Treaty of Waitangi

Radio Live have just tweeted:

BREAKING: The High Court rules in favour of the Crown over water rights/asset sales case taken by the Maori Council

— RadioLIVE Newsroom (@LIVENewsDesk) December 11, 2012

Good stuff.

Tony Ryall and Bill English have said in their Press Release:

Finance Minister Bill English and State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall today welcomed the High Court decision in favour of the Crown following last month’s High Court action regarding the sale of shares in Mighty River Power.

“The High Court decision confirms the Government can proceed to sell up to 49 per cent of shares in four state owned energy companies, in accordance with the legislation passed by Parliament earlier this year,” Mr English says.

“The Government is firmly of the view that the partial sale of shares does not in any way affect the Crown’s ability to recognise rights and interests in water, or to provide redress for genuine Treaty claims.”

UPDATE:

The Maori Council says it is now working on an appeal.

— Jessica Mutch TVNZ (@MutchJessica) December 11, 2012

Deep pockets. For the lawyer troughers.

Surely a treaty claim is stalking these guys to financial oblivion:

New Zealand may have a chance to break into the $1.6 billion seaweed industry thanks to research that could help make the sushi ingredient more productive to farm.

A breakthrough in 15 years of research by New Zealand scientists has unlocked new information about the most well-known red seaweed in the world, known as nori in Japanese and karengo in Maori.

The seaweed and other closely related species, which are used to make sushi, are highly prized worldwide. They are harvested from the wild and are also farmed.

A result of the New Zealand research was that the seaweeds had been reclassified and the discovery was important for breeding programmes, NIWA principal scientist Dr Wendy Nelson said.

Formal portrait of Sir Charles Bathurst Bledisloe in uniform. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lord Bledisloe that is.

Oh that our current politicians would have the same values. He liked rugby but didn’t like bludging.

The Waitangi National Trust is launching a $10 million fundraising drive today to build a new museum at the Treaty Grounds. It also wants to increase its digital presence and help more schoolchildren to travel there.

Trust chairman Pita Paraone said the drive was necessary because the trust did not receive any public money as the grounds were gifted to the nation by Lord Bledisloe in 1932 on the condition that taxpayers would not be burdened.

Maori claim a special connection to land. It is one of the things they most want, after great wads and dollops of cash in their settlements under the treaty of Waitangi.

So what do you call it when they then flog off that land to foreigners?

A Northland hapu has sold a swathe of beachfront Northland land to a multi-millionaire Los Angeles fund manager who plans to build a championship golf course on the area.

Te Uri o Hau has sold 230 hectares of their 616 hectare forest at Te Arai beach, near Mangawhai, to American financier and golf enthusiast Ric Kayne.

Kayne, the founder and CEO of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, an $18 billion alternative asset manager, has commissioned renowned golf course architect Tom Doak to design the championship links-style course.

Kayne said Doak, the designer of the internationally rated Cape Kidnappers course in Hawke’s Bay, aimed to create a similar-level course at Mangawhai.

Doak was known as a “minimalist” designer who used the natural lay of the land and none of the course would be visible from the beach.

Te Uri o Hau received the forest as an asset in its 2002 Treaty of Waitangi settlement. The deal was signed off by the Overseas Investment Office who imposed a number of conditions including replanting of the area with native trees and establishment of a trust for protection for nesting shorebirds.

The land is currently a commercial pine plantation but trees have already been felled to make way for the course.

The land was given tot hem in settlement and now they have flogged it off. They know it is going to cause grief too:

Anticipating a backlash, Te Uri o Hau released a set of questions and answers including “why is Te Uri o Hau selling its land to a wealthy foreigner?”.

The hapu said it offered the land sale to the Department of Conservation and the Auckland Regional Council, who both declined it.

Personally I don’t have a problem with anyone selling their assets to whomever. But I do have a problem when one of the reasons given for receiving land in settlement is some supposed natural affinity to the land…which lasts only as long as it takes to find a wealthy offshore buyer. Either you have an affinity for the land and wish to protect it for generations to come or you are a just like anyone else..can’t have it both ways.

