Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, June 10th, 2010 - 35 comments
Take it or leave it, says John Key to the Maori Party over the foreshore and seabed. So much for consultation and collective decision making with their government partner. Like the trader he is, Key’s made his offer – symbolic change and nothing more. If the Maori Party don’t want to buy, he doesn’t care. Key doesn’t need to make the deal. The Maori Party does.
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, May 15th, 2010 - 97 comments
Make no mistake, John Key’s comment about Tuhoe cannibalism was no accident, it was no joke, and it certainly was not ‘self-deprecating’. Key didn’t just happen to accidentally make a comment that appeals to a deep-seated prejudice that is still current among redneck Pakeha and wedges our society in two. It was a message to Tuhoe
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, May 11th, 2010 - 55 comments
You can’t mix oil and water. You can swirl things about for a while and it may appear you’ve mixed them but there is an essential difference that can’t be crossed. Likewise, there is an illusion that John Key, like some alchemist of old, has magically transcended fundamental political facts to make a National/Maori Party relationship work. But illusions can’t last forever.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, April 26th, 2010 - 21 comments
The other day, Chris Finlayson described himself as a Pollyanna – it’s an American term (of derision) for someone who sees everything as positive, ignoring unhappy realities. Finlayson is all bouncy and optimistic, selling his ‘no-one owns it’ ‘solution’ to the F&S issue. But I have not heard a single Maori leader who agrees with his offer or anything like it.
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, April 21st, 2010 - 124 comments
Rodney Hide was furious at John Key for signing the Declaration of Indigenous Rights behind his back but he’ll get over it. ACT is getting tonnes of real policy wins. What’s disturbing is seeing the Maori Party celebrating a ‘win’ then meekly rolling over when Key tells them it’s meaningless. Why does this keep happening? Because the Maori Party is stuck. And, sadly, each loss just mires them further.
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 20th, 2010 - 68 comments
Pita Sharples, like Labour, thinks the Declaration of Indigenous Rights matters. John Key sees a meaningless piece of paper, the signing of which costs him nothing. This, along with giving Tariana Turei Whanau Ora, is part of National’s clever manipulation of the Maori Party. The Maori Party leadership is co-opted, ready to roll over on the real issue- the foreshore and seabed.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, April 12th, 2010 - 22 comments
National’s proposed reform of the foreshore and seabed legislation is no ‘elegant solution’. Instead, it is being criticised in the business press as an undemocratic favouring of Maori business interests over Pakeha ones, while iwi are saying that it doesn’t give them what they want.
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 11th, 2010 - 19 comments
National is offering significant new concessions on the foreshore and seabed. It’s a whole new ball game. Coming on top of Whanau Ora its second big win in a row for the Maori Party. Is this it? Will there be an agreed solution? Can the country put this issue behind it?
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 9th, 2010 - 13 comments
Maori activists who want a better deal on the foreshore and seabed can rest assured that the Maori Party is about to sell them out. Tariana Turia just got herself a shiny new portfolio as Minister for Whanau Ora, whatever it is. Do you really think she’s going to give up a control over a policy that National has agreed to just for her? Do you really think she’ll stand strong on her principles over the foreshore and seabed if it means losing the Crown limo?
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, April 6th, 2010 - 12 comments
The Maori Party was established to win the right for iwi to have what they believe are their rights to use the economic potential of the foreshore and seabed. National’s offer does not deliver on that. Will the Maori Party fold? Early indications are mixed. Hone Harawira will stand strong but a patsy question from rahui Katene last Thursday suggests the leadership might be willing to roll over.
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 am, April 4th, 2010 - 38 comments
Iwi do not want legal recognition of some kind of fuzzy spirital connection with the foreshore and seabed. They want legal recognition of property rights, rights to use the economic potential of what they regard as their property. For Maori rights activists, National’s offer cannot be seen as anything other than a continued denial of the rights that the Maori Party was created to win back
Written By: - Date published: 3:28 pm, March 31st, 2010 - 16 comments
The Government has released its Foreshore and Seabed policy. It will put the F&S into ‘public domain’ where it will be owned by no one. Maori will be able to take claims for customary rights over parts of the F&S to Court(except those parts that are already owned by private, Pakeha, interests of course).
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 24 comments
It turns out that the silly ‘no-one owns it’ option for the foreshore and seabed is John Key’s ‘elegant solution’. Here he is defending the proposal: “It is a concept where you don’t get into the emotional debate of ownership. Now it sounds a bit foreign when you think about it, but no-one owns the air, …
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 11th, 2010 - 17 comments
The Government and the secretive Iwi Leadership Group are looking at an option where no-one owns the foreshore and seabed. It’s often forgotten that the Ngati Apa case, which sparked the foreshore and seabed, contraversy was about big business. Ngati Apa wanted to have title over the seabed so it could undertake aquaculture, bypassing a …
Written By: - Date published: 4:12 pm, November 27th, 2009 - 47 comments
Bomber over at Tumeke has a good post up on Goff’s speech. Pointing out the Maori Party has Stockholm Syndrome is not race baiting That to me sums up Goff’s speech, far more eloquently than I could. He referred to Eddies earlier post…. ..ouch, did we read the same speech? I don’t think pointing out …
Written By: - Date published: 7:47 pm, November 10th, 2009 - 92 comments
There has been much furore today over Hone Harawira’s latest comment that: If I should be suspended for my language, he [Phil Goff] and his mates should be lined up against the wall and shot. I thought the comment was appropriate in the circumstances, as a response to Phil Goff calling for him to be …
Written By: - Date published: 5:15 am, November 9th, 2009 - 48 comments
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is not well understood by most New Zealanders, including most of the politicians that make up our main political parties. It is due to this lack of understanding, as well as populist politicking by some notable politicians, that there is an underlying resentment in our population regarding any policy which adequately …
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 3rd, 2009 - 48 comments
I see that repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is finally a foregone conclusion. There’s going to be some dithering about what to put in its place but there shouldn’t be. Instead the Act should be repealed, nothing should be put in place and Maori should get their day in court. I’m not alone …
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 2nd, 2009 - 17 comments
Strange mea culpa from Don Brash on the foreshore and seabed in today’s Dom. He doesn’t go as far as to apologise for National’s cynical and deliberate attempt to ignite racial conflict in the leadup to the 2005 election, but he does admit that National “got it wrong” on the foreshore and seabed. Wonder what …
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