Post by Kiwi Frontline on Apr 4, 2020 13:02:33 GMT 12
The Waitangi Tribunal must go!
HERE ARE SOME GOOD REASONS:
Maunganui Bluff Block Its legal sale to the Crown in 1876 by Parore Te Awha of Ngapuhi was confirmed a month later. A claim in 1939 by Te Roroa was dismissed through lack of evidence. When Te Roroa made a claim again in 1988 to the Waitangi Tribunal, it was privately owned by Allan Titford. By a series of highly dubious manoeuvres including official tampering with legal documents, he was obliged to sell under duress so that this false claim could be satisfied. In his subsequent trial in which he was denied the right to call witnesses and his wife was given immunity for testifying against him, Titford was sentenced to 24 years in jail, and is now a political prisoner.
Bastion Point This was bought by the Government in 1923 and endorsed by Justice Speight’s High Court decision in 1975. After a prolonged and illegal occupation, the Waitangi Tribunal decided otherwise and it was given to Ngati Whatua along with $3 million in an out-of-court settlement.(ii)
Ngai Tahu This tribe of barely 2,000 members living in 1840 in a few squalid coastal villages has done well out of continual grievance claims. Their fourth “full and final settlement” in 1973 was accepted at 80 meetings of tribal members when 109 formal resolutions to that effect were passed.(iii)
Nevertheless, the tribe made yet another complaint, this time to the Waitangi Tribunal and was awarded $170 million in 1997 plus all of New Zealand’s greenstone in situ and a subsequent “top-up”. A thorough analysis of the Tribunal’s 1991 report by Alan Evertoniv concluded ”any settlement of Ngai Tahu’s claims based on its report will be nothing short of a fraud”. Further examination by historical researcher Denis Hampton confirmed this conclusion.(v)
Ngati Toa Settlement of this tribe’s claim to the Tribunal included $10 million for the “loss of maritime empire” - the freedom to raid and kill other tribes across Cook Strait, albeit the Tribunal admitted that this had “little basis in Maori customary thinking”.(vi)
How they do it In its November 2013 report on Tongariro National Park, the Tribunal stated that Ngati Tuwharetoa did not gift the mountains to the Crown in 1887 but instead merely offered joint guardianship of the peaks. They did so by ignoring entirely the context of the event, focussing on the word “tuku” in the deed of gift and asserting that it meant no more than “offer”.
What actually happened was that in the 1887 sitting of the Native Land Court in Taupo, the veteran chief Te Heuheu Horonuku became concerned that if the mountains passed through the court in the ordinary way they would become the subject of development and “of no account for the ‘tapu’ will be gone”. He appealed to his son-in-law, L.M. Grace, MP for advice. In reply, Grace said “why not make them a ‘tapu’ place of the Crown? ... Why not hand them over to the government as a reserve and park, to be the property of all the people of New Zealand in memory of Te Heuheu and his tribe?” “Ay”, said the old chief, “that is the best thing to do! They shall be a park of the Crown, a gift forever from me and my people.”
Thereupon a deed of gift was drawn up, signed by Te Heuheu and his principal co-chiefs, ratified by the court and accepted by Hon. John Ballance on behalf of the Government.
The foregoing details were recorded and published in the “Otago Daily Times”(vii) by veteran historian James Cowan in 1913 who interviewed both Maori and pioneering settlers in the district.
This illustrates all too starkly the Tribunal’s technique. Key words are ripped out of context[1] and replaced by claimed alternative or recent meanings to change dramatically the meaning of an agreement. Of course today’s tribe accepts the Tribunal tale(viii), claiming that the “true story can now be taught” which means that, unless such perversion of the truth is stopped promptly in its tracks it will become the orthodox version, indoctrinated into our children and students.(ix)
And in the Treaty The 2014 Tribunal report on the Ngapuhi claim illustrates even more dramatically how it has refined its technique for the brazen perversion of history. The information in Colenso’s eyewitness account(x) of events at Waitangi in February 1840 is ignored.
Hobson stated simply that “the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions, [so] her efforts to do you good will be futile unless you consent [to accepting the terms proposed]”. That those terms included ceding “for ever the entire Sovreignty of their country”(xi) was explicitly understood by the chiefs who spoke who made it clear beyond any shadow of honest doubt that by signing they would become subordinate to the Governor and hence a fortiori to the Queen.
