Category: Maori Issues

There can be no doubt that British Royal Navy captain William Hobson is the founding father both of New Zealand as an independent sovereign nation and of Auckland as its greatest city. No other person has so singularly influenced the course of modern New Zealand history.

This whole crusade against Oranga Tamariki is a well-orchestrated campaign of gross misinformation that’s being driven by Maori leaders to try to shift public opinion to view the State as the villains in Maori child abuse statistics. Their aim is to force the Government to pass control of child protection to them.

No abuse or re-abuse of children is acceptable. But the facts show that family members and parents posed the greatest danger to these victims. This suggests that where the state primarily fails is in poor decision-making and monitoring of risk. Which calls into question whether the very best interests of the child are being put first and foremost.

A land protest near Auckland airport has serious implications for private property rights in New Zealand - if it is not handled properly by the Government.

The extraordinary Māori land protest at Ihumātao in Auckland is symbolic of our time. It is unlikely to have occurred, say, five years ago.

Even though the evidence is overwhelming that child abuse most often occurs in single parent families on welfare, tragically, the State still continues to pay vulnerable young women with little education and few prospects, to have and raise children on their own. And the more children they have, the more money they receive.

In Canada we have settled into a stagnant pattern on Indigenous issues. Indigenous advocates argue for the continuation of the separatist status quo, but with more money and power for themselves. The chiefs’ main concern is to keep the money flowing. No politician dares to publicly oppose this separatist, racialized dystopia, and expose it for the nonsense that it is.

When National introduced their Marine and Coastal Area Act in 2011, they reassured the public and Parliament that there would only be a few claims for remote areas of the coast. But with the whole coastline under claim - many times over - the law is clearly not doing what Parliament intended. It should be replaced.

The claims process is an opportunistic attempt by Maori interests to gain control of what was previously regarded as public space for the benefit of everyone. I have no doubt the end goal is to securing a perpetual income stream from the granting of use rights to third parties.

The freedom of expression is a cornerstone of our democracy. It results in a stronger and more resilient society. Once opinions are silenced and society becomes stifled, it’s only a short step to totalitarian control.