Post by Kiwi Frontline on Mar 31, 2019 6:25:49 GMT 12
Dear Editor (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 26/3/19)
NO VOTING TRIBAL APPOINTEES FOR HASTINGS
The Hastings District Council should at tomorrow’s (Thurs, March 28) council meeting reject a proposal to include voting tribal appointees on its four standing committees.
By allowing appointees to vote on standing committees only, the proposal circumvents the requirement of Section 41 of the Local Government Act 2002 that only elected representatives may vote at full council meetings.
The proposal also circumvents the requirement for a referendum because a referendum is only required if the proposal is for a Maori ward.
Yesterday’s media release claims the move would boost “Maori participation on all matters facing our community” but does not say that Hastings already has substantial Maori participation by way of its three councillors with Maori ancestry.
The council’s push to add voting appointees from four tribal groups is like adding four voting appointees from four family groups, which looks absurd and is a departure from our basic democratic arrangements.
The council’s media release loosely describes the proposed voting tribal appointees as “tangata whenua representatives” without specifying the tribal groups represented.
The move gives the appearance of a weak council being pressured by vested interests. Councillors should put democracy before political correctness and dump the proposal for voting tribal appointees.
MIKE BUTLER, Hastings
Dear Editor, (Sent to The Press 24/3/19)
More to the point what does Gary A Clover (letters 22/3/19) think Rangioawhia or Parihaka was?
For his information, Parihaka was the reclaiming of government land from a group of rebel Maori who had squatted on it for 14years, and was reclaimed without loss of life.
Ranigioawhia was another brilliant and humane action and was the beginning of the end of tribal rebellion in the Waikato, also carried out with minimum loss of life. This Kingitanga movement (a treaty breach) had planned an attack on the citizens of Auckland - “I shall spare neither unarmed people nor property” a letter reveals.
Clover’s accusation of fairminded New Zealander’s having ideological predilections of the Treaty of Waitangi is laughable when the likes of Dame Ann Salmond appear to believe that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty, yet Article One (Maori language treaty) which many notable Ngapuhi chiefs signed clearly states ceding sovereignty.
Lastly, I challenge Mr Clover to point to the word/s or clause/s in the ToW that even imply ‘collective political rights’.
GEOFF PARKER, Whangarei
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 21/3/19)
It is a shame that Mr. Heperi Smith (Editorial 14/3/19) was not sincerely ‘gracious’ and showed genuine ‘understanding’ at the Otane public meeting by addressing the attendees in New Zealand’s common everyday language, English.
The long suffering public were in fact the gracious understanding ones by not walking out of the meeting.
In a nutshell, the reo zealots rudely push their agenda by arrogant grandstanding to captive audiences.
I, and in my opinion the majority of New Zealanders believe New Zealand ‘grew up’ in 1840, however there is an element in our society that want to hark back to the stone age days of inked faces and prattling in a neo fabricated language. This aberration survives only on taxpayer life support and through coercion in the workplace to learn something that is off no use outside NZ.
GEOFF PARKER, Whangarei
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters
NO VOTING TRIBAL APPOINTEES FOR HASTINGS
The Hastings District Council should at tomorrow’s (Thurs, March 28) council meeting reject a proposal to include voting tribal appointees on its four standing committees.
By allowing appointees to vote on standing committees only, the proposal circumvents the requirement of Section 41 of the Local Government Act 2002 that only elected representatives may vote at full council meetings.
The proposal also circumvents the requirement for a referendum because a referendum is only required if the proposal is for a Maori ward.
Yesterday’s media release claims the move would boost “Maori participation on all matters facing our community” but does not say that Hastings already has substantial Maori participation by way of its three councillors with Maori ancestry.
The council’s push to add voting appointees from four tribal groups is like adding four voting appointees from four family groups, which looks absurd and is a departure from our basic democratic arrangements.
The council’s media release loosely describes the proposed voting tribal appointees as “tangata whenua representatives” without specifying the tribal groups represented.
The move gives the appearance of a weak council being pressured by vested interests. Councillors should put democracy before political correctness and dump the proposal for voting tribal appointees.
MIKE BUTLER, Hastings
Dear Editor, (Sent to The Press 24/3/19)
More to the point what does Gary A Clover (letters 22/3/19) think Rangioawhia or Parihaka was?
For his information, Parihaka was the reclaiming of government land from a group of rebel Maori who had squatted on it for 14years, and was reclaimed without loss of life.
Ranigioawhia was another brilliant and humane action and was the beginning of the end of tribal rebellion in the Waikato, also carried out with minimum loss of life. This Kingitanga movement (a treaty breach) had planned an attack on the citizens of Auckland - “I shall spare neither unarmed people nor property” a letter reveals.
Clover’s accusation of fairminded New Zealander’s having ideological predilections of the Treaty of Waitangi is laughable when the likes of Dame Ann Salmond appear to believe that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty, yet Article One (Maori language treaty) which many notable Ngapuhi chiefs signed clearly states ceding sovereignty.
Lastly, I challenge Mr Clover to point to the word/s or clause/s in the ToW that even imply ‘collective political rights’.
GEOFF PARKER, Whangarei
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 21/3/19)
It is a shame that Mr. Heperi Smith (Editorial 14/3/19) was not sincerely ‘gracious’ and showed genuine ‘understanding’ at the Otane public meeting by addressing the attendees in New Zealand’s common everyday language, English.
The long suffering public were in fact the gracious understanding ones by not walking out of the meeting.
In a nutshell, the reo zealots rudely push their agenda by arrogant grandstanding to captive audiences.
I, and in my opinion the majority of New Zealanders believe New Zealand ‘grew up’ in 1840, however there is an element in our society that want to hark back to the stone age days of inked faces and prattling in a neo fabricated language. This aberration survives only on taxpayer life support and through coercion in the workplace to learn something that is off no use outside NZ.
GEOFF PARKER, Whangarei
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters