How did 3 Waters become an existential race threat?
Watching how a basic respect towards our Treaty Partner over water infrastructure was manipulated into an attack on the core foundations of Western Democracy and some type of theft of water by Māori really signals how anger and fear have combined to make a new type of bigotry that reflectively attacks any attempt to build partnership between Māori and the State.
It’s a very sad situation.
The engrained fear some in the Community have towards partnership is driven by economic anxiety and grim political leadership which has dog whistled the worst of our angels into the debate.
That Māori have an interest, be it cultural, economic or cosmological in water has already been decided by the Waitangi Tribunal and has obligated the State work out an arrangement that acknowledges that interest.
None of this is new, none of this recent history has suddenly disappeared.
National and ACT can tub thump as much as they like, but unless they are categorically stating they will ignore that interest, then lawyer up because this will be off to the Supreme Court and I think that Court will categorically tell the Government that’s exactly what they have to do, plus costs.
The compromise the Government has arrived at that will give more regional voice while preserving 50-50 representation between Council and local Iwi is the right one to make.
Critics will paint that as co-governance when in reality the 50-50 panel will be an advisory board to a Governance Board, so it provides partnership not preference.
This is an evolution of Kiwi Democracy that we should embrace and see as a core strength of our identity, environment and economy. Instead the Right have filled a media vacuum left by Labour to paint Co-governance out as a conspiracy.
That so many were willing to go along with this mindset reveals how far we still have to work on building bridges between our Communities, because we are here all alone on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and must work together first.
That’s the inescapable geography of our society. Working together is the only solution.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “A whare divided against itself cannot e tu!
First published on Waatea News.
When Nat/Act talk of crime, and being tough on it, they are only worried about some laws of the land. The ones where you can scream lock everyone up. At least that’s the stance of the current iterations. Former versions of National paid a bit more respect to our rulings. Or was it because they were the government of the day and had to.
People have a right to disagree, but they need to do their homework/research first as many of the views about Māori privilege and Māori ownership rights in fact anything Māori are based on flawed colonial assimilative nonsense.
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