Minister overhauls Waitangi Tribunal membership
- Tama Potaka is replacing half of the Waitangi Tribunal’s members, including senior academics.
- Former blogger Philip Crump and former Defence Minister Ron Mark are among new appointments to Waitangi Tribunal.
- These changes are just the start for the Tribunal. The Government is promising to “refocus” its scope and purpose.
Totally coward move by Minister Potaka to gut the Waitangi Tribunal and fill it with hateful rednecks.
Appointing Mad Dog Press was a slap in the face, but appointing a toxic right wing leprechaun like Ron Mark is like asking Sean Plunkett to head TVNZ and appointing a far right hate blogger like Philip Crumb who is a redneck from the ZB Troll farm highlights the hollow arseholes National are stacking every board with.
To place such hateful rednecks onto offical boards is like appointing arsonists to the fire department.
Sliding this news out late on a Friday afternoon in the hope no one will notice just highlights what. gutless nothing Minister Potaka has become.
This is a move designed to damage the Waitangi Tribunal and stack it with redneck fuckwits.
If you aren’t disgusted by the naked racism of the Right then you agree to it and you are to blame.
Kiwis should be ashamed by this latest move.
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Ron Marks is an apartheid Israel supporter he likes having his photo ops with war criminals and constantly gives credence to this Nazi state. Neva heard of the other clown but I bet he’s just another baldhead that not gonna be helpful to our country racist relation which is already strained by Coc handling.
Free Aotearoa
At least Marks is consistent. He supports all apartheid regimes past and present, while the likes of Luxon and Seymour will pretend that they weren’t fans of South African apartheid.
You’d have to look at someone like Winston Peters, who referred to the Waitangi Tribunal as ‘[following] the path of Black Africa’ (i.e. throwing off white rule i.e bad), to see anywhere near the same degree of honesty.
Yeah true that and Winnie da Pooh is an opportunist scum sucking bottom feeder he’s says shit to suit the occasion
Waitangi Tribunal needed to be pulled back into its lane, to do what it was originally set up to do, and by these changes it will.
Someone needed to remind it that it was not a court of law and the panel were not judges.
Pakepakeha you wouldn’t have clue about what the tribunal is suppose to do and most recommendations aren’t even upheld by both mainstream political parties so electing these rednecks ain’t gonna mean shit
Well said Im right.
Well said Stephen and Bob the pomme clueless on the Waitangi Tribunal or anything New Zealand for that matter.
Lets get this right.
The Waitangi Tribunal is not a court. Since it was established as a permanent commission of inquiry, its method of investigation differs significantly from that of a court in several important respects: Generally, the Tribunal has authority only to make recommendations.
Waitangi Tribunal members are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister for Māori Development. Members come from all walks of life and are appointed for their expertise in the matters that are likely to come before them. About half the members are Māori and half are Pākehā.
The question is are these new Tribunal appointee’s honestly up to the job or are they there to steer a particular political agenda. Given how they came to be appointed the latter appears reality.
Yes said Neil
Most definitely the latter. Hand picked to suit right wing agenda. No neutrality at all.
Well the bunch of loser just kicked out were useless. Can’t change much.
Except Tony we now have shit loads more unemployed and infrastructure problems have been dumped on rate payers who will now more than they would have under other proposed solutions
Do you have a bother named morgan Teasdale lived in gisborne?
This comment was “informative” in that it rather cleverly exposes the utter delusion that underpins the colonial power structure, and a level of ignorance that would have made George Grey proud…
Otherwise, I would have been advising a return visit to your doctor, to swap your mouths back to where they should be..
WTF are you on about
Putting murderous mercenary Ron Mark on the Tribunal is so funny. This is the guy who praised Southern Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa for keeping Africans out of power, saying that “there was a chap by the name of Mugabe. The only person who had it right, whom I can recall, was Robbie Muldoon. He said: “He was a terrorist, he always has been a terrorist, and he always will be a terrorist.””
