Post by Kiwi Frontline on Dec 26, 2016 7:40:16 GMT 12
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 17/12/16)
In responding to Colin Rawle (ODT,17/12/16) Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu make the absurd claim “that the Treaty of Waitangi was not properly acknowledged in the current constitutional system”. Here’s why.
The Treaty was an agreement between the Queen and 500+ Maori chiefs by which they ceded sovereignty to her completely and for ever. Their recorded words leave no genuine doubt about that, whatever the Waitangi Tribunal may say. By Article third, all Maoris, slaves included, became fully-entitled British subjects – a magnificent and unprecedented privilege. Article second in guaranteeing the property rights of all, repeat all, the people of New Zealand, was redundant as British subjects had them anyway. Excepting a soon-redundant provision for land sales, that was all.
With this backing, in May 1840, Hobson proceeded reasonably to declare British sovereignty over all of New Zealand. The Treaty had then served its purpose and its proper place thenceforth was in our history.
The whole of the current “treaty industry” is a monstrous cancer upon our society and sadly Jackson and Mutu by their continual false claims are major contributors. In a single interview with the “Guardian Weekly” in 2007, Mutu stated eighteen perversions of the truth. That is these people’s kind of activity.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)
Nick Pak, (Times,15/12/16) is grossly wrong in claiming that Maoris are “indigenous”. There is plenty of evidence that there were people here when they arrived, as Ranginui Walker for one acknowledged, and the new arrivals exterminated most of them.
The so-called “Treaty in English” is a bogus document accidentally used for an overflow of signatures at Waikato Heads and nothing more. The real Treaty – in the Ngapuhi dialect – accurately expresses the meaning of Hobson’s final draft in English of 4th February that officialdom does not want us to know about. The chiefs ceded sovereignty absolutely and for ever as their recorded words at Waitangi and elsewhere make totally clear. The so-called ”partnership” is modern rubbish with no foundation in fact or the treaty and a constitutional impossibility, whatever Moana Jackson and our new Governor-General may imagine.
Nick Pak has a lot of revision to do before he understands what was agreed in the Treaty of Waitangi.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)
Nick Pak raises three thorny issues in letters 15/12/16, indigeneity, sovereignty and partnership.
According to David Round (law lecturer at University of Canterbury), "nowhere is there any definition of who or what exactly an indigenous person is in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples".
So what makes some assume Maori are indigenous? They have only been here a mere 800 years. How do Maori claim to be indigenous when Japanese (Ainu being the exception) and Britons, who have occupied a country for thousands of years are not indigenous?
I guess the criterion for people seeking special race-based privileges is 'having ancestors who arrived here first', therefore Sir Ed Hillary owned the top of Everest, the Americans own the moon, and the descendants of our early pioneers have more rights than recent fellow immigrants.
The Treaty of Waitangi was actually a cessation agreement in which the meaning in Article One of both the Maori and English texts is the same. The undeniable fact that the chiefs knew they were ceding full sovereignty is evidenced in their speeches prior to signing the Treaty.
Further there is no inference of compromise, collaboration, co-operation or partnership in the wording of the Maori language Treaty that approximately 500 chiefs signed. It was a great race-uniting document that gave all New Zealanders (not just Maori) equality, protection and ownership of their lands, but it had served its purpose in 1840.
GEOFFREY T PARKER
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 13/12/16)
Your correspondent Lynlee Aitcheson-Johnson writes about the Maori Party and I respond by asking the question - what is a Maori?
I don't accept the old adage that if you feel Maori then you are Maori - that is hyperbolic nonsense!
Marama Fox, Leader of the Maori Party, has a European father and a part-Maori mother.
Likewise Peter Russell Sharples aka Pita Sharples, whose father is an Englishman.
Margaret Mutu from Northland, has a Scottish mother and a part-Maori father and the Irishman Stephen Gerard O'Regan who now prefers to be known as Tipene.
With these blood-quantum ratios, all these people must be about 75% European. In Hawaii, you must prove you have 50% of Hawaiian blood to qualify as Hawaiian, not so here in Godzone it seems!
Why does the Maori Party even exist with its separatist and divisive policies?
The definition of democracy is that we should all be treated exactly the same under the law regarding race, gender and religion.
Certainly keep and be proud of the Maori culture, but the very existence of the racial Maori Party is undemocratic in itself.
Surely we should all come under the same umbrella of law simply as New Zealanders!
