Hobson’s Pledge Trust
The headline said, “Maori party co-leader ejected from parliament after performing haka in racism row”. See Maori Party leader ejected. However, what the Leader of the Opposition said was not reported.
To set the record straight, the missing content involved questions from National Party leader Judith Collins to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Parliament on May 12. Collins asked:
- When public engagement on the He Puapua report would take place, and what form would it take,
- Whether the Prime Minister endorsed her Minister for Maori Development’s statement that he would first talk to Maori to “see where they see things are going”,
- Whether she accepted the view in He Puapua that New Zealand has two spheres of governance, the kawanatanga sphere that represents the Crown and the rangatiratanga sphere that reflects Maori,
- Whether the dual government model was what her Minister for Maori Crown Relations referred to when he asked her if she agreed with the “comments made at the Iwi Chairs Forum in Porirua on Friday that when kawanatanga and rangatiratanga work together in partnership, we’ll see great things happening.”?
See Hansard
An accusation of racism was introduced when Maori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asked the Speaker to give his “view on whether the Leader of the Opposition’s continued attack on Maori is racist?”
Then Collins asked whether Ardern agreed with former [Labour] Prime Minister David Lange, who stated that “Democratic government can accommodate Maori political aspiration in many ways. … What it cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as it does …, it isn’t a democracy.”?
After Ardern evasively replied, the other Maori Party co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, interjected with: “Point of order. Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance and advice. Over the past two weeks, there has been racist propaganda and rhetoric towards tangata whenua. That not only is insulting to tangata whenua but diminishes the mana of this House”.
Speaker Trevor Mallard told Waititi to sit down. Waititi continued. The Speaker told him again to sit down. Waititi did a haka. The Speaker ordered him to withdraw.
Note that Waititi first smeared his opponent by alleging racism then started shouting, temporarily drowning out debate. On social media, personal abuse follows the smear. Such is the pattern of debate that comes from the Maori sovereignty side.
Those reading the news report would be left with the impression that “the Opposition was inciting racism across New Zealand” when the only “racism with venom” came from the person doing the haka.
The report cited above appeared in the Guardian, a British news website, which means these antics are being broadcast to an international audience, which can hardly improve New Zealand’s international image.
Our petition calling for an end to the two-government tribal rule plan outlined in He Puapua has attracted 6076 signatures. If you haven’t signed already, go to Reject tribal rule
Who Re-Wrote What and When?
Is Labour Party deputy leader Kelvin Davis aware of who re-wrote what when he said on Wednesday that Judith Collins “tried to rewrite history, Te Tiriti o Waitangi”? See How MPs reacted
Davis was talking about “rangatiratanga”, which is a word that was redefined when the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi was re-written around 1986 by a member of the Waitangi Tribunal named Professor Hugh Kawharu.
His re-translation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi from Maori to English asserted that the words “tino rangatiratanga” in Article 2 meant “unqualified exercise of the chieftainship” when comparison with the English text shows that it was intended to convey “complete ownership” as in possession of property.
When Davis said: “[Collins is] opposed to Maori asserting their rangatiratanga in health. She’s opposed to Maori asserting their rangatiratanga for Maori to come up with solutions to care for our most vulnerable children”, it looks like he was using “rangatiratanga” in the sense of “Maori control over things Maori”.
Davis, and his leader Jacinda Ardern, should explain why they are relying on a version of the Treaty that was created in 1986 and not the agreement that the chiefs signed in 1840.
Where Does the Plan Say Two Govts under Tribal Rule?
Where does the He Puapua plan propose for New Zealand two governments under tribal rule and who or what would such a dual-government system be accountable to – the people of New Zealand or some other entity?
Accountability is one aspect of the plan that has not been publicised. Crown accountability is detailed on pages 14-15 of the plan. There we find that the Crown would no longer be accountable to the people of New Zealand. Instead, the Crown would be accountable to:
- The United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- The United Nations Special Rapporteur.
- Other United Nations bodies
- The Human Rights Council’s review process.
Monitoring by a tribally-created committee is detailed on page 14, where it says that the Aotearoa Independent Monitoring Mechanism should have the role of monitoring the New Zealand government’s compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
The Independent Monitoring Mechanism was established by the Iwi Chairs Forum in 2015 and is led by the Maori sovereignty activist Margaret Mutu, the Auckland University professor who once infamously declared that New Zealand citizens without Maori ancestry could only be regarded as visitors to New Zealand.
The requirement for compliance monitoring by a group created by the Iwi Chairs Group makes the whole system subject to the United Nations and monitored by Mutu’s Aotearoa Independent Monitoring Mechanism.
In other words, the top entity in the proposed new constitutional arrangement is an entity created by tribes, and this entity operates to enforce overall control by the United Nations.
This is a bit of a surprise since we as the citizens of New Zealand who regularly vote political parties in and out of power expect the government of New Zealand to be accountable to us.
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