Dominion Post 29/6/16

QUESTIONS ON MOKO

Out of all the uproar over little Moko's death, there are so many unaired questions:

1. Why and how was he and his sister placed in the care of these mentally ill-equipped couple in the first place? Who placed them there?

2. Apparently Moko's sister told their mother he was being assaulted. Why did she not check on him or ask his father or another family member to check on Moko?

3. Why was Moko's father not looking after him or even visiting him?

A large number of Maori have voiced their concern over child abuse, but somehow it has a hollow ring when statistics show that of all the children in CYF care, 60 per cent are Maori, from the country's Maori population of 15 per cent. Methinks they do protest too much.

M B

Tauranga

Gisborne Herald 28/6/16

FLAG PAINTING SEEN AS RACIST AND AN INSULT

I was extremely disappointed when I visited the Tairawhiti Museum with tourists. At the entranceway was an exhibition of a large painting of four flags — two of which were Maori flags and the NZ referendum-selected flag (Union Jack and Southern Cross stars). The NZ flag was between the Maori flags and was displayed upside down and at half mast.

How insulting is that to all the people who live in this land, which is a pretty good example of harmony of races and living together?

Many people looked at this new painting and were disgusted. One said this sort of display of racism would not be seen anywhere else in this country.

Many immigrants to this country, like my parents who came from France, believed these stupid sorts of things were not part of New Zealand culture.

This a real example of how to divide this country. Shame to those who let it be.

This race relations complaint has been forwarded to the Human Rights Commission.

A J

The Nelson Mail 28/6/16

JUDGING PAST

Sometimes when history is the way historians want it written, the ledger has to be straightened.

When judging the ‘‘past’’ many critics do so using ‘‘2016 values’’.

The Waitangi Tribunal does this frequently.

In 2003 the British Government restated: ‘‘It is a fundamental principal of international law that events have to be judged against the law as it stood at the time when they occurred’’.

When John Mitchell ( June 20) referred to the 1873 comments of the Ngati Kahungunu tribes concerning alcohol he omitted the Wanganui tribes 1874 petition to the New Zealand Parliament: ‘‘liquor impoverishes us, our children are not born healthy because the parents drink to excess, and the child suffers; it muddles men’s brains; grog turns intelligent men of the Maori race into fools.

‘‘We are also liable to accidents, disease.’’

In 1884 Ngati Maniapoto tribes had the government declare the entire King Country a ‘‘dry area’’.

Today some maraes remain alcohol free.

J.M. L

Nelson

Waikato Times 28/6/16

LINDAUER SHOWER CURTAIN

Hone Harawira continues to be troubled with what he considers negative cultural appropriation of all things Maori. I thought I was thin skinned, but as a person hailing from the small tribes of Scotland and Ireland, I have yet to be upset by the plethora of jokes depicting my people as dumb, penny-pinching, ginger, hairy, skirt (kilt) wearing drunks. A friend of mine tells them magnificently and, incidentally, he’s Maori.

Mr Harawira also claims there is no money in having white people depicted on tablecloths and so that is why others use Maori images. He needs to do his research. There’s a roaring trade - always has been - of tea towels, napkins, mugs and the like depicting British Royalty - any royalty and culture, in fact. There’s even a tea towel on the market saying: Kate Loves Willy. Oh, the humanity of it! I’m going to jump out of the nearest window ... pity I live on the ground floor.

R M

Hamilton

Bay of Plenty Times 28/6/16

ORIGINS OF BATTLE NEED TELLING

The article telling of the commemoration of the Battle of Te Ranga (News, June 21), in which approximately 100 Maori were killed, fails to mention how the Battle came about.

On 21st June 1864 Colonel Greer was on a reconnaissance ride when he came upon a large number of Maori digging trenches in preparation for another battle, probably hoping to repeat their victory at Gate Pa.

Colonel Greer wisely gathered reinforcements and his army took the Maori by surprise. A bitter hand-to-hand battle followed with a victorious Britain. They humanely took the Maori wounded to hospital, saving some lives. The Maori surrendered and that battle brought peace to the Tauranga area.

Of course some land was confiscated — Maori did the same after a battle — but much was returned. (Abridged)

M B

Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 28/6/16

PARIHAKA HISTORY

I have just read the article by Whanganui MP Chester Borrows regarding the march to Parihaka (Chronicle, June 24) and am amazed at how little he knows of New Zealand's history.

Taranaki lost their lands to the Waikato in 1835, with those not killed or taken as slaves fleeing south. The few remaining Taranaki people, under the protection of Dickey Barrett, sold a large area of land to the New Zealand Company, which was later reduced in size by government after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The governor paid off the Waikato and gained ownership over the Taranaki lands, returning certain areas of the land to the returning slaves.

The Taranaki who had fled south asked if they could also return and the governor gave them permission on the under-standing that they settle on the north side of the Waitara River. They broke their promise and began fighting, destroying many innocent settlers' farms and killing their stock. Troops were brought in to quell these "rebels", confiscating some of the lands that had been returned to them.

Parihaka was built on government land, where the squatters continued to annoy the government by pulling out survey pegs and destroying farms and freshly planted crops. After some 16 years, a constabulary contingent marched in. Without casualties, Te Whiti was arrested and tried for sedition in New Plymouth and on September 14, 1881, was jailed for 14 months. When released, he returned to Parihaka but caused no more problems.

Mr Borrows also states Maori were "tangata whenua", but when the 500-plus chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 they acknowledged they were "tangata Maori". Rev Henry Williams also knew this when he translated the Treaty from English to Maori. There is no mention of tangata whenua in the Treaty, only a distinct race of people called "tangata Maori". This history can be found at Archives New Zealand, Wellington.

ROSS BAKER

One New Zealand Foundation

Palmerston North

Northland Age 28/6/16

VERBAL INVECTIVE

When viewing Nation (TV3 June 26), I was stunned to hear Marama Fox's verbal invective towards Dr Axel Gietz, representing Imperial Tobacco, who was brought from the UK to debate the tobacco industry's view.

The Maori Party co-leader's views were confrontational, accusative and verbally abusive to Dr Gietz. Ms Fox lays the blame for all negative statistics applied to Maori at the door of the tobacco industry and the European colonialists, while she personally participates in, and owns the very best of the positive aspects that the European culture has brought to New Zealand.

Her bad manners in throwing her toys from the cot and leaving the interview with a string of cultural abuse conveyed to the viewers the value of her tribalised input. It was pertinent that Lisa Owen, the interviewer, and Paddy Gower established that TV3 did not support personal attacks.

M J A

Pyes Pa

TWISTED HISTORY

Correspondent Wally hicks cherry picked quotes from his favorite site Te Ara (Letters June 23), and yet appears not to have read this from Te Ara www.teara.govtnz/en/1966Thongi-hika, which fully supports Bruce Moon's letters: "Te Hinaki and 2000 of his men, as well as many women and children, being killed. The victorious force remained on the battlefield eating the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of decaying bodies."

He says, "We Pakeha are so superior, right? We always keep our promises. We never break treaties?" We Pakeha' are not the ones seeking compensation on dubious claims either, a point lost on those who rat out on their own race and culture for the warm glow that comes from lining up with supposedly "oppressed" peoples.

Whatever spin Mr Hicks cares to put on his twisted history, he and his fellow travellers cannot deny that it was European influence that ended Maori tribal warfare, slavery, infanticide and cannibalism.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Taranaki Daily News 27/6/16

SIMPLER OPTION

Chris Manukonga makes an interesting and thoughtful suggestion concerning a Maori voice on the NPDC. However, there was and is another more simple option.

At the last local-body election there were four candidates who identified as Maori. There are over 10,000 registered Maori electors in the district, and if a large percentage of them had voted, the Council could have had four able councillors committed to pursuing whole community needs from a Maori perspective. It could have been a powerful vindication of the democratic process, and arguably preferable to the appointment of an unelected lone-wolf voice [possibly lame-duck] of more symbolic than tangible value, having as much effect on promoting Maori aspirations as raindancing has on the weather.

Unfortunately the former electoral mobilsation did not occur. Did Maori "drop the ball" at the last local-body election? I suspect not. To use a phrase coined by a current mayoral aspirant, "roads and water" probably do not resonate strongly with the Maori community. Perhaps Maori accord a higher priority to addressing the huge social issues confronting them across a wide range of depressingly negative over-representations. Probably addressing the above challenges occupies Maori more than having a token, feel-good voice in local government, which, rightly or wrongly, they might regard as an irrelevant sideshow.

W S

New Plymouth

Southland Times 27/6/16

DECIDING A PATH

It brought joy to me to see our homeland exit the European Union with all it's politically correct way of life. It also means that Britain can determine its own future and go back to its countries values.

It also looks as though parts of Great Britain that did not vote in favor of the exit (Scotland and Northern Ireland) may vote for independence from Britain (England and Wales) and return to the European Union where there is value for them. It may take many years to sever these legal ties.

There is some learning here for New Zealand. Could we get away from our Treaty of Waitangi which was a treaty between the crown (Britain) and the local Maori population which may have been good at the time, but now serves us no good? In fact, it does more than that, it divides our nation into Maoridom and everyone else.

And tongue in cheek, we could satisfy both parties on this New Zealand issue. The North Island (to be named Aoteoroa) could have those that vote for retaining the treaty and its benefits for some, while the South Island (named New Zealand) could be a separate country for those wishing to exit the treaty.

The rugby teams for both new countries could create some excellent rivalry and give the Welsh a chance of some day beating one of us. Being the product and power generating country, we would sell our food and electricity to Aoteoroa and not have to watch our TV station constantly going on about housing and immigration issues in you know where. The newly rebuilt Christchurch would make an excellent capital of New Zealand.

N C

Otatara

Sunday Star Times 26/6/16

FAIR TAXATION

In 1776, the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith argued for equity and fairness in tax.

Yet today in New Zealand we allow charities to undertake commercial trading activities that are unrelated to their charitable purposes while paying not one cent of income tax on their profits ("Prized tax exemption denied to 500 groups", News, June 19).

For its 2015 year New Zealand's largest iwi, Ngai Tahu, reported non-taxable income of $139 million from its many commercial activities which, if taxed at the company rate of 28 per cent, would have contributed $39m to the Government's coffers.

Our tax policy in this regard is failing but no Government has yet had the courage to tackle this issue.

DR MICHAEL GOUSMETT,

University of Canterbury

Taranaki Daily News 25/6/16

WHAT’S IN A NAME

The advice of Polonius to his son, Laertes, was "This above all, to thine own self be true" – as written by Shakespeare (Hamlet). Fine words, one might think – stick to your principles, be true to your beliefs.

Andrew Judd, without doubt, was driven by his conviction that his recent change in mindset indicated to him that he was a ’racist’, a state that he then wished to expunge – noble sentiments, indeed. And he set about doing that.

However, I was deeply saddened by the Judd saga - as written by his followers.

What saddened me most was the groundswell of name-calling that emanated from Judd’s followers and which was amply supported by the media. The words, ‘redneck’ and ‘racist’ were emblazoned across the front page of the TDN and freely applied to those whose opinions and beliefs differed from those now held so firmly by Judd.

The TDN lost no opportunity to establish avid support by reporting in numerous articles, time after time after time, how an obnoxious person spat at Judd and others shunned him – all because of his actions. Poor Judd ....

I googled these words. Despite its innocent and honourable inception in the Scottish lowlands, the term ‘redneck’ has now become a slur, a vile and derogatory term applied to white people, particularly in the USA – and now the aspect of skin colour is brought into play.

The term ‘racist’ had me stumped for there is only one race – the human one. Again using the USA as a data base, I learned that this term is most commonly taken to mean – ‘a white person who disagrees with the opinions of non-white radicals and activists’. It is, apparently, a term used by disgruntled non-whites and it does seem that non-whites can never be called racists by whites, as that in itself would be an act of racism.

But what term is applied to a white person whose opinion differs to that of another white person, radical or not? Or, in the Judd case, differs from the opinions of 83 per cent of the voting community – the assumption being made by the nonwhite radicals that this 83 per cent is all white? It definitely cannot be ’racist’.

What a twisted world we inhabit where we have the freedom of speech to place upon one section of the community the derogatory labels of rednecks and racists. This is surely the resort of egotistical gloryseekers and the feeble minded. It should not happen.

How large is the bubble of ignorance that tightly envelopes us – and will there be no end to it?

J P

Oakura

JUDGEMENT CALL

In response to the letter from Mr & Mrs Nightingale can I would like to respectfully respond.

The three days that the peace walk was conducted for myself was unachievable to attend.

Firstly it was one of the busiest weeks of the year with Field Days and having my salespeople off the premises meant I was left to man the business on my own. This meant that I could not even attend the Waitara land bill hearing in Waitara on the Friday (first ever council hearing I have missed in three terms) but I watched the video later in the evenings etc.

I appreciate the observations that the Nightingale’s have observed but please do not pass judgement on any Pakeha or other councillors that did not attend this walk as wouldn’t that be contrary to the purpose of the walk ? To then start dividing or assuming a councillors stance by a non-attendance at a non council event ?. As we all make decision on what we can attend outside of council meetings and events. Before the walk the daily news asked all councillors if they would be attending and were given a response and reasons.

And I also must take note that Mayor Judds comment "ashamed" that NPDC "actively blocked bicultural development" and I look forward to him explaining what he meant by that.

SHAUN BIESIEK

Councillor NPDC

GUMP MOMENTS

Plenty of people or more pertinently the electors at large have had their fill of this most shocking of mayors. Instead of being at his desk in his fortified office managing the core services of New Plymouth district he is gallavanting around the district to make a statement consistent with the heavily and selectively rewritten history he so readily believes. Might I ask was he also representing the descendants of progressive European settlers who were savagely butchered?

I have to wonder aloud how many of those that followed him in his Forrest Gump moment pulled a sickie, thereby depriving their employers of productivity?

R T

New Plymouth

The New Zealand Herald 24/6/16

WRONG SORT OF FIGHTER

Hone Harawira is absolutely spot on when he says Maoridom needs a fighter.

Maoridom needs someone to lead and inspire, to encourage young Maori in particular, for they are the future, to embrace the great opportunities available in this wonderful country. A true leader and fighter for Maori can and will motivate young impressionable minds, excite them to the rewards that come from contributing positively to the community and the spiritual and personal enrichment that is there for the taking.

Education is the key and the right encouragement can provoke a response that will enrich and enhance the lives of those who respond not only for themselves but those around them and the community as a whole.

Unfortunately when Mr Harawira talks about leadership and fighting his reputation as an activist precedes him. His continual struggle for Maori, to right past wrongs, is broaching on offensive seeing as so much has been done and is still being done, through the Treaty of Waitangi settlements. But then it is easier to offend than inspire, and Mr Harawira is rather good at that.

