In 1996, then ACT Party Leader Richard Prebble called for the Waitangi Tribunal to be immediately abolished and after the year 2000, no more Treaty claims should be heard.
At the time he said, “The settlement of historic grievances has created a very lucrative grievance industry that has sucked in the best brains of Maoridom. The best and brightest leaders of Maoridom are now looking fixedly backwards, and they ignore the social crisis that is unfolding in front of our eyes. The grievance industry has to stop. We can’t keep looking backwards. I am not sure if one generation has responsibility for the actions of previous generations. It is also doubtful whether real reparations can be made.”
In 2000, Prebble doubled down and called again for an end to Treaty claims, this time at a Press conference on top of One Tree Hill where he called the Treaty process “apartheid”.
Fast forward to 2024, and this Government have appointed Richard Prebble to the Waitangi Tribunal, which is a bit like appointing an arsonist to run your BBQ.
Appointing people with different perspectives to important positions is crucial to ensure an intellectual tension that challenges the mettle of decisions, but appointing someone who has specifically called for the destruction of the very institute they are appointed to is a purposeful self-mutilation of a critical legal infrastructure that is being actively attacked by the very political Party Prebble was once the leader of.
Allowing Prebble, who was once the ACT Party Leader (and who pulled publicity stunts to call for the abolition of the Tribunal), to be appointed to that Tribunal while the latest incarnation of ACT is pushing to dismantle the Treaty with a Treaty Principles Referendum is as intellectually bankrupt as appointing Trump to run the Democratic Party to review his own decisions to see if they are all great.
For a Government and Prime Minister who constantly assures us is not anti-Māori or anti-Treaty, appointing to the Tribunal a political leader who campaigned on dismantling the Tribunal is nothing short of a kick in the face to all New Zealanders.
It highlights just how incredibly weak Luxon is as a Prime Minister to allow an appointment like this to occur in the first place.
Again, who is actually running this country? National or ACT and NZFirst?
Either Luxon is weak and being used as a puppet by NZfirst/Act or he is a brilliant strategist getting them to do the extreme dirty work, that he wants done, while he keeps his hands clean for the sake of Nationals more centrist swing voters.
good points peee ter
Agree, he sings from the same song book, but not because he is a brilliant political operative.
you hit the nail on the head .He is a typical CEO get someone to do the heavy lifting and if it turns to shit its not my fault its that dumb arse minion.
ACT & NZ First wagging the National party
Welcome to the Clusterfuxon Prebs.
I am happy to see prebble there. I wanna also see Don Brash.
That’s because you are dick
Actually, the tribunal needs to be disestablished.
unbelievable.
Fully agree with Martyn’s piece here…appointing a rabid institutional racist to an organisation that he and his mates want eradicated is more arrogance from CoC that is going to have some serious consequences.
Prebble is one queer fish indeed personally, a pom migrant, religious upbringing, three wives, 12 step children, never having fathered one himself despite his partners having multiple children to other men. I knew Mad Dog in the 80s at the Auckland Trades Council where I was a delegate and he was a Labour Party rep. He was a sweaty, rapid talking type in an ill fitting suit. Save the Rail! he said Yay!…and within months he was never seen again in union forums.
Waitangi Tribunal members should give him the cold shoulder and refuse to work with the bastard. But, no doubt some State Sector rule or another will require them to do so.
We are witnessing european exceptionalism starting to unfold and globally this exceptionalism is successfully being challenged with the demise of US & european powers hegemony in west asia. This unhinged “coc” is following suite making aggressive moves to undermine any good that has been fought through peaceful means in conjunction with successive Govt moving forward as a nation.
The parties to a peaceful settlement process are required to make numerous compromises to negotiate new (or revised) institutional arrangements. Several cases can be considered which illustrate how domestic courts were asked to mediate between tensions inside the political settlement. Having an ex ACT leader like prebble being part of this political arrangement who has stated that these settlements should be canned is problematic in itself.
Culture wars are being played to undermine this peaceful settlement process which maori only get 3% of what was stolen through legitimate thief & war! The empire is crumbling and the only means to halt that demise is to become aggressive which we are witnessing not only on the international stage but domestically aswell
WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: Appointing Richard Prebble to Waitangi Tribunal highlights how weak PM Luxon really is.
And allowing him to come back to suck on the public tit shows us how weak we are for allowing that stunted fuck anywhere near our political infrastructure.
The wee man’s part of the 40 year old neo-liberal crime wave. The fucker should be in jail.
well put killer
All neolibs should be in jail, and their greedy masters too, but having a devil’s advocate on a tribunal seen by many as a never-ending gravy train serving Maori elites, isn’t such a bad idea.
The devil’s advocate you refer to Applegate is milking the gravy train you refer to. As for the Māori elite they have not been milking the system as long as our Pakeha elite who established all the systems mostly to benefit themselves.
At last common sense is going to rejoin the Waitangi Tribunal
They are not a supreme court they are advisors and subservient to government
At the moment they are a mouthpiece for TPM so their advice is ignored.
Prebble may help make them relevant again
what a crock of shit .Clearly your ancestors raped and pillaged Maori and their land and you have inherited the massive benefits of such plunder .Its easy to become well off when you have not paid for the land in the first place and you have had years of slave labour to work that land .
Sorry . Which part of my statement was inaccurate
Going on a personal attacking rant just proves the lack of rational argument you can offer
You poor dear – have a lie down now love. Have some more fantasies.
