Waitangi Tribunal review – changing role set to come under scrutiny by coalition Government
The Government’s agenda on Māori policy goes much further than Act’s bid to rewrite the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, as Shane Jones has warned, and the way theWaitangi Tribunal operates will come under scrutiny too.
Jones, a New Zealand First minister, specifically noted the tribunal’s constitutional inquiry getting underway that will look, among other things, at sovereignty.
It is one of six so-called “kaupapa inquiries” in progress which are moving at a snail’s pace.
A closed-door meeting at Waitangi tomorrow is the first of what are intended to be several regional meetings between tribunal officials and Māori claimants to design the constitution inquiry and decide who can take part. Another is set down for March at Waipatu Marae in Hawke’s Bay.
Jones’ objections to the constitution inquiry, however, are not about its slow progress but that the tribunal is holding a constitutional inquiry at all.
One of the funniest parts of this Government is how each of the three Parties struggle to want to show redneck voters how much they love bashing Māori most.
National want to bash Māori, but just a little bit, ACT wants to legislate the Treaty Principles out of existence and start a race war while NZ First want to endlessly scream at the ‘elite Māori’ as if Shane and Winston aren’t elite or Māori!
I don’t see co-governance as the faux apartheid some manufacture it as.
Calling He Puapua ‘a secret agenda’ is disingenuous to the words ‘agenda’, ‘secret’ and ‘a’.
The idea that a barely read wish list of indigenous hopes and aspirations that could live up to the promise of the Treaty would ever get fully implemented is Trump like in its delusion of imaginary white fears.
He Puapua was a wish list of hopes and aspirations, it was not a secret blueprint for the takeover of a country by radical Māori and attempting to frame it as such is bordering on QAnon conspiracy fantasy.
Likewise with 3 Waters and the claim it’s Māori stealing da water.
We wouldn’t be having discussion over who owns the water of John Key hadn’t sold our hydro assets!
Remember how the ruling in that case shaped this issue?
The Court said Māori did have an interest in water and it was up to the Crown to negotiate that.
Labour used the co-governance model built by National and ACT to deliver on that legal obligation!
Māori are a break peddle on neoliberalism and their views can ensure privatisation and foreign ownership stops!
For decades, the Treaty of Waitangi has formed a part of New Zealand’s approach to trade. Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta is kicking it up a notch. National Correspondent Lucy Craymer explains.
When the epochal Uruguay Round of global trade talks was happening almost four decades ago, New Zealand’s chief negotiator had a premonition.
Tim Groser reckoned the global trade arrangements being formed might – in ways he could not anticipate – come into conflict with the Treaty of Waitangi. In 1986, with a Labour Government led by David Lange in office, and vast economic and social reforms sweeping change across the nation at a breakneck speed, the modern significance of Te Tiriti was only starting to come into view.
“We could see a potential political problem arising whereby people would want to do things that we couldn’t quite foresee, in respect to the treaty,” Groser says. “We needed to avoid trade agreements getting in the way of that.”
The negotiation brought about the biggest reform to global trade ever and led to the creation of the World Trade Organisation. A clause was included allowing New Zealand to meet its treaty obligations, even if this meant breaching the global agreement.
Groser says it went through with no controversy and little publicity, even in New Zealand.
“I don’t think a single country raised a question let alone an objection. It’s not surprising. Why would they? Countries have bigger fish to fry,” he says.
A version of this clause, which allows the government to deliver on Te Tiriti ahead of its free trade obligations, has been included in every agreement since.
Most Pakeha don’t know that the Treaty is our out clause in free trade deals!
We can side track the exploitation from global corporations by using the Treaty!
For me, I love the Treaty because of the relationship of responsibility it immediately sets up between the Crown and its people.
I believe Pakeha have to actually understand that the Treaty applies directly to them as well because it explains the relationship between the state and its citizens!
The Treaty sets out the obligations of the Crown to protect the rights of its people. We deserve as a nation to entrench the Treaty as the basis of our constitutional relationship so we can force Governments to protect our rights rather than strip us of them.
Treaty’s are to be honoured, not settled!
Pakeha want to gloss over the theft and confiscation of indigenous lands because it’s a shameful denial of the promise of a Treaty between two peoples and when you consider the paltry compensation that has been paid back to Maori via the Waitangi Tribunal, it’s a mere $1.4 Billion.
$1.4 Billion for confiscating the majority of NZ??? What is most egregious is that some Pakeha have the audacity to claim that pathetic reparation is a ‘gravy train’.
NZ First want to play to that petty bigotry by framing the Iwi’s as the elites when really NZ First has always been a proxy for regional economic industries prepared to donate for less regulation.
Look at the Congo line of under regulated capitalism coming our way…
NZ First must be kept out of fishing and ocean portfolios
Greenpeace is urging the National Party to keep New Zealand First out of any oceans or fisheries portfolios – citing previous examples of Winston Peters’ party pandering to fishing industry interests and blocking much-needed ocean protection.