As I blogged earlier it is now us or them, Maori have declared war on the government and all of New Zealand. Now the truck driver’s spokesman has delcared that john Key is “culturally ignorant”. At least that is an improvement on “white motherf*cker”

Rhetoric around Maori water claims stepped up yesterday with leading Kingitanga spokesman Tuku Morgan calling Prime Minister John Key “culturally ignorant”.

It was his response to Mr Key having rejected as “plain wrong” King Tuheitia’s proclamation at a 1000-strong water hui last Thursday that Maori had “always owned the water”.

The Government will tomorrow begin its series of consultation hui over the Waitangi Tribunal’s “shares plus” concept – a way to give Maori a stake in state-owned energy companies the Government plans to float.

The first hui is with Tainui tribes in Mr Morgan’s heartland of Hamilton. But the sessions are invitation-only.

Yesterday, on Marae Investigates, Mr Morgan was asked what he thought about Mr Key saying the King was wrong about Maori owning the water. He replied: “That once again says the Prime Minister is culturally ignorant, and that’s unfortunate.”

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.

John Key has come out and pointed out to the illiterate truck driver who masquerades as a King that he is wrong over water:

Prime Minister John Key says King Tuheitia’s claim that Maori have always owned New Zealand’s water is “just plain wrong”.

All the advice the Government has received is that the common-law position that no one owns the water stands, he told the Weekend Herald yesterday.

“I just don’t believe there is anything we are doing that is legally or morally wrong.

“We are following the best advice, and advice we believe is established in law, albeit that the law is embryonic is this area.”

He said there was no reason for Maori water rights issues to delay the sale of Mighty River Power shares.

“It’s a Treaty partner relationship between Maori and the Crown, it’s not an issue between Mighty River Power and Maori.”

Anyone who thought the sale of Mighty River shares and Maori rights were linked would have to believe that Maori could not register their interests and rights in waters used by Contact Energy, a company that had been 100 per cent sold.

“I’ll bet you those iwi don’t agree with that proposition.”

National is consulting with greedy Maori, mostly so that they can claim in the ensuing court case that they did everything they could to discuss these issues.

This is, I believe, a flawed plan.

National are banking on a win in court. I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The courts are stacked with activists Judges and the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias is a flunky of the previous government who I understand likes to conduct her own judicial activism by way of her husband and their not inconsequential funds which find their way from time to time into the hands of various political parties of the left.

Entering court is fraught with danger for the government.

I think what we are going to eventually see is a necessary legislative change but not before we see an election, possibly and early one, fought over this issue that will be divisive politically but should deliver a stable government with a mandate that cannot be questioned.

A tipping point has been reached. By and large most Kiwis are fair minded and believe that there were serious Maori grievances, some, precious few remain. However the goodwill has evaporated with a resurgant and apparently rapacious and emboldened Maori seeking to grab even more.

So far Treaty settlements have poured more than $1,780,000,000 into Maori coffers and still they want more. Successive governments have acted in good faith and with genuine goodwill. I believe that has now come to an end.

As Matthew Hooton points out in his column in the NBR, this isn’t going to end anytime soon:

Be aware, this thesis is backed by a newspaper column’s worth of research.  With a few million dollars of legal aid, Russell McVeagh, Chapman Tripp, Bell Gully, Buddle Findlay or Donna Hall will be able to construct a far more powerful argument designed to ultimately be accepted by a majority of the Supreme Court.

Appeasement never worked for Neville Chamberlain and now it appears that it hasn’t worked for the New Zealand population. Difficult times are ahead.

Maori have decided that rather than just deal with each iwi’s claims for water that they will band together and try and extort even more from the taxpayer, even if iwi have no valid claim over water. On the plus side this is the fastest I have ever seen Maori move.

“Full and final” was as much of a lie as the Treaty having a cap.

Obviously $1,790,000,000 is not enough, they want it all:

A hui on water has called on the Government to halt asset sales till it negotiates a deal recognising Maori rights and interests with a new pan-Maori body.

It has also urged Iwi to “stand down” from individual negotiations with the Government on the effect of the sale of shares on the state owned power companies on their  Treaty claims. The resolve to present a united front could throw the governments timetable for selling the SOE shares into turmoil.

The hui follows a Waitangi Tribunal report calling on the Government to delay the sale of shares in the State owned power companies till a way to recognise Maori rights and interests in water is agreed.

The tribunal also called for a national water hui, which the Government rejected.

As momentum behind the water issue grows today’s gathering turned into a hui of national proportions.

As well as Maori leaders, groups including Kohanga Reo and Maori incorporations are represented, and all political parties except National.

The Maori king closed the hui urging Maori to join forces in their fight over water rights.

This is nothing short of stand-over. Watch the video on the Stuff site and watch as speaker after speaker says that this will carry on and on and on.

I see that Maori are in line for even more loot, after it appears the fiscal envelope has been cracked:

Waikato-Tainui and Ngai Tahu iwi are poised to claim top-ups on their 1990s Treaty settlements because of a relativity clause that gets triggered when the so-called fiscal envelope is exceeded.

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson progress with claims means there is some $1.79 billion completed or in the pipeline, including the $170 million settlement with the 35,000-strong Ngai Tuhoe tribe announced this week.

The central North Island-based Tainui and South Island Ngai Tahu settled for $170 million apiece but were granted top-up clauses that would ensure Tainui received 17% of all settlements and Ngai Tahu got 16.1%.

That clause would come into play if the Crown paid out more than $1 billion in 1994 dollar terms under the fiscal envelope.

That works out at roughly $1.54 billion today, using the Reserve Bank’s inflation calculator, though it does not account for the timing of various settlements.

And so more cash will flow into Maori coffers…with no discernible reduction in Maori crime, Maori child abuse or Maori children even eating breakfast.

Let’s face it Labour’s plan to feed the poorest children in our schools is just pouring more money into Maori who as we can see have actually had billions more than everyone else poured into their coffers for no discernible return, either to them or to the nation.

Treaty settlements are nothing less than unbridled looting like gang members coming back again again for “protection” money.

Only a fool would believe that this will ever end. Then again plenty of people thought that when politicians promises a safe and secure retirement paid for by your taxes they meant it.

Just what grievances are we settling? Or are we creating new ones?

The $1b treaty cap was a lie and non-Maori should now be able to sue the Crown for that lie.

John Key has made it clear that the dopey “shares plus” idea of the Waitangi Tribunal is unworkable in law and in practice. But that doesn’t stop Maori advancing their greedy claims on anything that moves. It has always been about money for them, all the mumbo-jumbo about a connection with the land, and guardians of resources is a convenient cover for naked greed and feather-bedding for the bro-racracy.

The powerful Waikato-Tainui iwi may press for smaller tribes affected by the Mighty River sale to receive shares on credit until their Treaty claims are settled when the Government consults them on the partial sale of the company.

Prime Minister John Key said yesterday that the Government was postponing the sale plan until between March and June next year.

The Maori Council, which was threatening a court challenge to the sale plan, hailed the decision as a vindication of its claim to the Waitangi Tribunal.

But last night, it warned that the Government’s planned consultation with iwi affected by the Mighty River sale would not necessarily prevent a court challenge.

They are like the Mongrel Mob or Black Power doing standover in your driveway. If you pay they go away…for now…then come back repeatedly once they have established you willingness to submit to their standover. It never ends.

I suspect John Key has been clever in kicking this to touch for a few months, he meets the criteria the liberal courts will want for consultation and will deliver up asset sales anyway, with a good healthy dose of reality for the rest of New Zealand that caving in to standover is not good for the country.