Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 4, 2019 6:24:43 GMT 12
Dominion Post 4/10/19
IHUMATAO
Re the Rawiri Taonui opinion piece, whilst many people may accept the land at Ihumatao is of spiritual significance to Maori, the process for giving it back has consequences and costs.
Maori have done themselves no favours in the way they have conducted themselves.
Fletcher negotiated in good faith with the local iwi and thought they had a deal. For Dr Taonui to say that Fletcher should do the right thing and apologise to them and go elsewhere is arrogant in the extreme.
I'm sure Fletcher will be happy to get out of this mess, but responsibility for costs should rest firmly with Maori.
Dr Taonui makes some valid points about how the Crown has made questionable use of public money to bail out insurance and finance companies during the global financial crisis, but paying for the return of Oruarangi to them would be another.
By all means let Maori have the land back, but they need to do the honourable thing and either pay for it or offer up another parcel of their land suitable for housing development.
MIKE JARVIS, Paraparaumu Beach
Weekend Sun / Sunlive 4/10/19
TEARS OF SADNESS OR LAUGHTER?
Do I laugh or cry at the full page 'Councillor rating' undertaken by Max Mason, a one trimester Councillor who has been cycling around Australia since the end of August.
A Councillors salary plus extras amounts to approx $80,000. Mason is not standing for Council again and by my calculations that is six weeks and approx $9230.76 that the long suffering ratepayer has funded and got nothing in return.
Ah! But I am wrong. Mason voted by phone in the Mission Street fiasco, on three occasions. Twice voting with Baldock, Clout, Malloy, Morris and Curach to give 11 Mission Street to the Otamataha Trust and a third time with the aforementioned plus Grainger, to give 11 Mission Street to the Otamataha Trust and the Elms.
The ultimate cost for the ratepayer of the Council fiasco over the Elms and many other decisions made in this trimester is nothing short of abysmal.
M ANDERSON, Pyes Pa.
Gisborne Herald 3/10/19
DEATHS WERE NOT ‘MURDER’
Former mayor and now Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon should retract and apologise for his statements regarding the deaths of local Maori during Cook’s 1769 landing here.
First and foremost, these deaths were not murder. The charge of murder requires intent, and there is no evidence that Cook or his crew intended to murder anyone in New Zealand.
In fact, they had specific instructions on how to behave with local inhabitants.
The journals and diaries of those on the Endeavour indicate deep regret at what occurred.
Manslaughter it may have been, on the grounds of self-defence — but murder it most certainly was not.
Second, no apology was expressed to local iwi by the British High Commissioner. Regret, not apology, was the word carefully chosen to express the official attitude to what happened when Cook landed here.
Mr Foon is quite wrong in persisting with the use of the words “murder” and “apology”.
We have already had enough emotion-laden and inaccurate wordage from certain quarters — we certainly don’t need our Race Relations Commissioner inflaming things further. If Mr Foon will not withdraw his words, then I can only urge those in government to warn him to be more careful with his utterances.
ROGER HANDFORD
WHICH VERSION OF NZ HISTORY TO BE TAUGHT?
To Meredith Akuhata-Brown, I accept your verbal challenge, “Can you handle the truth?” from your September 16 column . . . and put these two back to you.
Your apparent delight in history and the recent announcement that it is to become a new compulsory subject in our schools will cause dilemmas for some.
As an ex-primary school teacher of over 15 years, I immediately see two dilemmas . . . for my surviving colleagues and maybe for you.
The first is: What version of history are the teachers going to be told to teach?
My abridged example relates to the history of the North Island and is from my own schooling in the New Zealand primary schools of the late 1950s and 1960s.
I was taught that a great migration came from within an area then known as the “Polynesian Triangle”. This triangle started at Hawaii, moved down the Pacific, to Easter Island, across to Micronesia, better understood as modern day Indonesia, then back to Hawaii.
The North Island was pulled from the ocean by Maui, while standing on his great waka and using a magical hook.
Fifty years later I know the truth.
Maori DNA stems from an area near Taiwan. The North Island is pushed up on one side by tectonic plates, while being pushed down on the other side by opposing tectonic plates.
These are the two dilemmas/questions for Meredith:
The first is, which version of North Island history is to be the one compulsorily taught to Kiwi children in 2022?
Second is, what subject would you choose to have removed, or reduced, to create the space and time for this “new” subject?
STEPHEN ASPDEN, Tokomaru Bay
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
IHUMATAO
Re the Rawiri Taonui opinion piece, whilst many people may accept the land at Ihumatao is of spiritual significance to Maori, the process for giving it back has consequences and costs.
Maori have done themselves no favours in the way they have conducted themselves.
Fletcher negotiated in good faith with the local iwi and thought they had a deal. For Dr Taonui to say that Fletcher should do the right thing and apologise to them and go elsewhere is arrogant in the extreme.
I'm sure Fletcher will be happy to get out of this mess, but responsibility for costs should rest firmly with Maori.
Dr Taonui makes some valid points about how the Crown has made questionable use of public money to bail out insurance and finance companies during the global financial crisis, but paying for the return of Oruarangi to them would be another.
By all means let Maori have the land back, but they need to do the honourable thing and either pay for it or offer up another parcel of their land suitable for housing development.
MIKE JARVIS, Paraparaumu Beach
Weekend Sun / Sunlive 4/10/19
TEARS OF SADNESS OR LAUGHTER?
Do I laugh or cry at the full page 'Councillor rating' undertaken by Max Mason, a one trimester Councillor who has been cycling around Australia since the end of August.
A Councillors salary plus extras amounts to approx $80,000. Mason is not standing for Council again and by my calculations that is six weeks and approx $9230.76 that the long suffering ratepayer has funded and got nothing in return.
Ah! But I am wrong. Mason voted by phone in the Mission Street fiasco, on three occasions. Twice voting with Baldock, Clout, Malloy, Morris and Curach to give 11 Mission Street to the Otamataha Trust and a third time with the aforementioned plus Grainger, to give 11 Mission Street to the Otamataha Trust and the Elms.
The ultimate cost for the ratepayer of the Council fiasco over the Elms and many other decisions made in this trimester is nothing short of abysmal.
M ANDERSON, Pyes Pa.
Gisborne Herald 3/10/19
DEATHS WERE NOT ‘MURDER’
Former mayor and now Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon should retract and apologise for his statements regarding the deaths of local Maori during Cook’s 1769 landing here.
First and foremost, these deaths were not murder. The charge of murder requires intent, and there is no evidence that Cook or his crew intended to murder anyone in New Zealand.
In fact, they had specific instructions on how to behave with local inhabitants.
The journals and diaries of those on the Endeavour indicate deep regret at what occurred.
Manslaughter it may have been, on the grounds of self-defence — but murder it most certainly was not.
Second, no apology was expressed to local iwi by the British High Commissioner. Regret, not apology, was the word carefully chosen to express the official attitude to what happened when Cook landed here.
Mr Foon is quite wrong in persisting with the use of the words “murder” and “apology”.
We have already had enough emotion-laden and inaccurate wordage from certain quarters — we certainly don’t need our Race Relations Commissioner inflaming things further. If Mr Foon will not withdraw his words, then I can only urge those in government to warn him to be more careful with his utterances.
ROGER HANDFORD
WHICH VERSION OF NZ HISTORY TO BE TAUGHT?
To Meredith Akuhata-Brown, I accept your verbal challenge, “Can you handle the truth?” from your September 16 column . . . and put these two back to you.
Your apparent delight in history and the recent announcement that it is to become a new compulsory subject in our schools will cause dilemmas for some.
As an ex-primary school teacher of over 15 years, I immediately see two dilemmas . . . for my surviving colleagues and maybe for you.
The first is: What version of history are the teachers going to be told to teach?
My abridged example relates to the history of the North Island and is from my own schooling in the New Zealand primary schools of the late 1950s and 1960s.
I was taught that a great migration came from within an area then known as the “Polynesian Triangle”. This triangle started at Hawaii, moved down the Pacific, to Easter Island, across to Micronesia, better understood as modern day Indonesia, then back to Hawaii.
The North Island was pulled from the ocean by Maui, while standing on his great waka and using a magical hook.
Fifty years later I know the truth.
Maori DNA stems from an area near Taiwan. The North Island is pushed up on one side by tectonic plates, while being pushed down on the other side by opposing tectonic plates.
These are the two dilemmas/questions for Meredith:
The first is, which version of North Island history is to be the one compulsorily taught to Kiwi children in 2022?
Second is, what subject would you choose to have removed, or reduced, to create the space and time for this “new” subject?
STEPHEN ASPDEN, Tokomaru Bay
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers