Post by Kiwi Frontline on Aug 15, 2017 18:19:47 GMT 12
CHARGING ROYALTIES DOES NOT ASSUME OWNERSHIP': ARDERN DEFENDS WATER TAX
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has taken aim at Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson saying he made criticisms of her party's water policy that he knew were untrue.
Finlayson has warned that Labour's proposal for a tax of about 2c per 1000 litres on commercial waters users could force Treaty of Waitangi settlements to be renegotiated because a royalty asserted ownership, and would inevitably force a counter-assertion that Maori owned the water. Labour was "dicing with death", he said.
"We reject that," Ardern said today. "In fact, I have to say that Chris Finlayson has been a Minister I have held in high regard. He has been well respected for the work he has done on Treaty negotiations.
"I think the fact he has come out now and made this claim when it is patently untrue, when the chairman of the Maori Council [Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie], ex-Waitangi Tribunal, also dismissed it, and evidence from a number of claims where there are explicit clauses that exclude water, says to me he has made a statement that he knows to be untrue. And I think that is disappointing.".....
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11904582
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has taken aim at Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson saying he made criticisms of her party's water policy that he knew were untrue.
Finlayson has warned that Labour's proposal for a tax of about 2c per 1000 litres on commercial waters users could force Treaty of Waitangi settlements to be renegotiated because a royalty asserted ownership, and would inevitably force a counter-assertion that Maori owned the water. Labour was "dicing with death", he said.
"We reject that," Ardern said today. "In fact, I have to say that Chris Finlayson has been a Minister I have held in high regard. He has been well respected for the work he has done on Treaty negotiations.
"I think the fact he has come out now and made this claim when it is patently untrue, when the chairman of the Maori Council [Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie], ex-Waitangi Tribunal, also dismissed it, and evidence from a number of claims where there are explicit clauses that exclude water, says to me he has made a statement that he knows to be untrue. And I think that is disappointing.".....
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11904582