Written By: - Date published: 7:19 pm, May 8th, 2024 - 3 comments
Livestream from 9pm tonight.
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, October 19th, 2016 - 7 comments
With the sudden departure of deep sea drilling company Statoil from Northland here’s a timely look the role of community action in that, the state of play in NZ and what is next.
Written By: - Date published: 6:14 pm, September 18th, 2016 - 154 comments
This week has been a revelation in how willing Pākehā are to throw Māori under the bus for the sake of environmentalism.
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, August 4th, 2016 - 181 comments
Vegemite and marmite taste the same, rugby is naff, John Clarke’s an Australian. What?
Written By: - Date published: 6:08 pm, June 26th, 2015 - 433 comments
A respectful open letter to Andrew Little with suggestions for how to win the next election!
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 26th, 2011 - 42 comments
Jenny argues that with the ink barely dry the new Foreshore and Seabed legislation is beginning to have effects. Oil drilling companies are rushing to take advantage. She argues that the Maori Party’s support gives the mining and oil companies the confidence they need to proceed with their plans to exploit the Seabed and Foreshore.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 25th, 2011 - 27 comments
Our guest poster takes on the fear-mongering and race-baiting coming from ACT and the Coastal Coalition over the new foreshore and seabed deal. It’s a blight on New Zealand that we can’t have a debate over this issue without some rightwing extremists trying to exploit people’s fears and prejudices.
Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, March 22nd, 2011 - 13 comments
Around 300 hikoi marchers arrived at Parliament this afternoon to protest against the Nat / Maori Party rebranded version of the foreshore and seabed bill. The numbers weren’t huge, but the hikoi brought a powerful symbolic message.
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, March 15th, 2011 - 77 comments
Labour leader Phil Goff has ruled out working with Hone Harawira even if Mr Harawira heads a party of several MPs. I think it’s a foolish decision and I think the reasons don’t stack up. Instead of ruling out Hariwria, Labour should rise to the challenge.
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, March 10th, 2011 - 20 comments
Hone Hariwira’s speech on the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill. Agree with him or not, there is no denying the passion. The Maori Party may have made a huge mistake in pushing him out, thus leaving him free to speak his mind…
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, February 11th, 2011 - 18 comments
The Nats regard parliamentary process as an inconvenience to which they must pay lip service, but nothing more. They started as soon as they took office, with repeated abuse of urgency. The current disgraceful process over the foreshore & seabed legislation is just the latest instalment.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, February 10th, 2011 - 6 comments
*English vs English on assets sales, as business commentators come out against the flawed business case for privatisation. *Will Hide honour his word and resign over Supercity debacle? *Foreshore Bill to join CERRA as a constitutional outrage. *Economic woe keeps coming. *Is the ‘brighter future’ on its way or just more Key stunts?
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 pm, December 12th, 2010 - 18 comments
One of the central tenets of Brand Key is that he can do what ‘normal’ politicians can’t. With his boundless optimism and those mysterious trader skills, he can solve problems no-one else can. For a while, some believed he can satisfied both Maori and the Rednecks on the foreshore. Of course, really, he had just done a cheap rebrand of the existing law.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, December 11th, 2010 - 65 comments
Labour has opened the door on cross party negotiations to achieve a true consensus on the foreshore. But Tariana Turia is too locked in to ancient personal hatreds to do anything but reject the offer. In doing so she has become a huge obstacle to progress on the very goals that she claims to support. It’s time for Turia to step down.
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, December 10th, 2010 - 38 comments
The usual suspects are accusing Labour of “flip flopping” on its position on the foreshore and seabed. You have to admire their bare-faced gall eh?
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, December 9th, 2010 - 49 comments
For a while it looked like the Nats’ Marine and Coastal Areas Bill was going to represent a successful and enduring solution to the foreshore debate in NZ. But Maori support evaporated. Now the new Bill has suffered a further massive blow to its credibility. Labour is pulling its support…
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, December 3rd, 2010 - 48 comments
When Chris Finlayson’s on the backfoot he starts to sound bitchy. Out comes the name-calling and the put-downs – as if his opponents are going to be scared off. If Finlayson is going to throw a tizzy at anyone it should be National for first whipping up the rednecks over the ‘beaches’ and then raising Maori expectations.
Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, November 26th, 2010 - 42 comments
The new foreshore and seabed deal is going sour for the government at both ends. The Maori Party is in a state of virtual civil war with the fundi faction led by Hone Harawira gaining support against Tariana Turia’s sell-out faction. Meanwhile, National is feeling the heat as ACT targets its redneck vote.