R. B
Tauranga
In responding to Colin Rawle (ODT,17/12/16) Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu make the absurd claim “that the Treaty of Waitangi was not properly acknowledged in the current constitutional system”. Here’s why.
The Treaty was an agreement between the Queen and 500+ Maori chiefs by which they ceded sovereignty to her completely and for ever. Their recorded words leave no genuine doubt about that, whatever the Waitangi Tribunal may say. By Article third, all Maoris, slaves included, became fully-entitled British subjects – a magnificent and unprecedented privilege. Article second in guaranteeing the property rights of all, repeat all, the people of New Zealand, was redundant as British subjects had them anyway. Excepting a soon-redundant provision for land sales, that was all.
With this backing, in May 1840, Hobson proceeded reasonably to declare British sovereignty over all of New Zealand. The Treaty had then served its purpose and its proper place thenceforth was in our history.
The whole of the current “treaty industry” is a monstrous cancer upon our society and sadly Jackson and Mutu by their continual false claims are major contributors. In a single interview with the “Guardian Weekly” in 2007, Mutu stated eighteen perversions of the truth. That is these people’s kind of activity.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)
Nick Pak, (Times,15/12/16) is grossly wrong in claiming that Maoris are “indigenous”. There is plenty of evidence that there were people here when they arrived, as Ranginui Walker for one acknowledged, and the new arrivals exterminated most of them.
The so-called “Treaty in English” is a bogus document accidentally used for an overflow of signatures at Waikato Heads and nothing more. The real Treaty – in the Ngapuhi dialect – accurately expresses the meaning of Hobson’s final draft in English of 4th February that officialdom does not want us to know about. The chiefs ceded sovereignty absolutely and for ever as their recorded words at Waitangi and elsewhere make totally clear. The so-called ”partnership” is modern rubbish with no foundation in fact or the treaty and a constitutional impossibility, whatever Moana Jackson and our new Governor-General may imagine.
Nick Pak has a lot of revision to do before he understands what was agreed in the Treaty of Waitangi.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)
Nick Pak raises three thorny issues in letters 15/12/16, indigeneity, sovereignty and partnership.
According to David Round (law lecturer at University of Canterbury), "nowhere is there any definition of who or what exactly an indigenous person is in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples".
So what makes some assume Maori are indigenous? They have only been here a mere 800 years. How do Maori claim to be indigenous when Japanese (Ainu being the exception) and Britons, who have occupied a country for thousands of years are not indigenous?
I guess the criterion for people seeking special race-based privileges is 'having ancestors who arrived here first', therefore Sir Ed Hillary owned the top of Everest, the Americans own the moon, and the descendants of our early pioneers have more rights than recent fellow immigrants.
The Treaty of Waitangi was actually a cessation agreement in which the meaning in Article One of both the Maori and English texts is the same. The undeniable fact that the chiefs knew they were ceding full sovereignty is evidenced in their speeches prior to signing the Treaty.
Further there is no inference of compromise, collaboration, co-operation or partnership in the wording of the Maori language Treaty that approximately 500 chiefs signed. It was a great race-uniting document that gave all New Zealanders (not just Maori) equality, protection and ownership of their lands, but it had served its purpose in 1840.
GEOFFREY T PARKER
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 13/12/16)
Your correspondent Lynlee Aitcheson-Johnson writes about the Maori Party and I respond by asking the question - what is a Maori?
I don't accept the old adage that if you feel Maori then you are Maori - that is hyperbolic nonsense!
Marama Fox, Leader of the Maori Party, has a European father and a part-Maori mother.
Likewise Peter Russell Sharples aka Pita Sharples, whose father is an Englishman.
Margaret Mutu from Northland, has a Scottish mother and a part-Maori father and the Irishman Stephen Gerard O'Regan who now prefers to be known as Tipene.
With these blood-quantum ratios, all these people must be about 75% European. In Hawaii, you must prove you have 50% of Hawaiian blood to qualify as Hawaiian, not so here in Godzone it seems!
Why does the Maori Party even exist with its separatist and divisive policies?
The definition of democracy is that we should all be treated exactly the same under the law regarding race, gender and religion.
Certainly keep and be proud of the Maori culture, but the very existence of the racial Maori Party is undemocratic in itself.
Surely we should all come under the same umbrella of law simply as New Zealanders!
R. B
Tauranga