Post by Kiwi Frontline on Sept 29, 2016 5:15:37 GMT 12
Dominion Post 29/916
DENIAL OF LOGIC
Many New Zealanders continue to suffer from the massive inequality and harm to the state started by the 1984 Labour government and continued seamlessly by National.
Now one of that cabal, failed short-term prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, wants to transfer power from elected representatives to the courts, thus breaking with one fundamental principle of a modern state - the separation of legislature and judiciary. He then breaks with an even more fundamental principle, the equality of all people in wielding political power.
He would have no discrimination by gender but calls for discrimination by race, by requiring the modern rewritten form of the Treaty of Waitangi to be key in his constitution.
The first principle of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is simply that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". There is a denial of simple logic in Palmer's call for both the end of the monarchy and his reliance on the Treaty, which gave sovereignty to the Crown.
If the Crown is replaced, one essential party to the Treaty is removed. Perhaps this provides Palmer a free pass, as the new republican regime could then accept a newly minted version of that Treaty, with division and partnership replacing equality. [abridged]
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
NZ Herald 29/9/16
UNELECTED OFFICIALS
Greg McKeown has it right in his "It's time to put elected officials back in control of council" article. It reminded me that there were those of us in the smaller burghs, which were forced into a takeover (rather than a merger) by the then Auckland City Council, who could have predicted the future situation of the elected officials vis-a-vis the unelected ones. It has become a mockery of our concept of democracy. Let other regions beware, it could be your turn soon enough.
D P
Kawerau.
Hawkes Bay Today 29/9/16
CRAVEN POLITICS
The lush Kermadec Islands, lying to the north of the North Island, and the seas around them, are New Zealand's northern outposts, perhaps, in their unspoiled and unsettled state, on the tropical edge of our consciousness They shouldn't be.
This is pristine island and ocean; the islands already protected, but not the ocean or fish. The proposal to create a marine sanctuary here is timely, justified, and widely supported.
This isolated area now illustrates Maori and government politics at their most craven and venal. Maori want to throw a net of claim over "traditional" waters they have never fished. How do you spell "greedy"?
The Government, fearful of alienating reserved-seat Maori Party support, is putting the issue in the "too-hard" basket. How do you spell "gutless"? The behaviour of both is the purest of naked self-interest. "Principle", what's that?
A R
Napier
Northland Age 29/9/16
FRESHWATER SWINDLE
There is mounting anger about how the government is dealing with freshwater and its future control. While Prime Minister Key and his Cabinet ministers are on record as saying no one owns the water, they go on to say the government acknowledges that Maori may have undefined interests in freshwater, whatever that inane statement might mean.
Government and iwi groups are surreptitiously exploring these, and remember, control of water effectively means ownership.
In reality the government administers freshwater, its use and allocation, as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis. Those who claim, however, government or its representatives have held secret public excluded meetings with Maori tribes to the detriment of all other citizens are on to it, and look to be correct. Whether government itself does sweetheart deals with tribes over freshwater or places pressure on regional councils to accommodate part-Maori interests is irrelevant; the result is equally bad.
Regional councils' draft regional water quality plan changes are in train, and with those councils that are beholden to race-based interests through council Maori committees, it is a foregone conclusion that part-Maori will receive race-based and co-management preferential treatment to the detriment of all other Kiwis if those councils and government have their way. (See 'Keep Water Kiwi' alert on the NZCPR website for full details).
The focus of citizens' anger should be the National MPs who are not being up-front with Kiwis. People should be outraged, so don't put up with it, demand a referendum on fresh water, and in the meantime put pressure on all local councils to stop caving in, electing only candidates who will not roll over. It has all gone deathly quiet recently, and the ploy seems to be to get submissions from local councils, particularly the bureaucrats who are keeping elected members out of the loop, on the question of forming CCOs to run freshwater schemes etc, leading to the possibility of unelected representation outside direct public control. Be on guard, voicing and making your opposition known to all council candidates.
Fresh water is a resource owned by no one but used by all. Currently it is managed by regional councils and unitary authorities, and it must stay that way. The Taranaki Settlement Bill is a case in question, and Winston Peters is correct, it is the thin end of the wedge with unelected voting representation fuelling this sort of nonsense relating to fresh water.
R P
Matapihi
Otago Daily Times 27/9/16
NATIONAL PARKS
PROF Jacinta Ruru (ODT, 13.9.16) states the Ngai Tahu claims Settlement Act 1998 captured her attention, and she wanted to understand why lands at the head of Lake Wakatipu, being "so obviously important to Maori, were locked up in national parks" with a legal ethos premised "entirely on mono-cultural Pakeha values for protecting land".
Basic scholarship could have answered her question. The land was sold legitimately to the Crown by Ngai Tahu. Their latest, but probably not their last, statement of claim to the Waitangi Tribunal argued unjust loss of these western mountains. However, the tribunal found otherwise and disallowed this aspect of the claim. They were not part of the Settlement Act.
The Aspiring National Park was established from Crown lands. The first suggestion the area warranted national park status was from the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1936. By 1939 the Department of Lands and Survey had identified "boundaries worthy of favourable consideration". In 1959 the first definite proposal was put to the National Parks Authority, but was put aside due to lack of public interest. By 1963 interest had grown and in 1964 the nucleus of the park was gazetted. The park has been added to since (Mason, BJ. 1989. Outdoor Recreation in Otago. Vol Two. FMC).
Prof Ruru's basic gripe is she disagrees with the protective purpose of parks. Like Messers O'Regan and Soloman, she wishes to revert to an utilitarian ethos, not unlike that of traditional foresters and miners — they too complain that our parks are "locked up".
B M
Ranfurly
DENIAL OF LOGIC
Many New Zealanders continue to suffer from the massive inequality and harm to the state started by the 1984 Labour government and continued seamlessly by National.
Now one of that cabal, failed short-term prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, wants to transfer power from elected representatives to the courts, thus breaking with one fundamental principle of a modern state - the separation of legislature and judiciary. He then breaks with an even more fundamental principle, the equality of all people in wielding political power.
He would have no discrimination by gender but calls for discrimination by race, by requiring the modern rewritten form of the Treaty of Waitangi to be key in his constitution.
The first principle of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is simply that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". There is a denial of simple logic in Palmer's call for both the end of the monarchy and his reliance on the Treaty, which gave sovereignty to the Crown.
If the Crown is replaced, one essential party to the Treaty is removed. Perhaps this provides Palmer a free pass, as the new republican regime could then accept a newly minted version of that Treaty, with division and partnership replacing equality. [abridged]
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
NZ Herald 29/9/16
UNELECTED OFFICIALS
Greg McKeown has it right in his "It's time to put elected officials back in control of council" article. It reminded me that there were those of us in the smaller burghs, which were forced into a takeover (rather than a merger) by the then Auckland City Council, who could have predicted the future situation of the elected officials vis-a-vis the unelected ones. It has become a mockery of our concept of democracy. Let other regions beware, it could be your turn soon enough.
D P
Kawerau.
Hawkes Bay Today 29/9/16
CRAVEN POLITICS
The lush Kermadec Islands, lying to the north of the North Island, and the seas around them, are New Zealand's northern outposts, perhaps, in their unspoiled and unsettled state, on the tropical edge of our consciousness They shouldn't be.
This is pristine island and ocean; the islands already protected, but not the ocean or fish. The proposal to create a marine sanctuary here is timely, justified, and widely supported.
This isolated area now illustrates Maori and government politics at their most craven and venal. Maori want to throw a net of claim over "traditional" waters they have never fished. How do you spell "greedy"?
The Government, fearful of alienating reserved-seat Maori Party support, is putting the issue in the "too-hard" basket. How do you spell "gutless"? The behaviour of both is the purest of naked self-interest. "Principle", what's that?
A R
Napier
Northland Age 29/9/16
FRESHWATER SWINDLE
There is mounting anger about how the government is dealing with freshwater and its future control. While Prime Minister Key and his Cabinet ministers are on record as saying no one owns the water, they go on to say the government acknowledges that Maori may have undefined interests in freshwater, whatever that inane statement might mean.
Government and iwi groups are surreptitiously exploring these, and remember, control of water effectively means ownership.
In reality the government administers freshwater, its use and allocation, as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis. Those who claim, however, government or its representatives have held secret public excluded meetings with Maori tribes to the detriment of all other citizens are on to it, and look to be correct. Whether government itself does sweetheart deals with tribes over freshwater or places pressure on regional councils to accommodate part-Maori interests is irrelevant; the result is equally bad.
Regional councils' draft regional water quality plan changes are in train, and with those councils that are beholden to race-based interests through council Maori committees, it is a foregone conclusion that part-Maori will receive race-based and co-management preferential treatment to the detriment of all other Kiwis if those councils and government have their way. (See 'Keep Water Kiwi' alert on the NZCPR website for full details).
The focus of citizens' anger should be the National MPs who are not being up-front with Kiwis. People should be outraged, so don't put up with it, demand a referendum on fresh water, and in the meantime put pressure on all local councils to stop caving in, electing only candidates who will not roll over. It has all gone deathly quiet recently, and the ploy seems to be to get submissions from local councils, particularly the bureaucrats who are keeping elected members out of the loop, on the question of forming CCOs to run freshwater schemes etc, leading to the possibility of unelected representation outside direct public control. Be on guard, voicing and making your opposition known to all council candidates.
Fresh water is a resource owned by no one but used by all. Currently it is managed by regional councils and unitary authorities, and it must stay that way. The Taranaki Settlement Bill is a case in question, and Winston Peters is correct, it is the thin end of the wedge with unelected voting representation fuelling this sort of nonsense relating to fresh water.
R P
Matapihi
Otago Daily Times 27/9/16
NATIONAL PARKS
PROF Jacinta Ruru (ODT, 13.9.16) states the Ngai Tahu claims Settlement Act 1998 captured her attention, and she wanted to understand why lands at the head of Lake Wakatipu, being "so obviously important to Maori, were locked up in national parks" with a legal ethos premised "entirely on mono-cultural Pakeha values for protecting land".
Basic scholarship could have answered her question. The land was sold legitimately to the Crown by Ngai Tahu. Their latest, but probably not their last, statement of claim to the Waitangi Tribunal argued unjust loss of these western mountains. However, the tribunal found otherwise and disallowed this aspect of the claim. They were not part of the Settlement Act.
The Aspiring National Park was established from Crown lands. The first suggestion the area warranted national park status was from the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1936. By 1939 the Department of Lands and Survey had identified "boundaries worthy of favourable consideration". In 1959 the first definite proposal was put to the National Parks Authority, but was put aside due to lack of public interest. By 1963 interest had grown and in 1964 the nucleus of the park was gazetted. The park has been added to since (Mason, BJ. 1989. Outdoor Recreation in Otago. Vol Two. FMC).
Prof Ruru's basic gripe is she disagrees with the protective purpose of parks. Like Messers O'Regan and Soloman, she wishes to revert to an utilitarian ethos, not unlike that of traditional foresters and miners — they too complain that our parks are "locked up".
B M
Ranfurly