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 am, November 17th, 2010 - 92 comments
Is the interminable tangled mess of the foreshore and seabed issue getting to Chris Finlayson? Something certainly is, because he’s clearly losing it. For the Treaty Negotiations Minister to tell a group of Maori protesters to “go to hell” is about as idiotic as it gets.
Written By: - Date published: 1:32 pm, November 2nd, 2010 - 9 comments
I don’t know about you, but I have certainly been confused about ACT’s move to insert a last-minute clause into the new Marine and Coastal Areas (Takutai Moana) Bill (proposed replacement for the Foreshore and Seabed Act). Canterbury legal academic David Round sets out some of the issues involved. With deep divisions within Maoridom, and a growing conservative backlash, this mess isn’t going away any time soon…
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 1st, 2010 - 41 comments
The problem with any identity-based political movement is it pre-supposes that the common identity of its members surpasses their conflicting class interests. This has been brought to the head at the Maori Party national conference as Tariana Turia angrily denounced criticism of the Maori elite from the Left faction.
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 pm, October 30th, 2010 - 11 comments
Seems like the Maori Party conference is off to a rocky start. Likely to get even rockier as they move on to the main event today, the vexed issue of the foreshore and seabed. The differences between the existing Act and the proposed replacement Bill are mostly symbolic. Is a symbolic change enough for the Maori Party?
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, October 20th, 2010 - 88 comments
I get Hone Harawira’s anger over National’s pandering to rednecks over the Foreshore and Seabed new legislation. That was the same anger that led to the Maori Party being formed in the first place (ironic that they’re voting for the new law). But I can’t abide by the racist language and actions he resorts to.
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, October 15th, 2010 - 19 comments
Hillary Calvert introduced an amendment this week to change the Marine and Coastal Act. In keeping with Act’s philosophy of One Rule For All it denies Maori the right to charge for access to beaches, whilst allowing current private owners to (continue to) charge access fees.
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, September 14th, 2010 - 52 comments
Stuff is reporting that Hone Harawira will not vote for the Nats’ foreshore and seabed legislation. And John Key is clearly upset. Sounds like someone needs the whambulance. Key’s just lost the ability to claim that he has genuinely circled the square, giving Pakeha and Maori both what they want. All he has really done is bought off the Maori Party leadership.
Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, September 9th, 2010 - 14 comments
The unilateral opening up of our ancestral lands and seas to drilling and mining by this Government is the most significant threat to the survival of our peoples and our way of life we have experienced in this generation. The big question in light of this the struggle is where are the Maori Party?
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, September 7th, 2010 - 33 comments
It’s a little disturbing to hear Te Ururoa Flavell saying that the Maori Party isn’t really satisfied with National’s new foreshore and seabed bill but will vote for it for now and will re-negotiate a new deal in the future. He’s dreaming. Both major parties have every incentive to consider the issue closed. With the Maori Party supporting the law, it will be seen as a full and final settlement.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 6th, 2010 - 13 comments
Unnoticed amongst all the earthquake coverage was a small article in the Weekend Dompost on the foreshore and seabed deal. Apparently, ‘public domain’ will no longer appear in the new legislation. Instead, we’ll have a new name, possibly ‘takutaimoana’, Te Reo for ‘seabed’. That sound you can hear Winston Peters is rubbing his hands with glee.
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 28 comments
A new lobby group, the “Costal Coalition”, crawled out from under a rock today. Above is their first billboard, one of several planned for Wellington and Auckland. It’s a distasteful, damaging campaign, but National and their associated hacks have no grounds for complaint.
Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, June 30th, 2010 - 18 comments
Every night before they go to sleep, good little Labour and Green spin doctors pray for another headline involving Gerry Brownlee. The guy has an amazing tin ear for public opinion. He’s had 50,000 people march against his mining plans and, now, he’s made a Treaty breach over the one area of foreshore and seabed that was settled. Gerry, you’re a godsend.
Written By: - Date published: 1:33 am, June 19th, 2010 - 14 comments
We know that the foreshore and seabed deal does not do what the Maori Party was established to achieve but, almost paradoxically, it gives iwi the veto and mineral rights that will be seen by businesses wanting to undertake activities like aquaculture, tourism, and undersea mining as imposing an unknown and possibly very large tax from an unaccountable power.
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