NZFirst promise to start a bigger race war than ACT if re-elected
NZ First pledges 100-day plan to abolish Waitangi Tribunal
New Zealand First has announced plans to abolish the Waitangi Tribunal within its first 100 days if re-elected.
The party announced on Saturday it would replace the tribunal with a temporary commission to complete all historical claims prior to 2008.
Stuff
NZF are doing what the Taxpayers’ Union has taught them, racism sells.
By trying to out racist ACT, Winston has set in motion mass civil disobedience in the first 100 days of his Government.
There is no way MÄoridom will allow Winston to mutilate the Waitangi Tribunal like this.
Letâs be clear.
The Waitangi Tribunal is NZs conscience.
By around 1900, MÄori had lost roughly 90% of their original tribal landholdings through a combination of Crown purchasing, confiscation, private acquisition and the operation of the Native Land Court and colonial land laws.
In the 1850s, MÄori were major commercial agricultural producers, owning ships, flour mills and large farming operations. So the land alienation wasnât merely a cultural loss, it stripped away much of the productive asset base of what had been a thriving MÄori economy.
Maori never ceded sovereignty and co-governance is a means to express that truth.
Facing up to the facts of those past wrongs demands a voice of mana, that voice is the Waitangi Tribunal.
White Volk who have benefited from that injustice NEVER want to acknowledge it.
They want the Treaty settled, they donât want it honoured.
They recoil at partnership and embody a culture of white fragility which is weaponised and manipulated  in this country by the political right.
NZ First and ACT pretend to be standing for one law for all, but thatâs a fig leaf for redneck racism.
We should celebrate our unique identity, we should see the Treaty as our foundational document and we should recognise the power of it.
I love the Treaty because it stipulates the obligations of the Crown, not just to MÄori, but to us all!
The Treaty obligates the Crown to ensure all our self soverighty and all our rights.
NZ First and ACT play to reactionary Kiwis who ignore the realities of our own history. They are a carnival of racism while pretending to champion democratic values.
Trying to erase the Waitangi Tribunal is attempting to censor our past.
Rebellion is self care in times of fascism.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
George Orwell, 1984
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It is a case of “mine is bigger than yours”.
The scramble to be the first to descend the lowest.
The angry old man or the arrogant rich prick.
UGLY, UGLY, UGLY â Winston, shame on you and ACT! Martyn seriously points out that the Treaty stipulates the obligations of the Crown, not just to MÄori, but to us ALL! It also obligates the Crown to ensure ALL our self sovereignty, ALL our rights, and the Waitangi Tribunal is NZ’s conscience! Winston are you being a smart-aleck or have you failed to understand this? Abolishing the Waitangi Tribunal is spiteful, unnecessary and racist! I imagine your ‘temporary commission’ would be stacked with similar appointees. Is that the fair way to treat our Maori? Haven’t they been ripped off enough? Just look at how much land they now own â less than 6%! It’s appalling and reeks of Persecution. You are the one with the problem. It may be time to call it quits before you make a complete ‘dick’ of yourself. And MAORI NEVER CEDED SOVEREIGNTY!
Decent Kiwis, with a conscience and a sense of fairness, need to stand up to these Racist Bigots who need to bury their hatred and try to live in the real world. They simply can’t continue with their superior attitudes and denigrate a whole group of people simply because of their race, colour or ethnicity! Put yourself in their shoes and show some common garden understanding!
Great articles Peter, My Impression and Pat O’Dea!
This has to be sorted. Lets see if people are willing to take to the streets. A million words on the internet are just a sparrows fart in a hurricane. If a plan to end the waitangi tribunal is put into action then the only hope is if people are prepared to put everything on the line. This election isnt about the cost of living, the state of the economy, a judgement of which Party is best suited to take us forward into the end times of Capitalism. This election is very much about what sort of country we want to live in. One side wants to bash the fuckin maoris down and revert to a white supremicist colonial setting. How ironic that the Parties leading that charge are led by Maori. The other choice is to work together to figure out how a partnership, based on the Treaty, can work to benefit all the people living on these islands.
It is telling that the big money from the obscene billionaire capitalists is going to those parties who want to suppress Maori, suppress co-operation, supress partnership and suppress care for our environment.
The utter depravity in the modern right wing driven racist agenda (that began by generating, and then exploiting lies over 3 Waters), has infected our leadership so much so, that they have now thrown out their principlesâŚfor goodâŚfor cheap votesâŚfor the baubles of office. It is disturbing. But worse, said leaders simultaneously argue that their principles give them more insight into the principles of Te tiriti O Waitangi because they are principled people. That is a visceral affront to my senses. For them to think that principles can be swapped for Machiavellian purposes, and to then simultaneously argue that fair-mindedness and honourable intentions can still remain in place, flies in the face of logic and any form of sensible argument. How can anyone argue they have fair-minded and honourable intentions about a subject, when they have thrown that subject to the racist wolves to tear apart and rip into shreds? It just doesnât make sense.
The history of the Waitangi Tribunal.
“What is two miles long, Brown and dangerous?” Robert Muldoon
In 1975 a massive peaceful rebellion wound its way down the North Island to parliament.
The cause was to stop the continuing alienation of Maori land, including the compulsory aquisition of Maori owned land under the ‘Pulbic Works Act’.
On the arrival of the Land March at Parliament Grounds, the then Prime Minister of the ruling Labour Party Bill Rowling and his entire Cabinet gathered before the steps of parliament, to receive the petition gathered by the Land March on its historic journey, personally handed to them by the reknowned Land March leader Whina Cooper.
