Category: Maori Issues
The current Chief of Army has doubled down on cultural priorities. Her husband, previously a serving Lieutenant Colonel, has been instrumental in helping develop the new NZDF policy. The policy embeds indigenous culture throughout initial and ongoing training and in all formal and informal meetings and ceremonial activities.
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.
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.
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?
There are many reasons the Coalition should press pause on their local government reforms, but the most important is their fundamentally undemocratic and draconian approach. They are not only disrespecting the wishes of local communities but trampling on their rights to determine how their voices are represented around the decision-making table.
In this country, the pressure for parallel authority is being driven by iwi leaders, who, thanks to the appeasement policies of successive governments and generous taxpayer funded Treaty settlements, now preside over vast tax‑free business empires. Not only are they replacing “Kiwi culture” with iwi culture - enriching themselves in the process - but they are now attempting to gain constitutional control of New Zealand.
New Zealand cannot afford to keep paying money funding iwi, at either local or government level. It is money people cannot afford, produces nothing, and would be better spent on roads and infrastructure. And in spite of spending more and more money on iwi, the statistics for maori are not improving. Ergo, the stats might improve if the gravy train is cut off and people take responsibility for themselves instead of sticking their hand out.
For decades, New Zealand has been undergoing a quiet constitutional revolution. What was once largely unnoticed is now becoming increasingly visible - so much so that the Coalition Government can no longer ignore it if it hopes to remain in office.
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