Post by Kiwi Frontline on May 19, 2016 10:50:19 GMT 12
Wanganui Chronicle 19/5/16
TREATY'S MEANING
Gaylene Kendrick claims that I am "famous for vehement political attacks on Maori". This statement is utterly false. I have never attacked Maori. What I have attacked, and continue to attack, is those who grossly misrepresent the Treaty of Waitangi.
The Treaty was a very simple document with just three clauses. The first involved Maori chiefs ceding sovereignty to the Crown — and that is unambiguously clear in both the Maori-language version of the Treaty and in the English draft from which that Maori version was translated. To claim other-wise is simply dishonest.
The second clause guaranteed property rights to all New Zealanders, and it is on the basis of that clause that, nearly 200 years later, taxpayers (most of whom are not Maori) are paying compensation to those who claim (sometimes with good justification but sometimes with rather little justification) that their property was confiscated in the 19th century.
And, of course, the third clause extended to all Maori the rights and privileges of British subjects — an extraordinarily enlightened thing to do for 1840, not paralleled anywhere else in the world where a colonial power assumed authority.
Nothing about the Treaty suggests that Governor Hobson intended to confer some kind of preferential constitutional status on those with a Maori ancestor, and to suggest other-wise is arrant nonsense.
One Treaty One Nation, to which Ms Kendrick refers, simply emphasises those facts. It's a pity that she resorted to personal abuse rather than trying to rebut the arguments in that book.
DON BRASH
Auckland
Wairarapa Times Age 19/5/16
COMPETE FOR PUBLIC OFFICE
Jim Rimene. Kaumatua and a good bloke. Says it all. Maori are as capable as any other to stand for office and succeed.
I remember Jim’s lovely wife Margaret.
She worked at General Plastics and made her way to a position of supervisor, she also was a natural leader who had the respect of us all. Colour was in those days irrelevant, all had their own ways and beliefs and whatever path you followed was up to you but at work we were one.
People trying to make a living bringing up their families.
At social gatherings our kids never gave thought to race, but were certainly aware of differences in some of our customs.
Our kids learnt quickly that you never sat on a table and that you could enjoy food straight from nature, plus much more.
But most importantly we could recognise those who had the ability to lead through their own efforts.
I do accept that many injustices of the past needed to be addressed and recompense is part of that.
But I don’t accept that Maori can’t compete for public office on a equal footing.
What we need in our society is the will to participate, and at the very least use your right to vote. Yes Jim, all can succeed as you and yours have shown.
R D
Masterton
VIA BALLOT BOX
Congratulations on your paper printing the comments of Jim Rimene on the subject of Maori councillors. He is quite right in what he says about any self respecting Maori aspiring to represent on the council doing so via the ballot box and having nothing to do with the patronising automatic appointment in this important role.
I don’t think mayor Patterson and her councillors have done themselves any favours when it comes around to election day. As for Mary Tipoki’s letter in the same edition this just stirs up both Maori and Pakeha. I have never heard about this separatism being advocated in 1939 nor have I ever heard of Major George Clifton but then there have always been bigots in the past and I suppose there always will be. Some people can always read into things what they want to read.
I would ask that the councillors concerned rethink their position in this very important matter.
K H
Masterton
TEXTS section
■ love Tony Walls letter in WTA on Tuesday. Have to agree with you entirely. If maori want to sit on council then get off your butts and get voted on.
■ Hear hear Tony Wood. The best letter so far regarding the outrageous Maori appointments to the council. Roll on November and election day. I wonder how many Maori will legitimately put their names forward. Bob P.
The New Zealand Herald 19/5/16
MOKO’S ABUSE
The “Mum speaks out” got my attention. She does not take the blame but how were CYF to know the children were in danger if nobody notified them? And where was she during the two months she left her children in the care of those scumbags? And where was the children’s dad? It is sad, and almost predictable, how in cases such as this there is no mention of a dad.
And where was the extended family? No, it does not take a village to bring up a child, it is primarily the responsibility of the parent(s) and family. Not the village’s or the Government’s or CYF’s.
Alan Duff’s article is spot-on. He knows what he is talking about. Maori always pride themselves about caring family connections but it seems to be more talk than substance. The sad fact is that their so-called leaders, the top brass of the iwi who got huge pay-outs to right the wrongs that had been done, are only interested in playing the big boys’ game of investing and making profits, and being generously rewarded. Nobody holds them to account.
H V K,
Hamilton.
NZ Herald 19/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)
ON SEATS
Ms Marvelly should note the Mayor of New Plymouth’s problems did not arise simply because he wanted Maori representatives on the council but because he wanted to give them unelected positions against democratic conventions, the wishes of councillors and a majority of the public as indicated by polls.
B J
Omokoroa.
Christchurch Press 19/5/16 (Also in Northand Age 19/5/16)
DEMOCRACY DEAD?
Are ratepayers aware that their rates help pay their council's membership to Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ)?
In August 2015, president Laurence Yule from LGNZ signed a memorandum of understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group. LGNZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving "economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision making".
Meanwhile the Ministry for the Environment, at Minister Nick Smith's direction, sent a group of ministry employees around the country to 'consult' with the community about freshwater.
The deal is done. The Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to LGNZ. Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the rate-paying public in their wishes to not have' representation based on ethnicity.
M J A
Tauranga
Bay of Plenty Times 19/5/16
FISCAL FOOLS GET NOTHING RIGHT
Prime Minister John Key and others were advised a year ago to put in place a stamp duty/ land speculation tax but all the politicians pooh-poohed that proposal — existing tax rules would have stayed in place.
Now we are back on the land tax bandwagon way after the event when the Government should have addressed the issue in 2015. Any land tax must be imposed at the point of sale, not 12 months later.
It needs to be self assessed, self-policing and paid before any transfer is registered. By all means allow a residential exemption for New Zealand citizens, on the primary family home lived in for at least two or three years prior to sale.
Tax collected could have gone into major infrastructure and Greenfields development but frankly the horse has bolted.
House prices New Zealand wide have gone through the roof, depositors and savers shafted by pathetically low interest rates now used to fund low interest loans to crazed house purchasers and property speculators.
Still, why be surprised — these fiscal political fools get nothing right, we have a poor health system (huge waiting lists), failing education systems and welfare schemes are a joke. Don’t forget freshwater and foreshore and seabed either. Grade F for fail all round.
R P
Matapihi
TREATY'S MEANING
Gaylene Kendrick claims that I am "famous for vehement political attacks on Maori". This statement is utterly false. I have never attacked Maori. What I have attacked, and continue to attack, is those who grossly misrepresent the Treaty of Waitangi.
The Treaty was a very simple document with just three clauses. The first involved Maori chiefs ceding sovereignty to the Crown — and that is unambiguously clear in both the Maori-language version of the Treaty and in the English draft from which that Maori version was translated. To claim other-wise is simply dishonest.
The second clause guaranteed property rights to all New Zealanders, and it is on the basis of that clause that, nearly 200 years later, taxpayers (most of whom are not Maori) are paying compensation to those who claim (sometimes with good justification but sometimes with rather little justification) that their property was confiscated in the 19th century.
And, of course, the third clause extended to all Maori the rights and privileges of British subjects — an extraordinarily enlightened thing to do for 1840, not paralleled anywhere else in the world where a colonial power assumed authority.
Nothing about the Treaty suggests that Governor Hobson intended to confer some kind of preferential constitutional status on those with a Maori ancestor, and to suggest other-wise is arrant nonsense.
One Treaty One Nation, to which Ms Kendrick refers, simply emphasises those facts. It's a pity that she resorted to personal abuse rather than trying to rebut the arguments in that book.
DON BRASH
Auckland
Wairarapa Times Age 19/5/16
COMPETE FOR PUBLIC OFFICE
Jim Rimene. Kaumatua and a good bloke. Says it all. Maori are as capable as any other to stand for office and succeed.
I remember Jim’s lovely wife Margaret.
She worked at General Plastics and made her way to a position of supervisor, she also was a natural leader who had the respect of us all. Colour was in those days irrelevant, all had their own ways and beliefs and whatever path you followed was up to you but at work we were one.
People trying to make a living bringing up their families.
At social gatherings our kids never gave thought to race, but were certainly aware of differences in some of our customs.
Our kids learnt quickly that you never sat on a table and that you could enjoy food straight from nature, plus much more.