J G

Red Beach.

Kapiti News 22/6/16

ERRORS IN LETTER

In his June 15 letter, entitled "Confusing", Fred Te Maro made a number of errors that require correction. He labelled me as being anti Maori. This is completely untrue, I am most definitely pro Maori. I am standing up for the ones who have no voice, the ones I grew up with in Cannons Creek and are forgotten in the money scramble they call Treaty settlements.

But I am anti Maori leaders. They have done nothing for their people except create an atmosphere of entitlement based around false interpretations of our history and Fred's letter is the perfect example of it. He starts out by painting a dark picture of colonisation and calls his people victims, yet they have come from the Stone Age to the space age in a little over 150 years. They have a preferential status in New Zealand and more than equal opportunity to be whatever they want to be. Something unheard of before colonisation.

However, Fred tells his people this is what it feels like to be a victim. He then states that because initially only individual land owners could vote, this dispossessed Maori of their land. However, voting was something no Maori was able to do before colonisation. He forgot to mention or doesn't know that greedy chiefs had sold over two thirds of New Zealand's land mass to speculators before 1840. It was the colonisers land courts which nullified these deeds and returned the land to the chiefs, incidentally without them having to give back the purchase price.

Post the Treaty the chiefs promptly set about selling it all over again. Only about four percent of the land in New Zealand was confiscated because of acts of war, most of which was soon returned. Maori chiefs sold the rest. He forgot to mention that in 1853 European men and all women who didn't own land could not vote either, not just Maori. He also forgot to mention that in 1867 all Maori men aged 21 or over were eligible to vote, Maori men achieved universal suffrage 12 years before European men. I don't hear European men crying out as victims though.

Wi Parata was claiming back land gifted to the Anglican Church, not the Crown. He was using the Treaty as a means to try to get it back and quite rightly he was told the Treaty was a legal nullity, which it remains today. The Treaty has no independent legal status and the government are not legally bound to do any-thing because of the Treaty. It chooses to, usually in return for Maori votes, this is scandalous.

Fred has the opportunity to read the same history as me, be positive and encourage his people to be proud of their achievements. He can project himself as a role model, particularly for the poor that need his obvious standing in the community. Alas, he prefers to look at the dark side, project it through our papers and hold his hand out because of the apparent "many breaches", thinking that this will help his people. Statistics show it hasn't in the past, it won't in the future and his people will continue to be the major part our underclass if their leaders do not change their dark and greedy sense of entitlement.

Until they do I stand as an advocate for positive Maori who are proud of their achievements, don't have their hand out and love their country, many of whom are my friends and family.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

The Northland Age 23/6/16

A PAPER TIGER

Anahera Herbert-Graves (June 21) will keep waffling on about "He Whakaputanga the Declaration of Sovereignty and Independence," until the grave claims her, but the actual fact is that whatever its fine words, it was a paper tiger whose high intentions were nullified by the negative actions of its signatories within months of its signing, including the killing of Titore by Pomare's tribesmen. In any case, whatever its supposed validity, it was superseded forever when a majority of its surviving signatories signed the Treaty of Waitangi and ceded sovereignty to the Queen completely and forever on February 6, 1840.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 22/6/16

KEEP STATUS QUO

The debate about the changing of place names to a Maori name will long continue. The city of Hastings is a case-in-point which could become The Battle of Hastings — Part 2. A local tribe has suggested the name of Hastings be changed to Heretaunga. The city of Hastings was built with the knowledge, infrastructure and manpower of the European settlers. Maori had no concept of European civilisation and thus had no input into the construction of the city.

Therefore Heretaunga Plains is appropriate but the name of Hastings is the only name for the city for these obvious reasons.

There is already a nice mix of both Maori and European placenames so let the status quo remain and leave place names as they are. (Abridged)

R B

Tauranga

The Northern Advocate 22/6/16

GRAVY TRAIN

In his letter today, Geoff Parker talks of the meaning of “taonga”.

Its original meaning of “that taken at the point of a spear” has now become anything Maori want it to mean.

The greed and sense of entitlement of the Waitangi Tribunal allows ridiculous claims to be made, such as the latest one for freshwater.

Nature gave it to us and it belongs to no one!

Even worse, from a former president of the Maori Party, who has told the Waitangi Tribunal that he would support a claim to the light from the stars and the air that we breathe on the basis that the great god Tane created space when he separated his parents, the Earth Mother and the Sky Father.

Surely Tane/God/The Creator — did not create the light and the air just for Maori!

Ngapuhi leader David Rankin states: “The tribunal exists to make lawyers, and a few elite Maori very rich. It has deprived our people from their birthright and divided and destroyed many of our communities. " The sooner it is shut down the better."

When even Maori distrust this organisation, then surely some principled leader of our country could ensure that this corrupt gravy-train is finally put out of action!

R B

Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 21/6/16

NOT OUR DEBT

I am very surprised to learn that the Government (aka, we the taxpayers) are paying reparation to Chatham Islands descendants over the massacre of the Moriori by Taranaki Maori in 1835. Why are we, the taxpayers, paying for this? Surely Taranaki Maori should be paying this in full.

Taranaki iwi have signed their final Treaty negotiation settlement. The Crown handed over $70 million of taxpayers' money as compensation for wrongs committed in the 1800s. Shouldn't this money be used as reparation by Taranaki Maori — as compensation for their brutal assault on the peaceful Moriori in 1835?

If I wrong someone then I myself am liable for the crime, I don't expect anyone else to pay it for me, particularly 180 years later. Why should not the same apply to the perpetrators of this massacre — Taranaki Maori were responsible for this horrendous event in the Chatham Islands and must surely now pay compensation for wrongs.

R B

Tauranga

The Northern Advocate 21/6/16

TOTAL CONTROL

When does a conspiracy theory cease to be a theory? Answer: When circumstances outweigh coincidence.

The internet is flooded with reports of a New World Order being contrived by an alliance of the world’s most super-rich and powerful people.

Their aims are to create a one world government (meaning them), eliminate the middle class, and drastically reduce the world population (meaning us).

Following is an extract from the original communist manifesto on the eight levels of control required to covertly take over a nation, now allegedly adopted on a global scale by the New World Order.

1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people.

2) Poverty — Increase the poverty level as high as possible; poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt— Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun control — Remove people's ability to defend them-selves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of people's lives (food, housing and income).

6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to; take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion — Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.

8) Class warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Compare the above to what is happening in New Zealand today. Just another conspiracy theory? Think about it.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Taranaki Daily News 20/6/16

WALKY TALKY

While many bask in the pseudo glow of self-righteousness surrounding the Peace Walk, I have two major questions.

1) Did the council approve/ give permission for the mayor to use the Mayoral Chain on this walk?

2) Who is paying for the traffic management system (at least two heavy trucks and staff) on this three-day event? If it is public money, how much is it costing and who is paying?

D P

New Plymouth

Bay of Plenty Times 20/6/16

NAMES AND RACE

Peter Dey’s letter (June 14) claims it is only new Maori names people object to. It is the continual changing of European names (as in parks, mountains, rivers, etc) to Maori names which people object to.

At no time did I mention whether Maori names were hard to pronounce.

What I actually said was, Maori make up only 16 per cent of the population and true racial tolerance would result in just 16 per cent of names being Maori names. (Abridged.)

J H

Tauranga

The Northern Advocate 20/6/16

INTERPRETATION

It is galling how elite Maori cherrypick and reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi to further their fortunes and control of New Zealand.

The racially biased Waitangi Tribunal say that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty and yet in article one it clearly specifies they were "ceding sovereignty to the Queen", which the chiefs accepted by signing.

In a recent Waatea 5th Estate debate, Hone Harawira (Ngapuhi) appeared to accept the Treaty by using the word "taonga" in article two to support his argument in support of the spurious Maori claim for our country's fresh water.

The definition of "taonga" can range from anything between personal "property/ possession" in 1840, to the sky's the limit "treasure" in 2016. However the choice of defin-ition does not matter because whatever it may be, it was guaranteed to all the people of

New Zealand, not just to the Maori signees or their opportunist descendants of mixed heritage.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wanganui Chronicle 20/6/16

DICTATOR NEEDED

Potonga for president! (Letters, June 15). Mmmm, that could work as a campaign slogan for your Maoriland democratic republic. But even better is your plan to appoint yourself leader. We need a dictator to get this country back on track, although you’ll probably have to delete the democratic bit.

And I like your reference “colonial riff-raff”. Nothing like a dose of good, old-fashioned racism to get the supporters on side.

M C

Wanganui

LAND SALES

It is simply not true that after 1840 the British acted to “send in their armies, and then shonky land buyers, to drive the native Maorilanders out of their ancestral homes”, as claimed by John Archer (June 7).

The first action was to investigate all previous land deals. Most were unsatisfactory and were turned down, so the land r emained with t he Maori owners.

An early wrong was the very opposite of that claimed. When Commissioner Spain confirmed a sale of 60,000 acres in Taranaki, Governor Fitzroy set it aside and pushed new settlers off the land that they had just developed.

Maori did not lack “good food and shelter”. In fact, these became more secure with the end of savage intertribal wars. Many Maori knew this.

As one chief, Taipari, commented: “If we continue fighting, our race will become extinct. In my view, it was the arrival of the missionaries and subsequent colonisation which saved the Maori race from extinction.”

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

Northern Advocate 18/6/16

LIES ABOUT HISTORY

I've been thinking ... (didn't we have a politician who did that once? Wonders will never cease!) A Maori friend of mine, John, told me that a Maori woman of great renown once said that all pakeha should leave the country and go back to the countries where they came from.

John was in a perplexed state of mind you see, half of him was Maori and the other half was Portuguese Which half of him was to go and which half was to stay? Yet another friend, Jim, said he was glad that the English got here when they did, or else "we would have eaten each other up by now".

And still the lies about Maori history are being taught at schools, and we will continue to "shell out" forever more because of it. It seems that there is nobody in this country who wants the truth to he told to our school children, or indeed anybody, so why not go cap in hand to the law lords at the Privy Council, apologise to them on behalf of the Helen Clark government, who "threw them out" (she did not get a mandate from us to do that), and ask them to sort out the lies from the truth.

I am sure that we would get an unbiased opinion. It may be costly but not any-where as bad as paying up forever for something which should not be our concern.

KEVAN G MARKS

Kaipara

Northland Age 16/6/16

ANOTHER SWARM

Once again my recent letters have stirred up a small swarm of wasps, gadflies and other nasties KTJ Howearth's "know - all" is a typical response of the ignorant to the well-informed.

I accept that the northern tribes did not have Te Rauparaha's taste for the flesh of unborn infants, but consider this. On September 5,1821, some 2000 Ngapuhi laid siege to Mauinaina pa at Tamaki, and when it fell some 2000 warriors, as well as women and children, were killed. Probably, in this one action, there were more deaths than in all the tribal rebellions of the early colonial period which the micro-Maori Party wants to commemorate under the bogus name of 'Land Wars'. Clearly the flesh of their victims was much to the taste of the Ngapuhi, who stayed on the battlefield, feasting on it until driven off by the stench of decaying bodies. This must be the 'tikanga' that Anahera Herbert-Graves keeps waffling on about.

Nobody claims that life in Britain in bygone times was perfect, but people there have got over it.

As for his claim that "they ... sell us off to the highest bidder," consider this. In a case submitted to the Waitangi Tribunal, and found by careful analysis to be fraudulent, Ngai Tahu were richly rewarded in their fifth "full and final settlement" with cash, real estate and other assets. In November 2010 they sold the freehold of Rakanui Station, south of Kaikoura, to Margaret Hyde, an American citizen. Next year they sold 18,252 hectares of freehold land in the South Island to a Swiss company for $22,8813,88& So be careful, KTJ Howearth, whom you accuse of what. In fact, many of the chiefs almost fell over themselves in their eagerness to sell land, so much so that Hobson had to take vigorous steps to protect them. The whole South Island had been sold before 1840, showing how cheaply they valued it. It will have been much the same in the North. This is the "land loss" Dame Whina hikoied about and now we have NCEA presenting false information about, it to our school children — nothing but political propaganda.

The agreement known as the Treaty of Waitangi was a done deal in 1840, by which the chiefs ceded sovereignty completely and forever, all Maoris became British subjects, and the property rights of all the people of New Zealand were assured. This did not stop some chiefs from keeping Maori slaves as late as the 1860s. They and those tribes who chose to rebel against their Queen flagrantly dishonoured the Treaty.

Modern attempts to distort the meaning of the Treaty's words and they are many— are yet more flagrant dishonesty.

And just tell me, KTJ Howearth, if you are not a descendant of immigrants, just what are you? I too am a man of this land, whatever name you care to use.

As for Owen Aotearoa Lewis, if he wants to spot a racist, looking in the mirror would be a good place to start.

Then we have Waihoroi Shortland, reported in the Northern Advocate, also going o n about the 'Land Wars' and listing a few of the skirmishes in the Ngapuhi rebellion. That was a Sunday school squabble by comparison with the butchery of Maoris by Maoris a mere 20 years earlier, which, it appears, he has conveniently forgotten. Read Heke's War, by Rev R Burrows, an eye-witness, to find out.

It is high time for accurate accounts of New Zealand's history to be presented and for those with highly selective memories to start improving their minds.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

CHERRY-PICKING

It is galling how elite Maori cherry-pick and reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi to further their fortunes and control of New Zealand.

The raciaIly biased Waitangi Tribunal say that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty, and yet in Article 1 it dearly specifies they were 'ceding sovereignty to the Queen', which the chiefs accepted by signing.

In a recent Waatea 5th Estate debate, Hone Harawira (Ngapuhi) appeared to accept the Treaty by using the word 'taonga' in Article 2 to support his argument in support of the spurious Maori claim for our country's fresh water.

The definition of 'taonga' can range from anything between personal property/possession in 1840 to the sky's the limit 'treasure' in 2018.

However, the choice of definition does not matter, because whatever it may be, it was guaranteed to all the people of New Zealand, not just to the Maori signees or their opportunist descendants of mixed heritage.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Otago Daily Times 15/6/16

MINISTER EXPLAINS REASONS FOR MORIORI COMPENSATION

I UNDERSTAND we are settling a Waitangi claim for the Moriori from the Chatham Islands. This is just a joke. We didn't fight the Moriori. Surely the Taranaki tribe that invaded the Chathams, killed or enslaved the people should be paying restitution. Maori as a whole have demanded these settlements for what their people suffered, so the Moriori are entitled to compensation for what they suffered from Maori.

