Enormous win for people power at Ihumatao, Jacinda shows real leadership & Willie Jackson sent in to save Labour (again)

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
25
1899

An enormous win announced late Friday for the people power at Ihumatao. The social media campaign that is drawing in thousands from around the country as a cavalcade of righteous Māori grievances from mental health, the Oranga Tamariki scandal, Justice report, health report and 2am WINZ queues collide and breath energy into a modern day land occupation that has caught the authorities by surprise.

Jacinda Ardern has been slow to appreciate how this was going to erupt after a litany of issues generated momentum into this moment of spontaneous activism but she has shown real leadership by declaring no building will occur on the land until there is agreement.

This is a gutsy move by Jacinda and has given her the mana to lead and propose a solution.

Once again, Willie Jackson will be asked to save the Labour Party with Māoridom. He hosted the impressive Oranga Tamariki hui at his urban Marae two weekends ago and he will officially visit the protesters tomorrow and listen to the protectors.

If the activists wanted a better emissary to negotiate with, they couldn’t find one beyond Jackson. Willie’s left wing credentials as an activist and a passionate defender of Māori rights is battle proven and beyond reproach.

If Jacinda can calm this situation down and find resolution with the same grace she showed at the UN and during Christchurch, she will deserve a second term.

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25 COMMENTS

  1. Best analysis I’ve read of the standoff reckons it is, at heart, a class struggle between the rich corporate Maori elite and the poor and disaffected working-class. The MSM is trying to paint it as a generational clash rather than one of class.
    tolerantleftist.blogspot.com/2019/07/ihumatao-class-conflict-in-maori.html?

    • Graham Adams: “… it is, at heart, a class struggle between the rich corporate Maori elite and the poor and disaffected working-class.”

      I’ve read that piece; I agree that this is what it looks like, rather than the MSM perspective.

      It’s been clear for some time that the issues besetting Maori society are down to class. Some of us have commented on the fact that the benefits of Treaty settlements haven’t percolated down to the poorest sector of Maori society. I guess that we shouldn’t be surprised at this: the settlements have happened in the neoliberal environment visited upon us by Rogernomics in the first instance, and perpetuated by every government since.

      It’s a fact of life that – regardless of it having been confiscated – the land in question is privately-owned. The contemporary owners weren’t responsible for any of that history; come to that, none of us now alive is responsible for what was done in the 19th and early 20th centuries. We cannot be expected to carry the blame for what was done back then, no matter how appalled we are by it.

      For this reason, the government ought not to intervene; were it to do so, it risks undermining the private property rights of all citizens, Maori included. We are justified in being very concerned about what might happen next.

  2. “real leadership”? She has been saying all week the government wouldn’t get involved. What’s changed? Amnesty International on site? This is not leadership.

    • This may be what will bring this government down, as NZ First will NOT be amused, while the Greens offer cuddles to the protesters. Jacinda is between a huge rock and a very hard place now, protesters want her to deliver, others want the status quo.

  3. Struggle is always decided by the respective balance of forces, and the numbers were starting to add up at Ihumātao along with solidarity action.

    By next weekend numbers could have been well into the thousands and beyond effective Police control without resorting to force.

    Good luck to Willie etc. and good on Jacinda for waking up at last, but it is not over yet and most will remain on alert.

    This situation has shown again the basic right wing position of most MPs on “Colonial fall out” issues. And that unity between Maori and non Maori is what the NZ ruling class fears most.

    • Maybe that’s what we need in this country – a REAL protest, the likes of what we see overseas where the streets are jammed with tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Not the paltry turnout so many ‘protests’ garner here with a few tens of people waving placards and chanting as they go.

  5. ‘Real leadership’ by perhaps opening up Pandora’s Box and set a precedent that will lead to all previous Maori land ciaims to be challenged, yet again.

    • It’s all good. She made her captains call, tilted her head with a concerned look, and then jumped on her own personal Air Force One for another holiday in the south Pacific (after just getting back from one) .

      I guess her personal carbon footprint is of no concern to the masses.

      • 1. It’s not a holiday, and it was planned
        2. It was an excellent Captain’s call
        3. Is the tilt of her head of any consequence at all?
        4. Her “personal carbon footprint” is a concern in the wider environmental context, just as mine is, and as is yours, I suspect, unless you live completely off the grid and ride a vegan organic locally hand made bicycle. But until our society makes the transition away from our addiction to fossil fuels for transportation, we all have to share complicity for adding to the woes of our planet.

  6. Local Iwi and Maori land court agreed to this development….so rule of Maori law/elders is not important in Maoridom any more?, good to know!

    • If Elders ignore the welfare of the less well off or the fundamental in justice involved in confiscation.

    • I’m Right – I’d word it a bit differently. Pania Newton tried, and failed to get this development stopped by the Maori Land Court – who didn’t have the standing. (My words.) She et al then went to the Environment Court and they rejected the claim. Having failed to exercise control over the mana whenua by legal means, they then decided to use ‘people power.’

      As usual there seem to be as many half-truths littering the ground as there are historically placed stones – which will not be tinkered with – unlike the truth.

      David Rankine is saying that PM Ardern does not have the standing (my words) to interfere with the agreement between the mana whenua and whatever other parties. If our democracy in NZ is such that a PM
      can just dive in and change or halt a legal contract, then this itself can be seen as an assault on the democratic process.

      Mr Rankine has announced that he is making a complaint to the police about PM Ardern’s actions here. Whether the police can act on Mr Rankine’s complaint, or whether it has to be a civil action, remains to be seen.

      The Environment Court’s reasonings are extensive and well worth a read – but shouldn’t get in the way of band-wagon jumpers – and it’s a band wagon for the usual suspects plus Greens who may be trying to counter- balance their last hopeless race-relations stuff-up, but can’t.

      • Will it be a quick fix or a war of attrition? The local body elections could come into play if this is dragged out for weeks? And then what?
        Does she have the stomach and the political will to front up with the cash? Or will she acquire a set of balls? This is class war been waged. Does she understand that and what that really means? Its how you unite the oldies with the yoof and have a bif, ay?

  9. I’m not seeing ‘Enormous win for people power at Ihumatao’ yet.

    I hope it is an enormous win. We’ll find out whether it is or not when the properties are built or not. As well as leaving space around a historical site, this strikes me as an early stand in a class war.

  10. The govt have previously already tried to get the relevant parties talking to work out a solution and they are just having another go at getting people to talk to each other.

    “Mr Henare said MPs met with Fletchers, local iwi Te Kawerau ā Maki, and SOUL, but were unable to reach a consensus about how to move forward”
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/395100/ihumatao-protest-govt-will-not-intervene-pm-says

    The Maori council “respectfully asks that all parties involved in the Ihumātao dispute take a step back in order that these matters can be resolved between Maori and by Maori”

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1907/S00298/ihumatao-statement-from-the-new-zealand-maori-council.htm

  11. The National government did land swaps in the Hutt Valley with private developers who had to build so many social houses in order for them to make a profit and the rest of the houses built were all private all on state land (not fair, not what the land was intended for, houses too dare for those that once lived there, many sold to foreigners new to our country) Why is national so quiet on this issue if we have a look at what they did in the housing area who did their housing polices benefit, why did they knock down and sell so many state houses and land when we had a severe housing shortage why would you do this? people need to keep asking themselves these questions.

    • Developer mates matter more when stealing State House land and existing state houses.
      There is a lengthy waiting list for State houses in the Hutt but Nact organised empty houses about demolition.
      The decisions involve collusion with Housing NZ behind closed doors.
      By the time the public got wind of it the houses had been emptied.

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