But the Tribunal says none of this, instead wrenching words out of their historical context of 174 years ago and pretending that alleged modern meanings applied those years ago.
And just who are the Tribunal Members? Listed below are the names of the present members (2017). Note that several are professors, that is they hold high academic rank. The unwritten rules of academia, evolved over many centuries, hold that in return for the undoubtedly privileged positions which they occupy, university professors pursue the truth in their researches wherever it may lead them, irrespective of its personal and political consequences.
These people in their perverted activities treat those rules with contempt. Their institutions decay. If that is how we want our civilization to go, then so be it.
Present members[2] are:
Dr Robyn Anderson, Dr Angela Ballara, Ron Crosby, Miriama Evans, Dr Aroha Harris, Professor Ahorangi Derek Lardelli, Professor Sir Hirini Moko Mead, Lady Tureiti Moxon, Basil Morrison, Professor Rawinia Higgins, Dr Hauata Palmer, Dr Ann Parsonson, Dr Grant Phillipson, Dr Thomas Roa, Tania Simpson, Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Dr Monty Soutar, Professor Pou Temara, William (Bill) Wilson
And so, Ngapuhi The following is the Waitangi Tribunal’s summary, word for word, of its conclusions in stage 1 of the Northland Inquiry:(xii)
* The rangatira who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede their sovereignty to Britain. That is, they did not cede authority to make and enforce law over their people or their territories. This is a straight falsehood which treats the actual evidence with contempt.[/b]
* The rangatira agreed to share power and authority with Britain. They agreed to the Governor having authority to control British subjects in New Zealand, and thereby keep the peace and protect Maori interests. This is another straight falsehood.
* The rangatira consented to the treaty on the basis that they and the Governor were to be equals, though they were to have different roles and different spheres of influence. The detail of how this relationship would work in practice, especially where the Maori and European populations intermingled, remained to be negotiated over time on a case-by-case basis. This is the Tribunal's third straight falsehood.
* The rangatira agreed to enter land transactions with the Crown, and the Crown promised to investigate pre- treaty land transactions and to return any land that had not been properly acquired from Maori. This is true.
* The rangatira appear to have agreed that the Crown would protect them from foreign threats and represent them in international affairs, where that was necessary. Though Britain went into the treaty negotiation intending to acquire sovereignty, and therefore the power to make and enforce law over both Maori and Pakeha, it did not explain this to the rangatira. Rather, in the explanations of the texts and in the verbal assurances given by Hobson and his agents, it sought the power to control British subjects and thereby to protect Maori. That is the essence of what the rangatira agreed to. This is another straight falsehood.
Were any more evidence needed of the make-believe which passes for fact in the activities of this tribunal, they can surely be found in its “interim report” on alleged Maori rights to water thus, with critical comments in italics/bold:(xiv)
1. The water resource has been relied upon as a source of food; but this is
exactly the same for everybody
2. The water resource has been relied upon as a source of textiles or other materials; ditto
3. The water resource has been relied upon for travel or trade; ditto
4. The water resource has been used in the rituals central to the spiritual life of the hapū; as in
Christian baptism
5. The water resource has a mauri (life force); mumbo-jumbo[/b][/i]
6. The water resource is celebrated or referred to in waiata; so singing about it gives them a
"right" to it?
7. The water resource is celebrated or referred to in whakatauki; i.e. proverbs, e.g. "you can take a
horse to water but you can't make it drink", snap!
8. The people have identified taniwha as residing in the water resource; mumbo-jumbo[3]
9. The people have exercised kaitiakitanga over the water resource; and sent untreated sewage into
streams
10. The people have exercised mana or rangatiratanga over the water resource; nonsense
11. Whakapapa identifies a cosmological connection with the water resource; more mumbo-jumbo
12. .There is a continuing recognised claim to land or territory in which the resource is situated, and
title has been maintained to ‘some, if not all, of the land on (or below) which the water resource
sits’. If so, the same rule applies to all other non-Maori landowners in New Zealand
Apparently we are expected to take all this rubbish seriously, having, as taxpayers, paid the Waitangi Tribunal handsomely for having provided it to us.
Bruce Moon
8th August 2017
(i) B. Priestley, “Sunday Star Times”, 30th May 2010
(ii) H.R. Baker, “He Iwi Tahi Tatou”, ISBN 0 473 02600 7, 1993, p. 47ff
(iii) M. Butler, “Complaint Industry still rumbles on”, Otago Daily Times, 7th
June 2012, p.15
(iv) A. Everton, “Ngai Tahu’s Tangled Web”, “Free Radical, Nos. 26-28, August –
December 1997
(v) D. Hampton, “Ngai Tahu claim: too little critical analysis”, Evening Post,
3rd April 1998
(vi) J. Robinson, "The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy”, ISBN 1-872970-25-
7, 2011, p. 31
(vii) J. Cowan, Otago Daily Times, 22nd July 1913
(viii) www,radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/227666/iwi-say-true-story-can-now-be
taught
(ix) I am indebted to Mike Butler for his report, 20th November 2013, from
which these details are extracted.
(x) W.Colenso “The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty
of Waitangi”, www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html
(xi) Final treaty draft of 4th February 1840, accurately rendered in the signed
Maori text.
(xii) "Northland Age", Waitangi Tribunal summary, 18th November 2014
(xiii) R. Wright, “Why do we fight and can we stop?”, Atlantic Monthly, November
2013
(xiv) Waitangi Tribunal, “Maori Law Review, September 2012
(xv) Quoted by M. Butler, “Twisting the Treaty”, ISBN 1 872970 33 8, 2013,
p.173
[1] As “MacDuff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d”, Shakespeare,
“Macbeth”, Act V, Sc.viii,lines 15 & 16
[2] At the time of writing, 1st August 1917.
[3] A belief that “taniwhas” existed in dangerous places like whirlpools might have had a place in the Stone Age society of pre-European Maoris. For a body as influential as the Tribunal to suggest that this confers rights of any sort on their descendants today is an absurdity.
“It would be hard to imagine any public body less well organised to get at the truth.”
....Brian Priestley, veteran newspaperman who attended Tribunal proceedings for three months(i)HERE ARE SOME GOOD REASONS:
Maunganui Bluff Block Its legal sale to the Crown in 1876 by Parore Te Awha of Ngapuhi was confirmed a month later. A claim in 1939 by Te Roroa was dismissed through lack of evidence. When Te Roroa made a claim again in 1988 to the Waitangi Tribunal, it was privately owned by Allan Titford. By a series of highly dubious manoeuvres including official tampering with legal documents, he was obliged to sell under duress so that this false claim could be satisfied. In his subsequent trial in which he was denied the right to call witnesses and his wife was given immunity for testifying against him, Titford was sentenced to 24 years in jail, and is now a political prisoner.
Bastion Point This was bought by the Government in 1923 and endorsed by Justice Speight’s High Court decision in 1975. After a prolonged and illegal occupation, the Waitangi Tribunal decided otherwise and it was given to Ngati Whatua along with $3 million in an out-of-court settlement.(ii)
Ngai Tahu This tribe of barely 2,000 members living in 1840 in a few squalid coastal villages has done well out of continual grievance claims. Their fourth “full and final settlement” in 1973 was accepted at 80 meetings of tribal members when 109 formal resolutions to that effect were passed.(iii)
Nevertheless, the tribe made yet another complaint, this time to the Waitangi Tribunal and was awarded $170 million in 1997 plus all of New Zealand’s greenstone in situ and a subsequent “top-up”. A thorough analysis of the Tribunal’s 1991 report by Alan Evertoniv concluded ”any settlement of Ngai Tahu’s claims based on its report will be nothing short of a fraud”. Further examination by historical researcher Denis Hampton confirmed this conclusion.(v)
Ngati Toa Settlement of this tribe’s claim to the Tribunal included $10 million for the “loss of maritime empire” - the freedom to raid and kill other tribes across Cook Strait, albeit the Tribunal admitted that this had “little basis in Maori customary thinking”.(vi)
How they do it In its November 2013 report on Tongariro National Park, the Tribunal stated that Ngati Tuwharetoa did not gift the mountains to the Crown in 1887 but instead merely offered joint guardianship of the peaks. They did so by ignoring entirely the context of the event, focussing on the word “tuku” in the deed of gift and asserting that it meant no more than “offer”.
