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notices and features - Date published:
5:30 pm, April 27th, 2022 - 36 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Free speech requires limits. Not sure if Musk understands that.
https://twitter.com/te_taipo/status/1519196764913356800?s=21&t=gXVkT8nOc49o88vZNJgQCw
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has a rather idealistic vision of his tweety bird platform
https://twitter.com/jack/status/1518772756069773313?s=21&t=gXVkT8nOc49o88vZNJgQCw
Elon is the singular solution I trust
So there's two board members heading in the same direction. Maybe more, time will tell. I wonder if the board will adopt a set of operational principles.
The writer is apprehensive about a lack of content moderation (Anjana Susarla is a Professor of Information Systems at the Michigan State University.). Given the likely size of the subscriber community, seems inevitable that intelligent design of a suitable moderation system will become a priority – even if they go for open slather as policy, the herding shit hitting the proverbial will likely force realisation that it was a mistake.
Good thinking there, prof! I'd go for crowd-sourcing editorial advice in general (from users) with reference to moderation as first priority…
Kemara is a violent extremist best known for his involvement in an armed militia intent on pursuing political goals via a rifle barrel.
Why anyone would give a damn what he thinks about the appropriate limits of political discourse is a mystery to me.
But I suppose by the same token he might have a unique perspective on the Christchurch massacre.
Obviously you did not read his updates etc on the protest at Parliament Grounds. Also his continued exposing of those on the far right Sivell, Flutey, Counterspin, the farcical Sheriffs and Sov Cit movement etc. His thoughts on the Canterbury massacre come from a distaste for those involved in far right politics/thoughts.
Amazing how prescient some of the rebels of yore were isn't it? Some of what Tame Iti is saying is quite mainstream and commonsense now but it was seen as revolutionary at one time. Of course those mired in the thoughts and actions of the past and not paying attention to the movement of thought/discourse will still find them revolutionary etc.
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LOL …Convoy protest 21/2/22 « The Standard… bear in mind the bloated Pakeha Woke New Middle-Class (see Shanreagh above), always poised to indulge in performative narcissism on a truly ostentatious scale, experience a genuine frisson of delight at the merest mention of violent, deluded wanna-be Māori Che Guevaras … Colonisation, it seems, justifies anything & everything (unless, of course, it's inflicted on the affluent Woke themselves) … and … that all-important aura of radical chic.
that I can't write this funny
The cynic might observe that the NZ Police had zero intel on the Christchurch shooter because he and his ilk, rather than exercise free speech in public, were radicalising and organising as secretively as possible. It's the ones that don't wear their views on their sleeve that you have to worry about. The loud ones you know to keep an eye on.
Slimeball A reviews slimeball B interviewing slimeball A:
So there was a media event involving colliding egos of the rightist persuasion:
Man of the people gets out & about…
Latest advert from Hobson's Pledge, running on YouTube and very annoying
Indeed it is. Talk about projection! They are claiming the Labour Party are hell bent on undermining democracy when everything they do and say is a pack of lies which is the hallmark of those who undermine our democratic system of government.
how was he sneaking?
Here's the AG's report (PDF)
https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/PAP_122623/5d80125690667622a8d3c896fdb8beee9ff4b6da
7. I note that this analysis is based only on the text of the Bill and publicly available information released by the Council and the Local Government Commission. The
conclusion I have reached, that the Bill cannot be justified under s 5 of the Bill of
Rights Act, is largely due to the absence of information and analysis available to
provide justification for the limit on the right to freedom from discrimination
This has been mentioned in the reporting I've seen, but not explained. But consider that it's discrimination to have single sex spaces, and so we can and do make provision for this. My reading isn't that the Rotorua Bill is wrong, but that the AG couldn't make any other recommendation because he lacked the information to do so. Haven’t read the whole report yet.
/IANAL
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rotorua-council-representation-bill-cannot-be-justified-attorney-general/FISDTUCJOZHW7LKQMWEF2IIENE/
From the NZ Herald ” a bill that would increase Maori voting rights in Rotorua’s local elections cannot be justified and discrimates against general roll voters, the Attorney General has found”
I used the words Tamati Coffey was trying to "sneak through" because rather than go through the committee concerned with parliament, voting etc, (I am sorry the name for the committee escapes me) he put it through the Maori Affairs select committee, allowing only two weeks for consultation, which included over the Easter period.
I also posted about this bill before, asking Sabine if she knew about it, as she is in the Rotorua area. She said she only knew about it because of National and NZ first, so I assumed that meant that Labour hadn't in any way canvassed the locals about this bill. I think that is a reasonable assumption.
Labour never canvassed on this proposal of co-governance. It is a significant change to how NZ runs in democracy. I think we have a right to debate these changes.
Personally I want my vote to equal any other citizens.
I had the impression that council went through a reasonable long process including consultation for the council changes.
The Bill is needed for those changes to be legal, but it's not the driver, that's coming from Rotorua council. Fair point about Coffey's approach.
