Category: Constitutional Reform
Over last 30 or 40 years judges across the common law anglosphere world have become ever more willing to overrule the democratically elected branches of government. Call this a raw usurpation of power. Or call it judicial activism on steroids. It’s bad in Australia, but worse in New Zealand.
The Royal Commission argued that if MMP was adopted the Maori seats must be abolished: “In the form of Maori representation we have proposed for MMP, there would be no separate Maori constituency or list seats, no Maori roll, and no Maori option. All New Zealanders would vote in the same way for the party they wish to govern, and for a constituency MP.”
We have faith in the capacity of Maori to strive and succeed in work and politics on the same basis as everyone else. I believe in New Zealanders fair mindedness that a minority no longer needs this protection from the majority. That's why National-led Government will abolish the Maori seats.
DOC administers one-third of New Zealand’s landmass. This estate has been held by the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders for conservation, recreation, and public benefit. Over the past three decades, however, DOC has increasingly transformed from a public-oriented agency into a mechanism for embedding tribal control, preferential access, and commercial opportunity.
To ensure the new planning system is coherent, democratic, and consistent with the Coalition Government’s commitments, all RMA‑related arrangements should be terminated - not only those negotiated with councils but those embedded in Treaty settlements as well. No race-based entitlements should be carried over to potentially subvert the new planning system.
The effects-based approach that relied on the discretion of planning staff had become captured by vested interest groups intent on advancing their own political agendas or lining their own pockets, and that includes Maori who have latched onto the financial advantages of the special status successive governments have granted them under the pretence of a Treaty partnership.
It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the body of the common law is predicated on the basis that it is written down in a form which is available to all New Zealand citizens and in that way is knowable in advance of any course of action on which a citizen intends to embark.
If the “Deep State” is defined as a power-base within a government that operates in pursuit of its own agendas and goals instead of those of the country’s democratically elected leaders, then New Zealand has a serious problem. Our public institutions have been captured by a form of cultural Marxism that embraces race-based identity politics and Te Tiriti social justice.
By putting the Māori view of nature in the single science gallery, Te Papa seems to promote the postmodernist ideas that there are no universal truths and that all knowledge is culturally derived. This confused and simplistic ideology seeks to undermine science and other narratives construed as Eurocentric and colonial.
Community disillusionment over councils going off the rails was on full display last weekend as voters reshaped local government in the 2025 elections. Across the country, high-spending councillors were booted out and replaced by those promising more responsible financial management, greater community engagement, and increased accountability.
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