THE MORE THE VOTERS DISCOVER about Labour’s Three Waters, the less they like it. No matter, this Government has clearly decided that, if it is to be destroyed, then Three Waters is the hill upon which it will die. That being the case – and the still-unfolding Entrenchment Crisis leaves little room for doubt – then the only real question to be answered is: Why? What is it about the Three Waters project that renders it impervious to rational reconsideration?
When a group of people refuse to accept they have made a poor choice – even as it threatens to destroy them – then it is a reasonably safe bet that they are in the grip of dangerously delusional thinking. Cult-like thinking, some might even suggest. But is it credible to suggest that a mainstream political party could fall victim to delusional thinking on such a scale? Is Labour really crazy enough to put its long-term survival at risk?
It is certainly possible. And those in need of convincing have only to consider the destructive impact of Brexit upon the British Conservative Party, and Donald Trump’s malign influence over the United States’ Republican Party. If a majority of Tory MPs could be persuaded that leaving the EU was a good idea; and House Republicans that the 2020 Presidential Election was actually won by the incumbent; then the idea that Labour is hellbent on trashing New Zealand’s unwritten constitution suddenly doesn’t sound crazy at all.
The British Tories were tortured by the fear that remaining in the EU was tantamount to conceding that the days of global hegemony and imperial splendour were finally beyond recall. For the Americans, the fear was remarkably similar: that their fate would be the same as the Brits’; being edged off the world stage by larger emerging powers. Brexit offered the opportunity to “Take Back Control”. Trump promised to “Make America Great Again”. Big ideas. Crazy lies.
What idea is big enough to derange the Labour Party into courting electoral suicide? The answer would appear to involve a radical revision of New Zealand history. Something along the lines of the colonisation of Aotearoa being a heinous historical crime. In this narrative, the colonial state is identified as the institution most responsible for the criminal dispossession of Aotearoa’s indigenous Māori population. Labour’s big idea is to facilitate a revolutionary reconstitution of the New Zealand state.
Now, where would Labour get an idea like that? Putting to one side Labour’s Māori caucus, whose interest in such an historical project is entirely understandable, how could Labour’s Pakeha MPs have picked up such a self-destructive notion? Well, the university graduates in Labour’s caucus (which is to say nearly all of them) are highly likely to have come across arguments for “decolonisation” at some point in their studies. The lawyers among them would certainly have encountered and absorbed “the principles of the Treaty”. So, too, would those coming to the Labour Party from the state sector.
It would be interesting to know exactly how many members of Labour’s caucus have, at some point in their past, attended a “Treaty Workshop”. Over the course of the past 40 years these have become virtually compulsory for members of the professional and managerial middle-class. The version of New Zealand history conveyed to those attending these workshops is remarkably consistent: colonisers = baddies; the heroic Māori who resisted the colonisers’ ruthless predations = goodies. Only by giving full effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi can the wrongs of the past be righted: only then will equity and justice prevail.
Many of those attending Treaty workshops will have been invited to “check their privilege” and “confront their racism”. This can be a harrowing experience for many Pakeha, leaving them with a strong inclination to keep silent and step aside whenever those on the receiving end of “white privilege” are encouraged to step forward and speak out. In the most extreme cases, Pakeha are actively discouraged from sharing their opinions, lest their higher education and facility with the English language overawe and “silence” those denied such privileges.
When Labour’s Māori caucus (the largest ever after the 2020 general election) sought to take full advantage of the party’s absolute parliamentary majority to advance their Treaty-centric agenda, it is entirely possible they found themselves pushing on an open door.
It is even possible that, formally or informally, the Labour caucus arrived at its own version of co-governance. What the Māori caucus decided upon as its priorities were not to be overridden or gainsaid by the broader Labour caucus’s Pakeha majority. An arrangement of this sort would certainly explain how the Māori Health Authority and Three Waters became such immoveable items on Labour’s legislative agenda, and why the rising unpopularity of Nanaia Mahuta’s Three Waters project has, so far, proved unable to shift the Prime Minister and her Cabinet from their position of unwavering support.
Labour’s been here before. In the 1980s, the “big idea” that seized the imagination of most of the Labour caucus was what was then called “free-market economics”. By the end of the Fourth Labour Government’s second term it was clear that the consequences of the Rogernomics “revolution” were going to be electorally fatal. Desperate to negotiate an economic policy U-turn, the Labour Party discovered that the Labour Government was, like Margaret Thatcher, “not for turning”. Indeed, many MPs proudly declared that they would rather lose their seats than repudiate the economic reforms they had helped to introduce.
In 1990, Rogernomics was the hill Labour decided to die on. And die it did – at least as a recognisably social-democratic party. The party’s left-wing departed with Jim Anderton to form NewLabour and the Alliance, leaving behind a curious mixture of neo- and social-liberals. It is, perhaps, unsurprising that Labour’s Māori caucus has found the party’s Pakeha majority so easy to cajole into backing what, from its perspective, is an entirely legitimate constitutional agenda. Led by Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson, the Māori caucus has taken full advantage of the fact that their Pakeha colleagues’ lack of constitutional conviction has never been a match for their own passionate intensity.
Three Waters may be the hill Labour dies on, but when the victors survey the field of battle, the only corpses they’ll find will be Pakeha. Each one clutching the “Big Idea” for which their party has paid the ultimate price.
‘Racist’…..that is the word that is thrown around when anyone counter-argues or indeed disagrees with any policy that involve maori.
NZ has found itself in a situation where maori issues can ONLY be debated by maori, look at Kelvin Davis and Willie Jackson demean the opposition voices to Labours policies when it’s maori questioning it….god forbid any non-maori dare question it.
‘Racist’ is the catchcry when any valid counter argument is raised, the person raising it or the proposal in general, is ‘Racist’ and NZ is all the more poorer for it, as 3/5 waters policy proves it in this instance, many more to come no doubt before next year’s election.
Not even only Māori, but Māori deemed not to be right wing race traitors.
White people are the biggest target of racism but fortunately it doesn’t worry them.
@ IM Right. What the Hell are you doing up and ranting at 5.00 am!? What’s worse is you have nothing intelligent to write anyway.
White people came to Aotearoa and took it off Maori and settled right fucking in there man. Then, those same white people started treating Maori like shit. And still do. That, is racist. You’re making all us well intended non Maori look like cunts, you fucking idiot.
What you write is racist. What you think is racist. What you propose is racist. You, are a racist. Is that plain enough for you? Or do you need pictures drawn with crayons?
The Right Zing have our financial wealth secreted away. Billions and billions of dollars of it. Now nine multi billionaires floating like turds in the three bath-waters sail those turds about the world while we get old, cold, and wrinkly. I wonder @ I’m right? Do you know how many Maori multi billionaires there are? I do.
NONE! NOT ONE! And do you know why that is? Old Boy? Dear OLD BOY IM Right? It’s because @ Maori will never be an Old Boy. And old white Boy. Part of the clique, a member of the Club. All what O darkie, what?
The Christchurch Club
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_Club
The Canterbury Club.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_Club
I’m still waiting for Maori to apologise to other Maori for their own atrocities or is it only the white man that have to apologise?
Countryboy….where’s the Russell Brand links?
Some of us work for a living CB, you know….up early then shower then lunch made then off to work, I’m sure you remember it!?
Do you think the priviledge elite pay income tax and land rates?
Or are they hiding behind some kind of exemption or charitable organisation status.
Maori signed he treaty, thy weren’t forced to
In simple terms colonization bad and indigenous people good is entirely true. Here in Taranki not only was most of the land taken by force but 90% of land “reserved” for Maori has ended up in district council hands. My sister in laws iwi had vast tract of inland Taranaki stolen and after more than a 100 years received $30m and a sorry. This is compensation of a few cents in the dollar of the value lost. By comparison on Saturday a random person in Bell Block has been given $24m in a lotto win.
In simple terms Peter, the Treaty settlement was likely full and final. If Maori in Taranaki are unhappy with the settelment they accepted, they need to find a way of coming to terms with that.