I heard a commentator on TV say the only reason the Crown should pay is because they have deeper pockets. So, why shouldn't Maori pay for what they did? Or are there different rules when it comes to Maori paying?

K. J. O'H

St Clair

[Abridged.Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Christopher Finlayson replies:

"The Crown is currently negotiating a Treaty settlement with Moriori on the Chatham Islands. This settlement will not provide redress or compensation for actions committed against Moriori by other iwi. It will, however, provide redress for the actions or omissions by the Crown which were in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Waitangi Tribunal has found that the Crown committed a number of breaches of the Treaty in relation to Moriori after it became sovereign in 1840, such as failing to intervene to end the enslavement of its citizens on the Chatham Islands. The Crown's breaches of the Treaty are discussed in more detail in the Waitangi Tribunal's 2001 report on the Chatham Islands."]

MAORI PRIVILEGE

FINAL proof that Maori are a uniquely privileged race is provided when we begin to see articles denying it. Such opinions, invariably from self-appointed part-Maori spokespeople and their wringing wet, pseudo-liberal white patrons, are simply a denial of demonstrable facts. However, in the world of politically correct, moral relativism, denial of facts has long since become a definite strategy.

Particularly galling is the self-serving tactic of many modern Maori to disavow the manifold influences their non-Maori ancestry certainly has upon them. I find it impossible to believe it's just pure coincidence this misled and malcontent element of Maoridom unwaveringly believe anything that is to their advantage — and nothing that isn't. Fair-minded objectivity? —what's that? It would come as no surprise to many New Zealanders if it turned out Maori were not only the most privileged race in New Zealand but in the world.

If a disproportionate number of Maori really are "failing", then the reasons must be sought not in any imagined racism but in forbidden areas which are ruled "out-of-bounds" by the anti-Western, left-wing, PC tyranny; namely, in all those circumstances arising out of the fact that at the time of colonisation/ civilisation of New Zealand, Maori consciousness and therefore culture was thousands of years behind that of Western civilisation.

And let's be very clear, whatever the reason was for the backwardness of Maori society at that time, it had nothing to do with anyone but themselves. The "wicked white man" could only help them to bridge this vast gap, and much has been achieved. Ultimately however, this task is one that Maori must shoulder themselves. [Abridged]

C R

Northeast Valley

Wanganui Chronicle 15/6/16

CALL FOR EQUALITY

Something is rotten in this society. My call for equality [racially] focused, "unequivocally anti-Maori rants". This is a typical response in the New Zealand of today, un-pleasantness designed to drive me away and silence a contrary opinion. Such attacks prevent a debate on our common history and the direction our country will take in the future.

As a student studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, United States) in 1963-66, I lived in a country racked by the civil rights and anti-war movements, which came together in the actions of Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali, both of whom fought against racism and against the terrible war in Vietnam. We all came to believe deeply in the priority of equality as a guiding principle for social and national life.

It is vitally important that those who believe we should be one people should speak up. One day we may then achieve a level of polite disagreement where different opinions are voiced without fear of abuse, when those who oppose racism are not labelled racist in the media.

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

The Northern Advocate 14/6/16 Also in the Northland Age 14/6/16

TRUE HISTORY

While Te Papa Museum has admitted it knows all about Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/ Letters Patent dated November 16, 1840, it completely ignores to mention it in any of its exhibitions.

Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent separated New Zealand from New South Wales and made New Zealand into an independent British Colony with its own Governor and Constitution to form a government to make laws with courts and judges to enforce those laws under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

The Treaty of Waitangi had served its purpose by May 3, 1841, and was filed away where it should have remained when New Zealand adopted the Royal Charter.

The Treaty of Waitangi only gave Britain sovereignty over all the Islands of New Zealand under the dependency of New South Wales and tangata Maori the same rights as the people of England.

Te Papa’s CEO, Dr Arapata Hakiwa, has stated the Treaty of Waitangi Exhibition will be

renewed in five to six years, but this means that another 7.5 to 9 million people, based on 2015 figures, will be misled by Te Papa on our true history. The One New Zealand Foundation Inc. has informed the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Maggie Barry that more than 1.5 million people a year will be misled over our true history and that Te Papa must immediately renew its Treaty of Waitangi Exhibition giving Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent its true place in our history.

ROSS BAKER

Researcher One New Zealand Foundation Inc.

Wanganui Chronicle 14/6/16

MISUSE OF WORDS

I think your readers will agree that they have had enough from H. Norton (Chronicle, letters; June 6) and will know whose words are "rants". His assertion that before 1840 New Zealand was a "nation state" is simply absurd — a prime example of the misuse of words he so decries.

Norton is also astray in implying that John Robinson and I challenge the validity of the agreement known as the Treaty of Waitangi. I quoted the wise words of Lindsay Buick that it embodied two great principles widely understood by the chiefs, one being that "Britain's right to colonise and govern in New Zealand was incontestable before the world". No more need be said.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

SEMINAR INSIGHTS

Beyond Google? The "Alexander on Ridgway" has been conducting seminars on historical personalities and events. The recent one on Lieutenant John Bryce, for a Massey University thesis, had some valuable as well as personal insights.

Accusations against Bryce over Parihaka and Handley's Woolshed are well known but distorted. This saw Bryce, in 1886, take a defamation case against an author who forgot the maxim "only write about someone who is dead; it's harder for them to sue". A British court awarded Bryce £5000.

Bryce led the Kai Iwi Cavalry at Brunswick in 1868, when Sergeant Maxwell was killed and Trooper Lingard won the Victoria Cross. Maxwell's body was carried on the back of a horse led by my great grandfather.

In 1906 Handley's son wrote to James Carroll at Fordell to ask what really happened? The handwritten reply, held by my cousin, destroys the fabricated and historically incorrect propaganda, which is also culturally insulting. It helps to have a written language. The account in the thesis of the political battle between Bryce and Ballance is also pertinent.

Now I see the NZ Government are paying reparations to Chatham Islands descendants over the massacre of the Moriori by "Taranaki Maori". The bodies, side by side, apparently stretched for a quarter of a mile. Our history has been pirated and we have been unfairly accused, but why are we still paying? Time to tell Parliament: "Enough".

K C

Wanganui

NZ Herald 13/6/16 (Short & Sweet)

ON THE HOMELESS

Well done those marae who have opened their doors to the many homeless Maori and others in parts of Auckland. But why are the iwi corporations with their boundless profits not stepping up to help homeless Maori at the bottom of the heap?

It is difficult to see the benefit of any trickle-down effect for ordinary Maori from the success of these same Maori elite-run corporations.

G L

St Heifers.

Wairarapa Times-Age 13/6/16

TEXTS section

■ what's this? Maori art hub applying to MDC for funding for coordinator for site. this is what is going to happen to our rates money when we get the iwi on board. they should be self funding! rates arent keeping up with infrastructure needs in the town now. ask elderly people who trip on crappy footpaths. ask those who struggle to get their disabled ones out the disabled parks on wheelchairs, or even try to.

Bay of Plenty Times 11/6/16

RACIAL TOLERANCE

Peter Dey (Letters, May 7) claims "A knee-jerk objection to Maori names is not, in my opinion, racial tolerance". Why then, Mr Dey, is a knee-jerk objection to European names, considered racial tolerance by you?

The vast majority of the New Zealand population are non-Maori (86 per cent), which surely, in a democracy such as ours, would mean 86 per cent of place names, would be non-Maori. This, in my opinion, would be true racial tolerance.

J H

Tauranga

The New Zealand Herald 10/6/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON PARENTING

I am sorry that Dame Anne Salmond is saddened by the way a few of us responded to her article in the Herald. What concerns me more, however, is the habit of compilers of non-fiction to select or exclude evidence to support their opinions, sentiments and, dare I say it, prejudices.

K C,

Mt Eden.

Dame Anne Salmond suggests two wrongs make a “right”, or at least cancel one another out. She does not seem to comprehend that it was European influence that ended Maori warfare, slavery and infanticide.

GEOFF PARKER,

Kamo.

Sunlive 9/6/16

HONEST PRESENTATION OF HISTORY

What must be of public concern is the selective and slanted version of our history given by nationally-accepted historians. A recent case was that of Dame Anne Salmond, who suggested the pre-European Maori were gentle and loving fathers.

This was based simply on the observance of families and did not in any way mention inter-tribal aggression or the repression of women, and slaves in the pa or the regular practice of female infanticide. Logically one might ask ‘Would Maori be likely to display any other behaviour in the presence of European visitors'? One would have to be extremely naive to believe otherwise.

Another example of blatant selectivity, was shown by the late Michael King when in his volume, ‘The History of New Zealand', he made no mention of Maori cannibalism which was endemic to all tribes, whether for post-battle rituals or sustenance. When questioned on his omission he suggested the practice was so infrequent as to be not worthy of noting. This from a historian?

It is this sort of reporting that treaty revisionists thrive on.

B J

Omokoroa.

MAORI SEATS WON'T BE SCRAPPED

Re: ‘No room for race-based seats on our council' (The Weekend Sun, May 27).

R Paterson's letter correctly states the majority view as to Maori local body representation.

It shouldn't be a gift, but earned through the normal democratic process. Stand...and be elected or not.

He also mentions abolishing the Maori parliamentary seats is ‘technically still on National's bucket list'. In that he is wrong.

On August 22, 2014, in response to my query as to when they would be doing that, Tauranga MP Simon Bridges replied (in part): “it [National] would not seek to remove the Maori seats without the consent of the Maori people”. How stupid and pointless is that kind of an election pledge? On that basis it will never happen.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if the rest of us were asked if we consented to paying tax? If we didn't, we are exempt!

G A

Tauranga.

The Northland Age 9/6/16

FAIR’S FAIR

When the need arises for a plural of Maori, I use the normal English form, Maoris, as does Alan Duff and all of us did before political correctness overwhelmed us.

However, when my words appear in newspapers and such places, almost invariably this is changed to Maori, because, allegedly, this is the 'correct' form.

Yet when Maori activists want to refer to the Treaty of Waiting it is always Te Tiriti.

Again, we have concocted Maori words like pirihrana or some such for police, and pikitete for biscuits, and on and on.

I suggest that fair is fair. Either they can have Te Tiriti and I can have Maoris or we all leave these words in their original form.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Wairarapa Times-Age 9/6/16

TEXTS section

■ As the public we have final say who we want for Mayor & Council. They may bulldoze decisions thru now with no consultation from the public, but come election time you will be judged & dare i say, shown the door.

■ Caffell & Goodwin are the only councillors voicing their opinion & have ever done. The rest are sheep following the Mayor. Change is in the wind.

■ No Maori representatives in Council unless elected like everyone else. Those trying, already accusing others of motives for delaying appointments . .. not good start. Are Maori and "Pakeha" deliberately promoting Apartheid in this country? Its meaning is "racial segregation and separation" seems like it is to me. Everyone has same opportunity for education, employment and advancement. If you choose not to take advantage of it, don't disguise it as racism.

Kapiti News 8/6/16

EXACT SCIENCE

Like Reg Fowles [letters May 18] I grew up in an era when history was factual and not manufactured as it is today. It seems that modern scholars will attempt to reach a conclusion that has been presented to them by their patrons. I call this 'Reverse Pyramid Ideology' [RPI]. It is base over apex and may easily topple if just one tiny stone becomes dislodged. If they are not careful, these latter day scholars may one day discover what it is that they seek so passionately.

One of our first ethnologists was a gentleman by the name of Percy Smith. Mr Smith was by training and occupation a surveyor responsible for some large triangulations in our young country. Surveying by its very nature is an exact science so his mind was a very neat and tidy thing — an exact piece of equipment, to be precise. Mr Smith travelled extensively around the country on various surveying expeditions and in addition to these official duties he would record information about the traditional history and culture of the Maori people, with whom he would come in contact with and who would relate their local history to him and he would dutifully record it.

This was used by Mr Smith to fulfil the basis of his subsequent career as a Polynesian scholar, an occupation he pursued full-time upon retiring as a surveyor. He was co-founder of the Polynesian Society and it's official journal, publishing ethnographic observations in a most scholarly manner. During his 30-year involvement with the society he published a large number of articles that were well received by the intellegensia of the time. He also received prizes for his research into Polynesian ethnology.

The latter day 'RPI' scholars now say that his work on Maori is unreliable. Percy Smith was a man who practised an exact science, his entire working life and his work is being branded as unreliable! What does that say about his triangulations? The point is that you cannot alter his mathematics, they are precisely exact. But history can easily be altered to suit old arguments and prejudices.

It is obvious that our history has been rewritten by people with hidden agendas — but that's ok, as it will, at some time in the future, be corrected by scholars with no axe to grind.

G C

Te Horo Beach

SOVEREIGNTY CHALLENGE

Local tribe Ngati Raukawa announced in the Otaki Mail. May 2016 edition that they are now going to challenge the Crown's sovereignty.

They believe they have the right to live outside New Zealand law and replace it with their own and so determine their own fate. Professor Winiata said "When Maori signed the treaty 176 years ago the rangatira delegated kawanatanga to the Crown —limited rights to govern. They did not give up their tino rangatiratanga or their mana as rangatira". Just so readers are aware, it is the taxpayers who pay for tribes to research treaty claims, pay biased historians and all other expenses to put claims before the equally biased Waitangi Tribunal. Whether they win or lose one presumes we will be up for the same costs, probably millions, for each and every other tribe in the country to do the same.

Apart from splitting the country in two this move is puzzling on many levels. Firstly, The Treaty of Waitangi is a simple document, in Article First the Chiefs of New Zealand ceded sovereignty to the Queen forever. In Article Second all the people of New Zealand were guaranteed property rights and in Article Third in return for the cessation of Sovereignty all New Zealanders will be protected and receive equal rights. Since when does cede sovereignty forever, not mean cede sovereignty forever? Secondly, "rangatiratanga" is a neogilsm, a word made up by the translator to express a term not in the native language, it is used to translate the word "possessions" used in the English draft. There are no words in the Article Second draft that could possibly mean, "Chiefly authority".

Thirdly, "Kawanatanga" is also a neogilsm and was used to translate the term "Governor". We know this as the English draft of the treaty resides in the New Zealand Archives and although largely hidden we can plainly see the intent of the treaty by simply reading the English draft.

The whole sovereignty argument of Ngati Raukawa hinges on them guessing that the natives did not have a clue what was being said to them in 1840. They can say what they like in 2016 but they cannot change the words of the Chiefs who spoke on the 5th of February 1840 at Waitangi. You be the judge: Warerahi said: "Yes! What else? Stay, sit; if not, what? Is it not good to be in peace? We will have this man as our Governor. What! Turn him away! Say to this man of the Queen, go back! No, no." Tareha said: "No Governor for me — for us native men. We, we only are the chiefs, rulers. We will not be ruled over. What thou, a foreigner, up, and I down! Thou high and I, Tareha, the great chief of the Ngapuhi tribes, low".

Obviously they preferred the peace the treaty would bring and clearly understood what a governor was in 1840. I give them more credit than Ngati Raukawa does. The biggest problems facing Maori today are surely poverty, child abuse and incarceration. If Ngati Raukawa put as much time and effort into reducing these steadily worsening statistics as they do into apartheid systems of law and treaty claims we would all be better off.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

NZ Herald 8/6/16

LANGUAGE LESSON

When I was at school 70-plus years ago we all had to study French for three years. Now I remember little more than "Vive la difference" though I was top of the class. My daughter went to a book fair at the weekend and got her daughter a French dictionary withdrawn, oddly, from the Waitakere Library. It had never been borrowed. So much for French. So much too, I predict, for Maori if force-fed to school children. Kapai, e hoa?

BRUCE MOON,

Nelson

Northland Age 7/6/16

NICE AT ALL COSTS

Re-writing history and propaganda are tools used by power-hungry people, so their self-proclaimed superior status can never be questioned.

It's fascinating to read how groupthink and blind public obedience has evolved in authoritarian states like Russia, China and North Korea.

It is rather more frightening to watch it happening here in New Zealand.

The techniques have worked well, making many think that democracy is now wrong, and that the handing over of government power to private interest Maori groups is the right thing to do. Question this and you are labelled racist.

While none of us are being sent to a gulag or re-education camp yet we may be shunned — and we do find it virtually impossible to get a job in the public sector.

Here are the steps being used to enact the Maorification of New Zealand:

1) Get academics to re-write our history as a fantasy novel, in which all Maori are goodies and all Pakeha baddies. And that anyone with a drop of Maori blood is kinder to children, old people, ancestors (only Maori ones count) and nature.

2) Get schools and universities to brainwash the young with this fake history.

3) Get the media to peddle the fake history, to stoke Maori grievance and Pakeha guilt.

4) Brand as racist anyone who questions the fake history or special Maori entitlement.

5) Entrench processes whereby private Maori groups are entitled to take control of government and resources, and taxpayers to pay for it —thus ensuring permanent Maori power and wealth.

6) Threaten countrywide violence if New Zealanders object. (John Key's"hikois from hell".)

7) Pretend at all times that Maori are a separate, superior race, and ignore the fact that they are all part- Pakeha.

This process has been endorsed by a succession of governments, eager to surrender their country's sovereignty from a position of strength.

New Zealanders prefer to be nice at all costs, and the cost has been to surrender more and more of our democratic rights to unelected members of Maori tribes.

Unless the tribal political alliance strikes some pushback, New Zealand will be the first nation to voluntarily submit to brown minority rule.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

MIXED BAG

A very mixed hag in your mailbox today (May31). Thus we have I.F. Burke's silly attempt to patronise me as he takes his "mongreloid" self (his word, not mine) to the international airport, for whose existence I do not think his Maori bloodlines can take any credit. It will be news to him that real history is an account of what actually happened, and to find that out it is better to refer to the written accounts of eye witnesses and recorded words of those who spoke than rambling tales by word of mouth for many generations, or stories made up to suit a purpose.

An example of that would be the foul lie that women and children were burnt to death in a church at Rangiaowhia, told by rebels furious at being outwitted by a merciful British general. (I am sure that statement will make a few feathers fly, but its true). It does not worry me that he will not read any more of my "trash". I am happy to let him wallow in his ignorance. For those of your readers who would like to be better informed, I recommend 'One Treaty, One Nation,' purchased, I understand, by the Far North Library, but in any case available on interloan.

Yes, we do have a right to our identity, and I know the origins of my name, for which his wild guesses are nonsense, but Haami Piripi? Here we have a man posing as a Ngapuhi spokesman and telling culpable lies that Ngapuhi did not cede sovereignty. Surely it is fair to question his good faith or lack of it?

As for Angela Herbert-Graves (.again), Brian Page (ibid) is right about her "endless lecture" leading her runanga "further into Never-Never Land". This time it is about 'mana'. As John Laurie pointed out in the Joumal of the Polynesian Society,' Volume 111, 2002, and easily googled, the Williams did not use it in translating the Treaty because it was too vague and "could be used to describe any of [a] complex bundle of powers and rights... (and much else as well)". She tells us that mana was"the Maori concept of power," and that "each polity [a word she loves] exercised its own mana ... secure in ... its political independence." By contrast, we have Paul Moon (not a relation) saying there was "a pervasive sense that communities faced destruction at the hands of their foes with 'almost unbearable anxiety experienced by all Maori communities as a reaction to the periods of terror they sometimes experienced". Read Moon's This Horrid Practice,' and make your own judgement.

It is refreshing to read the letter from Sam McHarg, many of whose ancestors were much Iike my own. Swap a couple of rocky islands in the English Channel for a coral one and the correspondence is almost exact. My Cornish great-grandfather, son of a tin miner, was drowned at sea. My Irsh forebears survived the Great Hunger, and I know their story but do not assert a grievance. The Scots came to New Zealand when two of their successive harvests in Australia were wiped out by insects. One of my wife's great-grandmothers journeyed on a brideship from Portsmouth, England, to Victoria, Vancouver Island, via Cape Horn, surviving shipboard fire and mutiny on the way. There she married her sea-going husband from Nova Scotia, with whom she duly crossed the broad Pacific to settle finally in Melbourne.

I suggest that we New Zealanders are very much more like each other than some of us are willing to admit. It is high time to put our differences aside and honour Hobson's great vision: "He iwi tahi tatou".

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The Northern Advocate 6/6/16

ORIGINAL THOUGHT

Further to the l etter “Brainwashing” by Kevan Marks ( Advocate, May 28), his comment about a young student gaining qualifications by “learning early in the piece to tell them what they wanted me to know” brought to mind a similar occurrence with my own son when he sent me an assignment for proof-reading before submitting it to the university tutor.

I had suggested a more comprehensive and accurate definition of particular terminology in the assignment, to which his response was, “I need a citation. Which text book is that from? Which authority are you quoting?”

When I replied, “I’m not quoting anyone. It’s a self evident truth”, he laughed and said, “If I write anything original they will mark me down, whether it’s right or not.”

So much for our halls of l earning, the bastions of advancing knowledge, the guardians of our future generations of creative genius.

In this country, when applying for a job in say teaching or nursing, the applicant must answer questions on the Treaty of Waitangi by biting his or her tongue and telling the interrogator what they want to hear.

Any deviations from the politically correct interpretation means you don’t get the job, even if what you say is true. We have reached the sad stage of having to lie to survive.

Our nation has been knowingly dumbed down by those with an agenda to suppress original thought and manipulate young minds into robotic responses that do not reflect existing truth.

The only flaw in Orwell’s 1984 is that he got the date wrong.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Wairarapa Times-Age 6/6/16

MAORI VOTES

Why am I not surprised that our council have overridden democracy and decided to appoint two people of Maori ethnicity to the council? It is, after all, getting close to a local body election. The incumbent councillors, no doubt, wish to retain power and what better way to do it than to appease a block of voters. After all they are only following the path of the country's governments of many years.

I admire the lone outburst from the Maori gentleman who suggested that his people should not expect handouts. I am sure there are others with similar thoughts but where are they? Why did they not speak up? It would be great to see the Maori people follow the democratic process and now "join hands" and totally reject any approach the council makes to prospective appointees. But I am not holding my breath on that one.

T L

Masterton

TEXT's section

■ Democracy is indeed dead as far as Masterton district council is concerned we never voted for you to Co opt people onto council with full voting rights based on race.they should stand and be voted on if worthy. If Masterton people have any pride and don't want to be railroaded they should boycott local body elections as what's the point? your contempt of the public is not called for mayor Patterson and Co.

Wanganui Chronicle 4/6/16

MAORI HERITAGE

For the edification of John Archer (Letters, May 24): The effect of the North Atlantic nation, dominated by self-centred white males, has been to enable the sell-anointed indigenous peoples of the South Pacific nations to emerge from Stone Age existence to the point where they can claim an equal footing on the world stage.

You cannot impress me with comments about Ngati Tuma-tauenga — I was part of that tribe for over 20 years. From my days as a platoon commander overseas in 1970, and as a company commander in 1922, I can tell you over 50 per cent of my soldiers laid claim to Maori heritage. They saw no difference between themselves and their non-Maori brothers in arms. I was criticised once for saying I could solve a particular United Nations problem with accompany of Maori soldiers. I had the privilege of being the "military mentor for the 1RNZIR concert party in the early 1980s.

On the issue of "plateau" land, I was unaware the granting of leases of the Te Atihau land was dependent on the stature of the non-Maori farmers. How small did one have to be to qualify? Is the taking back of these leases since 1970 of any relevance? The scholarships you mention ... are they for persons with a degree of Maori heritage or do they apply for all races?

I would suggest the Rangipo desert area stopped feeding the locals with eggs and meat after 600 years because the egg-layers and meat providers had been hunted to extinction. You forget to mention that the largest farming group in the region was the Hardings, and when I last spoke to them, there was not a lot of Maori blood in the family.

As for Te Putake, I make a point of reading every word published. Because of this I am fully entitled to ask why it is necessary to have such a supplement. Lets take my view that there is nothing in there that could not, nor should not, be part of the daily Chronicle. If you then take the view that it is specific to Maori, why do stories with a Maori flavour appear on a daily basis in the paper? In a place like Wanganui a lot of stories involve Maori, so how can some be directed towards the general population and others held back to appear in a monthly insert specifically annotated for Maori? Publish it in to reo for those who speak and read the language on a daily basis and I will agree to its publication or scrap it for being a racial publication.

D P

Eastown

Wairarapa Times-Age 4/6/16

POLITICAL CAPITAL

The iwi representatives who were at the special council meeting at which my Notice of Motion was put to delay the appointment of unelected iwi representatives to standing committees of the MDC with voting rights have accused me of political motives. They seem to think I took my stand because of a possible mayoralty bid.

Any reasonable person, however, would see that as a complete misrepresentation of my position. My argument wholly and solely was about process, that we had less than 24 hours to digest the full ramifications of the recommendations being made to us and that by allowing the new council to act on them in October we would be opening the door to consulting properly with the general public. And I still hold very firmly to those thoughts. If the iwi reps are looking to single out anybody trying to make political capital out of this I'm sure many readers could tell them where to look.

GARY CAFFELL

Masterton

Bay of Plenty Times 4/6/16

LOAD OF RUBBISH

What a load of rubbish for a public health professor to suggest that the rise in the cost of cigarettes is racist. Nobody forced Maori to smoke and if they can't afford it they shouldn't be smoking any way, their money should be going on essentials if money is tight. I get brassed off when people make excuses for Maori being at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

A W

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 3/6/16

HOMES? OPEN UP MAORI LAND

In response to Peter Dey (Letters, May 31), yes the housing problem is serious and everyone needs to do what they can

Thousands of New Zealanders have bought houses with no help from the Government. As to treaty settlements, what we see reported shows that Maori trusts are getting millions of dollars and surely with their large land holding they can build affordable houses for their people. After all the trusts already own the land so even $1 million would probably enable five or six houses to be built.

If the Mangatawa Papamoa Block can achieve this then why can’t the other Maori trusts? (Abridged)

R D

Mt Maunganui

Northland Age 2/6/16

LONG-DEAD CONCEPTS

Angela Herbert-Graves (May 17) has learnt a lot about long-dead concepts of sovereignty, even quoting a 1569 Frenchman who called it perpetual power over citizens ... to which after immortal God we owe all things." She goes on about it seeking "to accommodate the long disputed interests of the nobility, the church and the 'lower classes,'" with "the monarch, or alternatively the 'monarch in Parliament,' which had absolute authority and dominion over the land and its peoples. It was that culturally. defined notion of constitutional authority which the Crown brought to Aotearoa after 1840."

This is a blatant falsehood. Moreover, even saying our country's true name clearly chokes in her throat and demonstrates her bias. Her 'Aotearoa' appears nowhere in the Treaty of Waitangi, and was not recognised by either Britisher or Maori. It must surprise her to know that effective sovereignty has continued to evolve, even to the present day. Following a hard-fought civil war in the 1640s, the British people successfully disposed of the supposed "divine right" of their foolish King Charles I, and the "absolute authority" with which Henry VIII had ruled was disposed of forever. The power of elected representatives —the House of Commons— was increasingly affirmed with the first reform of the constituency in 1832, and a progression until full adult franchise was attained in 1928.

It was in this real spirit of progress that New Zealand became British in 1840, initially as an extension of the colony of New South Wales. There has been constitutional evolution in New Zealand since, of course, adult male Maori actually getting the vote several years ahead of all others. The last trace of appointed rather than elected members came with the abolition in 1950 of the Legislative Council by the National government of Sid Holland.

The most significant recent step was adoption of MMP for election to the House of Representatives. The well-thought proposals of the Royal Commission to abolish special Maori seats, deemed redundant, was disregarded by Parliament, and the ridiculous 'coat-tailing provision' included to the detriment of true proportionality. It is only by meddling on both these counts that Marama Fox is an MP today, effectively wielding the balance of power.

Notwithstanding these imperfections, we have as good a constitutional system in New Zealand as anywhere in the world. Witness the long-drawn-out and almost farcical process through which Americans must choose their next chief executive. Ours can be changed by a simple vote in Parliament Herbert-Graves' description of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy might be of some academic interest, but its relevance to New Zealand is as remote as the Bolivian constitution, ridiculously advocated by our recent ill-conceived Constitutional Review Panel.

It has been a long and gradual process to eliminate the last traces of special privilege and appointment, not election, to political office. Yet now we have the insidious drive for appointment of unelected members to local bodies solely on account of their ancestry in part, flying in the face of what it has taken so long to achieve. Our democracy is a precious possession, and we allow meddling with it at our cost. As some philosopher somewhere said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Those wise words we forget at our peril.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

DARK AGES

It is saddening to observe how patronising some New Zealanders have become towards part-Maori people. In their view Pakeha (any non-Maori) can stand on their own two feet, but Maori need continual help from those who "oppressed" them.

It would be understandable if the "natives" were impoverished and denied privileges because of their race, but that is the exact opposite of the existing situation. Midway through the last century the last full-blooded Maori died, and at that point in time the Maori race ceased to exist as a distinct entity. All of those remaining were now of mixed heritage, Maori blood combined with Pakeha. All were now one people. Every Maori had become a Maori/Pakeha, all were now descendants of both parties who had signed the Treaty.

