8 Labour MPs accepted corporate box tickets to the RWC from Sky City.
If they’re so evil, why did they accept?
Perhaps they could explain:
Grant Robertson?
David Shearer?
Clayton Cosgrove? Read more »
Surely Winston, Labour and the Greens are going to cut up rough about a Chinese billionaire wanting to buy up more land and invest in new businesses.
We need more people like this rather than fat German crooks.
Chinese billionaire Jiang Zhaobai, who now owns the Crafar dairy farming empire, is back in New Zealand forging a relationship with Maori and looking for further deals in the dairy and hotel industries and in Christchurch.
Mr Jiang, ranked 82 on the Forbes China rich list, flew into Auckland early last Saturday and later that day attended the Taniwha and Dragon Festival at Orakei Marae.
Mr Jiang, whose personal wealth is estimated at US$1.2 billion, was invited to the festival by Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples when the pair met up during the recent John Key-led trade visit to China. Read more »
We hear a lot about taonga and how this one or that one has been destroyed or ruined or insulted, usually followed by a demand for compensation.
Maori claim the airwaves, water, and land are all taonga…and as a result they must compensated for their use.
Well Pita Sharples may well have scotched that with an interesting comment on taonga.
Sharples said treasures were never owned, and could be returned.
“There is no permanency in Maori culture about taonga,” he said. Read more »
The Backbenchers pub in Wellington is counting its casualties from the fire in June
Among the casualties are United Future leader Peter Dunne, Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples and former ACT leaders Rodney Hide and Don Brash.
“They are gone, finished, washed up – whatever,” Mr Boyce said.
Perhaps Dunne should take this as a sign? Sharples has indicated he is going and Hide and Brash are long gone.
The Herald on Sunday editorial asks a valid question…just who is running the country? The government? or Maori?
Most people were surprised when the Government postponed the part-privatisation of Mighty River Power after a Waitangi Tribunal decision. Not a few were also dismayed. Having expected the Prime Minister to plough ahead with the sales programme, they were left to ask who was actually running the country.
Worryingly, that perspective is gaining ever-widening currency, so much so that there is now good cause to consider whether a line on all Maori claims must soon be drawn in the sand.
A line certainly needs to be drawn and John Key needs to be ready with a nuclear option. That is legislation to end the silliness once and for all.
That is not a novel notion. All the main political parties have planned to impose a time limit on the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process. They have varied only in the timing of that deadline and the caveats attached to it. Even the Maori Party has chimed in. Claims had been used by politicians to “bring Maori into contempt and ridicule by branding the process a gravy train,” said co-leader Pita Sharples in 2005. “It is, therefore, in the country’s best interests that the claims be settled as fast as possible to remove this negativeness.”
The water claim and other silliness won’t go away. And National’s belief that they can win in the courts is erroneous. They should just ask themselves how they have gone in court before, and look at the activist judges arrayed before them.
John Key must be prepared to legislate and then he must be prepared to fight an election on it as well.
Let’s see how that pans out for Maori?
Maori have shown that they do not see New Zealand as one nation, they see it as us vs them, and so it will be.
New Zealanders have, by and large, never resented the principle of compensation for wrongs. But as the process has dragged on, they have become increasingly agitated over the taxpayer funding associated with it. Now, that gravy-train annoyance has advanced to another plane. Many people feel the flood of Maori claims is engendering only divisiveness, and that the time has come to move on as a country.
In that context, the row over Maori water rights is shaping to be even more contentious than that over the foreshore and seabed. As much was underlined by this week’s national hui, which resolved to fund a Maori Council challenge to the Mighty River part-sale unless the Government settled issues of proprietary rights over water before the share float. Maori resolve was also reflected in King Tuheitia’s declaration that “we have always owned the water”.
Maori have been having a lend…the metaphoric Rubicon has been crossed.
Pita Sharples has once again forgotten he is a co-leader of a small, actually insignificant party and not the Prime Minister. He has decided to tell the world that the government’s asset sales program…which he incidentally voted against…will be delayed.
I’ve got news for him…it doesn;t matter what he has to say. I imagine the PM will later today disabuse him of his silly notions that what he says matters.
Left wingers think that National has handled this badly, the majority of New Zealand though thinks that John Key effectively saying they are going to ignore grasping greedy Maori is just fine with them:
Dr Sharples said there was “quite likely” to be a delay in the asset sales programme but the Government was keen on pursuing it.
Maori would be left to go to court if the Government went against tribunal recommendations, he said.
The only guarantee made was that the Government would wait until the August 24 deadline it had imposed on the tribunal to deliver its truncated report before going ahead with the share float of Mighty River Power – the first company to be partially sold.
Mr Key said he was hopeful the Government would be able to incorporate the tribunal’s advice into its decision-making but it was “hamstrung” by the market.
“We don’t have lots of flexibility and they are literally October-November of this year or March-April of next year.”
It would cost “a lot of money” in extra debt servicing if the sale was delayed, he said.
There’s something about New Zealander’s working in Aussie. From all reports they work hard, get high average incomes, and are plain successful.
How come NZ has this reputation of being so institutionalising of Maori but Aussie gets them the reputation of winners?
Is it social welfare vs opportunity or something more complicated?
Or is it that when they move to Australia they break the grievance cycle and realise that the only way to get ahead in life is to do the hard yards:
“It’s true to say the sky’s the limit. I would say the majority of Maori that are here are very successful. If you’re not that’s your own personal fault.” Ngati Porou’s Jo Matthews
Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples was not available for comment but Labour MP Shane Jones said migrants couldn’t be faulted as many wanted to better themselves.
One of the “perversities” of the situation was that while “Greenies” were opposed to mining here, droves of young Maori were leaving economically deprived areas such as Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) to work underground.
“We have to suck their rhetoric that mining is bad yet we have to watch our young people go to Western Australia.”
It is abundantly clear that Ngapuhi and Maori want to live in the past and hurl abuse at anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their views.
It is now time to leave Waitangi behind, and for National to return to its 2005 promise to remove the Maori electorates. The culture of grievance must be ended and a good start would be to remove race based seats in parliament.
Protesters have ignored pleas to show respect at Te Tii Marae this morning, where Prime Minister John Key and fellow politicians were verbally abused during an ugly display of activism.
Protester Wi Popata heckled prominent Maori MPs regardless of party affiliation, calling Dr Pita Sharples, Te Ururoa Flavell and Hekia Parata “niggers.”
“The Treaty’s not for sale,” chanted others.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Maori Wardens and Diplomatic Security Services members kept them away from Mr Key as he made a forced exit after a farcical gathering, during which officials could not be heard for all the chanting.
One protester cried “scumbag” as Mr Key entered the vehicle.
Around six to 10 protesters rushed onto the marae when Mr Key first arrived at 10am, knocking aside members of the media as they moved. Two photographers, including one from the Herald, were seen bleeding after the rush.
It is believed the injuries were not caused by deliberate attacks.
Waitangi has become a focal point for protests. It matters not to the angry mob of disaffected the advances that have been made, the settlements reached. Bending over backwards just gets your face spat in.
Helen Clark was right to ignore them for years. Time to show the “cold face” once again.
About 50 back-end bureaucrats bro-racrats are to be cut loose in a shake up at Te Puni Kokiri:
Redundancies at Te Puni Kokiri have been slammed by Mana MP Hone Harawira.
Staff at the ministry, which advises the Government on Maori issues and development, are believed to have been told that about 50 of their number will lose their jobs.
Maori Affairs Minister Dr Pita Sharples this afternoon confirmed Te Puni Kokiri staff had been briefed by its chief executive on “efficiency” measures today.
“How the Ministry manages their fiscal pressures and efficiency dividend is of course an operational matter for management. I expect to be consulted on the chief executive’s proposals for how Te Puni Kokiri continues to deliver the most effective services to the public, within the budget they have been allocated,” he said.
Fifty is a good start. Perhaps Tony Ryall could have a word with Pita Sharples and explain how he must try harder.
Labour have given up. They are ceding the left, the only question that remains is to whom:
Labour isn’t commenting on the dispute.
Industrial relations spokeswoman Darien Fenton says she doesn’t think it’d be helpful to do so while negotiations are still ongoing.
The Maori Party meanwhile seems a little deluded about the impact contracting out 212 jobs will have:
The Maori Party has come out on the side of workers in the Ports of Auckland dispute.
Co-leader Pita Sharples is concerned about the impact the row will have on the livelihoods of thousands of workers, particularly young Maori.
He’s written to the tertiary education and labour ministers asking for an assurance employment opportunities for those affected are on their radar.
He’s also concerned about the decisions of Maersk Line and Fonterra to re-route trade to Tauranga and Napier, and what impact there may be on jobs.
Someone needs to sit down with Pita and have a wee chat and explain that striking actually hurts more, literally in the thousands, workers than the 212 greedy, rich prick wharfies, who BTW are mostly poms, not Maori.
One thing is for certain is that Labour are all at sea with this dispute, their leadership, through their absence are telling us with their silence that they back the ports.
