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Latest Column
This election has become a contest, not only over constitutional direction, but over the future of the Waitangi Tribunal and the Treaty settlement process. On one side stands the Coalition, determined to complete the settlements and rein in or abolish the Tribunal. On the other side are parties intent on expanding its powers to radically advance the Maori sovereignty cause.
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Read the 33 short chapters on the Moriori genocide, the Littlewood treaty, Tuhoe and the terror raids, the looming financial risk with a Ngapuhi settlement and the relativity mechanism. Perhaps more important is how treaty tribes treated appeasement with contempt and commissioned a plan to replace the government with a set-up that they would control.
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This Month On NZCPR
Under MMP a voter is entitled to use their two votes in whatever lawful way they choose. They may double-tick the same party, or they may decide that their preferred outcome is better served by splitting their vote. The dynamics have changed at this election and 900,000 centre-right votes may be wasted. That’s something voters may want to consider.
On current polling, close to 900,000 people will give National their party vote, and none of those votes will yield an additional seat. A National voter who understands this needs no instruction from anyone. Her party vote is dead where it is but alive anywhere else on the centre-right.
Election promises need to be judged on whether they strengthen the foundations of growth. The key to improving living standards is not redistributing wealth but growing the economic pie so that everyone can have a bigger slice.
At the end of July the number of properties listed for sale around NZ stood at 35,700 in seasonally adjusted terms. This was a 9% rise from a year earlier and the highest level of stocks since March 2015. There are plenty of properties for potential buyers to peruse.
The Maori Party’s attempt to use the Maori seats to rig the election should be the final nail in their coffin - an attack on democracy, stability, and Parliamentary Sovereignty, that the Coalition can no longer ignore. They need to now promise that if they are re-elected, a referendum on the Maori Seats will be held as a matter of urgency.
Te Pāti Māori has often prospered from the canny use of tactical voting in the past. What it wants to do now, however, is a serious escalation. The party has asked supporters not to give it their party vote. It is campaigning for electorate votes only. The obvious potential effect is to create an overhang that could give it disproportionate influence in the next Parliament.
Here’s the real question: How can it be appropriate that the Electoral Commission — a public sector agency that’s meant to be politically neutral and independent of Government policy — entrenches the highly political doctrine of “Te Tiriti” and the values of Tuhonohono, Arataki, Uakaha, Manaaki, and Tika, and requires staff to demonstrate allegiance?
The ToW campaign to which we have all been subjected for many years now (and continue to be) is a “political cause” pure and simple. So surely the Electoral Commission is not playing by its own rules when forcing an applicant for a temporary part-time (or any) position to “agree to learn about our values and grow your knowledge of Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