The Treaty of Waitangi had run its course. There are no oppressed indigenous people in New Zealand, just those of mixed heritage who have chosen a particular life-style.

Any consideration that part-Maori deserve special privileges is based upon a lie that has arisen simply because a few of mixed race accept one side of their heritage while denying the other. Bloodlines are unchangeable realities, but cultural practices are a matter of choice.

The Treaty of Waitangi was an important part of New Zealand's history, but is now obsolete and should be consigned to the archives, where it belongs. We can prosper and succeed as a united people. The alternative is apartheid — the road that leads back to the dark ages of ignorance and tribalism.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

DENIAL OF FACTS

Final proof (if more were needed ) that Maori are indeed a uniquely privileged race is provided when we begin to see articles denying it. Such opinions, invariably from self-appointed part-Maori spokespeople and their wringing wet, pseudo-liberal white patrons, are simply a denial of demonstrable facts. However, in the current Alice in Wonderland world of politically correct moral relativism, denial of "facts has long since become a definite strategy.

Particularly galling is the self serving tactic of many modern Maori to completely disavow the manifold influences that their non-Maori ancestry certainly has upon them. Like so many others, I find it impossible to believe that it's just pure coincidence that this misled and malcontent element of Maoridom unwaveringly believe anything that is to their advantage— and nothing that isn't. Fair minded objectivity? What's that? It would come as no surprise to many New Zealanders if it turned out that Maori were not only the most privileged race in New Zealand but in the entire world.

If a disproportionate number of Maori really are 'failing" then the reasons must be sought not in any imagined racism but in forbidden areas which are ruled out-of-bounds by the anti-Western, left-wing, PC tyranny; namely in all those circumstances arising out of the fact that at the time of colonisation/ civilisation of New Zealand, Maori consciousness, and therefore culture, was thousands of years behind that of Western civilisation. And let's be very clear, whatever the reason was for the backwardness of Maori society at that time, it had nothing to do with anyone but themselves.

The "wicked white man" could only help them to bridge this vast gap, and much has been achieved. Ultimately, however, this task is one that Maori must shoulder themselves. This country's treaty/ grievance industry goes from bad to worse with every passing day, and it is all based upon an orchestrated litany of lies (to borrow Judge Mahon's magnificent phrase ).

C R

Dunedin

CROCODILE TEARS

'Songs and tears as Bill passes first reading. Wanganui iwi went to Parliament where they cried crocodile tears over the first reading of the millions of dollars they are going to get to have control over our water. If the original people, like the Ngati Hotu/Waitaha fand Patupaiarehe, got it I wouldn't be crying crocodile tears. I would be laughing all the way to the bank.

The Ngati Hotu, Waitaha and Patupaiarehe were living here long before any other group of people arrived. The Ngati Hotu were the indigenous people, the true tangata whenua, they were our blood line. The Te Arawa tribes that moved to Rotorua and Taupo found people already inhabiting these areas. These people were called Ngati Hotu, and were described by Te Arawa as "of non. Maori". Later Ngati Hotu moved down to the Wanganui area. The Wanganui Maori exploring up river found the Ngati hotu/ patupaiarehe living where the Whakapapa and Wanganui rivers join. They were in such numbers that the two chiefs with the exploring party sent back for reinforcements. A third chief arrived with a war party, a battle was fought, and a lot of the Ngati Hotu/patupaiarehe were killed. The limbs of the slaughtered people were hung on poles, hence of the name of the stream of Kakahi Whakapapa,"The hanging of the legs in a line'.

On a hill near Kakahi a great heap of stones stand, which local Maori believe to be the remains of the hangi where some of the people were cooked. So it was our people, the Ngati Hotu patupaiarehe and Waitaha who lived here and were in control of the river. So where is the compensation for our people?

I B

Wanganui

HARDLY OPPRESSORS

Your correspondent Reuben Chapple writes of those who trumpet "racism" at every opportunity. Perhaps they should consider life in Godzone in the good old days before the bad white man arrived.

There is an educational/aka Maori propaganda booklet called 'Network Waitangi' in which pre-colonisation Maori are described as "a highly developed, sustainable civilisation, autonomous tribes operated their own systems of health, education, justice, welfare and spiritually" — all warm and fuzzy, but not one whisper of their short, harsh, brutal lives due to centuries of tribal warfare. Nor any mention of the devastating Musket Wars, in which tens of thousands of Maori died at the hands of their own people. In comparison, about 3000 Maori died in the Land Wars.

Chief Taipari of Tauranga referred to the slaughter of the Musket Wars: "If we continue fighting our race will become extinct." It was the arrival of the missionaries and subsequent colonisation which saved the Maori race from extinction.

All of us in New Zealand enjoy the privilege of living the Western culture compared to the misery of life in pre colonisation times. Colonial oppressors — hardly!

R B

Tauranga

NOT GETTING IT

Some mayors just don't seem to understand they serve at the behest of their community.

The iconic leader of this hall of shame is of course Andrew Judd the current, and soon to be former, mayor of New Plymouth. But he is not alone. Joining Andrew Judd is Masterton Mayor Lyn Patterson. She, along with (six) councillors voted in favour of two unelected iwi representatives, with voting rights, being appointed to key council standing committees.

Masterton locals were not given the right to determine whether they too wanted a race-based council —they had no say. Opposing the move were councillors Gary Callen and Brent Goodwin. They said councillors were only given 24 hours' notice of the proposal and the vote. As if that was not bad enough, with the 2016 local body elections effectively just months away— and these new arrangement not expected to be in place until July — this decision has clearly been designed to bind the future council Mayor Patterson justified her actions by saying that the proposal "emerged from the council's 2015 .25 long-term plan process, to promote a genuine partnership with Maori as required by the Treaty, particularly on environmental issues".

In recent years only two other district councils have changed their constitutional balance through iwi appointments with voting rights—without recourse to the community at large .Jenny Rowan pushed that decision through in Kapiti in 2012 and Steve Chadwick in Rotorua in 2014. The Kapiti Coast District Council appointed three Maori representative with voting rights to the council's standing committees, just weeks ahead of the 2013 local body elections. The Mayor, Jenny Rowan, said "It has been a long journey to get to this point. My belief has always been that the tangata whenua of this district, as our treaty partners, should he involved in the decision-making process, to challenge, inform and assist us in developing the best outcomes for this district". Just weeks later, she lost the mayoralty. Unfortunately the new Mayor and council did not hold a poll of local residents and ratepayers to seek their views of the decision.

In Rotorua, Mayor Steve Chadwick pushed through a proposal to have two local Te Arawa board representatives sitting on council committees with voting rights. Supporting the Mayor were (seven) councillors, with five opposing. Mayor Chadwick said "For 25 generations Te Arawa have shared their life force with the community and this will continue for our futures and those to come. This partnership allows Te Arawa to beat the table: two representatives on council committees who can contribute to the direction of our district".

Not allowing the public to have a proper say on the contentious issue of voting rights around the council table, through a district-wide referendum process, is an outrage. It is after all, their council— supposedly representing the community at large.

The point is that by giving unelected vested interests voting rights, the Mayor and supporters have altered the balance of power on their council. This has the potential to swing the local authority vote, enabling councils to pursue agendas that might not have been possible before such appointments were made. But not only are such appointments undemocratic, they are also manipulative, since appointing iwi representatives with voting rights onto councils exploits a loop-hole that exists in the law. While Section 19Z of the Local Electoral Act 2001 sets out the mechanism by which local authorities can establish iwi representation on councils through the creation of Maori wards, Section 19ZB enables local voters to challenge such decisions through a binding poll of electors— if supported by five per cent of registered electors.

It is an acknowledgement that defining a council by race marks a substantive change to local government. However, no such safeguard applies when councils appoint Maori representatives on to councils with voting rights— despite the effect being the same as creating a Maori ward. No doubt when the law was drafted the idea that Maori could gain representation on councils by the back door, through appointment rather than election, was not even contemplated. Accordingly, it is time that this loophole in the Local Electoral Act was closed, by enabling the public to demand a binding poll— if supported by five per cent of registered electors — whenever a council tries to change the constitutional makeup of a council through the appointment of unelected representatives with voting rights.

`Whenever they are asked, conununities have said they do not want their local democracy defined by race. Residents and ratepayers in the Waikato, Nelson, Wairoa, Hauraki, the Far North and New Plymouth have voted against Maori wards for their district councils, with an average 70/30 split. Had the people of Masterton, Rotorua and Kapiti been asked, it is highly likely that they too would have rejected race. based representation.

DR MURIEL NEWMAN

NZ Centre for Political Research

The Northern Advocate 1/6/16

TRIBALISM RULES

Rewriting history and propaganda are tools used by powerhungry people, so their self proclaimed superior status can never be questioned.

It’s fascinating to read how “groupthink” and blind public obedience has evolved in authoritarian states like Russia, China and North Korea.

It is rather more frightening to watch it happening here in New Zealand.

The techniques have worked well, making many think that democracy is now wrong, and that the handing over of government power to private interest Maori groups is the right thing to do. Question this and you are labelled "racist".

Here's how it's happening here:

1) Get academics to rewrite our history as a fantasy novel, in which Maori are goodies and Pakeha baddies. And that any-one with a drop of Maori blood is kinder to children, old people, ancestors (only Maori ones count) and nature.

2) Get schools and universities to brainwash the young with this fake history.

3) Get the media to peddle the fake history, to stoke Maori grievance and Pakeha guilt.

4) Brand as "racist" anyone who questions the fake history or special Maori entitlement.

5) Entrench processes whereby private Maori groups are en-titled to take control of government and resources, and tax-payers to pay for it — thus ensuring permanent Maori power and wealth.

6) Threaten countrywide violence if New Zealanders object. (John Key's "hikois from hell".)

7) Pretend at all times that Maori are a separate, superior race, and ignore the fact that they are all part-Pakeha.

Fait accompli! Tribalism rules and R.I.P. democracy

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wanganui Chronicle 1/6/16

TREATY PRINCIPLES

H Norton (letters, May 26) fancies his own twisted logic, but let us look more closely. He writes that the so-called Treaty of Waitangi "must be a treaty, because it has that writ large ... it's a formal agreement between two or more states".

Now, although it has been called a treaty ever since day one and even by Hobson, as constitutional lawyer David Round has pointed out, it is not really a treaty at all for the simple reason that there was no Maori state, merely a collection of petty tribes, many of which were mortal enemies.

Nevertheless, whatever we may call it, by the "Treaty", chiefs who signed it surrendered whatever sovereignty they possessed to the Queen, completely and forever; all Maori became fully entitled British subjects and the property rights of all the people of New Zealand were guaranteed. That is all.

No High Court or anybody else is entitled to write anything else into that retrospectively, in particular any spurious opinion that there is a "partnership".

None of John Robinson's books are "ill-based, anti-Maori rants," even if racists want to believe it. We may, however, refer to TL Buick's classic book The Treaty of Waitangi, written in 1914 before political correctness overwhelmed us. He observes: ". . there being amongst them [the chiefs] a wide comprehension of the two great principles embodied in the treaty — that they were surrendering the magisterial control of the country to the Queen, and retaining the possession of the land". "Britain's right to colonise and govern in New Zealand was incontestable before the world." Buick states the only real principles it contained. The recently invented batch of so-called principles is make-believe.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

RIVER LEGISLATION

Re the Chronicle article of May 26, "Te Awa Tupua Bill passed first reading": Here we go again with this National Government to give Wanganui iwi $80 million to give a river a legal identity with the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person.

What a pathetic load of crap. John Key has said that no one owns the rivers but is paying local iwi to look after it. Where is the $80 million for the rest of us people who can look after the river as well? The rest of us have just the same respect for the waters.

When the 14 Wanganui (with-out the "h") chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in Wanganui in 1840, there was no mention of rivers, lakes, seabed or foreshore. Once it was signed, these were the property of the Crown, held in trust for all the people of New Zealand.

Since governments hold waterways in trust for the public; they cannot sell or give away to private ownership or control.

Maori today have inter-married of their own free will with other races and therefore are no longer the group of people that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. Maori today are New Zealand citizens that claim varying degrees of Maori ancestry, as one sees in the continuing amended legislation since 1865 as Maori ancestry become further and further diluted. This payout is another bribe to get votes. It's another theft from the public purse.

I B

Springvale

Bay of Plenty Times 1/6/16

LOCAL IWI CAN AFFORD TO BUILD

I totally support correspondent Ross Darrell’s inquiry (letters May 28) as to why local iwi have not used the millions they have been given to build houses for Maori homeless and, referring to a Tommy Wilson column, the many Maori leaving prison “with nowhere to go”.

One cannot help wondering how much of this homelessness is due to misfortune and how much for the mindset of many young people, and others, that there is no need to try and save for the future — there is always Government benefits to fall back on. How much of the money spent in pubs, on drugs or cigarettes, could have contributed to a home? (Abridged)

M B

Tauranga

NZ Herald 31/5/16

PRE-EUROPEAN MAORI LIFE

Alan Duff’s picture of ancestral Maori ways is closer to the reality than the rosetinted view of Anne Salmond in her quotes of newcomers who looked at Maori family life and saw healthy, happy people.

It is impossible to fit all the many reports of the very opposite in a letter, but here is one by early settler and writer Polack during his residence in New Zealand between 1831 and 1837.

“On taxing some females with having committed infanticide, they laughed heartily at the serious manner in which I put the question. They told me the poor infants did not know or care much about it. One young woman, who had recently destroyed a female infant, said that she wished her mother had done the same to her, when she was young; ‘For why should my infant live?’, she added, ‘to dig the ground, to be a slave to the wives of her husband, to be beaten by them and trodden under foot. No. Can a woman here protect herself, as among the white people?’”

JOHN ROBINSON,

Wellington.

Wanganui Chronicle 31/5/16

OFF TOPIC

H Norton (Letters, May 26) has written a highlv personal note. referring to me by name twice, where he claims that my "followers' opinions are ill-based, anti-Maori rants" and that my books "are repetitious with the one theme — that the `Treaty of Waitangi does not have any principles'." The other authors of Twisting the Treaty would hardly agree that they are in any way my "followers"; each speaks for himself. And my letter (May 15) made no reference at all to possible Treaty principles. That one point is not the topic of what I have written, there or in several books.

But he asks for my opinion, so here it is in a nutshell. The accepted text of the Treaty of Waitangi is in Maori, and the proper translations are those made at the time, before a century and more had passed and words were claimed to have taken on new meanings. It said very clearly that sovereignty of the country was with Britain and that all New Zealanders were equal, all having the rights and responsibilities of British citizens. This is a statement of equality, of one people, never of division into two race-based groups which might then act in partnership. That's it.

