Key singing to the taniwha's tune: Hide
Former ACT leader Rodney hide has slammed the Mighty River Power IPO delay for iwi consultation on "shares plus".
"The Waitangi Tribunal's reasoning is that because Maori sang songs about the Waikato River and believed taniwha lived there that they are entitled to 'shares plus' in Mighty River," Mr Hide told NBR ONLINE today.
"It's total bollocks. Maori had no ownership of water in 1840. They have none now."
The "shares plus" concept pushed by the Maori Council and Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples would give Maori special power company shares with governance rights beyond those of other shareholders.
Prime Minister John Key says he rejects shares plus, put has nevertheless delayed the asset sales programme – originally set to start this month – until at least March next year to allow for consultation with iwi over the ownership concept.
Mr Hide says the Treaty makes no mention of prorietary rights over rivers.
"The Treaty is silent on water," he says.
The Waitangi Tribunal had considered the Maori Council claim to water regardless.
"For Maori 'property rights' to be upheld they create the fiction that Maori own water. Clearly, they don’t."
So what should the prime minister have done yesterday?
"Sooner or later a government has to confront the tribunal and the Treaty industry head on," Mr Hide told NBR.
"Sooner is always best."
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Comments and questions45
Hey Rodney stick to the real issue mate, the morality of selling it in the first place.
Paul - I wont reply for Rodney of course but my take on your comment is that albeit I am against the sell off in the 1st instance and I believe most (even including many nat supporters I know) are too, the fact is Key finds it easier to sell the family silver than slap down the spoilt brat of an economy and those that are bleeding us dry. On that basis I commend Rodney for joining the even greater mass of folk who are offended in the extreme by Key and his continual brown b*m kissing on every matter.
Sorry... while not being a fan of the creeping apartheid in this country (I voted NZ First in the past 2 elections BTW) when you say 'bleeding us dry' do you know what you are actually saying or being emotional? My understanding is that all the settlements and gravy train put together is still half the price of the single bailout of Canterbury Finance depositors (mostly National voters I would guess) it's easy to blame the Maoris for our complete lack of performance in the past ten years, who's fault is it really?
So one crazy injustice permits more does it?
Are you suggesting that a transaction between willing buyers and sellers is somehow immoral? If so, this country is truly doomed.
Willing sellers, are you on drugs?
For once I find myself totally in agreement with Rodney Hide - "Sooner or later a government has to confront the Tribunal and the Treaty industry head on,"...
I hope it will be sooner rather than later as this BS surrounding special treatment of maoris has been allowed to flourish for far too long.!
It may just be that the emergence and rise of the NZ Conservative Party will be the country's last/best hope for all citizens.
The real issue is the economic, political and democratic sabotage being carried out by a narrow group of a certain ethnicity.
The issue for New Zealand is how racist a state we become.
Do certain groups have rights above others?
Can a small unelected minority overturn the mandate of a government elected by New Zealanders of all issues.
The issue is not the rights and wrongs of privatisation, but the racist beliefs of the treaty industry and its supporters.
Rodney Hide is right to say it needs to be tackled. But has Key got the balls?
Clearly john lacks the aforementioned, Mr key is pathetic,
The question is whether Key has the votes to do what should be done: annul the Treaty and abolish the Tribunal as soon as the existing lodged claims have been adjudicated.
should be New Zealanders of all races
Correct again Rodney.!!
The Conservative Party is not the last/best hope for all citizens. Like John Banks' rationality, the Conservative Party's rationality is impaired by European style tikanga
Hey Focus... You mean the Conservative Party and Banks are impaired because they believe in an imaginary friend sent down to earth by some ruler of a celestial North Korea who supposedly created the universe in six days having to rest on the 7th, why, because what he was pooped? they are nutballs and you can put Maori superstitions in that category as well and nutballs should be nowhere near effecting the lives of free thinking rational people.
u are a dick FOCUS
Agree. This is complete racism. A minority group claiming special rights above others because of the colour of their skin. The treaty gravy train must stop. Maori need to stop putting their hand out and put the energy into economic development that adds value. Not takes value that has been created by others. The White man is a trader and knows to get something they need to give something in return. The Brown man has warrior mentality and believes if you have it then they can take it and give nothing in return. The Treaty Gravy Train must stop.
I never used to be a racist but successive governments and their pandering has made me into one
I am yet to see a politician who has the balls to move on this. And why don't they? They would absolutely win any election hands down with that as their mandate. Put an end to the treaty gravy train. It is flawed, not to mention Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand, so why give them the time of day?
Don Brash
Unfortunately they wouldn't win by taking that stance. as demonstrated when Don Brash lost the election to Helen Clarke.
So propel us into civil unrest then because that what's would happen if you grizzly "comfortable in your armchairs" sabre rattlers had your way.
The Treaty is real.......get over it !
The Treaty, and concepts of ownership, is open to interpretation, Rodney just provided his own which I disagree with. To demean a culture because they 'sang songs' instead of wrote about dragons, leprechauns, or unicorns on paper shows to me he only has an agenda to appeal to the majority of unintelligent 'kiwis' (including the folk above leading the charge, and the comments below I'm sure will follow) who only see this as racism. Read a book and learn the issues being debated here, but I'll suggest learning to read as your first step.
I've yet to hear of anyone relating dragons, leprechauns or unicorns to their case before a judicial hearing in modern times.
