Barrie Davis: No Marx for Sir Geoffrey

It is commonplace to say that the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document and several prominent persons, including David Seymour and Ruth Richardson, have recently done so in posts on Breaking Views. However, the Treaty makes no mention of founding a country.

Professor Paul Moon has recently published Founding Documents of Aotearoa New Zealand: 50 Moments that Formed the Country. I suspect the point he is making is that there was not one single document such as the Treaty which founded New Zealand.

But we can go further than that, because some documents were far more influential than others. That which stands out is the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 and there were others including Hobson’s Proclamations which had more to do with founding the country than the Treaty, which was a prerequisite.

Bruce Moon: The Treaty Debate - again!

With some recent correspondents raising again an article in the Guardian by Morgan Godfery, dated 23rd April 2022, it becomes necessary to look once again at that article and identify again the manner in which it is so blatantly wrong.

There Godfery claims that “the Māori language version reaffirming Māori sovereignty” which is profoundly the most utter nonsense.  The entire point of the activities of early February 1840 was to ascertain whether the assembled Maori chiefs assented to the transfer of such sovereignty as each possessed to the Queen in return for the undoubted benefits to the Maori people of becoming British subjects.

Bruce Moon: About the Real Treaty Story

“I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul”
- William Shakespeare,”Hamlet”, Act 1, scene 5 

Amongst those individuals bestowed on Captain Hobson by his superior, Governor Gipps of New South Wales, keen to be rid of them, and “selected for their known incompetency”[i] was one JS Freeman who was to be Hobson’s personal secretary.

Signing the Treaty “Ja Stuart Freeman Gentleman”[ii], Freeman was a product of Eton and Oxford with his head full of the “royal style” jargon used in treaties with European nations and, to put it bluntly, a snob.  This style he was determined to use in an English draft of a treaty with Maori chiefs and in sharp contrast to the plain and straightforward style of naval officer Hobson, accustomed to plain speaking at sea to men of little education, sometimes with their very lives at risk.

Barrie Davis: Oh, the Humanity!

We are presently witnessing the closure of some mainstream media companies in New Zealand and it is anticipated there will be more. Several pundits in politics and the media are concerned for the effect their loss will have on democracy in this country. Yet, the mainstream media are known to be biased, overwhelmingly to the Left. The propaganda they published on behalf of the Labour government was instrumental in putting our country in the poor position it is now.

The Government paid them $55 million to “Actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner” which they willingly accepted and are now bound to do until 2026. The Treaty is one page which can be read in five minutes. It does not mention principles or partnership, let alone specify them: Those words are just not there. Even Maori leaders say there are no principles in the Treaty.

Barry Brill: NZ Sovereignty - The Law is Settled

A recent Herald article by Jack Vowles, political science professor at Victoria University, asks why the term ‘sovereignty’ is so hard to define.

Professor Vowles notes that the late Hugh Kawharu’s authoritative translation of the key text of the Treaty of Waitangi says:

“The Chiefs …give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete governance over their land.”

Vowles concedes that any commonsense reader would see no difference between “complete governance for ever” and “sovereignty”.

NZCPR Newsletter: Derailing the Treaty Gravy Train

There’s been a great deal of huffing and puffing over the last few weeks as the tribal elite responds to the threatened erosion of privileges. The Coalition Government’s commitment to equal rights will undermine their lucrative Treaty grievance industry and they are in full defence mode.

Bruce Moon: Goodness, gracious me!?!

And now we have Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington, no less, asking us why “sovereignty” is “so hard to define”!  Really?  It as, after all, a well-established word in the English language and my Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives shades of meaning for it such as: “supreme dominion, authority or rule”, a usage established in late Middle English.  It is well known of course that, a little earlier, King John tried to push this a little too hard and was obliged to sign Magna Carta.  Since then, as British practice has developed, the sovereign has ruled though Parliament[i] which has, so to speak “called the shots”.  Indeed, when King Charles the First sought to overturn this practice, he lost his head for his efforts.  With a brief interregnum, the sovereign has, through parliament, exercised supreme dominion since over recognized British territory.

NZCPR Newsletter: 2024 - a Year of Reckoning

It’s traditional to start a new year by reflecting on the past and contemplating the future. With that in mind, we can confidently say that New Zealand is in a far better position at the dawn of 2024, than we were a year ago when Labour was in charge.