Rather than joining an endless debate on newly minted word meanings, or on the curious idea of an essence encompassing a principle of the Treaty, I have chosen to write of the real history of our nation, including the fantastic contributions of Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata.

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

Northland Age 31/5/16

DERIVATION AND MEANING

There must be few words in any language whose meaning has been distorted as much as

rangatiratanga. It was a word coined by the missionaries, clearly derived from rangatira (rungateeda in 1817), the Maori word for the lowest level of chieftainship, with the suffix tanga', in English 'ship' in the sense of 'having the quality of,' e.g. friendship.

However that is far from the whole story, because derivation is not the same as meaning. Thus, English 'gangway is clearly derived from Norwegian Vangvei ' but that means footpath. Again, the Bislama word 'hagarap', whose derivation is obvious, simply means broken. Even Durie, sometime chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal, observed that "there is, then, no single definition of tino rangatiratanga, and little comfort can be derived from linguistic origins".

When the Williams, father and son, needed a Maori word to mean possession' in translating the Treaty of Waitangi on the night of February 4-5, 1840, they had a quandary since the concept was vague in Maori culture. Indeed, in 1822 Hongi had defined 'taonga' as "property procured by the spear;' that is, taken from other people by force, showing that the idea of enduring ownership was non-existent. Thus the Williams chose 'tino rangatiratanga' and this was affirmed, be it noted, to "tangata katoa o Nu Tireni" — all the people of New Zealand.

In strongly hierarchical Maori society, anybody less than a rangatira had few possessions. Slaves, most living in abject conditions, very rarely had any at all but could be a handy source of protein if the fishing had been bad.

Well tino rangatiratanga served its purpose in the treaty, but that was about it. Indeed, as Phil Parkinson has noted, tino rangatira never became common usage, "a single late and remarkable exception" being its use by some Rotorua residents in addressing Queen Victoria. Parkinson continues, "That the Queen herself could be addressed as 'the tino rangatira' by Maori tends to show that activist appropriation of the term [since) rests on unstable ground." Dug out of its grave, in one prize example, tino rangatiratanga became Kawharu's" unqualified exercise of their chieftainship". And now we have our Angela Herbert-Graves Northland Age, May 24) boring in with "Our concept of power was known as mana (and much later in the 19th Century as rangatiratanga)". Both show blatant contempt for history, usage and meaning which is no more than political propaganda of a low order. She quotes others of her ilk —John Rangihau, with "rangatiratanga was people-bestowed," and Manuhuia Bennett, who allegedly described "rangatiratanga in a way that sums up its constitutional and cultural parameters". What nonsense!

Herbert-Graves waffles on with "from the earliest days of colonisation we have endeavoured to assert and maintain the essential constitutionality of our relationship with the Crown etc. etc." Well I have news for her. By the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori, including slaves, became subjects of the Queen. That was, and technically still is "the essential constitutionality of [their) relationship with the Crown," albeit they are citizens of New Zealand like the rest of us. That Englishman, Shakespeare, got these people's story right: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

ANOTHER BRIBE

“Te Awa Tupu a Bill passed first reading”. Here we go again with this National government to give Wanganui iwi $80 million to give a river its legal identity with the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. What a pathetic load of crap.

John Key has said that no one owns the rivers but is paying local iwi to look after it. Where is the $80 million for the rest of us people who can look after the river as well? The rest of us have just the same respect for the waters.

When the 14 Wanganui (without the 'h') chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in Wanganui in 1840 there was no mention of rivers, lakes, seabed or foreshore. Once it was signed these were the property of the Crown, held in 'trust' for all the people of New Zealand.

Since government hold waterways in trust for the public they cannot sell or give away to private ownership or control.

Maori today have inter-married of their own free will with other races, and therefore are no longer the group of people that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. Maori today are New Zealand citizens that claim varying degrees of Maori ancestry, as one sees in the continuing amended legislation since 1865, as Maori ancestry become further and further diluted. This payout is another bribe to get votes. It is another thief from the public purse.

I B

Wanganui

AN ENDLESS LECTURE

It was a pleasure to read Joe Car's article on 'Powering up the Maori economy', as laid out in the recent regional economic development hui at the Turner Centre. It is good to read of the initiatives taken by people like Pita Tipene, Rangimarie Price, and their determination to use their huge natural resources for the betterment of their people.

Unfortunately, and sadly, missing in this report was any mention of Ngati Kahu, and I can only assume they were not part of this hui.

Judging by Anahera Herbert-Graves' recent articles, the path this runanga has taken has become increasingly academic, and is simply leading them further into Never-Never Land.

This reluctance to engage with other bodies and become part of the wider Northland economy must concern many people in this iwi. Most of us, Maori and Pakeha, want practical answers to today's problems, not an endless lecture.

B P

Tokerau Beach

The Northern Advocate 30/5/16

ONE PEOPLE

It is saddening to observe how patronising some NZers have become towards part-Maori people.

In their view Pakeha (any non-Maori) can stand on their own two feet but Maori need continual help from those who “oppressed” them.

It would be understandable if the “natives” were impoverished and denied privileges because of their race, but that is the exact opposite of the existing situation.

Midway through the last century the last full-blooded Maori died and at that point in time the Maori race ceased to exist as a distinct entity.

All of those remaining were now of mixed heritage; Maori blood combined with Pakeha.

All were now descendants of both Treaty signatories; every Maori had become a Maori/ Pakeha; all were now one people.

The Treaty of Waitangi had run its course.

There are no oppressed indigenous people in NZ, just those of mixed heritage who have chosen a particular lifestyle.

Any consideration that partMaori deserve special privileges is based upon a lie that has arisen simply because a few of mixed race accept one side of their heritage while denying the other.

Bloodlines are unchangeable realities, but cultural practices are a matter of choice.

The Treaty of Waitangi was an important part of NZ’s history but is now obsolete and should be consigned to the archives where it belongs.

We can prosper and succeed as a united people.

The alternative is apartheid — the road that leads back to the dark ages of ignorance and tribalism.

M M

Kaipara

Christchurch Press 30/5/16

NGAI TAHU SHOULD HELP

It is upsetting to see the number of homeless families as we approach winter. It was heartening to see a marae and volunteers working hard to provide for warm shelter for a blessed few. I can't help wondering why help doesn't come from Ngai Tahu, which has huge investments in commercial property and other areas. Isn't the money they received meant to be for their people?

B T

Woodend

Gisborne Herald 28/5/16

EXASPERATED BY NIT-PICKING OF TEE RAY-O

I am exasperated by the nit-picking of your correspondent “Annoyed” who criticised the way Mastermind quiz-master Peter Williams pronounced Kor-hunga Ray-o.

This is precisely the reason most people don’t bother to learn to speak the Maori language — they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don’t.

I expect that being linguistically superior, “Annoyed” speaks English with the excellence of a schoolboy from Eton College.

To complete the lexical trifecta I will chuck in a spot of le Francais to ask — why does Annoyed hide behind a nom-de-plume?

Je pense, donc, je suis.

R B

Northern Advocate 28/5/16

BRAINWASHING

Some years ago, while doing UE English at night school, I happened to say that we were living in a brainwashed society. Two classmates gave me a right royal rogering, to which the tutor, a doctor of English, replied: It is just surprising how brainwashed we are!" A young acquaintance had a look at my night school syllabus and declared that he might do grade 3 physics. I asked him about I and 2, to which he replied that he already had them. I asked him how he got them, and his answer staggered me: "I learnt early in the piece to tell them what they wanted me to know!"

Our schoolchildren are being indoctrinated by such a false account of our history that the lie is becoming the norm. Let our true history be told. From our elected representatives to the media ghouls, the Maori elite and the Waitangi Tribunal, this is outrageous.

One cannot blame the school teachers as they would be out of a job if the truth were told.

How about a debate on television (democracy in action, of course) occasionally, to replace some of the twaddle that we are being presented with, such as New Zealand's true history, global warming, genetically modified organisms, the continued destruction of the world's forests, just four of which come to mind? But I won't hold my breath

K G M

Kaipara

TRUTH WILL OUT

Rosemary McLeod's column on teaching history says: "'Left-wing people I knew as a teenager swore that any negative reports about Russia and China that followed their revolutions were a Right-wing conspiracy to besmirch Marxist heavens.

Decades later we know about disastrous famines, agricultural and environmental nightmares, and mass persecutions in those countries because the truth will out regard-less."

After 30 years of blaming governments for every misfortune visited upon Maori, anyone who criticises Treaty settlements, race-based affirmative action or funding, or tribal political appointees, is labelled racist.

We could paraphrase McLeod thus: Right-thinking liberal people I know swear that any negative reports about Maori were a racist conspiracy to besmirch their politically correct heavens.

A look into our history reveals intertribal genocide, reneged-upon land sales, harassment of settlers, murders of innocent women and children, deceitful claims for compensation, and deceptive bias by the Waitangi Tribunal. The truth will out regardless.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Wanganui Chronicle 28/5/16

CONTROVERSIAL

Many artists have crooned "Where do I begin ...", the theme song from the movie Love Story. I am now faced with that dilemma, although there was not a lot of love in the responses to my May 11 letter about a book.

Perhaps the best beginning is to declare that I am not anti-Maori or those people who endow themselves with that title despite DNA dominance from other races. I am anti the separatists who are mining this country and destroying hope of equality for all New Zealanders. Compare two words — "racist" and "racial". By generally accepted definition, discriminative treatment of one race is "racist", while anything pertaining to one race as a whole is "racial", a point not recognised by many and abused by many more.

Potonga Neilson harps on about culture and confiscation of land. Perhaps he should throw away his old gramophone and invest in a new CD system.

Janet Mace, you are so correct. The people at the lower end of the food chain never see any financial benefit from special treatment for Maori. However, the top dogs do. With regard to "special treatment", but perhaps mentioning Maori health, Maori education, customary rights, guaranteed seats on councils and boards, increasing leniency displayed in our courts, racially selected sports teams and a separate category for honours and awards will be a start. Finally, there is the Waitangi Tribunal, which is about as "special" as there is.

H Norton, if you had read my letter properly, you would know the queue at the library was yet to form as the book was purchased at my request and I was still in possession when I wrote the letter. The question of who is "well qualified is subjective. You name a handful of recognised historians; the authors of One Treaty, One Nation incorporate writings and statements from many more than you list. One of the best is Sir Apirana Ngata, who appears on our $.50 note we don't see any of your "experts" on our currency.

As for your comment about "ill-based anti-Maori rants", I suppose equally ill-based " pro-Maori rants" are more to your liking. I must thank the editor for publishing the May 11 letter, knowing that it was controversial, but it seems to have achieved its purpose.

D. P

Eastown

FRESHWATER MYTH

Ian Brougham writes describing "The Great New Zealand Myth" —the arrival of Kupe. There is another myth that needs to be dealt with as it has encroached on common sense —the myth of the taniwha.

The freshwater issue is of concern to all New Zealanders and the taniwha features among reasons Maori state they should have control of freshwater. Reason 8 is: "The people have identified taniwha as residing in the water resource." How can they keep a straight face when trying to persuade us of this nonsense.

British politician Aneurin Bevan once said: "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the mad. They get run down."

The Freshwater lui Leaders Group demands for freshwater may soon become a reality. Make it clear to your local MP — fresh-water must belong to all of us.

R B

Tauranga

NZ Herald 28/5/16

READING ON

Dame Anne Salmond 's article dealing with the way pre-European Maori treated their kids included this quote from Richard Cruise's 1820 Journal: "...no partiality on account of sex was in any instance observed". In the same book I read ln the native families when the numbers of females has far exceeded that of males the disappointed mother has been known to sacrifice the former ... a woman at Rangehoo... murdered three female children the moment she was delivered of them.' I'd be surprised to find anything in Mr Duff's fiction or in the news as cruel as many of the atrocities described in Cruise's Journal.

K C,

Mt Eden.

ABUSERS NOT FATHERS

Anne Salmond paints a good story with her numerous quotes of early Europeans' observations of Maori fathers as kindly and loving. Such a portrayal ignores the fact that as a culture Maori were far from loving outside their own family or tribe.

Over the same period that Anne quotes from. the Musket Wars raged with more than 60 per cent of the entire population slain, enslaved or expelled from their Iands. She also suggests that today our atrocious record of abuse has no tribal or cultural link. What she fails to address is that a very high proportion of child abusers in this country are not the fathers of the children they abuse.

M R

Tuakau.

Bay of Plenty Times 28/5/16

MAORI TRUSTS

It is a concern that so many people say that they have nowhere to live and that the Government is not doing enough to help these people.

Why don't the Maori trusts, who have been given millions of dollars in compensation, provide housing on their own trust land to house their own people as many of them are in the situation of having no place to live. This way the current generation of Maori will benefit from the huge settlements and the Maori trusts money will be invested in housing, which will continue to grow in value.

I am suggesting this as, in my view, the majority of Maori who belong to some of the tribes get no benefit whatsoever from the settlements.

As most Maori land cannot be used as security for housing packages, the trusts could advance their people the cost of the house construction only, which means that their people are housed and the land remains in the ownership of the trust for future generations. (Abridged.)

R D

Mount Maunganui

The Nelson Mail 27/5/16

UNIMPRESSED

If your editorial writer wants to attack another media commentator, then it’s appropriate to not hide behind the cloak of anonymity, but to do as your correspondents are required – to sign his/her name. Accusing Mike Hosking of arrogance because he/ she does not agree with his point of view, while at the same time remaining safely anonymous, is not impressive.

Hosking’s vigorous standpoints can well be argued with. But it’s quite wrong to claim he’s out of touch with middle New Zealand in his insistence that most New Zealanders want the country to remain a democracy – without special rights being handed out on the basis of part-Maori inheritance. The New Plymouth folk rejected a special Maori ward proposal. Calling them redneck is offensive.

Hosking’s point, that individuals who may be part Maori are of course welcome on councils, if they successfully stand for election, is far from unreasonable.

To also accuse this majority of being on ‘‘the wrong side of history’’ is simply silly, the accusation of racism tedious. Nearly two centuries of Maori and Euro-New Zealanders’ coexistence, and intermarrying so successfully that it is now impossible to find anyone genetically totally Maori, disproves any accusation of racism.

A B

Nelson

Weekend Sun/Sunlive 27/5/16

NO ROOM FOR RACE-BASED SEATS

Waiariki MP and Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell continues wasting public time and money petitioning the Government to make part-Maori race-based seats on all NZ councils and local authorities compulsory.

He thinks the five per cent threshold to demand a poll is too low but that's not his problem,

it's the resultant referendum where 80 per cent of electors – as in New Plymouth – vote against separatism and race-based anti-democratic initiatives.

Hopefully, the Rotorua Lakes and New Plymouth mayoral aberrations won't be around come October, so this nonsense won't be an issue after that.

It is little wonder Mr Flavell endorses this type of race-based rubbish because he has a Maori parliamentary seat that should have been abolished 100 years ago and technically that's still on National's bucket list. Basically, it's called protecting your patch, particularly when his discredited Maori Party has a woeful 1.32 per cent of MMP party votes and even less of the electorate votes, indicating most Maori voters don't support the Maori Party.

R P

Matapihi

DEMOCRACY SORELY UNDERMINED

Are ratepayers aware that ‘their' rates help pay their council's

membership to Local Government NZ?

In August 2015, the LGNZ president Laurence Yule signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group.

LGNZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving “economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision-making”.

Meanwhile, the Ministry for the Environment, at Minister for the Environment Nick Smith's direction sent a group of ministry employees around the country to ‘consult' the community about freshwater.

The deal is done and the Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to LGNZ.

Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the rat paying public in their wishes to ‘not have' representation based on ethnicity.

MJ A

Pyes Pa.

REGARDING CHILDREN AS CASH COWS

Re: G Clark's letter ‘The Government encourages those irresponsible parents!' (The Weekend Sun, April 29).

G Clark rudely suggests I am “enamoured” by my “blue-tinted spectacles” which I sadly do not own, as he declares I'm incorrect in not blaming the Government for the fact that, out of all the children in New Zealand in Child, Youth and Family care a massive 60 per cent are Maori out of a population of just 15 per cent.

May I suggest G Clark visit his optometrist and renew his bi-focals as he reiterates exactly what I said – which is that there is too much easily accessed benefit money which encourages people to breed and regard their children as cash cows, or just breed because they are too lazy to use contraceptives and just do not care. G Clark always blames the Government for all his complaints and ailments.

The welfare system in New Zealand is one of the best in the world but it is abused by those who carelessly bring children into the world with neither the means nor desire to properly care for them.This is why I suggested there be benefits for the first two children only. And yes, sadly Maori do predominate the numbers who abuse their children.You cannot blame the Government for their lack of responsibility – why is it that 85 per cent of non-Maori have a cleaner record?

We are all NZers.

Perhaps the answer would be for the media to name and blame all abusive parents. The shame of public exposure of all cases of abuse just might prevent yet another attack on a defenceless child.

M B

Tauranga City.

Waikato Times 27/5/16

GAPS IN YOUR HISTORY

I noticed gaps in O’Connor’s account of Wiremu Kingi and the start of armed conflict in Taranaki because I researched the topic for Twisting the Treaty, published three years ago.

It is true that Kingi heavily opposed land sales and his intransigence over Waitara sparked armed conflict in 1860. But in 1839, Kingi sold much of the deserted Taranaki, land area 725,800ha, to the New Zealand Company.

By 1843, there were over 1000 settlers in Taranaki. Non-Maori settlers made the area safe for Maori exiles to return, which they did. However, conflict arose when returning Maori exiles began to threaten and claim the ownership of the land they left 20 years before and sold in 1839.

A lawyer named William Spain investigated the pre-1840 NZ Company Taranaki purchase in 1844 and awarded 24,281ha (60,000 acres) to the company. New Governor Robert FitzRoy rejected Spain's recommendation and allotted to settlers a small block of 1416ha (3500 acres) around New Plymouth and told them to leave their farms.

This unwise decision by the governor caused lasting damage. Missionary Samuel Ironside observed that "natives had found out that by assuming a threatening attitude they could obtain any exorbitant demands". Notice anything familiar?

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Bay of Plenty Times 27/5/16

SUPPORTING JUDD

Your columnist Rosemary Mcleod seems to be something of a fan of New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd (Opinion, May 19).

Mr Judd tried to change the electoral system of New Plymouth without any reference to the ratepayers, which forced the ratepayers to initiate a binding referendum in which he was defeated by a vote of 83 per cent.

He then lobbied the Government to try and overturn their wishes and launched a petition to the United Nations.

He now declares he will not be restanding for election .

For the record, there have been Maori councillors in New Plymouth both past and present so where is his argument?

Maori seats on councils have been rejected by referendum even in high Maori population areas like Northland and Wairoa.

Where they have been installed it has been done without taking the ratepayers along.

Methinks the lady protesteth too much. (Abridged)

G F

Tauranga

Northland Age 26/5/16

FEEBLE STINGS

Predictably, my article on the Bicultural Myth (flay 12) stirred up a couple of hornets, though their stings are pretty feeble. My "garrulous" letter, says IF Burke, when his is a prize example! (May 19)

But first let me correct my small error, as I am always ready to do. On checking, I find that what Te Rauparaha said was"'Tis death! Tis death!" and not what I stated. Well, so be it. But yes, my words— he was indeed "a baby-eating savage". On one of his murderous southern raids he ripped open the belly of a pregnant Maori woman, tore out her foetus, cooked and ate it. Southerners remember.

Has Burke conveniently forgotten the slaughter inflicted on other Maori by Hongi with his muskets — about 2000 at Maui mai na Pa, Tamaki, on September 5, 1821, followed by a cannibal feast until even the Ngapuhi were driven away by the stench of decaying bodies?

Or their treacherous capture of Ngati-Maru pa, Te Totara, a few months later, and wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants? Or their taking of the Waikato pa Matakitaki, when Ngapuhi fired down on those trapped in a defensive ditch until tired of reloading? Is this the sort of "culture" he prefers?

As for the French— a major reason for many chiefs signing the treaty was the mortal fear in which they were held. In 1831 13 Ngapuhi chiefs wrote to King William saying, "We have heard that the tribe of Marion is at hand, coming to takeaway our land. We pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these islands." Enough said?

I cannot give IF Burke a full history lesson in one short article, but can refer him to things to read to improve his mind. He need only ask.

And English— yes, its genius is its adaptation of words from many sources to make it the richest language ever created, but mangreloid? Is Burke himself not of mixed ancestry?

All over the world there are people wanting to learn or improve their knowledge of English I can attest to that from first-hand experience.

As for Wally Hicks, can he affirm that his lifestyle/culture is very different from that of the typical Maori as I described it? Even his name is English. He could check what I wrote before he wraps the garbage in it for collection by the council garbage truck —part of his British culture too, note.

Would he prefer to ignore it and let the garbage accumulate in the back yard? He goes on: "Bruce Moon and company interminably claim to know exactly what Maori understood and intended on Fehruary 6, 1840." Well, actually, we have read the careful record of proceedings by Colenso (easily Googled), who was there, and this does not leave a shadow of doubt that the chiefs knew that by signing the treaty they ceded sovereignty. Of course we have the recent culpably untrue claims by one Haami Piripi and others that Ngapuhi never did, predictably supported by the corrupt Waitangi Tribunal, which always accepts such statements, no matter how untrue.

As for Haami Piripi himself I'd lay even money that he was Jimmy Phillips at school. And Atearoa? A bogus name for our country. These fellows should look in the Treaty of Waitangi to see if they can find it there. Nobody mentioned it on February 6.

Well, e hoa, there is plenty of fight left in me yet, and I shall continue to uphold the truth and oppose those who do not until my pen runs dry. You can be sure of that

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

HE'S A WIGGER

When I was at university, we called those who think [sic] like Andrew Judd Wiggers.' A 'wigger is someone who reflexively rats out their own race and culture for the warm glow that comes from lining up with supposedly "oppressed" peoples.

Like all Western countries, New Zealand has a raft of these self-despising, West-hating socialist traitors, both in our universities and amongst the tertiary-educated, who have been helped by their communist lecturers to see that whites are to blame for all the evils of the world. These are people who told us three decades ago that apartheid was a social and moral evil in South Africa. Now they're telling us that it's a social and moral good in New Zealand.

Whether apartheid is to be decried or endorsed is based entirely on the skin colour of its beneficiaries.

Whites always deserve a good kicking.

Leftists despise their own culture.

They've been schooled to hate Western civilisation and regard Western countries as racist, sexist, colonialist oppressors. They desperately want to see other cultures as somehow morally superior to our own. They're not TheJudeo-Christian culture that originated in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem, then took root in Europe before being exported worldwide, is vastly superior to other cultures.

Many non-whites have also benefited massively in adopting Western cultural norms and values. This fact is undeniable to anyone except a moron.

Wiggers are people who have learned that the highest status in our society goes to anyone who can claim to be a member of a Marxist-designated race, gender, class, or sexual preference-based 'victim' group. For those who can't claim such membership, the next best thing is to be a totally supine, grovelling and penitent member of a 'victimiser' group— a rescuer. That's why liberal wiggers like Judd and Gareth Morgan seek moral preening opportunities for 'saving' the [part] Maori.

There is no reason for us to elevate Maori culture to an undeserved pre-eminence. By any objective standard, the sum total of its contribution to human felicity is an ugly, gesticulating, tongue-poking, eye-rolling, thigh slapping war dance of limited curiosity value when deployed before a rugby match. If anyone can show otherwise, let them step up to the plate.

Racism is often conflated by leftists with simple prejudice, which it is not.

Principled opposition to unearned racial privilege and the belief that newcomers should be welcomed but required to conform to Judeo-Christian cultural norms is not racism. Nor is it typically evidence of prejudice.

Racism occurs where a group of prejudiced individuals get together to create a system affording them separate, different, or superior rights to everyone else on the basis of group membership. I will leave it to readers to decide if New Zealand is a racist country, and if so, which group benefits most from this racism.

REUBEN CHAPPLE

Auckland

The New Zealand Herald 26/5/16

AN ADOPTED S

Your correspondent Ms le Prou remains linguistically muddled when she again chides Alan Duff for spelling the plural form of the word Maori with an ‘s’.

What she does not acknowledge is that he has written his column in English, not Maori. When words are borrowed from one language, it is absolutely regular that they undergo adaptation to the conventions of the adopting language. This is certainly what happens when English words become loan words in Maori, for example “horse” and “beer” becoming “hoiho” and “pia”.

Duff prefers to add the ‘s’ on occasion, as do I, because he believes it suits his writing better. Nothing to be criticised for in that.

B M

Grey Lynn.

Wanganui Chronicle 26/5/16

LIVING IN PAST

I think it's time Maori should drop the past and come into the 21st century. If they want to be on the council, they should stand just like everyone else. They have the numbers in Whanganui to vote for them if they are so concerned at Maori representation. (Abridged.)

B. D

Dannevirke

VEILED BAR

In response to Gaylene Kendrick's comments entitled "Beware of Brash tactics", I would hope the Year 13 students she refers to are mature and perceptive enough to recognise veiled censorship when they see it.

Readers who prefer to make their own judgments, and who believe in New Zealand's secular democracy and the right to free speech, will be able to draw their own conclusions as to why Ms Kendrick does not want you to read One Treaty, One Nation.

By the way, Don Brash is one of eight authors who have contributed to the book, which contains a brief biography for each author.

May I recommend people start by reading chapters 1 and 2 by Bruce Moon, and then read the preceding section en-titled "Some of the myths on which the Treaty industry is based". (Abridged.)

C L

Tauranga

Wairarapa Times-Age 26/5/16 (Texts section)

■ Fair to say, not many agree with the proposed token seats being given to Maori, with out ratepayer consultation. Hope Patterson and McC lymont start listening to those who vote.

■ good on Gary and Brent has the rest of council got the guts to reverse iwi reps

■ why cant Maori build houses for their needy from the 93 million dollars and all the land they have been given on a plate?

Wairarapa Times-Age 25/5/16

POLITICAL RIGHTS

Cheryl Cavanagh ( Times-Age May 20) seems unaware that the issue of people having inherited political rights by reason of ancestry is a national matter, not one confined to Masterton.

It took many centuries to remove such rights of appointment.

Now we have people wanting to turn back the clock, compromise democracy and impose privilege on a racist basis. Kneejerk reactions are her own.

As for principles, in his classic book The Treaty of Waitangi, written in 1914 before political correctness overwhelmed us, TL Buick concludes: “There being amongst them [the chiefs] a wide comprehension of the two great principles embodied in the treaty — that they were surrendering the magisterial control of the country to the Queen, and retaining the possession of the land . . . Britain’s right to colonise and govern in New Zealand was incontestable before the world.” Buick states the only real principles embodied in the treaty. The recently invented batch of so-called principles is entirely spurious.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

TEXTS section

■ Finally a voice of reason —David Farlows comments are right on the mark. Politically Correct individuals & groups should take heed of his comments and maybe adopt a similar stance, then just maybe Maori be able to stand on their own 2 feet, and improve their personal lives in the future.

The New Zealand Herald 25/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON VIOLENCE

Twenty years on from Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff is still telling it like it is in far too many Maori homes. What a shame he no longer lives here and that Maori leaders, politicians, academics, media commentators and activists remain silent.

F A

Papatoetoe.

Northland Age 24/5/16

A BROKEN RECORD

Privileged drama queen columnist Snively Marvelly started off by showing her ignorance on the freshwater topic (Maori think tank version), moved on to the "couch casting" harassment within the entertainment industry (either real or perceived ), about which she no doubt lodged complaints at the time it happened (?), then caps it all off with a dissertation on the flawed Mr Judd and his insane push, in cahoots with the Maori Party for effectively legislating non-elected and race-based local authority/council representation.

Lizzie needs to change the medication, because it's playing out like a broken record; racist short on fact, short on reality, and long on myth. It would also assist the reading public for the media to air the valid factual criticisms to see how her phobias stand up to scrutiny.

R P

Mount Maunganui

NOT DISPUTED

I am pleased that Wally Hicks (letters May 19) does not dispute the fact that pre-1840 Maori life consisted of unabated butchery, cannibalism, slavery and female infanticide.These horrid practices were well established in the stately Maori culture long before European contact, and it was the Christian concepts of the "wicked white coloniser" that brought an end to them.

If the Crown was a beneficiary of Hongi's musket-buying and the resulting wars, as Hicks assumes, why then did the Crown bother to bring law and order in 1840? Surely it would have made more sense to continue letting Maori annihilate themselves and then walk into a vacant country.

On cue, Hicks mentions diseases. It is true that some disease, tobacco, alcohol and sugar came with the "wicked white coloniser", but it does not mean that people have to smoke, drink liquor and eat sugary food.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wanganui Chronicle 24/5/16

MIGRATION MYTHS

We have been living a lie for the past few hundred years. There was never a great fleet of canoes that sailed together down from the Pacific Islands, bringing hundreds of Maori to New Zealand. In The Penguin History Of New Zealand [P38], author Michael King referred to the so-called 904AD Kupe landing as "The great New Zealand myth". Michael King says the Kupe myth was in fact created by two Europeans and then taught throughout primary schools from 1910 through to the 1970s.

