Post by Kiwi Frontline on Sept 18, 2016 9:05:55 GMT 12
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 3/3/16)
It appears John Robinson's irrefutable facts (Letters 24/2/16) clearly spooked Potonga Neilson (2/3/16). He seems to be oblivious to the tough conditions of pre-1840 wherein Maori on Maori tribal warfare was an everyday part of trying to survive on these islands.
Yes, Europeans did bring booze, tobacco, gunpowder and new diseases to this land, but the negatives of exposure to the outside world were balanced by the new sources of food and nutrition, better clothing and housing to ensure warmth and protection from the elements, medicines and hospitals, education, industry and international trade, law and order, democracy and peace. Not a bad exchange.
No doubt Potonga is availing himself of these advances every single day of his life.
GEOFF PARKER
Whangarei
Dear Editor (Sent to NZ Herald, Dompost, Northland Age 1/3/16)
BLACKENING OPPONENTS
Treaty Negotiations Minister, Chris Finlayson, recently smeared those questioning Treaty of Waitangi settlements as “the KKK element.”
Finlayson takes refuge in accusations of racial bigotry because his Treatyist agenda is threatened by hard questions he’s unable to answer.
This “poacher turned gamekeeper” was a Treaty negotiator for Ngai Tahu before entering Parliament as an unelected List MP. No wonder he reflexively lines up with the “poachers.”
There are a number of elephants in the room.
First, the Maori of today are not the Maori of 1840. More than 170 years of racial mixing has given the lie to the existence of a unique race called “Maori.”
There are only New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent, most of whom have more of the blood of the colonisers than of the colonised. Nobody who is less than half-Maori can claim on balance to be disadvantaged by alleged historical events.
Second, why have tribes that already received full and final settlements legislated for in the 1940s by Act of Parliament, (Tainui, Taranaki, Ngai Tahu) been been allowed to double dip?
Third, the Treaty was with tribes, not with a collective Maori. Most signed it, a substantial minority didn’t. Why are non-signatories (Tainui, Tuhoe, Tuwharetoa) now receiving large settlements for “Treaty breaches”?
These are all legitimate concerns.
REUBEN P. CHAPPLE
Auckland
It appears John Robinson's irrefutable facts (Letters 24/2/16) clearly spooked Potonga Neilson (2/3/16). He seems to be oblivious to the tough conditions of pre-1840 wherein Maori on Maori tribal warfare was an everyday part of trying to survive on these islands.
Yes, Europeans did bring booze, tobacco, gunpowder and new diseases to this land, but the negatives of exposure to the outside world were balanced by the new sources of food and nutrition, better clothing and housing to ensure warmth and protection from the elements, medicines and hospitals, education, industry and international trade, law and order, democracy and peace. Not a bad exchange.
No doubt Potonga is availing himself of these advances every single day of his life.
GEOFF PARKER
Whangarei
Dear Editor (Sent to NZ Herald, Dompost, Northland Age 1/3/16)
BLACKENING OPPONENTS
Treaty Negotiations Minister, Chris Finlayson, recently smeared those questioning Treaty of Waitangi settlements as “the KKK element.”
Finlayson takes refuge in accusations of racial bigotry because his Treatyist agenda is threatened by hard questions he’s unable to answer.
This “poacher turned gamekeeper” was a Treaty negotiator for Ngai Tahu before entering Parliament as an unelected List MP. No wonder he reflexively lines up with the “poachers.”
There are a number of elephants in the room.
First, the Maori of today are not the Maori of 1840. More than 170 years of racial mixing has given the lie to the existence of a unique race called “Maori.”
There are only New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent, most of whom have more of the blood of the colonisers than of the colonised. Nobody who is less than half-Maori can claim on balance to be disadvantaged by alleged historical events.
Second, why have tribes that already received full and final settlements legislated for in the 1940s by Act of Parliament, (Tainui, Taranaki, Ngai Tahu) been been allowed to double dip?
Third, the Treaty was with tribes, not with a collective Maori. Most signed it, a substantial minority didn’t. Why are non-signatories (Tainui, Tuhoe, Tuwharetoa) now receiving large settlements for “Treaty breaches”?
These are all legitimate concerns.
REUBEN P. CHAPPLE
Auckland