are concerned about Andrew Little’s plan to control referendum information, and the second asks whether ice cream makes you happy!.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Steve Baron: City Councilor Accountability

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Part of obtaining a University Economics degree is to understand a concept called ‘Moral Hazard’. A moral hazard occurs when the actions of one party change to the detriment of another, after a financial transaction has taken place. Another aspect of moral hazard is the ‘Principal-Agent Problem’. This is where one party, called an Agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the Principal. These concepts highlight a dilemma—how to motivate an Agent to act in the best interests of the Principal, rather than in their own best interests.

It’s a dilemma we face throughout New Zealand when we Principals (Voters) attempt to get our Agents (Councillor’s) to turn up to Council meetings—something we expect of them, given we remunerate them accordingly, in the hope  our city will be managed in the most effective way possible. The problem is that when one or more of these Councillors don’t take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions (or inactions in this instance), this leaves other Councillors’ to take on more responsibility for the decisions that are made. It may also mean that there is less diverse thought and scrutinizing involved in the decision making process. It also means that voters feel ‘screwed’, to put it in colloquial terms.