WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: The Government’s anti-Treaty and anti-Māori agenda is just getting started
While we should celebrate the amazing win of shutting down the Treaty Principles Referendum, we would be fools if we didn’t appreciate the enormity of this Government’s anti-Māori and anti-Treaty Agenda.
It wasn’t just the deeply problematic Treaty Principles Referendum we needed to be concerned with, it’s a range of policies that could be equally devastating with a greater chance of passing.
- Treaty Clause Review – This is a review of every law that includes Treaty provision clauses with the intention of removing them!
- Limiting Waitangi Tribunal – This is an attempt to limit the Waitangi Tribunal to focus on past abuses of the Treaty so they can’t comment on ongoing breaches of the Treaty.
- Marine and Coastal Areas Act – Ministers Shane Jones and Paul Goldsmith are already on record assuring Industry that Māori customary fishing rights won’t impact their ability to make a profit.
This Government gained power by playing to Pakeha ignorance and using Māori as a political punching bag, the Treaty Principles Referendum was just the start of that process, and we can not allow that win to eclipse the fact this Government intends to keep eroding the Treaty at all costs.
The treaty principal bill was but one bill. Does this mean we must have a referendum on every bill drawn? What differentiates this bill above all others?
Nothing was “voted for in October 2023”, only mindlessly against.
The government should not have the right to alter New Zealands identity. The Treaty doesn’t provide any new knowledge it simply establishes our identity ie Maori is the indigenous culture of New Zealand and the treaty gives the crown the right to form a government. That’s it. The idea that somehow by deleting bits that pakeha don’t like will somehow cause the greatest economic boom since Muldoon is insane economics don’t work like that.
So true Sam
F all people voted for a referendum so why the hell was one needed?
So you want the rest of their land too .
Amazing how pakeha think that Maori are getting something that they are not .Any one I ask has failed to tell me what Maori are getting that other races are not getting .Then we had the lie that Maori were stealing the water when in fact it is pakeha aided by imigrants that are stealing the water .Watch the auckland watercare space which will then be followed by wellington both of which will be sold off within 10 years as they go bankrupt and cant fund the money they need to borrow .
‘this Government intends to keep eroding the Treaty at all costs.’
A very good reason for ratifying the Treaty, formally making it law, and thus making it permanent( or as permanent as anything can be in this time of bizarre events).
Sounds like a good start!
So what have maori got that you cant have other than poverty which is a given for maori .