Post by Kiwi Frontline on Sept 1, 2016 17:39:49 GMT 12
NGAI TAHU HISTORY RELEVANT TO DEBATE (Opinion)
There can be no traditional Maori cultural values that impact on freehold land now in private Maori ownership because Maori had no tradition of private land ownership before the introduction of the rule of law by the British Crown.
Under Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori gained the rights and privileges of British citizens, including the right to private ownership of land on exactly the same terms as everyone else.
That right comes with an obligation to pay rates and to keep land free of noxious weeds, irrespective of whose ancestors brought the weeds here in the first place.
Failure to meet that obligation is an invitation to any local authority to declare the land abandoned and to treat it accordingly, regardless of the ethnicity of the owner.
Any rates remission concession to individual or multiple landowners on grounds of their being of Maori descent will discriminate against everyone else and so be in breach of Human Rights legislation.
At a time when many have commemorated disruption of a rugby tour 35 years ago, in protest against a regime of race-based entitlement in South Africa, it seems bizarre that the DCC should entertain any proposal for a policy that would introduce race-based entitlement here......
www.odt.co.nz/opinion/ngai-tahu-history-relevant-debate
There can be no traditional Maori cultural values that impact on freehold land now in private Maori ownership because Maori had no tradition of private land ownership before the introduction of the rule of law by the British Crown.
Under Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori gained the rights and privileges of British citizens, including the right to private ownership of land on exactly the same terms as everyone else.
That right comes with an obligation to pay rates and to keep land free of noxious weeds, irrespective of whose ancestors brought the weeds here in the first place.
Failure to meet that obligation is an invitation to any local authority to declare the land abandoned and to treat it accordingly, regardless of the ethnicity of the owner.
Any rates remission concession to individual or multiple landowners on grounds of their being of Maori descent will discriminate against everyone else and so be in breach of Human Rights legislation.
At a time when many have commemorated disruption of a rugby tour 35 years ago, in protest against a regime of race-based entitlement in South Africa, it seems bizarre that the DCC should entertain any proposal for a policy that would introduce race-based entitlement here......
www.odt.co.nz/opinion/ngai-tahu-history-relevant-debate