I agree with what Ben has said. The Musket Wars perpetrated by Maori against Maori (armed with guns bought off the Europeans through prostituting Maori women) saw far more Maori casualties and resulted in slavery and canabilism. Through out history it is what has happened. It is happening today in the Ukraine. Of course it doesn’t make it right. But it is what happens.
The vast majority of Maori in NZ have Pakeha ancestry.
And so how do you reconcile Ngati Mutunga conquest and genocide on Rekohu Peter? Seems we all dis this stuff in those days – not just Pakeha.
Bang on Peter. Chris has fallen for the revisionist settler narrative that somehow colonisation can be peacefully negotiated politely in parliament between the 16% defrauded by the colonial state the mouthpiece of the settler gentry, while the stolen wealth of today’s gentry who extort rent from all of us keeps piling up on the heads of Maaori.
Welcome to the class war.
Water is the new land grab.
The gentry got its water rights with the stolen land, the dispossessed lost both the land and and attendant water rights.
Co-governance, is a token UN policy of redress sponsored by the UN.
The UN is a vehicle for the ruling classes in the most powerful states.
The the UN is inseparable from the US. Do you see them giving up their power and wealth without a nuclear war – witness Ukraine the end of the world in motion.
We have a bi-polar world in which the Eastern and Western blocs are now going to war in the Great Game to carve up the wealth of Eurasia.
What room to maneuver is left for the tiny, footnote in history, NZ state but to beg indulgences from these great powers?
What possible power do Maaori have to shift this global balance of power to its own advantage.
Clearly no more than negotiating the power brokerage within the Labour Party, itself stuck negotiating power within the dictates of the neo-liberal template imposed by the real state power the Reserve Banks, not in Wellington, but in New York.
And as if this was not enough China has earmarked its share of water walking over the Treaty.
So co-governance is a pathetically token gesture to Maaori at the bottom of this historical heap of shit. Tino rangatiratanga will be sold off cheap.
So why the hysteria? Well the gentry are dependent on nature, and nature is on its death bed being burned up by the capitalocene, and is choking off their bounty with inflammable pine trees.
Water in the age of global warming has become the new gold.
Just as the big powers are battening down the hatches to hoard gold ahead of the big bang of climate crash, economic slump and the threat of nuclear war, the prospects for the gentry surviving by extracting monopoly rent from the land are dwindling.
And as for the peasants who scrape a miserable existence off the crumbs from this pillage, the only alternative is to squeeze out of the neoliberal Labourites, a token toke on the smell of the dying earth.
NZ apologists for neo-colonialism are running around in a panic while their Eurocentric, Anglo-American world collapses.
I am with the wretched of the Earth, the dispossessed whose time has come.
We have to wake and fight if we want to inherit a livable Earth.
I mostly agree with you, Dave.
Except Labour had already lost. It didn’t need a hill, it just needed a pseudo-virtuous rationale that didn’t involve the truth of betraying those it purported to most support – and on a terrible scale.
It’s strange to see these gestures of ‘caring’ in the face of catastrophic treachery. To the poor which includes a tragic number of Maaori; to the almost needy, people living in a desperate non-stop struggle to avoid the fate they can see, like a freight train heading towards them; to New Zealand’s sovereignty and autonomy, and to the most basic tenets of democracy.
They want to blame racism for our anger at them. They want to at least imply that we were all Nazis, far-right extremists in dumping them.
As we, Maaori, Pakeha and every other ethnicity together struggle hard and see nothing but surviving becoming harder and harder.
While they cocoon themselves in luxury far from the hardships. While they continue to entrench their entitlement to the high-quality health care, housing, pampering, travel ,clothing, environmentally-friendly toys, and financial excess, the ‘good life’ for them and theirs.
And from here they self-righteously jeer at us. Lecture us, complain at our stupidity for not being grateful for the crumbs that fall from their banquet table.
Ngai Tahu are the biggest business in the South Island, own the most land, and are the biggest landlord in the South Island.
Tainui are a multi billion dollar business – $9.5b in 2019.
Why do you and some others spell Maori as Maaori?
Is it for some political or ideological agenda?
Or is it taking the piss out of Willie Jackson’s pronunciation, which I believe is rendered better by being spelt Marri?
No, you’ve got it wrong R+C. The ‘a’ in Maori is a long vowel and is type-written with a macron above. Most word processing software allows this but not apparently in this reply box (or some folk don’t know how to activate it). So knowing it is a long vowel folk write it with ‘aa’. There you go R+C. Perhaps not what you thought.
It’s a good way to spot pretentious wankers.
I can’t do macrons on this old computer. The double ‘a’ is a way to not mis-spell without it.
Feel uncomfortable knowingly mis-spelling. Especially when others are not doing so. Even though when all others do, I often just mis-spell as well.
So sue me.
” after more than a 100 years received $30m and a sorry. This is compensation of a few cents in the dollar of the value lost.”
The current value of the land is based on 100 years of white colonisers investing enormous amounts of hard work, time and know how to make that land productive. Compensation should be based on what it was worth at the time – which is not much.
Of course you are correct moon-rekt but that doesn’t suit the argument of those who feel aggrieved.
Wrong moon_rekt, compensation should be based on the lost opportunity of 100 years of ownership: a priceless loss of self determination, dignity, intergenerational wealth, intergenerational skills development, intergenerational cultural development…
Current day monetary value on developed land is nothing compared to the lost value to people and culture whom should have benefited from developing the land themselves.
A lot of this confiscated land was sold by maori or confiscated after uprisings against the crown/government
Well, the Transnational Capital Party is co-governed by the Chinese and Indian Business Associations.
Chris
You are ever so polite by phrasing your headline as a question, to which everyone knows the answer.
Yes a question to which everyone knows the answer.
The next question is how many people agree with the answer?
Bob the first. Co-government’s just a word; the Mahuta agenda’s proceeding while ‘aspirations’ for child povidy and homelessness aren’t, and Eugenie’s doing what Nanaia wants, it could be parallel governments.
Yes SW
If Chris Trotter hasn’t already been cancelled by the Left he will be soon. He’s a brave man for standing up against this woke madness that has afflicted Labour.
100% Ernie
Hard to argue with his observations.
Absolutely. Smart, honest and brave.
Occam’s razor would suggest it’s just another grubby money grab dressed up as something else.
Correct, only this time it’s being perpetrated by white people who can pass as Maori, instead of the usual bunch of rogues & thieves. The outcomes are unlikely to benefit most New Zealander and certainly won’t benefit the majority of Maori, just an elite few.
I do observe some maori ‘activists’ who are whiter than I am, a practically translecent weed from the north of england….the only people paler are scots gingas
I can think of three possible explanations:
1) Labour’s non-Maori MPs are determined to ‘be on the right side of history’ – so that’s ego and self-image.
2) Labour’s non-Maori MPs are horrified but can’t change what’s happening and are hoping the rest of the nation doesn’t notice or care – thats’s hope and self-preservation.
3) Labour’s non-Maori MPs are insecure and self-hating people – and such people are the ones easiest to recruit into cults because they are desperate to believe in something and so stay with their new group of friends.
Tick all the above.
agree Ada.
It truly shocked me seeing the Labour women MPs at the Select Committee on gender ID. They have completely and ardently embraced the cult of gender ideology. To hear them spout nonsence like sex is on a spectrum and watch there hostility towards submitters who didn’t agree with the gender orthodoxy was jaw dropping. So I think it is entirely possible Labour MPs have sucummbed to the cult of CRT that drives policies like Health NZ and Three (five ) waters.
I am a Labour Party member (am waiting for the most strategic time to resign) and have only ever voted Labour. I can wait for them to be voted out
Or 4. they will be shouted down and cancelled if they dare to speak up.
Yes of course Ada but thankyou for putting it in print.
Daniel’s point 4 can be added.
The truth is they (& National) are scared. Imagine what willie or mahoota would do if they were told no – their agendas have been public knowledge for as long as they have been around and they will not stop until they get what they want. Nationals proposed reversal of policies will not happen without a fight and these 2 will be leading the charge and will stop at nothing
I see Ardern as an advertising executive. No idea what she is selling, just get in front of the message and market the shit out of it. Hence her bewildering lack of risk assessment on this subject.
Labour had a fine history, it’s high tide mark being the 30’s and 40’s but small iterations along the way like the Kirk government were something to be proud of. But Ardern Robertson iteration is about to burn the house down.
I wonder if it is a sense of they’re history, may as well obliterate the entire party in the process. I can’t think of a more rational reason to destroy everything Labour once stood for that was not race based.
A sizeable chunk of their caucus will be looking for work next year. But I’m guessing Willie will be just fine and dandy at his radio station thinking, job done!
“I see Ardern as an advertising executive. No idea what she is selling, just get in front of the message and market the shit out of it”
/agreed.
And a real waste of a human specimen’s obvious talent.
She’s obviously got an above average IQ, a well-functioning memory, and a concern for kindness, humility and humanity, but all wasted on shit and the prevailing economic orthodoxy of the past 30-40 years.
And that commodified media and political marketing is all that matters apparently.
It’ll jump up and bite them in the bum when the natives really start to get restless
I am afraid I dont see her that benignly.
This was planned and ready to go for election 2020. The lengths they have gone to and the amount of work and money they have put into it is immense. I dont believe it has anything to do with kindness. Ardern’s daughter is Maori and she is chasing down a seat at the big boy’s table so No, I dont believe this is kindness at all.
If it is, she is a zealot on a par with the Inquisition which let ‘kind’ Catholic priests torture and murder thousands and sleep well at night.
Good point. She has in this case avoided fronting it like the plague because she knows how divisive it will be. All the better to pretend there’s nothing to see and it will just magic itself away. And in some warped fantasy, go on to win the next election.
Labour need toadk themselves this, when was the last successful separatist race focused based us and them governorship model ever successful? Can’t think of any myself!
She sells snake oil.
Chris is interested in how many Labour Caucus members may have attended a Tiriti Workshop. Similarly I would be interested generally in how many pākehā and other tauiwi NZers have never been on a Marae or in regular contact with any Māori people?
Don’t know where live but I think it’s safe to say that most of us have daily regular contact with Maori people. They are called clients or colleagues or customers or neighbours. You may want to tell us how many Maori have actually been to a Marie.
Yup good try Tiger Mountain but good luck finding any NZ European who doesn’t have regular contact with Maori.
Maori are our neighours, our teammates, our work colleagues, our friends and often part of our families . .
Been to a marae. Husband is Maori.
I attended a Treaty workshop twenty years back and found it interesting and useful. But that was before Critical race theory was introduced (think all white people are racist, all white people are priveledged).
My understanding is public servants are incalcated with the idea of de-colonizing the public service (what happened to public service neutrality?). Of course the irony of this would be that if they were truly going to decolonize the public service, they would cease to exist. So it is very selective decolonizing.
While I’m against 3/5 waters altogether and the Entrenchment Crisis was a tad shocking – esp. the brazen under urgancy amendment – I wholeheartly disagree with the “entrenchment should only be for constitutional matters” arguement. Not because I disagree with the premise, but because to me it’s invalid: what vital infrastructure is and is not a public asset – and whom should govern it and how – are or at least should be constitutional issues, not “policy of the month”.
Lawyers and academics failing to recognise three fifths waters as a constitutional coup is disappointing. It’s hard to blame Labour insiders for failing to mount a defence when external opponents can’t see the issue either.
agree Ada.
It truly shocked me seeing the Labour women MPs at the Select Committee on gender ID. They have completely and ardently embraced the cult of gender ideology. To hear them spout nonsence like sex is on a spectrum and watch there hostility towards submitters who didn’t agree with the gender orthodoxy was jaw dropping. So I think it is entirely possible Labour MPs have sucummbed to the cult of CRT that drives policies like Health NZ and Three (five ) waters.
I am a Labour Party member (am waiting for the most strategic time to resign) and have only ever voted Labour. I can wait for them to be voted out
The more I think about Chris’s article the more I am agreeing with his sentiments. What’s bewildering to me however, is that if this new found desire to counteract the affects of colonialism and reinstate Maori to their rightful place as an equal partner to Pakeha is genuine, why haven’t Labour included the the NZ public in an open transparent discussion over three waters and co governance. Is it that they feel they are morally superior and that the general population dominated by Pakeha would never let this fly. I’d say this is the case, however Labour has shown us they are not morally superior haven’t they. They have failed with the promise of alleviating child poverty ( Jacinda’s own pet project) and are more neoliberal than National. Why would the general public trust them with such important legislation as three waters and co- governance. This Labour government has shown it’s ability to grow it’s administration like a hungry cancer and it’s desire to accumulate public paid for assets is plain to see. They won the hearts of the electorate with clever rhetoric when they first came into government five years ago but we aren’t persuaded so easily now. However good any of Labours ideas are, they have either failed to implement them or sell the ideas as acceptable and beneficial and workable government policy.
Well said new view. In simple terms they are so full of shit!
Shona I could have described them as you did and saved some words. At least you haven’t said I’m so full of shit. Yet.
Full marks new view.
You have exposed them for the pretenders they are.
Good addition Shona.
Yup. A bit of Stockholm Syndrome for the pakeha caucus.
Is there a pakeha caucus?
Bob the first. It may be located off-shore, in a place beginning with D.
I started reading your article thinking you were going a bit nutty but by the time I had read the 6th & 7th paragraphs it made a lot of sense. Maybe if we took a bit more notice of the OT ideas that Martyn disparages society might be a better place.
“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Yes Chris. I think you must be right – astonishing as it is that people with IQs probably 100 or above can be so unintelligent. I read once in my psychology studies that about 75% of people rate highly in ‘agreeableness’ the tendency to meet new information with a readiness to accept it as true. Only 25% are sceptical or even unbelieving. Postulated as a survival mechanism for the tribe, and when I look at the history of the human race it seems to make sense to me, although I am definitely in the 25% – as are you, I guess, and most of us who are subscribing to the large number of blogs and books which provide rational and well-researched information. I have to say for my disagreeable self though, that I am pretty strongly socialised not to speak my disagreement – it’s not polite. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” I was told as a small child. Thank you for your readiness to disagree so acceptably Chris. More of us have to learn this.
We need people to voice their opinions – how can things change if people are too scared to give their opinion. Next time you are asked tell them your views and dont be ashamed – we are talking about the future of NZ
And all to be reversed by a future NACT government… Way to go Labour, what a hill to die on lol.
MickeyBoyle a hill to die on is the wish of many on the Left,martyrdom their claim to fame.
Here is the architect, designer of the legislation for all of this.
Paul Beverley, of Buddle Findlay, specialises in the RMA, co-governance design in Treaty settlement processes, and advising local authorities on Treaty and Māori law issues. According to the Buddle Findlay website, he has extensive experience collaborating and negotiating with Māori and advising on Māori law issues. His particular specialty is designing and negotiating co-governance, co-management and relationship frameworks between the Crown, local government and Māori.
Anne Gibson, Property Editor of the New Zealand Herald, in an article on Beverley published 13 May 2017, “….in the past few years, the refrain sounding loudest in his life is redress for tangata whenua. That means addressing the wrongs of the past, helping Maori groups negotiate, then draft Treaty of Waitangi deeds of settlement as one of the Crown team representing the Justice Ministry’s Office of Treaty Settlements”.
Further insight into the views of Beverley can be found in his involvement as a participant in the Constitutional and Legal experts’ hui held by the government to discuss Crown-Maori Relations (20 March 2018). Notes produced by the participants include the following points:
There is a need to move beyond a consultation mind set to real partnership and engagement.
The Treaty is clear that there are two peoples in a partnership, with roles and responsibilities.
A concrete agenda/work programme should include the following: constitutional position of the Treaty; local government status; capacity and capability building – central and local government; institutional/systemic discrimination; water; shared outcomes; putting partnership into practice (e.g., the Department of Conservation has some useful approaches – local level solutions in particular).
Māori representation on local authorities – if moving towards Māori wards then other changes also need to be put in place to support them and for substantive long-term change and community understanding. They will fail to make effective change on their own.
A clear conceptual framework over the top is required, that defines local government in NZ and its roles and responsibilities in the Treaty/Māori space.
The Government needs a plan to educate communities, including exemplars of how people are positively relating, how the Crown and Māori are relating, the benefits for communities and the nation, and that it is not racist for the government to prioritise results for Māori.
Proprietary rights need to be defined with reference to two systems of law. There is a need to understand tikanga as law, rights and constitutionally.
Undertake a stocktake by running a Treaty ruler over legislation, regulation and policies.
Decolonisation required to allow a Māori lens to become first nature for government.
And again, for clues as to what Beverley thinks, see his paper entitled ‘A stronger voice for Māori in natural resource governance and management’, which he presented to the NZ Planning Institute conference 2015 – ‘Back to the Future’.
Paul Beverley claims that Māori have a deep and innate relationship with natural resources, saying that significant advances are being made to enable the expression of this relationship. In his paper he focussed on one of these advances – the arrangements delivered through Treaty of Waitangi settlements, giving the following four examples of Treaty settlement arrangements:
the tūpuna maunga arrangements in the Tāmaki Collective settlement;
the Waikato River settlement;
the Tūhoe – Te Urewera settlement; and
the Whanganui River settlement.
Paul Beverley acted for Auckland Council in the negotiations leading to the new Tupuna Maunga Authority. According to Beverley the Tāmaki Collective settlement reflects a significant reconnection between the Iwi of the Tāmaki Collective and their tūpuna maunga, which includes a detailed set of arrangements that provide a prominent voice for those Iwi in the future governance and management of, and planning for, those tūpuna maunga. Beverley was quoted in the NZ Herald 13 May 2017, saying:
“Those maunga are the embodiment of the iwi ancestors so the law now recognises that through the vesting of those volcanic cones back in the iwi, and the Tupuna Maunga (co-governance) Authority. It’s a really important point in the journey.”
Paul Beverley acted for the Crown on the Waikato River claim, which resulted in the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010 and other legislation, recognising the river as a tupuna or ancestor with mana, and in turn representing the mauri or life force of the tribe. The Waikato River arrangements provide for the establishment of the Waikato River Authority, a co-governance authority comprising five members appointed by the river iwi and five members appointed by the Crown/local authorities. The Waikato River Authority is responsible for the vision and strategy for the Waikato River. The Vision and Strategy is a planning document with very powerful effect, in fact it is incorporated directly into the Waikato regional policy statement, and it overrides an RMA national policy statement in the event of conflict. Decision-makers under a wide range of legislation are required to consider and give legal effect to the vision and strategy.
Beverley is also active in spreading the co-governance net wider.
He is one of the three authors of the Hauraki Gulf Forum Governance Review and Recommendations, presented to the HGF June 2016, which recommended the 50/50 co-governance model, with greater powers.
He was also, from 2015, the ‘Independent’ Chair of the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari (Hauraki Gulf Marine Spatial Plan) stakeholder working group. The Sea Change Plan also strongly pushes the ‘co-governance with iwi’ arrangement.
So go and knock yourselves out.
There will be hiccups even within Maori of the same iwi.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018868103/the-stoush-in-te-urewera-that-s-about-more-than-just-huts
Will co-governancey result in all being prevented from access, or a trumping of the various hands at the table?
@GW Yes there is a great deal of focus on (and on widening) a Māori/Pākeha divide, but this is also going to divide Iwi from Iwi, Hapu from Hapu.
As you say even within an Iwi the well heeled few granted operational power are under no obligation to serve the interests of ordinary Māori.
With 3/5/6 Waters, mana o te wai statements appear naively conceived or designed to expedite conflict. While the broader legislation and consolidation into 4 entities make them more attractive and far more vulnerable to ‘expert capture’ by special interests. Expect revolving doors and corporate shell games.
Or the greasing of various palms under the table?
…If the treaty advocates/inspires apartheid then it’s time to burn it.
ITs A ‘FIRESALE!’
It’s a $485b+ firesale of water services with 35 year contracts. Everything else being said is misdirection, suckers!
Whoever controls the infrastructure controls the $$!
Does Paul Beverley actually believe in what he is doing or has he just identified a never ending pay cheque
Vote for Winston Peters. Easy fix.
You think? When NZFirstNAct come to power I envisage the maori representatives appointed to the 3 Waters cogovernance boards will be Maori like Seymour, Winston, Goldsmith, Tamihere etc and they will happily firesale water assets to International Water Inc (french or chinese) while retaining some semblance of Maori control for a peppercorn rental. Meanwhile ordinary consumers will pay International Waters capital and interest costs on their monthly water bill. Cogovernance is a scam. Ordinary people pakeha and maori are being hustled big time.
We have a Government being co-governed that is blatantly obvious.
Is that what the majority of Labour voters voted for?
I don’t think they did.
Reading this article @ Chris Triotter was like wiping my arse with a cheese grater in that I can’t help but feel you’re going to get shredded by a lot of your former comrades in your views on this co- governance and 3 waters milarkey
One can’t help but think that if this is passed into being, nothing will change for the majority of AO/NZ citizens both Māori and pakeha. But will benefit a few in the nouveau Iwi aristocracy who will own the water assets and there corporate multinational compatriots who will eagerly embrace tikanga Māori in the running and management of this taonga. And as with all old boys clubs/networks there’s going to be a shit load of lucrative iwi/ corporate directorships on offer to the right people of course.
To quote Cheech and Chong in regards to co governance and 3-5 waters” If it looks like, feels like, tastes like dog shit then it must be dog shit.
What will change is that we will pay 3 times as much for water probably over a 5 year period and it will steadily rise from there.
Winston whilst,I’ve never voted for him, is a better choice than Labour or Green.
Look no further. With 15 Māori MPs, Labour’s Māori caucus also holds six of the seven Māori electorate seats, and boasts six ministers. It means the caucus holds serious mana around the cabinet table. That influence infiltrates a good many aspects of everyday life. In order to keep political power Labour will do (almost) anything to keep them from abandoning ship in the next election. But will it be enough? Choppy seas ahead.
‘compo’ the firsr word all kiwis learn on their mothers tit….from land theft to building on steep cliffs or flood plains…where’s me compo?
Someone said “ The day a Kiwi is born they are looking for their welfare cheque.”
Chris, Pakeha are damaged by this. However, it is the whole country that suffers.
The polarisation is real. Pakeha who have supported Maori in the past have quietly closed the door to them. Maori (mainly younger ones) are convinced colonialism is everywhere and must be rooted out and it is the author of all their problems. They are convinced every Pakeha is racist.
Pakeha losers with a tiny bit of Maori blood have become the most vocal advocates in the anti colonisation war. Some have a tailor made victim narrative for why they havent succeeded. Many have done amazingly well out of it and push it for all it’s worth.
No one wins, everyone has lost and our unique taonga, that of our largely colour blind, equality, democracy loving culture has been totally trashed and I am not sure we will ever get it back.
Fantail. Agree 100%. Plus it’s a deliberate assault on our sovereign state, and on democracy, possibly part of the WEF agenda.
Most definitely another agenda here.
Scary stuff.u
Since 2015 it feels like society has just gone made
Woke ideology has been turbo blasted into every aspect of our life
Critical Race Theory is poisoning our once (relatively) harmonious country and all her institutions
People are losing their jobs due to some innocuous social media post because some anonymous person gets offended
The TOW has been radically re-interpreted and our history is being erased and replaced with a “re-imagined” woke view on everything.
Kids are being brainwashed with this crap in school and uni’s as well.
If you’re white you treated like a colonial scumbag no matter how nice a person you are, if you’re brown you are seen as a perpetual victim seemingly with no agency of your own.
People are getting more pissed off about everything yet we are told we live in progressive times. If we are living in such progressive times why does everything feel like it is getting worse?
It’s not going to end well for anyone I think
Chris, while you question the indoctrination of the members of the Labour caucu. Shame.
Vote anyone but Labour or Green to avoid more madness and the destruction of our society.
aori exchanged land for callte with my great grandmother and it turned out it was not there land. he calle were not returned
Arthur
Genuine question, why would modern Labour give over their endlessly immediate politics for ‘co-governance’?
What happens in the future when everyone has some Maori in their lineage? How will the elite hate squad split us up then? No doubt it will be on percentage of Maori in your blood, our future caste system, with Willie or his spawn on top of course.
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