What we didn’t know back then was that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was preparing to abandon ship to avoid the ignominy of a crushing and career-damaging defeat at the election.

Richard Treadgold: That message from the Maori king

Unity and hope… they’re prepared to lead us… there’s nothing to fear…

The NZ Herald published an extraordinary article by Archdeacon Ngira Simmonds, Chief of Staff to the Maori king Tuheitia, that needs a spirited response.

The king is “Kingi”, apparently a Maori word, not a loanword from English (actually a patently childish rendition of ‘king’). But every New Zealander speaks English, so the Archdeacon would not stifle understanding to call him ‘king’ instead of the juvenile kingi. I use the lower case to stress his unofficial standing.

Peter Winsley: Te Tiriti o Waitangi cedes sovereignty to the Crown, and can be unifying rather than divisive

Repeated claims are made that Māori never ceded sovereignty to the Crown. These claims come from sources such as the Waitangi Tribunal, activists, academics, and from Te Pāti Māori. 

A display in Te Papa on an English language version of the Treaty of Waitangi has been vandalized, presumably because it stated that the Crown assumed full sovereignty over New Zealand.  Activists argue that the Māori language Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the only legitimate Treaty text, since most Māori assenting to a Treaty signed this version.  I agree with these assertions.  However, I disagree that in signing Te Tiriti, Māori did not cede sovereignty to the Crown.

Bruce Moon: Anne Salmond at it again!

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” - Sir Walter Scott, “Marmion”, 1808

“The confounding of all right and wrong, in wild fury, has averted from us the gracious favour of the gods” - Catullus

Now, I am amongst the first to assert that dear Anne does not “practice to deceive”, but as the same time it is fair to say that some of what she writes has a very similar effect.

She writes in “Newsroom” for 15 December 2023 that “Maori and Pakeha think differently.”

Barrie Davis: A Fairytale of New Zealand

We have been denied a referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi next year because the Prime Minister is afraid some radical Maoris will have a hikoi. It seems likely that the majority of people would vote in favour of ACT leader David Seymour’s proposed legislation, which would remove race based privileges for Maoris and move us closer to equal voting power for our elections. We are, however, allowed to have a debate next year about Seymour’s proposed principles.  

Wendy Geus: Labour’s Chickens Home to Roost

Coercion to achieve ‘equity’ has failed.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it’s a duck, or in Labour’s case, it’s a separatist agenda.

Bruce Moon: "What Fraud, Claudia?"

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”,                    Roman poet Juvenal, ca 100AD.

Well, since not many people speak Latin these days, a fair translation is “Who is minding the minders?”

(Please note I have been courteous to the reader and given an accurate translation into English).

And so we review the lengthy commentary[i]  in “Newsroom” for 19th April 2023 of a new book headed “History of the tiriti fraud  Dame Claudia Orange reveals the truth about the Treaty signing”.  “Treaty fraud”?  H’mmm – we’d better look into that!  Indeed, one might even say: “about time!”

Bruce Moon: That “Treaty” - a few reflections

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” - Shakespeare. “Hamlet”, Act 1, scene iv

On 6th February 1840, as everybody knows, Captain William Hobson, RN, succeeded in getting 52 Maori chiefs (by his count) to sign a document in the Ngapuhi dialect, by which, in essence, they agreed to transfer such sovereignty as each possessed completely and for ever to the Queen and in return all their people (all slaves included) received all the rights of the people of England.  All well and good, we may say.

Bruce Moon: “Lies, damned lies and statistics”

In a paper published in the refereed journal, “Social Science and Medicine”, Arthur Grimes, Professor of Wellbeing and Public Policy at the School of Government and Senior Fellow at Motu Research, together with Rowan Ropata Macgregor Thom offers his opinion, which he states is that of “many New Zealanders” on “why Māori experience inequity across several social outcomes and why these inequities seem to occur in perpetuity”.  

While asserting that “other examples abound” he gives “as just one example”  “Māori adult smoking rates (at 22.3 per cent) are much higher than for the general population (9.4 per cent).  They do not elucidate this statement further.

“Inequities”??  Synonyms for “inequity” given in my dictionary, the “Shorter Oxford”, are “want of justice” or “unfairness”.  So where exactly, I ask, is the unfairness or want of justice in any individual’s decision to have a smoke and just who is it who suffers accordingly?  (Not, surely, an unfair question?)