Post by Kiwi Frontline on Nov 12, 2017 4:52:30 GMT 12
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Northland Star, approx 3/11/17)
Associate Professor Claire Charters from the Auckland University School of Law has been awarded a Rutherford Scholarship to support her next five years of research. She intends to look at how rights of indigenous peoples around the world are accommodated or addressed. Well done Professor Charters!
Dr Charters says New Zealand has some of the weakest legal protections for its indigenous people of any constitutional structure. I will go one further and say that it offers none whatsoever. The Patupairarehe, Waitaha, or Turehu people, who were among the very first settlers to New Zealand, were here perhaps one thousand years before Maori. These people were decimated by the later arrivals.
Professor Charters says while the Treaty of Waitangi is only enforceable when it is written into legislation, it can carry political weight. It should carry no more weight than to offer all people equal citizenship with each other as New Zealanders. She asks will a written constitution offer Maori more protection? No, it should not offer any more than equal rights to all New Zealand citizens! Perhaps Professor Charters can tell me what the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi are?
Nobody else can. I would like to know!
If we are to have a new constitution, let us go back to Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter of November 26, 1840, and bring that up to date as necessary.
KAWENA HORI MAAKA, (Kevan George Marks), Kaipara.
Dear Editor, (Sent to The Press 26/10/17)
Just like the Governor-General, your editorial (26th October) has fallen for the crude falsehood that there is any “partnership”, “future-focussed” or otherwise, between the Crown/government and any Maori. There is absolutely nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi or anywhere else to support this constitutional absurdity, which is based on an ill-judged remark by judge Robin Cooke in exceeding his brief. The Treaty guaranteed Maoris the same rights as all other New Zealanders – no more, no less – and it is high time that responsible newspaper editors acknowledged this and sought to eliminate all forms of racist privilege.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters
Associate Professor Claire Charters from the Auckland University School of Law has been awarded a Rutherford Scholarship to support her next five years of research. She intends to look at how rights of indigenous peoples around the world are accommodated or addressed. Well done Professor Charters!
Dr Charters says New Zealand has some of the weakest legal protections for its indigenous people of any constitutional structure. I will go one further and say that it offers none whatsoever. The Patupairarehe, Waitaha, or Turehu people, who were among the very first settlers to New Zealand, were here perhaps one thousand years before Maori. These people were decimated by the later arrivals.
Professor Charters says while the Treaty of Waitangi is only enforceable when it is written into legislation, it can carry political weight. It should carry no more weight than to offer all people equal citizenship with each other as New Zealanders. She asks will a written constitution offer Maori more protection? No, it should not offer any more than equal rights to all New Zealand citizens! Perhaps Professor Charters can tell me what the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi are?
Nobody else can. I would like to know!
If we are to have a new constitution, let us go back to Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter of November 26, 1840, and bring that up to date as necessary.
KAWENA HORI MAAKA, (Kevan George Marks), Kaipara.
Dear Editor, (Sent to The Press 26/10/17)
Just like the Governor-General, your editorial (26th October) has fallen for the crude falsehood that there is any “partnership”, “future-focussed” or otherwise, between the Crown/government and any Maori. There is absolutely nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi or anywhere else to support this constitutional absurdity, which is based on an ill-judged remark by judge Robin Cooke in exceeding his brief. The Treaty guaranteed Maoris the same rights as all other New Zealanders – no more, no less – and it is high time that responsible newspaper editors acknowledged this and sought to eliminate all forms of racist privilege.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters