Taking the temperature on the Treaty
- Administrator
- Jan 28, 2024
- 1 min read
Last Thursday morning Nick Mills, NewstalkZB Wellington, attempted to have a discussion about the Treaty principles, ACT's bill and Ratana's political relevance. In his introduction he replayed snippets of David Seymour speaking to Tim Dower earlier that day. Mills' personal position is that the status quo is OK and he favours Luxon's approach of supporting the bill only to select committee.
In the hour from 9-10am the text and caller feedback mostly disagreed (apart from one caller who rang solely to criticise the host for his te reo pronunciation, and another who ran the familiar argument along the lines of 'How can homeless Maori be described as having greater advantage?')
You can listen to the entire hour by going to the link below and selecting 'Wellington', the date 25/1/24 and 9:00. The replays are in 15 minute segments but roll over automatically. Kudos to a fellow called Dean who articulated the problem admirably. If you only have time for his call, go to the 9:15 segment and fast forward to 12:30
Listen here
The biggest problem I see is the random use of the word partnership. Nowhere do I see the words equal when the word partnership is used. in relation to the treaty. Lets first define what partnership means in the treaty discussion. I have been in partnerships where there ahve been Senior Partners and Junior Partners. In that instance all partners were not equal. While i can be persuaded, as was the radical Liberal Lord Cook, that the treaty was in the nature of a partnership.. Surely there would have been a Senior Partner(The crown) and junior partners (The 520 odd chiefs who signed.) Keeping in mind that in 1840 there was not an entity called Maori.
As New Zealand now stands on a precipice with the risk of falling further into the abyss of the past being imported into the present and future for the grievance process for Maori, being one that has become a deep quagmire that NZ is now stuck in, It seems there is now a duty to impart a perspective on the whole affair and situation given pending support, or not, for the David Seymour Bill that will presumably seek to determine "what are" or "what is" or "what will" be the principles of the Treaty.
That perspective is covered therefore in this long treatise that ensues, for which apologies are made for its length, but its an opinion validated by the…
Could somebody please design and market a tee shirt..." We the people want to talk about the Treaty"...for too long its been the exclusive property of the Tribunal, the Judges, the Politicians like Wiley Jackshit. The Waitangi Tribunal has up to 20 members. They are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister for Māori Development. About half the members are Māori and half are Pākehā. Well Maori party got 3% of the last vote, 17.3% of the population identify as Maoris. Note the median ages for males and females identifying as Māori were 25.8 and 27.9 years respectively (compared with national median ages of 37.0 and 39.0 years respectively, reflecting a younger Māori population). David Seymour…