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/51HansS_20141209_00001059/mark-ron-countering-terrorist-fighters-legislation-bill
“No Haka” Potaka is in the ranks of supreme “potato’s” and Uncle Toms in NZ politics.
Members of the Tribunal should at the very least be knowledgeable of the Māori world and have empathy-the boneheads and nasties appointed are obvious spoilers and destruction merchants.
We’re being dissected for assimilation. The scum who pretend they’re for we lot are not.
In my humble opinion, we, all of us, should demand an early election. This freak-show coalition will be our undoing unless we resist. We need a unifying entity like the Crown in support of Maori and our primary industry economy to say ” Hang on a minute!? Let’s lean against the mantelpiece and have a wee breather and figure out a way around this awful situation developing.”
Read this by George Monbiot of The Guardian.
“Trump and Musk have launched a new class war. In the UK, we must prepare to defend ourselves.”
George Monbiot
“If governments like the UK’s are to invest in their own survival, they must free their citizens to rebuild democracy, and we must seize every opportunity to do so. There is no demilitarised zone in this class war. We must all decide where we stand.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/19/donald-trump-elon-musk-class-war-uk-us-oligarchies-democracy
Monbiot probably should have considered NOT stabbing Jeremy Corbyn in the back, then.
Yes an early election is desperately needed to halt the fucking madness we are seeing unfolding in front of our very eyes, those who refuse to see are going to have a sharp awakening.
( Ron) mark my words.
First; the Treaty. Then the Crown. Then, we’re fucked. Farmers? You’ll be feedlot managers to a chemicalised-foods future. Or…You’ll be enslaved to supply real and organic foods to, then wipe the arses of, the oligarchies. Hey you ! The Masses… You did this you dumb, cheap fucking morons. You gassed and gaggled about tits, kittens and arse on the digital alien weaponry of the oligarchs. You blubbered and babbled on X and Meta while X and Meta extended their tentacles deep into your minds. Not even the Wachowskis could have seen this shit coming.
Solution? Make your politicians do their fucking jobs which is to best serve you. If they stop best serving you then they must go. By any means available and before it’s too late and there’s nothing worse than too late. x Charles Bukowski.
We can only change what”s ours. Our AO/NZ is OURS! NOT THEIRS! Remember that.
Our current government isn’t ours so they must go and that dear boys and girls is still our prerogative.
Exactly correct!!
We have one legal and justice system, so we shouldn’t even have that tribunal
Great point. Next we need to get rid of this crazy concept of having separate youth courts and family courts and civil and criminal districft courts and a high court and a supreme court. ONE COURT ONLY
Its not a court wake the fuck up
Your ignorance on why the Tribunal was set up is not a surprise, or are you just a racist stirrer.
Treaty Shmeaty! The Treaty has become a lightning rod, a nonsense, a handbreak to progess. Here’s a great example why: Standards of Professional Nursing. First section – New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) is committed to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa/New Zealand, and is determined by the partnership relationship with Te Rūnanga o Aotearoa, NZNO (Te Rūnanga). Te Tiriti o Waitangi = acknowledges the rights of all peoples to their place in this land – Māori as Tangata Whenua and others as Iwi kainga (those that have come to make a home for themselves here). Te Rūnanga is an integral part of NZNO membership and this relationship reflects the Treaty commitment. The intention of this commitment is to realise the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi within NZNO as the wider organisation and its future moemoeā (aspirations and dreams). NZNO recognises the uniqueness, values and contributions of each party within this relationship. Together, Te Rūnanga and NZNO will work with collaborative intent to create, implement and monitor kawa/policy that will be intrinsic throughout organisational tikanga/procedures and activity.
If you managed to read this far and you’re a nurse, you will want to book your ticket to AUS.
Do us all a favour and fuck off to Aus yourself
I’m disappointed at the standard of journalism……. So biased!!
He was interviewed on RNZ this morning and Paddy Gower was unable ( or unwilling) to get a straight answer about the white washing of the Tribunal . Instead of getting the answers he wanted Gower accepted weasel words, he should have been cut off by Gower instead of pandering to his non answers and excuses