Category: Politics
The recent deal between the Maori Party and National over free insulation for Maori houses - whereby social assistance will be based on race, not need - lays a new paving stone on the path to a country divided by race.
The arguments about the ‘h’ in Wanganui will clearly be around for some time to come. The citizens of Wanganui, led by their firm no-nonsense mayor Michael Laws, have no intention of giving up without a fight. The Geographic Board has recommended to the Land Information Minister, Mr Maurice Williamson, that an h be inserted, but the city and citizens of Wanganui intend to make an issue of the matter. Some commentators have argued ’Why don’t they just give in? After all, it’s just one tiny letter’. By the same token, one could argue that, if it is so tiny and unimportant an issue, the supporters of the h should give in. But the h’s supporters clearly think that the issue is bigger than one tiny letter, and so the h’s opponents can hardly be blamed for thinking the same way.
Former Prime Minister David Lange is reputed to have described a capital gains tax as the sort of tax you introduce if you want to lose not just one election, but the next three! And he should know since the Fourth Labour Government considered a capital gains tax back in 1988, eventually rejecting it as being too difficult. Sadly, they also rejected the flat tax proposed by then Finance Minister Roger Douglas, which would have aligned personal income and company tax at around 23 percent. The introduction of a low flat tax - in conjunction with a low GST consumption tax - would have transformed New Zealand into a first world economy instead of the third world economy with first world spending habits that we are today.
Calls for a capital gains tax are gaining momentum, but unfortunately the capital gains debate thus far has been tainted with misinformation and a lack of clarity as to what a capital gains tax would hope to achieve.
The The Prime Minister has announced that the Government is planning to hold the long-awaited referendum on our MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) electoral system before or at the same time as the 2011 general election. This was a National Party election promise based on the widely held view that voters were going to be given a chance to review MMP after a suitable trial period.
Who holds the New Zealand Government to account? The voters? The press? Both might be formidable forces during an election but sadly they seem to lose influence over politicians once they are appointed.
As was expected, in its report on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill released on Friday, the special Auckland Governance Legislation Committee did not recommend separate Maori seats for Auckland’s new super city council. While there was undoubtedly vociferous support from advocates for greater Maori representation in Auckland’s governance, the Committee rightly stated that this was a matter for the council and the people of Auckland to determine.
Constant repetition of assertions that Maori have a Treaty of Waitangi right to dedicated seats on the new Auckland Council doesn’t make them correct. It is clear that neither Tuku Morgan nor Len Brown, nor most of the other advocates of separate representation, has read the Treaty, sometimes called our founding document. It is a simple treaty of three clauses. It was written in 1840 when nothing approaching today’s concepts of democracy existed anywhere in the world. There was no parliament, nor any councils in New Zealand. Consequently there was nothing that could be deemed an Article Two “taonga” to be preserved on behalf of Maori. What there was in the Treaty, however, was an Article Three guarantee to Maori that the Crown would give Maori “the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England”. In other words, when it came to politics, Maori rights would be the same as everyone else’s.
I'm appalled that Mr Key thinks he is above the people and that his past promises (not to change the law) are more important than their wishes. Political parties are elected to govern the country according to the wishes of the majority. That's how democracy is supposed to work. In some circumstances, the majority view will be uninformed and the government may make laws that they think will provide a better result for society. But this is NOT one of those situations. I'm further appalled that he thinks that it's OK for him to just tell police how to enforce a law as has been reported in the news. That's not his or their job. It's his job to make laws that he thinks are correct and it's the police's job to enforce them without fear or favour. Then the courts decide if the police are correctly interpreting the law. The law is clearly against the wishes of the, by now, well-informed majority and MUST be changed or repealed. - a reader’s response to last week’s poll where 98% of informed NZCPR readers believe that the present anti-smacking law should be repealed.
A review of the NZ Families Commission Research Report...
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