What actually happened was that in the 1887 sitting of the Native Land Court in Taupo, the veteran chief Te Heuheu Horonuku became concerned that if the mountains passed through the court in the ordinary way they would become the subject of development and “of no account for the ‘tapu’ will be gone”. He appealed to his son-in-law, L.M. Grace, MP for advice. In reply, Grace said “why not make them a ‘tapu’ place of the Crown? ... Why not hand them over to the government as a reserve and park, to be the property of all the people of New Zealand in memory of Te Heuheu and his tribe?” “Ay”, said the old chief, “that is the best thing to do! They shall be a park of the Crown, a gift forever from me and my people.”
Thereupon a deed of gift was drawn up, signed by Te Heuheu and his principal co-chiefs, ratified by the court and accepted by Hon. John Ballance on behalf of the Government.
The foregoing details were recorded and published in the “Otago Daily Times”(vii) by veteran historian James Cowan in 1913 who interviewed both Maori and pioneering settlers in the district.
This illustrates all too starkly the Tribunal’s technique. Key words are ripped out of context[1] and replaced by claimed alternative or recent meanings to change dramatically the meaning of an agreement. Of course today’s tribe accepts the Tribunal tale(viii), claiming that the “true story can now be taught” which means that, unless such perversion of the truth is stopped promptly in its tracks it will become the orthodox version, indoctrinated into our children and students.(ix)
And in the Treaty The 2014 Tribunal report on the Ngapuhi claim illustrates even more dramatically how it has refined its technique for the brazen perversion of history. The information in Colenso’s eyewitness account(x) of events at Waitangi in February 1840 is ignored.
Hobson stated simply that “the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions, [so] her efforts to do you good will be futile unless you consent [to accepting the terms proposed]”. That those terms included ceding “for ever the entire Sovreignty of their country”(xi) was explicitly understood by the chiefs who spoke who made it clear beyond any shadow of honest doubt that by signing they would become subordinate to the Governor and hence a fortiori to the Queen.
But the Tribunal says none of this, instead wrenching words out of their historical context of 174 years ago and pretending that alleged modern meanings applied those years ago.
And just who are the Tribunal Members? Listed below are the names of the present members (2017). Note that several are professors, that is they hold high academic rank. The unwritten rules of academia, evolved over many centuries, hold that in return for the undoubtedly privileged positions which they occupy, university professors pursue the truth in their researches wherever it may lead them, irrespective of its personal and political consequences.
These people in their perverted activities treat those rules with contempt. Their institutions decay. If that is how we want our civilization to go, then so be it.
Present members[2] are:
Dr Robyn Anderson, Dr Angela Ballara, Ron Crosby, Miriama Evans, Dr Aroha Harris, Professor Ahorangi Derek Lardelli, Professor Sir Hirini Moko Mead, Lady Tureiti Moxon, Basil Morrison, Professor Rawinia Higgins, Dr Hauata Palmer, Dr Ann Parsonson, Dr Grant Phillipson, Dr Thomas Roa, Tania Simpson, Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Dr Monty Soutar, Professor Pou Temara, William (Bill) Wilson
And so, Ngapuhi The following is the Waitangi Tribunal’s summary, word for word, of its conclusions in stage 1 of the Northland Inquiry:(xii)
* The rangatira who signed te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede their sovereignty to Britain. That is, they did not cede authority to make and enforce law over their people or their territories. This is a straight falsehood which treats the actual evidence with contempt.[/b]
* The rangatira agreed to share power and authority with Britain. They agreed to the Governor having authority to control British subjects in New Zealand, and thereby keep the peace and protect Maori interests. This is another straight falsehood.
* The rangatira consented to the treaty on the basis that they and the Governor were to be equals, though they were to have different roles and different spheres of influence. The detail of how this relationship would work in practice, especially where the Maori and European populations intermingled, remained to be negotiated over time on a case-by-case basis. This is the Tribunal's third straight falsehood.
* The rangatira agreed to enter land transactions with the Crown, and the Crown promised to investigate pre- treaty land transactions and to return any land that had not been properly acquired from Maori. This is true.
* The rangatira appear to have agreed that the Crown would protect them from foreign threats and represent them in international affairs, where that was necessary. Though Britain went into the treaty negotiation intending to acquire sovereignty, and therefore the power to make and enforce law over both Maori and Pakeha, it did not explain this to the rangatira. Rather, in the explanations of the texts and in the verbal assurances given by Hobson and his agents, it sought the power to control British subjects and thereby to protect Maori. That is the essence of what the rangatira agreed to. This is another straight falsehood.