With the special vote count confirming that National will need NZ First to form a government, Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper says the public and political leaders should be reminded that NZ First cannot be trusted to act in the interests of ocean health.
“Last time NZ First had a seat at the table, it was revealed that the party received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from fishing company Talley’s – and then acted in ways that supported fishing industry interests over ocean health,” says Hooper.
“This included delaying the rollout of cameras on boats, which would hold the fishing industry accountable when coral or endangered animals such as dolphins, sea lions and turtles get hauled up or killed in nets. Disturbingly NZ First also pushed to get a Talley’s boat that had trawled illegally in protected areas taken off an international blacklist of disreputable fishing vessels.”
“Right now, the ocean is facing increasing threats from climate change, pollution and destructive fishing practices, and marine life is paying the price – including fish populations, coral forests, mammals such as dolphins and seabirds like the albatross. With all this at risk, there is no way NZ First should be at the helm of ocean decisions, they simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing for the ocean and all the life it supports.”
In February 2020, while NZ First was in coalition with the then Labour Government, it was revealed Talley’s donated nearly $27,000 to the NZ First Foundation that funded the NZ First party. NZ First MP Shane Jones also received money from the fishing industry to fund his 2017 campaign.
At the time, Greenpeace highlighted the potential conflict of interest that NZ First was bringing to the Cabinet table and called on the then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to launch an external review of fishing decisions related to Talley’s.
That same year Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash blamed NZ First for slowing the rollout of cameras on boats in a leaked phone call. In response, NZ First MP Shane Jones told Stuff he was an “apostle of industry” and tended to represent industry in tough decisions around new legislation.
This election cycle, NZ First received a donation of $50,000 from P J Vela, founding member of commercial fishing company Vela Fishing.
“As the new Government goes through the process of forming a coalition and assigning Ministerial portfolios, New Zealanders are looking for integrity and honesty from our new Ministers. People want to know that those in charge are serious about looking after the ocean so it can recover and thrive and everyone can catch a fish for years to come.
“We need bold action from political leaders to protect the ocean for the future and this includes getting destructive bottom trawling off seamounts and out of the Hauraki Gulf along with keeping the industry accountable by rolling out cameras to the full fishing fleet. Our future and the future of ocean health depends on it.”
…Jones was appointed the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Resources, and Associate Minister of Finance and Energy.
The pork barrel never tastes so sweet until Matua Shane Jones smacks his lips.
Attacking Māori elites is merely a tool to win redneck vote and push against regulation for their donor mates.
This is who we is now. This is what we have empowered.
Rank political grifters who manufacture fears for the easily led.
God defend NZ, because the fucking voters sure as Christ didn’t.
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Nationalise the fishing industry.
Precisely @ millsy then don’t stop there.
Seize it back from iwi? You clowns really have no idea do you.
Great column Mr Bomber. Many boomers think the Treaty is just some sort of charter for Māori–but Debbie Packer was one of the first to publicly assert “Ngati Tiriti”–non Māori who understand and support deep Māori issues as affecting all that live in Aotearoa NZ. When post colonial fallout and injustice is repaired we all do better.
That is what a number of new gens realise…Te Tiriti applies not just to Māori but Pākehā and other Tau iwi.
I would oppose a Republic at this stage because a link to Britain via the Crown however ridiculous and historically villainous the Monarchy may be, keeps the Treaty as a legal entity. If Te Tiriti were to be wiped too soon before social conditions for the majority improve the likes of Incel Dave will get their way.
I can’t see why they bitch at the “wealthy Maori elite” after all, the Pakeha elite is also wealthy usually. All you can really accuse them of is adopting a Pakeha/capitalist ethos. And I thought they were all for that.
“Labour used the co-governance model built by National and ACT to deliver on that legal obligation!”
That’s because Labour is post-rogers play for neo-liberalism which is the deep, dark blue haemorrhoid hanging off National’s arsehole and now ringed by the lessor haemorrhoids ACT, NZ First, The @ Maori Party and The Green party.
If that were not the case there’d be punch ups in the lobby, not slick sliders looking to do killer deals between our politicians and now privatised, corporate-psycho paymasters.
While they have us convinced that our problems lie at ground level with pantomime and pomp, as is their want, the plump dip shit above puts on a performance like a flightless bird having had far too much to eat. The real action is at a higher altitude, up there were the billionaires fly where everything costs, and souls are no exception.
“A closed-door meeting at Waitangi tomorrow is the first of what are intended to be several regional meetings between tribunal officials and Māori claimants to design the constitution inquiry and decide who can take part. Another is set down for March at Waipatu Marae in Hawke’s Bay.” And this doesn’t cause any misgivings? It damn well should.