Would you mind sharing why, in this context of Māori and Te Tiriti?
Why would you want voting to be unequal on a skin colour basis?
Framing the Treaty of Waitangi as a 'partnership' is how you have have arrived at this stupid outcome.
In essence the treaty did two things – it confirmed Maori as citizens of the British Empire – and extended to the iwi chiefs who personally signed the Treaty the protections of title and legal ownership of what they regarded as their property as any other British citizens.
There are absolutely no grounds to read the idea that the iwi chiefs were being offered a right to separate sovereignty of any kind whatsoever.
If you want to talk with me about this topic, you will have to stop making shit about my argument and position.
You are the one busy preaching to us how equal votes = tyranny of the majority which is the cause of all the ills in the world.
So if you don't like equal votes, one person one vote – then I can only conclude that you want equity in voting. So logically if 1 in 6 people are Maori then logically every Maori should get 6 votes for the 1 everyone else gets.
Or do you have something else in mind?
I don't mind sharing at all, because I wan't the debate over these changes and I don't think Labour did/does. I don't know enough about the Treaty to know if co-governance was promised, i.e. that Maori and Pakeha will have equal representation not depending on population numbers (that is my understanding of what some of this means and I am prepared to stand corrected. If this was promised in the Treaty, then this has to be honoured.
But if not, I am not for it, for many reasons. Democracy as we know it here has always been important to me as has my vote. I am no less or no more important than anyone else.
I really want to see Maori stats improve, health, justice, achievement et. But I don't see this is the way to achieve this. At the moment there is apparently a move to de-colonize the NZ education system and I have read articles by Professor Elizabeth Rata an a colleague of hers (Can't link provided below). They are saying that there are voices against improving literacy skills, because literacy is part of colonization. I think Molly has posted stuff on here about the school science curriculum issues.
I am concerned about applying any ideological approaches to policy e.g Critical Race Theory and Gender Ideology. These are theoretical hypothesis, not constructive ways forward. I am all for evidence based policies.
I say this within the context of my husband being Maori and having Maori step children. For example my experience of my husband health care needs is that he gets special access to services due to being Maori e.g he wasamongst the first to get vacinnated (at the local marae). I am not objecting to this prioritzation, this is just my experienc.
https://theplatform.kiwi/opinions/the-bigotry-of-low-expectations-maori-literacy
Just found the link re Maori literacy and de-colonization
Te Tiriti was signed in 1840. Māori men got the vote in 1867. All men in 1879. All women in 1893. At points voting was tied to land ownership (and there's a whole thing there about disenfranchising Māori women and forcing Māori to adopt British ideas about sex and gender roles).
https://teara.govt.nz/en/voting-rights
So no, Te Tiriti isn't about voting. There are two versions. International law generally says that the version in the indigenous language should prevail (for what I hope are obvious reasons).
From wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi
To make sense of that one has to listen to what Māori scholars, historians and activists say about it and the meaning.
It also needs to be read alongside He Whakaputanga (1835) if we want to understand what Māori were thinking and wanting at that time.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/declaration-of-independence-taming-the-frontier
My own position is that both those documents gives us a framework for discussion, but really the underlying principle is that Māori had their land and resources stolen by pioneers and colonisation forces, and they have been trying ever since to get that remedied. The Treaty gives non-Māori a way of being in New Zealand with honour and meaning, otherwise we're the descendents of bullies and the people with the biggest stick.
My own people arrived owing their passage from Scotland in the 1860s and within a short time they were land owners and within a generation building wealth while Māori were losing so much. There's a whole history there about the Clearances and who arrived here and how and why. I don't think my people were bullies or evil, they clearly were trying to improve their lives. They obviously benefited hugely from being part of the society that had the biggest stick. I want to do right by them and the peoples they displaced. Both of us.
Co-governance to me means two parties coming together and figuring out how to manage things. I see so many benefits to Pākehā society from this, not least of which is improvement in our inherited form of democracy. As we can see, opov/majority rules has brought us poverty and worse for Māori, climate crisis, housing crisis, general poverty, ecological destruction. I see no way out of that in the current system. Neoliberalism is cemented in, we have generations of people socialised into voting out of self interest and individualism, they will never vote to solve the major problems that we have and we simply do not have time in regards to climate and ecology.
What I see in this debate is people looking at majority rules and thinking that Māori will have more say proportionally. I have to wonder if the objection is founded in an intuitive grasp of just how unfair our current system is. We can want improvements for Māori all we want, but we're not going to get them while Pākehā have such a majority. Eventually there will be more Polynesian people in NZ than Pākehā, but that's not going to happen for a few decades and we need change now.
Whereas I see the value in consensus, in participatory democracy, in relational rather than transactional politics, in true, participatory consultation rather the poor forms we use now, in Māori cultural tools around debate and working through problems without having to resort to majority rules. I get the general objection on principle, but I'm not seeing the rationales laid out in comparison to what we could have instead.
Opov/majority rules is a Western structure we inherited. Why are we not considering there are other systems equally as good, or even better? Is this a lack of knowledge? Lack of imagination?
Fear of change? I've been making an effort to rid myself of irrational fears, but some of them are deeply ingrained so it's a slow process.
or at least be able to explain what the fears are would be a start. I see people saying they don't like it, but not really why.
I have a lot of fears about what is happening in NZ . My fears are about not following science are pretty strong. The Listener 7 episode has, among other things made me very wary of people with ideological agendas.
And I am very wary about this Govt bringing in legislation in an underhand way, without people being fully informed, when there is evidence people don't support it (e.g a vote compass poll about gender self ID just before last election showed the majority didn't support it).
Same, but there have been (at least a few) instances of government/parliament-sponsored changes for the better in the face of majority public disapproval. Sue Bradford's 2005 private member’s 'anti-smacking bill' springs to mind – parliament even resisted a strongly-supported citizens initiated referendum aimed at repeal.
While that aspirational legislation may not have resulted in all the benefits hoped for, neither have most of the fears of those opposed been realised.
I am not entirely against a change to how our democracy works, but there needs to be a lot of discussion and transparency about this. To date IMO Labour hasn't done this (they have done the opposite). It was not part of their policy platform and as a member of the party, I was not asked about this nor was it a question in one of the numerous surveys they sent out to members which I dutifully filled out………Jacinda very early in her term as PM said we need to take people with us on change. Surely this must apply to this issue.
I have thought a lot today about my reaction to co-governance. I was brought up by a very political mother and I was told from a very early age that voting was my duty and that I must always vote (I always have). My vote really matters to me. I don't take it for granted as part of my early education was about the suffergettes and how NZ was the first country to allow women to vote. I would need very good reason to allow my vote to be diluted in its worth.
I am not sure that we will ever compensate Maori for the loss of their land, unless we give them ownership of the whole country. This would be hugely disrupted for everyone and a radical departure from our current arrangements. I know Treaty settlements don't really cut it. I think it has made the Maori elite better off. My husband co-owns small pockets of land with his whanau, that is not really that useful to him. He also gets a a Kaumatua allowance from his tribe.
Is the purpose of making changes to governance because people think this will significantly change things for Maori? If so how? Or is it more just a symbolic gesture to apologise for what happened. What would Maori do, that isn't already being done for Maori?
I am not entirely against a change to how our democracy works, but there needs to be a lot of discussion and transparency about this. To date IMO Labour hasn't done this (they have done the opposite). It was not part of their policy platform and as a member of the party, I was not asked about this nor was it a question in one of the numerous surveys they sent out to members which I dutifully filled out………Jacinda very early in her term as PM said we need to take people with us on change. Surely this must apply to this issue.
I have thought a lot today about my reaction to co-governance. I was brought up by a very political mother and I was told from a very early age that voting was my duty and that I must always vote (I always have). My vote really matters to me. I don't take it for granted as part of my early education was about the suffergettes and how NZ was the first country to allow women to vote. I would need very good reason to allow my vote to be diluted in its worth.
I am not sure that we will ever compensate Maori for the loss of their land, unless we give them ownership of the whole country. This would be hugely disrupted for everyone and a radical departure from our current arrangements. I know Treaty settlements don't really cut it. I think it has made the Maori elite better off. My husband co-owns small pockets of land with his whanau, that is not really that useful to him. He also gets a a Kaumatua allowance from his tribe.
Is the purpose of making changes to governance because people think this will significantly change things for Maori? If so how? Or is it more just a symbolic gesture to apologise for what happened. What would Maori do, that isn't already being done for Maori?
Tamati as a local MP was asked to present the Bill by the Council. End of.
Patricia. Tamati is not the local MP for Rotorua. Despite Labour's landslide in 2020, Coffey lost his seat. The only sitting Labour MP to do so. He is a list MP>
I also posted further background to the Bill in my reply to Weka above.
He may not be the electorate MP, but he is a local list MP in Rotorua and, as such, has an official office in that electorate. This is the practice in many electorates where there is/are list MPs. Their status also gives them the right to act on matters of importance within the electorate.
Fair point Anne
Auē! He kauae tehe. Kia kaha Ngāpuhi hine.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/465952/women-who-insulted-moko-kauae-told-to-apologise
To be clear; this was not just an insult against one person, but all Ngāpuhi. And Ngāti Kahungunu (who are tangata whenua ki Heretaunga) for that matter.
It was extremely ignorant and rude, and sad.
In actual fact it was the children's own parents scaring the children through prejudice and ignorance.
Strange how things move. Brought up in a small Maori dominated community and the people we saw often and who we knew would help small children if we were lost or needed comforting were the Maori Wardens and the Nannies with ta Moko, also shop keepers etc.
What must go on in the home life of those who insulted this mother doesn’t bear thinking about.