Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 7, 2016 7:20:51 GMT 12
Waikato Times 7/10/16
BRASH PLEDGE
Don Brash has begun a working group to combat rising separatism and I note that several high-profile Maori are involved in this group.
Maori leaders have condemned this group as racist with waffling about Maori statistics, housing shortages, high rates of Maori in prison.
Housing shortages are not racespecific and, as for prison, if you do the crime, then you do the time!
There are many separate agencies set up especially for Maori - health, housing, schools, television/radio stations, sports teams, seats in local and central government, statutory boards, language funding, advisory committees and even a special Maori tax rate.
Why are we not all under the same umbrella as simply New Zealanders? And what of Ngai Tahu and Waikato Tainui who, due to their charitable status, pay no income tax at all on their multimillion-dollar enterprises, such as Go Bus, Shotover Jet The Base shopping centre, and many others?
Another example of separatism -Maori are demanding that the government sign over freshwater to them-and do it now! Can you see where Don Brash and his team are coming from - because I can!
R B
Tauranga
Dominion Post 7/10/16 (To the Point section)
Tracy Watkins is wide of the mark There really is a deep groundswell of resentment at Maori privilege in New Zealand. It's just not prevalent in her Left-wing circles. Ask a farmer or a sharemilker. Tracy. they'll explain it to you.
N H
Thorndon
Nelson Mail 6/10/16
DIFFERENT TREATY
Your editorial about Brash has completely missed the point. It took two thousand years to arrive at our Westminster style of democracy which whilst not perfect is still the best there is.
Now for a couple of votes in Parliament the Government wants to return us in part to a feudal system of governance by hereditary privilege based on race.
Handing a few Maori elite power without mandate or accountability will do nothing to help those languishing in the bottom social indicators.
The continual judgment of our history using today’s values is of no help either, especially when you look at only part of the picture, for example the treatment of labourers, child workers and unemployed in Great Britian in the 1800s was appalling by today’s standards as was the treament meted out by Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga to Chatham Island Maori up until 1862.
Encouraging separatism and privilege in governance is simply creating future problems and resentments. Finally your comments on enforcing the deal and protecting the rights of the individual are illogical, you obviously read a different Treaty from the one I read.
K M
Upper Moutere,
WEAK ARGUMENT
Don Brash might not be the most likeable bloke, but even his detractors (Nelson Mail editorial October 3) must agree that the only fair democracy is one founded upon one electoral vote by every citizen, period.
This kind of government Kiwis have died for, the kind famously described by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, his prayer being that such a "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".
And yet that is exactly what your editorialist maintains the Treaty of Waitangi requires, as seemingly do many of our local bodies. New Zealand needs to stop standing in two canoes, and decide whether we are to be a democracy or not.
Calling pro-democracy arguments racist is specious rubbish, and making Brash the whipping boy in an attempt to subvert what Governor Hobson saw the Treaty achieving, shows only the possession of a weak argument.
A.F. J
Wakefield
BRASH PLEDGE
Don Brash has begun a working group to combat rising separatism and I note that several high-profile Maori are involved in this group.
Maori leaders have condemned this group as racist with waffling about Maori statistics, housing shortages, high rates of Maori in prison.
Housing shortages are not racespecific and, as for prison, if you do the crime, then you do the time!
There are many separate agencies set up especially for Maori - health, housing, schools, television/radio stations, sports teams, seats in local and central government, statutory boards, language funding, advisory committees and even a special Maori tax rate.
Why are we not all under the same umbrella as simply New Zealanders? And what of Ngai Tahu and Waikato Tainui who, due to their charitable status, pay no income tax at all on their multimillion-dollar enterprises, such as Go Bus, Shotover Jet The Base shopping centre, and many others?
Another example of separatism -Maori are demanding that the government sign over freshwater to them-and do it now! Can you see where Don Brash and his team are coming from - because I can!
R B
Tauranga
Dominion Post 7/10/16 (To the Point section)
Tracy Watkins is wide of the mark There really is a deep groundswell of resentment at Maori privilege in New Zealand. It's just not prevalent in her Left-wing circles. Ask a farmer or a sharemilker. Tracy. they'll explain it to you.
N H
Thorndon
Nelson Mail 6/10/16
DIFFERENT TREATY
Your editorial about Brash has completely missed the point. It took two thousand years to arrive at our Westminster style of democracy which whilst not perfect is still the best there is.
Now for a couple of votes in Parliament the Government wants to return us in part to a feudal system of governance by hereditary privilege based on race.
Handing a few Maori elite power without mandate or accountability will do nothing to help those languishing in the bottom social indicators.
The continual judgment of our history using today’s values is of no help either, especially when you look at only part of the picture, for example the treatment of labourers, child workers and unemployed in Great Britian in the 1800s was appalling by today’s standards as was the treament meted out by Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga to Chatham Island Maori up until 1862.
Encouraging separatism and privilege in governance is simply creating future problems and resentments. Finally your comments on enforcing the deal and protecting the rights of the individual are illogical, you obviously read a different Treaty from the one I read.
K M
Upper Moutere,
WEAK ARGUMENT
Don Brash might not be the most likeable bloke, but even his detractors (Nelson Mail editorial October 3) must agree that the only fair democracy is one founded upon one electoral vote by every citizen, period.
This kind of government Kiwis have died for, the kind famously described by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, his prayer being that such a "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".
And yet that is exactly what your editorialist maintains the Treaty of Waitangi requires, as seemingly do many of our local bodies. New Zealand needs to stop standing in two canoes, and decide whether we are to be a democracy or not.
Calling pro-democracy arguments racist is specious rubbish, and making Brash the whipping boy in an attempt to subvert what Governor Hobson saw the Treaty achieving, shows only the possession of a weak argument.
A.F. J
Wakefield