The concept of ownership is not "open to interpretation" but was well established in our legal system for many centuries while brute force ruled in pre-European Maori society.
The culture is being demeaned by rent-seeking professional lay-abouts who are unscrupulous about seeking undeserved privilege, no-one else.
As far as I'm aware, the Maori had not yet discovered the invention of Money before being introduced to it by the Europeans. They were a pre-barter society, like most gift tribal "economies", with actually just loose divisions of labour agreements.
Europeans have had Money since pre-Roman times. This is a concept that underlies ownership and property rights that Europeans are over 2000 years advanced ahead of Maori.
Let that sink in, before letting the Maoris prostrate themselves before Mammon and sing to the Mighty River Taniwha for his "blessings." It is a sad display all around.
Who is running this country anyway . None of our present representatives have got the balls to stand up to this ever extending grievance industry .If we do not stop it now and give everybody equal rights then we become a deeply divided country with inevitable results.
This isn't about colour of skin, it's about the concept of ownership between two different cultures. It has a place for debate in court. Actually Maori are indigenous to New Zealand, it's not about where you were from. The concept of indigineity has many aspects - mainly where your culture developed (Maori is unique to NZ) and possession of land (the first article signed away Maori rights to sovereignty, meaning OUR ancestors saw Maori as a sovereign people and NZ as their land.
What utter drivel.
Bit of a shame that the Europeans didn't take the place by force as per usual, following the lead of the genocidal maori tribal conflicts which saw land taken by force from each other and the early moriori.
Indigenous - what a joke.
Based on this definition, Pakeha is indigenous too then. As my Caucasian NZ culture certainly developed here and not in Europe.
#16 your comments were fair - until you demeaned them with your last and petty phrase. Nothing I have read diminishes the debate commenced by Rodney. I continue to read and have just moved on to read Wishart's book. I expect it to be as fair and reasoned as his previous. Some of the others have been thought-provoking but some have been simply silly and self-serving. As are many of the Maori spokesmen/people/persons....
The politics of pandering, yet again. and we've just the 75m settlement for the haka,
The Maoris are only practicing what the white majority has been doing for time immemorial - take all you can via a lopsided justice system.
Look at the recent case of a white judge sentencing another white man to community service and $20,000 reparation for causing grievous bodily injuries, praising the white thug as a pillar of society etc.
Good on the Maoris, I say.
Tell us the last time a non-white thug paid $20K in reparation. (Or anything?)
They do jail time, dear Mr Wilkinson.
Because they do not belong to the white boys club and have no money to buy 'justice.'
They have no money because they don't do anything useful for anyone including themselves. Would you prefer to get $20K or have your thug sent to jail instead of a community sentence?
Let the punishment fit the crime.
It's that simple.
No it isn't. Be careful what you wish for, otherwise everyone would have to pay reparation, or be enslaved to the victim as in the past.
The punishment is tailored to fit the criminal as well as the crime.
English law has always said that you can't profit from what you stole. Maori are just invoking English law.......except that English law as we know it today returns only the smallest percentage of what was stolen in fact. Yet Love Perks Rodney lovers here whine and whine and whine like spoiled kids !
Gotta say, having signed up for the $89.00 six months subscription number just this evening, I'm very pleasantly surprised at the knowledge so rationality expressed by the non-racists here.
Excellent !
To quote Sir Apirana Ngata; " we are one people "
If we think the ownership of water is a big issue, wait until the report on the Maori version of the how the NZ Constitution should be comes out late next year I think. That will be the biggest grab of political power this country has ever seen, since the treaty that is. I suspect that will bring out all the sorts of violence as seen in Britain about immigrants. An interesting analogy. I agree with #32. We are meant to be one people. Just call us all Maori and be done with it. We are all entitled to benefits under the treaty. Every settlement must provide resources to all local inhabitants whether or not they claim maori ancestry like 1/64th part. Has there ever been a referendum or unbiased media poll on the treaty process?
Well said Rodney.
Who has the right to run this country?
The government of the day or Maori.
Not everyone is against asset sales as Norman and Shearer would have us believe.
I agree with Rodney on this.
I also agree with that wise old matirarch Whina Cooper ONZ DBE who called Piggy to her bedside just before she passed on and said: " Get them to marry each other".
I dont think Muldoon acutally got the point unfortuantely.
Key should call an election immediately. I suspect he would win hands down especially now we have a ridiculous wind claim as well.
The simple reason why the Govt. trips up every time on Maori issues is because the 1987 Court of Appeal decisions on Maori interests (in the establishment of SOE's) created the principle that if the Crown established a property right over any natural resource, Maori would also have a property right interest that, in good faith, the Crown would to take into account. This has happened over Fish quota etc. The Maori interest in Water has not been fully resolved - now is the time to do that...
More Liberal nonsense Rodney, it was never a sound business proposition in the first place, keeps you on the payolla I suppose.
And the dog whistle is answered. Playing the race card to come back in the next election aye Rodney, how original. Still, it continues to be the trump scaredy cat card for all the scared little neo-libs in here. I understand, you are never going to educate yourself, critique Eurocentric capitalist systems or (truth be told) actually want to change your exproporiation of indigenous epistomology and cosmology. In scaredy cat language, cultural capital or assets. Oh well, too bad.