This is precisely the sort of manufactured pseudo-history through which, to quote Robert Wright, "we may be approaching a point of true planetary peril".(xiii)
That the Waitangi Tribunal makes five statements, four of which are straight falsehoods, shows clearly the extent to which it corrupts the truth. It flagrantly dishonours the Treaty. Its abolition forthwith is a stark necessity.
Were any more evidence needed of the make-believe which passes for fact in the activities of this tribunal, they can surely be found in its “interim report” on alleged Maori rights to water thus, with critical comments in italics/bold:(xiv)
1. The water resource has been relied upon as a source of food; but this is
exactly the same for everybody
2. The water resource has been relied upon as a source of textiles or other materials; ditto
3. The water resource has been relied upon for travel or trade; ditto
4. The water resource has been used in the rituals central to the spiritual life of the hapū; as in
Christian baptism
5. The water resource has a mauri (life force); mumbo-jumbo[/b][/i]
6. The water resource is celebrated or referred to in waiata; so singing about it gives them a
"right" to it?
7. The water resource is celebrated or referred to in whakatauki; i.e. proverbs, e.g. "you can take a
horse to water but you can't make it drink", snap!
8. The people have identified taniwha as residing in the water resource; mumbo-jumbo[3]
9. The people have exercised kaitiakitanga over the water resource; and sent untreated sewage into
streams
10. The people have exercised mana or rangatiratanga over the water resource; nonsense
11. Whakapapa identifies a cosmological connection with the water resource; more mumbo-jumbo
12. .There is a continuing recognised claim to land or territory in which the resource is situated, and
title has been maintained to ‘some, if not all, of the land on (or below) which the water resource
sits’. If so, the same rule applies to all other non-Maori landowners in New Zealand
Apparently we are expected to take all this rubbish seriously, having, as taxpayers, paid the Waitangi Tribunal handsomely for having provided it to us.
************************************************
“It is surely time to re-examine the tribunal’s usefulness.... the current body has passed its sell-by date.”
......Michael Bassett, 2004(xv)“Carthago delenda est”
“Carthage is to be destroyed” - reputed repeated statement of Cato the Elder in the Roman Senate
.....In 146 BC, it was.Bruce Moon
8th August 2017
(i) B. Priestley, “Sunday Star Times”, 30th May 2010
(ii) H.R. Baker, “He Iwi Tahi Tatou”, ISBN 0 473 02600 7, 1993, p. 47ff
(iii) M. Butler, “Complaint Industry still rumbles on”, Otago Daily Times, 7th
June 2012, p.15
(iv) A. Everton, “Ngai Tahu’s Tangled Web”, “Free Radical, Nos. 26-28, August –
December 1997
(v) D. Hampton, “Ngai Tahu claim: too little critical analysis”, Evening Post,
3rd April 1998
(vi) J. Robinson, "The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy”, ISBN 1-872970-25-
7, 2011, p. 31
(vii) J. Cowan, Otago Daily Times, 22nd July 1913
(viii) www,radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/227666/iwi-say-true-story-can-now-be
taught
(ix) I am indebted to Mike Butler for his report, 20th November 2013, from
which these details are extracted.
(x) W.Colenso “The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty
of Waitangi”, www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html
(xi) Final treaty draft of 4th February 1840, accurately rendered in the signed
Maori text.
(xii) "Northland Age", Waitangi Tribunal summary, 18th November 2014
(xiii) R. Wright, “Why do we fight and can we stop?”, Atlantic Monthly, November
2013
(xiv) Waitangi Tribunal, “Maori Law Review, September 2012
(xv) Quoted by M. Butler, “Twisting the Treaty”, ISBN 1 872970 33 8, 2013,
p.173
[1] As “MacDuff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d”, Shakespeare,
“Macbeth”, Act V, Sc.viii,lines 15 & 16
[2] At the time of writing, 1st August 1917.
[3] A belief that “taniwhas” existed in dangerous places like whirlpools might have had a place in the Stone Age society of pre-European Maoris. For a body as influential as the Tribunal to suggest that this confers rights of any sort on their descendants today is an absurdity.