The leader of the government opposition, Robert Muldoon, who was campaigning to replace the Labour Party as the government was so freaked out he infamously posed the rhetorical question:
“What is two miles long, Brown and dangerous?”
“Not One More Acre” Was the primary demand of the historic 1975 Maori Land March.
In the Wake of the Maori Land March the Waitangi Tribunal was established by the Rowling government and enacted with the power to rule on all current and future cases of the forcible aquisition and sale of Maori owned land..
The powers of the Waitangi Tribunal were limited by the the government to rule only on current and modern alienation of Maori Land, and excluded historic cases of land theft.
But that was about to change.
In 1977 another huge peaceful rebellion against the theft of Maori land broke out.
Newly elected Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon had personally planned to subdivide government owned land at Bastion Point located in the Prime Minister’s own electorate of Tamaki for luxury housing.
Known as Takaparawhau, by the traditional Ngati Whatua owners, the Bastion Point land protest lasted 506-days from January 1977 to May 1978 before Muldoon ordered the New Zealand army and police to clear the protesters from the land.
Takaparawhau had originally been forcibly taken from Ngati Whatua in 1812 under the notorious Public Works Act. for the construction of a military fortress, or ‘Bastion’ of which the ruins of concrete below ground bunkers are still visbile there today.
After the forcible arrest and removal of the Ngati Whatua protesters and their supporters the government could still not carry out Muldoon’s plan to subdivide Bastion Point, due to public opposition and a trade union imposed ‘Green Ban’.
To resolve the Bastion Point land dispute, the Waitangi Tribunal powers were for the first time extended to allow the Tribunal to rule on historic cases of Maori Land theft and alienation.
The Takaparawhau/Bastion Point settlement which returned ownership to Ngati Whatua, was the first ever settlement of a historic land claim, by the Waitangi Tribunal, many others followed.
Next year is the 50th anniversary of the historic Ngati Whatua occupation of Bastion Pt.
If Winston Peters thinks he can overturn last Century’s history of peaceful Maori rebellion, to turn back the clock simply to satisfy his redneck Pakeha base, to gain their vote, without massive popular resistance from Maori, he may be in for the biggest set back of his political career.
The great Maori leaders of the 20th century Maori movements, Te Puea, Whina Cooper and Joe Hawke have passed on, but there legacy of peaceful rebellion will be continued.
We saw so far because we were standing on the shoulders of giants.
A rising new generation of 21st century Maori leaders and activists, yet unknown ready to stamp their names on history will overcome the plans of this political midget.
I see it a bit different. Back when the Bastion Point occupation took place, racism existed, but it was not as intense, weaponised, and deliberately manipulated as it is today. Further, back then it was about land; today it is more insidious. Today itâs more about Nazism: creating a common enemy by isolating a people, to manufacture hate against them. And just like the Jews, it will lead to emotional, cultural, and psychological destruction, and ultimately violence against MÄori. We are only one step from that point: the first step is to denigrate, and then destroy, institutions built to protect both MÄori and Pakeha relations, interests, and NZâs unique identity. The next step is to weaponise that lack of protection that once existed to excuse injustice against MÄori and to tacitly explain negative action against them. MÄori can peacefully protest, but that did not help the Jews. Some could leave NZ, as the Jews left Germany, but that only gave those that escaped respite. The rest suffered. As unpalatable as it sounds, and as much as I donât want it, the only option I can see to stop this in its tracks is violence against those that promote such division, to protect the institutions we currently have, and to prevent another cultural annihilation. If politicians see society going to hell in a basket, where pro-MÄori protests exhibit their anger in an angry way, theyâll pull their heads in, will rediscover their principles, and look to unite people again. Like they should be doing now instead of magnifying racist rhetoric. Thatâs how I see it, and I welcome any feedback, one way or the other, into the conversation.
My Impression says:
….Today itâs more about Nazism: creating a common enemy by isolating a people, to manufacture hate against them.
….and I welcome any feedback, one way or the other, into the conversation.
Every mass peaceful protest movement, if it is big enough, always wins – Unless of of course it is put down with massive and disproportionate state violence.
I don’t think we are near that point or even anywhere near it
That’s the difference between my analysis and yours.
I think your comparison with Nazism in 1939s Germany is extreme and ill founded.
There may be some elements inside NZF and ACT that would support that level of Nazi state terror to be turned on Maori. But both ACT and NZF are minor parties, and those who would turn guns on peaceful Maori protesters are a minority inside those parties.
To be clear, I do not want violence. I donât agree with it. I only acknowledge itâs not unreasonable to expect it. And it would be irresponsible to not consider the possibility if we look to the Curia poll held a year ago that stated 14 percent of NZâs population basically agreed with some level of political violence. Further 20 percent of Act voters supported such action, and 25 percent of Te Pati MÄori supporters said the same thing. My whole point is that the Taxpayer Union and its affiliates and supporters started a bonfire that could get out of hand if something is not done about it. And I see no action from the perpetrators or coalition parties to extinguish the fire given the Taxpayer Union, Act and NZ First seem to be doubling down on anti-MÄori mindsets. That action per se heightens the risk of violence taking place. We may be nowhere near it yet, but if things continue intensifying, it would not take much to set a torch to it. And that does frighten me. And I believe we should be aware of it, and do what we can to avoid it.