Written By:
Zetetic - Date published:
10:16 am, July 15th, 2012 - 27 comments
Categories: class war, treaty settlements, water -
Tags: property rights, racism
Old rich man, Don Brash, arch-advocate of private property rights, on Q+A arguing against the property rights of iwi because they’re Maori. He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership.
No-one’s arguing for that. Only the Right are making this about race. Iwi are arguing for the contract they signed with the Crown to be honoured.
Whether they can, in fact, establish that the property rights they are asserting under that contract exist is an evidential matter but there ought to be no objection in principle to the terms of a Treaty being honoured.
In fact, you would think a rightwinger would be the first to support that. But they don’t, because the truth is that all their talk about protecting property rights is actually about protecting the privileges of the existing elite.
Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this: if this was a big (preferably foreign-owned) corporation saying ‘we own the rights to the water in this river and if you want to use it, you’ll have to deal with us’, would the Right being crying foul or would they shrug their shoulders and wait to see what the judicial process finds?
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. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Nah, they’re only for contracts when the beneficiaries of them are straight white men.
Dirty old Don didn’t Maori have the same property rights as European after the treaty was signed .
It only took Europeans 166 years to confer those rights and probably anther 30years before settle ment at only between 1 and 3% of what was confiscated and stolen!
Don Maori bash is an ignorant racist bigot.
I’d modify your statement a little:
Brash and his ilk are all for contracts because the rule of contract permits capital accumulation. It so happens to be that those who accumulate most capital in western economies are white and male. The institutional holding of capital privileges the white male.
Brashs comments also show that neo-liberal capital is strongly infavour of contractual law, until such time as it threatens it’s abilities to maximise profit. Neo-liberal capital is all for contracts and competition, provided it is on their terms.
However Brash is proven to be less than honest with his public comments.
Which says a lot for the fourth estate that they keep going back to ask his opinions, and then printing them uncritically…..
not an editorialism in sight…..I suppose that is only reasonable when it’s done to opponents of the landlords lackeys….
“Old rich man, Don Brash, arch-advocate of private property rights, arguing against the property rights of iwi because they’re Maori. He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership.”
I’m sorry I don’t know what he said, or when he said it. It would be helpful if when people are quoted, or perhaps paraphrased, at least a link to where the actual statement can be seen should be included. It may be easy to find now, but in a weeks time it may be quite difficult to find.
From the first sentence of the post, I assume Brash made these statements on Q & A this morning as he was on the panel (did not watch it but will do so later on TV3 On Demand), ie
Old rich man, Don Brash, arch-advocate of private property rights, on Q+A arguing against the property rights of iwi because they’re Maori. He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership.
Q&Q may be up on On Demand now.
Ooops – that should have been TVNZ – here is the link
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a/qa-2012-07-15-video-4969225
I will probably shock a few people but I wish to acknowledge the principled position in part that the ACT party had in 2004 when the foreshore and seabed legislation was being enacted.
Richard Prebble said during the first reading debate:
“ACT is a party that believes in private property rights, the rule of law, the citizen’s right to go to court, and one law for all. This bill violates all of those principles. Today Parliament is doing great and lasting damage to racial harmony by introducing legislation that racially discriminates. The bill discriminates against Māori. It removes the right that the Court of Appeal found that Māori have to seek a declaration from the courts that the seabed and foreshore is Māori land. ”
Even though I disagree as the bill clearly allowed Maori to seek a declaration that its rights were breached by the bill the comments were certainly internally consistent.
Probably their last internally consistent moment. Reckon we’ll see racist old Banks live up to it?
Nope Felix, not a chance. The Simon Lusk puppet party would never go past what their massah tells them to do.
Brash is proven to be someone who doesn’t tell the truth. His comments regarding race and contractual law is not necessarily that of some ACT members.
Yeah Mickey. Principled as.
Running for memory here, but it’s clear enough that I’d be shocked if I was wrong and would genuinely like to be corrected if I am wrong.
Way I reall it is that they were leaning very much against iwi, untill people started throwing the property rights argument in theirfaces. they then ummed and ahhed and dithered and balthered untill Stephen Franks decided that iwi would lose if it went to court. When they convinced themeselves of this, they went the “right to a court hearing” route, opposing any negotiated settlement.
Moving away from meory and into the realms of the dreaded speculation; I’d guess that if it did go to court and if iwi won, ACT would have repsonded not with “Oh franks was wrong” but “activist judges”.
And we can see how principled the ACT position was based on how those poeple are speaking out in this case.
Anybody heard anything, I’ve been out for the weekend. has Rodney piped up? Any of the new crop? What sez banks?
Amen. As a libertarian, I heartily endorse this perspective. This was before the ACT party moved away from its principles, and before I stopped voting for them. What most Maori want is the enforcement of their property rights.
What did Brash say ?
he said, “f*ck you all, I’m all right jack”.
I can only find two hits on google news for “don brash”, in the past week.