What does a Scot know about land rights?
What is the term used to describe peasants being removed from common land?
Enclosure, or the process that ended traditional rights on common land formerly held in the open field system and restricted the use of land to the owner, is one of the causes of the Agricultural Revolution and a key factor behind the labor migration from rural areas to gradually industrializing cities.
The Enclosure Act | History of Western Civilization II
Lumen Learning https://courses.lumenlearning.com › chapter › the-enclos…
The Highland Clearances where people were turned off their basic crofts and sheep put to graze there instead because that was where the money was, is a meme repeated all round the world. People were forced off high crofts cold but dry, to seaside cottages where storms would lash their front door.
But suddenly Maninblack is out dicked.
Abridged history of colonial oppression of Scots
Celt on Pict
Scot on Celt
Romans on everyone
Anglels/Saxon on Scot
Normans on Angels/Saxons
English Normans on Scots Normans
English on Scots
All by right of conquest
Sorry, why have Maori been crushed after being colonized only once?
The Waitangi tribunal do not pass laws they are allowed to speak out when they know somethings is wrong regarding TOW issues but many Pakeha don’t like to hear the truth it’s Pakeha who have benefitted the most from our stolen land and still are. Now not happy with their lot they are coming for more never satisfied, fucken greedy pigs.
There are a lot of big words here below that are beyond the reading level of our elected, and unelected, players on the political field. Let them eat sport and leave us to train a new team with good moves and only passing the buck when unavoidable.
This is well said: Appointing people with different perspectives to important positions is crucial to ensure an intellectual tension that challenges the mettle of decisions,
Some people here need to educate them selves about the Waitangi tribunal along with the treaty .The tribunal has actually handed very little to Maori and have protected white colonist decendents very well .If they were giving every thing to Maori as some imply then ther would have been 1.2 million acres of waikato land taken back by governments and returned to Tainui tribes .And the same would have happened in Taranaki .Instead they are given a few million and told if you want your land back you can buy it back at market rates .
Right of conquest is the way the present tribal boundaries were set
What’s your problem with right of conquest after rebellion against the legal government
Laws are manufactured from agile brains and therefore boundaries and possession can be dickered over despite laws, and there is room for a change if brain power is applied and the dickering is hard argued, rather than fought.
I wonder if this matter should be looked at another way. Luxon being strong in his knowledge of skills, his own and others’, and knows where to utilise them effectively. He has assessed a large number of characters and places them according to the outcomes he wants.
He is then only weak from the point of view of citizens who see that his attention and intention is totally different to the Agenda of other really aware citizens wanting the good of the country. Trouble is that Agenda is nailed to a door somewhere, similar to the German instigator of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 (Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521.). There were others also with the usual fractionated efforts at times of change and improvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation#Alternatives
Whether we will succeed is a moot point and our Agenda may end up falling to the ground and becoming a diet of worms! Seems likely looking at our present Pilgrims Progress being very halting…very halt..
After 20 comments , mainly against Prebble sitting on the Waitange Tribunal, there is not a single nomination of who should be serving.
Whom would be a beneficial addition to the tribunal that can represent Maori the best to the crown?
David Seymour
My initial response to these sorts of things is NZ 1st and ACT say and do what National really want to say and do.
ACT is the living definition of race-card, bad faith, Chomskyist ‘manufacturing of consent’. Rich Prebble in the last stage of rationalization, knowing in his heart, his life was against reality and the people. Well, not really, the loss of braincells in old age gives you a vision of a perfect past life. Not Douglas though.
I now refer to Luxon as the Prime Weakling/Coward.
He has shown Time and Again as to HOW Weak he is as a leader of those MPs – and I am encompassing ALL the MPs in the coalition government – and add to this HIS COWARDNESS. His Constant Failure to reprimand, sanction or even SACK(Probably a 4 Lettered Swear Word for Luxon) for their Incompetence shows him up as not being prime minister material.
He comes across as a part time prime minister of NZ whose Primary Interest is the pay packet and perks of the job despite he himself recently he is wealthy and sorted and doesn’t need to work, The Staged Photo-opportunities that are getting more ridiculous after each NZ Taxpayer funded overseas junket.
But now the links between National and ACT look like a Marriage Made in Hell. Or rather a Marriage of Convenience. Whichever way one looks at it it looks like the age old adage of “I Scratch Your Back and You Scratch Mine” applies to two thirds of the coalition government in this instance ACT and National.
It does cross me as rather odd that ACT which ONLY got say 8% of the vote seems to have more power and control over the Prime Weakling(Luxon) than NZ First?????!!!!!!
But here is another question how much Maori blood does Prebble have? Wikipedia indicates he was born in the UK.
Now I am a natueralised Pakeha Kiwi having been born in Canada to English parents. I doubt very much I would be invited into the Waitangi Tribunal because of my lacking of Maori blood. But it seems there have been more powerful sources and processes in place to place Richard Prebble who has obvious anti-Waitangi Tribunal leanings to be a part of it???!!!!!!
I have given scant attention to his articles in the tabloid NZ herald rag. Mainly because he just doesn’t Do It for society. I cannot explain it but I don’t trust the guy one Bloody Bit. He is too self-serving to care about others but then could well explain why National wanted him in the Waitangi Tribunal.
Somehow I think the ONLY reason Prebble is on the Waitangi Tribunal is Not in the best Interest of Maori but what ACT, National and Prebble can get out of it all financially and for themselves.
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