But most importantly we could recognise those who had the ability to lead through their own efforts.
I do accept that many injustices of the past needed to be addressed and recompense is part of that.
But I don’t accept that Maori can’t compete for public office on a equal footing.
What we need in our society is the will to participate, and at the very least use your right to vote. Yes Jim, all can succeed as you and yours have shown.
R D
Masterton
VIA BALLOT BOX
Congratulations on your paper printing the comments of Jim Rimene on the subject of Maori councillors. He is quite right in what he says about any self respecting Maori aspiring to represent on the council doing so via the ballot box and having nothing to do with the patronising automatic appointment in this important role.
I don’t think mayor Patterson and her councillors have done themselves any favours when it comes around to election day. As for Mary Tipoki’s letter in the same edition this just stirs up both Maori and Pakeha. I have never heard about this separatism being advocated in 1939 nor have I ever heard of Major George Clifton but then there have always been bigots in the past and I suppose there always will be. Some people can always read into things what they want to read.
I would ask that the councillors concerned rethink their position in this very important matter.
K H
Masterton
TEXTS section
■ love Tony Walls letter in WTA on Tuesday. Have to agree with you entirely. If maori want to sit on council then get off your butts and get voted on.
■ Hear hear Tony Wood. The best letter so far regarding the outrageous Maori appointments to the council. Roll on November and election day. I wonder how many Maori will legitimately put their names forward. Bob P.
The New Zealand Herald 19/5/16
MOKO’S ABUSE
The “Mum speaks out” got my attention. She does not take the blame but how were CYF to know the children were in danger if nobody notified them? And where was she during the two months she left her children in the care of those scumbags? And where was the children’s dad? It is sad, and almost predictable, how in cases such as this there is no mention of a dad.
And where was the extended family? No, it does not take a village to bring up a child, it is primarily the responsibility of the parent(s) and family. Not the village’s or the Government’s or CYF’s.
Alan Duff’s article is spot-on. He knows what he is talking about. Maori always pride themselves about caring family connections but it seems to be more talk than substance. The sad fact is that their so-called leaders, the top brass of the iwi who got huge pay-outs to right the wrongs that had been done, are only interested in playing the big boys’ game of investing and making profits, and being generously rewarded. Nobody holds them to account.
H V K,
Hamilton.
NZ Herald 19/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)
ON SEATS
Ms Marvelly should note the Mayor of New Plymouth’s problems did not arise simply because he wanted Maori representatives on the council but because he wanted to give them unelected positions against democratic conventions, the wishes of councillors and a majority of the public as indicated by polls.
B J
Omokoroa.
Christchurch Press 19/5/16 (Also in Northand Age 19/5/16)
DEMOCRACY DEAD?
Are ratepayers aware that their rates help pay their council's membership to Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ)?
In August 2015, president Laurence Yule from LGNZ signed a memorandum of understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group. LGNZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving "economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision making".
Meanwhile the Ministry for the Environment, at Minister Nick Smith's direction, sent a group of ministry employees around the country to 'consult' with the community about freshwater.
The deal is done. The Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to LGNZ. Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the rate-paying public in their wishes to not have' representation based on ethnicity.
M J A
Tauranga
Bay of Plenty Times 19/5/16
FISCAL FOOLS GET NOTHING RIGHT
Prime Minister John Key and others were advised a year ago to put in place a stamp duty/ land speculation tax but all the politicians pooh-poohed that proposal — existing tax rules would have stayed in place.
Now we are back on the land tax bandwagon way after the event when the Government should have addressed the issue in 2015. Any land tax must be imposed at the point of sale, not 12 months later.
It needs to be self assessed, self-policing and paid before any transfer is registered. By all means allow a residential exemption for New Zealand citizens, on the primary family home lived in for at least two or three years prior to sale.
Tax collected could have gone into major infrastructure and Greenfields development but frankly the horse has bolted.
House prices New Zealand wide have gone through the roof, depositors and savers shafted by pathetically low interest rates now used to fund low interest loans to crazed house purchasers and property speculators.
Still, why be surprised — these fiscal political fools get nothing right, we have a poor health system (huge waiting lists), failing education systems and welfare schemes are a joke. Don’t forget freshwater and foreshore and seabed either. Grade F for fail all round.
R P
Matapihi