Nothing about his views on Maoridom (Maybe Zetetic is referring to Brash’s historical stance on Maori) but one of the article confirms that Brash is a member of the Brotherhood.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10818446
Apparently, Brash made these comments on Q&A this morning. Link to the programme on TVNZ On Demand at 3.1.1 above.
Treaty of Waitangi,
Article Two,
Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof, THE FULL, EXCLUSIVE, AND UNDISTURBED POSSESSION OF THEIR LANDS, ESTATES, FISHERIES, AND OTHER PROPERTIES WHICH THEY MAY COLLECTIVELY OR INDIVIDUALLY POSSESS, so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession, but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the individual Chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate, at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective proprietors and the persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf.
Why anyone would give the oxygen thief Brash the time of day let alone space in news articles is beyond me, there may be some ambiguity in the wording of the Maori text of the Treaty of Waitangi, but the English text, article two which i printed above is completely unambiguous as to the extent of what Maori possessed, (owned), at the time the Treaty was signed…
What people need to remember is that the last thing the establishment wants is for the treaty to be shown for the fraud that it is, because it makes any treaty ever signed by “The Crown”, or any act of the sham which is our parliamentary, legal and judicial systems, and those who have operated inside of it complicit to the fraud!
Listening to old white men, who are inherantly racist, and in fact anti humanity ,talking about race based divide and trying to prevent it, about as transparent as a wet t-shirt!
I for one will be very interested to follow how this is handled, because for the establishment, it is actually very crucial it is not let out of the bag, not can it be a hamstring moment for them!
If this “treaty” can keep NZ’s real wealth out of the hands of the “rich white men”, then it will be a good news day.
Which is why its all the more sad to see Sharples and Turia bend over the way they do!
Guess the reason the NACT policy sign up the maori party right after the 2008 election, before they ever needed them has been exposed for all to see!
Brash was on Q & A? Thanks – it’s good to be reminded why I don’t bother watching it.
Here’s how he should have been introduced on the Panel – but I’m guessing he wasn’t …
“And also joining us today is Don Brash. Welcome.
Dr Brash, you were the leader of a party that got fewer votes than Mana at the last election. Therefore your opinion is less relevant than Hone Harawira’s. In fact, your party got less than one tenth of the votes given to the Greens. Therefore, in the spirit of fairness and true democracy, we will be respecting the wishes of the people (it’s that “mandate” some commentators keep going on about), and we will give Green MPs ten times your allotted speaking time today. So you might want to keep it short.
Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve just been informed that you didn’t receive any votes at all at the last election. Because you didn’t even stand, anywhere. Therefore, you represent precisely nobody, and we won’t be requiring your services this morning.
Actually there is something you could do. I’ll have a flat white, no sugar. Thanks.”
Margin-of-error party leader to be sure, but I assume Dr Brash appeared in his other role.
The (only just) unofficial National Party Race Relations Spokesperson
“He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership.”
Nor should we have ‘class-based’ ownership, Don.
Brash’s reactionary racism is simply the retreat of the colonial oppressor whereby LAW has failed them,
It is obvious from the Court of Appeal decision over the Waikato river at Poukani,(now a electricity generating lake) that the Judiciary ‘see’ the beds of rivers and lakes as part of the Maori Estate and thus in the absence of Legislation removing such from the Maori Estate or a legitimate purchase by the Crown with the agreement of the ‘owners’ the Crown is in breach of article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi when it usurped the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of Maori in passing prior empowering Legislation in order to build the power generating dams upon the Waikato river,
The Crown is in attempting to now sell 49% of those dams into the hands of private owners further breaching the Treaty of Waitangi at Article Two as it has no legitimate authority to sell any part of the bed of the Waikato river which it has not purchased from the Maori Estate as per the conditions of Article Two…
What we shouldn’t have is capitalist ownership as that removes the power from the people and puts it into the hands of an unaccountable few.
Gee Draco
This can happen with any group. You can’t provide a one sentence premise-fits-all-situations like this without saying that people have to ensure they are informed and involved and want to have input on that basis. We need to think and examine and analyse and ensure the power and the decisions are the best and practical of the options.
Once people start thinking along the lines of your sentence, they leave the job of decision making to their leaders or politicians and they themselves are then likely to be by-passed in decision making as in the TPP. If it wasn’t for Maori fighting to keep themselves in the picture they would have very little clout, but most of the rest of we NZs are like children thinking that government is some clever virtuous parent who is mostly right.
Yeah, I have to date resisted the emetic reaction that Don Brash induces because I have never got close enough to him to ensure that if I do actually puke it will all be over him.
Brash is another example of a professional bum on a plush seat. He was offered a well paid job soon after uni and has never been faced with the crushing hopelessness of someone struggling against our people-hating world and a punitive, diminishing welfare system. Or to work for years doing a good job, making useful things only to be laid off because other people in charge of money flow and instruments can’t do their job properly.
Most of these tools are still working in their jobs in finance despite their malfeasance, known or unrealised. And Brash is an economist which is a magician specialising in numbers and concepts, and like any good magician can think up a new act when the previous one palls.