Any move by Wellington City Council to give Maori a formal role in the management of the city's town belt would amount to promoting race-based privilege, Act Party leader Don Brash said today.
Any move by Wellington City Council to give Maori a formal role in the management of the city's town belt would amount to promoting race-based privilege, Act Party leader Don Brash said today.
A report going before a council committee suggests the move partly as a way of addressing Treaty of Waitangi wrongs in which land was taken from Maori more than 150 years ago, The Dominion Post reported today.
It would see the council remain in control of the town, but it would work in partnership with Maori.
"These are simply weasel words whose true meaning is: give unelected Maori special powers denied to everyone else," Dr Brash said.
"Maori are Wellington citizens. To bestow special advisory status upon them under the guise of mana whenua is condescending, politically correct nonsense."