Maori maps records that the historical Kupe sailed into Hokianga harbour in 1325AD, not 940AD. Also the Maori book Mataatua [P6] describes this region as "Hawaiki," well inside New Zealand waters, that several canoes set sail from at different times to establish tribal settlements elsewhere in new Zealand. The true historical evidence clearly shows that some canoes of the so-called Great Fleet did not arrive in New Zealand from overseas; they simply sailed down the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand from "Hawaiki" — that is the Hawaiki located in the upper North Island of New Zealand. Professor K.R. Howe obtained his research from Maori people who were fully aware that Hawaiki is a name found at the following locations: Tamaki, Auckland; Maketu, northern side of Kawhia Harbour; Aotea Harbour. Maxwell C. Hill has put out two excellent books on New Zealand's true history, To the Ends of the Earth, and To the Ends of the Earth and Back Again.

I B

Wanganui

Wairarapa Times-Age 23/5/16

NO VOTING RIGHTS FOR ADVISERS

As voting citizens, tax and ratepayers of New Zealand, we vote our politicians into power to (hopefully) run our country fairly and justly — as we do our councillors for our councils.

Nelson Rangi may well be a clever and intelligent person (as are most of our leaders, politicians and councillors) but unfortunately, a large percentage of these people lack good, common sense.

Whether unelected peoples have, in the past, been appointed on to councils with full voting rights is not the issue. That does not make it right. That is not democracy.

They most certainly can be there in an advisory capacity but definitely with no voting rights and no ratepayers’ money. I believe we live in one of the best countries in the world, but it would be so much better, and though I feel we have, at the present, the best government for the job, led by John Key, I would only rate him four out of 10.

The Masterton council, for their needless waste of their ratepayers’ money gets a three. Nelson Rangi with his racist views, does not even warrant a one.

G B

Greytown

NO FREE RIDE

I would like to congratulate Jim Rimene’s article in Monday’s paper on how he feels about Maori having a free ride into local politics. I knew Jim, I used to work with him back in the day, and he was and still is an honest and straight- talking man. He described his entry into local government as something he was proud of because he got there by being elected by the people, not being ushered in the back door on a free ride.

The other Maori who have served on councils that Jim mentioned all got there by being elected on their merits — they were elected for who they are not what they are.

Unfortunately, young radical Maori of today don’t take any notice of the old kaumatuas, they just want to be confrontational and use the treaty as a weapon in the hope everyone will think it’s all true. I think there are a couple of radicals hidden away somewhere writing the next episode of the treaty pending on what they want.

Make no mistake, if the Government or future ones don’t close the books on the Treaty it’s going to drag on for decades and the bad feeling between European and Maori will drag on with it.

It’s time young Maori realise you have to work for what you get regardless of what propaganda you’re fed. Take notice of Jim Rimene and others who have been there and done that because they did it on their own merit, and have gained great respect for their achievements.

I have nothing against anybody of any race being in local politics as long as they are democratically elected, not given a free ride because the councillors think they’ll be accused of being racist if they don’t allow free entry. That’s why the coming local body elections will hopefully separate the wheat from the chaff, ie, sweep out those who are there for their own enhancement not for the people as a whole.

D G

Masterton

Wanganui Chronicle 23/5/16

CENSORSHIP

Since D Partner's recommendation (letters, May 11) that we read the book One Nation, One People, there have been several disparaging letters from readers belittling the information contained within its pages and the qualifications of its authors.

Having never read the book, I cannot comment on its worth, except to note that there appears to be a growing trend to smother any contrary opinion to the correct and accepted position on cultural issues. I personally have been told by three separate publishers that they are reluctant to publish anything that could be perceived as being culturally controversial, so I can understand why authors who feel passionately about something have no option but to self-publish — an activity that has largely outgrown its "vanity publishing" tag and resulted in some outstanding literature.

And being a "not recognised" historian is not necessarily a disadvantage. In fact, it can work in one's favour as writers are free from any contractual obligations, public expectation or publisher's approval to see their work in print.

One reader believes that having the book available in libraries is a matter of real concern. Why? Is there a fear that readers will become corrupted by such information? Surely, after considering all opinions, we should be free to make up our own minds. The right of free speech is fiercely defended in matters of morality and religion, but censorship appears to be quite acceptable when it comes to cultural issues.

M C

Wanganui

Wanganui Chronicle 21/5/16

MAORI DEBATE

I am one of the authors of One Treaty, One Nation.

Two of your correspondents have made sweeping claims that we present "ill-based anti-Maori rants' (H Norton, May 13th and "target Maori with their vitriol and dross" (Gaylene Kendrick, May 14). These comments are ignorant and opposite to the truth; neither of the writers knows anything about us.

I have spent 16 years, from 1985, working on the situation of Maori, most often for Maori academics and organisations. I have expressed concern for the misery described by the statistics that I gathered and presented. To me, all are fellow human beings — nothing more, nothing less.

I have since made many studies of our history. This country was formed and built by human beings with many characteristics, which were largely individual and not race-based. The long list would include George Grey, Tamihana Te Raupara ha, Gore Browne, Te Wherowhero, William Spain, Rewi Maniapoto and many others.

I have written a book about two of the most important — Two Great New Zealanders, Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata. The race-based division of our nation is distressing. There should be no place for such vicious attacks; the debate should be on the issues and not personal abuse.

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

Wairarapa Times-Age 21/5/16

CULTURE CRINGE

The arguments of those who support the appointment of Maori members to MDC committees fall mainly into three groups.

The predictable and knee jerk response of ‘racism’ for opposing arguments, complaints that some correspondents are not locally based and the totally spurious claims that the Treaty somehow validates equal partnership and cogovernance. However, I suspect for many there is the concern that such moves will address or compensate for the over representation of ‘Maori’ in a number of undesirable statistics — prison population, family violence, child abuse, poor health outcomes. Indeed you have alluded to this in at least two editorials this year.

These representation levels tend to correlate with a number of social factors (not confined to Maori) such as low educational achievement, benefit dependency, high alcohol and drug use, smoking and family breakdown. While I remain opposed to affirmative action and believe that each individual makes his/ her own choices in life and should be accountable for them, such circumstances are most certainly not the best place to start to achieve success.

These problems will not be fixed by appointing iwi leaders to council committees, having Maori wards, worrying how broadcasters pronounce ‘ Taupo’, or by promoting bizarre superstitions in hospitals. These projects are jobs for the boys and to assuage middle class guilt. Nor are matters helped by those Maori leaders who don’t care about the problems, look the other way/find them too hard, or are in denial.

A report found that a significant proportion of prison inmates (presumably including many ‘Maori’) were functionally illiterate and/or suffered from learning disabilities. This is a shameful indictment of our education and social services and presumably parents/caregivers as well. While much improved educational outcomes may not solve everything, I am convinced it would make a huge difference, not least with unskilled work less frequently available now. It is noteworthy that most Maori ‘leaders’ have achieved academically and are certainly very articulate in English. I believe we need to return to more traditional forms of education with stricter discipline and performance standards, and to rid ourselves of the so- called ‘ tyranny of low expectations’. This is particularly necessary if children do not have support at home. There is no need for ‘culturally based’ programmes, although these may be a means to an end in some cases. The success of children of immigrants with no recourse to their ‘ cultural’ backgrounds makes the point.

It is extremely disappointing that the educational establishment, ( particularly NZEI), although heavily into ‘cultural’ issues, almost fanatically opposes any initiatives, such as charter schools, national standards and bulk funding, which might actually make a difference.

D F

Masterton

TEXT section

■ I congratulate Jim Rimene for what he said in last Monday's paper 16/5/16. I agree with him that any one & this is the way it must stand now & the future, if those wishing to stand & hopefully be elected to become a councillor for the district councils good luck to you, go for it we need fresh blood. No one or parties should be able to unless a councillor should be able to sit in at meetings plus voting rights plus paid $200 a meeting. I dont care who they are. let it be pakeha or maori, good on mr Caffell & mr Goodwin.Yes I would like to see a maori person become an elected councillor as they too have will have a great input for the masterton district & for us rat payers, of course. (Bob)

Northern Advocate 21/5/16

CAN OF WORMS

I agree with Mitch Morgan (Filthy, May 13). Although I don't personally have a lot of time for Mike Hosking. I think he's self-centred, self-opinionated and talks Toni Street down too much on TV.

But I totally agree with no special seats for Maori or anybody for that matter, on councils. It's the thin edge of the wedge. Anyone who stands for council does so on their own merit. They have to get their act together and believe and sell themselves to ratepayers. If Maori want something then they need to get up and go for it.

Life's not easy out there and a councillor has to put in a lot of time reading documents, etc. It's time consuming so you've got to be up to it. I don't agree with Mitch on council referenda on the issue. You'll only open a can of worms on the issue It's nondebatable.

I can remember an Asian New Zealander — a very well-spoken gentleman. Can't remember his name, when this same issue came up a few years ago and he became a very good mayor. He was dead against this process as he said one has to be one's self. It was a South Island town.

JE H

Rd1, Kamo

Waikato Times 20/5/16

MONITOR DEMOCRACY

It is very clear that local government organisations around the country have very often not reflected the views of their ratepayers when it comes to race based seats. Overwhelmingly referendums have rejected proposals and yet some councils have forged ahead with their own agenda against the wishes of the voters.

New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd has demonstrated that he has no interest at all in representing the people and has railed against them when he failed to get his own way.

Politicians need to be held to account. Clear undertakings and guidelines from them as to what their views are on important issues must be made.

Democracy is a fragile thing and needs to be defended and monitored constantly. If people do not want to do that then they deserve the results that we have been getting. Demand clear undertakings from candidates in writing before they are elected and expose them if they don't do what they say. At present anyone can stand for election. It may not always be that way.

G F

Tauranga

The New Zealand Herald 20/5/16

RIVERS ALIVE

Anne Salmond’s title gives no weight to any waffle about rivers as “ancestral beings” with “rights of their own”. The next step in today’s make-believe world may be to confer rights on a taniwha or two.

Sure, rivers have character. To me the Buller is majestic, the Grey sullen and the Inangahua beautiful and they need care but I do not need her to tell me not to use them as toilets.

The British did a great job of cleaning up the Thames. We can do the same here where necessary without any Maori input.

BRUCE MOON,

Nelson

The Nelson Mail 20/5/16

TREATY MEANING

Gary Glover’s assertion (May 14) that ‘‘co-governance’’ of New Zealand was written into the Treaty of Waitangi and ‘‘was implicit and explicitly understood’’ by Maori, Busby, and Williams is arrant nonsense. Though that fantasy may tickle modern ears the meaning and text of the Treaty is crystal clear. In return for ceding sovereignty to the British Crown, Maori signatories became subjects of Queen ‘‘Wikitoria’’ to enjoy the same legal rights, status, and protections over their lands as British subjects did.

Neither Queen Victoria, nor the Americans at Russell, nor the French suffered ‘‘co-governance’’ with anyone.

Those war-chiefs knew and understood both the threat and the opportunity as two of the then world’s super-powers came calling. That is why on the night before the signing, Hone Heke of flagpole fame remonstrated with the other chiefs: ‘‘We must sign with Wikitoria, for her hands are tied by her own laws. If we do not, the others will eat us.’’

Co-governance was not on the table then and it’s not on the table now.

J M

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 20/5/16

HISTORY LESSON

This week Rosemary McLeod (Opinion, May 19) writes that our history should be taught in schools.

Certainly our history should be taught, but will the truth be modified to suit the agenda of the Waitangi Tribunal?

It has already been conveniently sanitised in an educational booklet called “Network Waitangi” — precolonisation Maori are described as “a highly developed sustainable civilisation, autonomous tribes operated their own systems of health, education, justice, welfare and spiritually” — all warm and fuzzy, but not one whisper of their short, harsh, brutal lives due to centuries of tribal warfare.

Nor any mention of the devastating Musket Wars in which tens of thousands of Maori died at the hands of their own people.

In comparison, about 3000 Maori died in the Land Wars. Chief Taipari of Tauranga referred to the slaughter of the Musket Wars: “If we continue fighting our race will become extinct. In my view, it was the arrival of the missionaries and subsequent colonisation which saved the Maori race from extinction.”

Our history books are being sanitised, and through omission, our young people are being lied to!

R B

Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 19/5/16

TREATY'S MEANING

Gaylene Kendrick claims that I am "famous for vehement political attacks on Maori". This statement is utterly false. I have never attacked Maori. What I have attacked, and continue to attack, is those who grossly misrepresent the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Treaty was a very simple document with just three clauses. The first involved Maori chiefs ceding sovereignty to the Crown — and that is unambiguously clear in both the Maori-language version of the Treaty and in the English draft from which that Maori version was translated. To claim other-wise is simply dishonest.

The second clause guaranteed property rights to all New Zealanders, and it is on the basis of that clause that, nearly 200 years later, taxpayers (most of whom are not Maori) are paying compensation to those who claim (sometimes with good justification but sometimes with rather little justification) that their property was confiscated in the 19th century.

And, of course, the third clause extended to all Maori the rights and privileges of British subjects — an extraordinarily enlightened thing to do for 1840, not paralleled anywhere else in the world where a colonial power assumed authority.

Nothing about the Treaty suggests that Governor Hobson intended to confer some kind of preferential constitutional status on those with a Maori ancestor, and to suggest other-wise is arrant nonsense.

One Treaty One Nation, to which Ms Kendrick refers, simply emphasises those facts. It's a pity that she resorted to personal abuse rather than trying to rebut the arguments in that book.

DON BRASH

Auckland

Wairarapa Times Age 19/5/16

COMPETE FOR PUBLIC OFFICE

Jim Rimene. Kaumatua and a good bloke. Says it all. Maori are as capable as any other to stand for office and succeed.

I remember Jim’s lovely wife Margaret.

She worked at General Plastics and made her way to a position of supervisor, she also was a natural leader who had the respect of us all. Colour was in those days irrelevant, all had their own ways and beliefs and whatever path you followed was up to you but at work we were one.

People trying to make a living bringing up their families.

At social gatherings our kids never gave thought to race, but were certainly aware of differences in some of our customs.

Our kids learnt quickly that you never sat on a table and that you could enjoy food straight from nature, plus much more.

But most importantly we could recognise those who had the ability to lead through their own efforts.

I do accept that many injustices of the past needed to be addressed and recompense is part of that.

But I don’t accept that Maori can’t compete for public office on a equal footing.

What we need in our society is the will to participate, and at the very least use your right to vote. Yes Jim, all can succeed as you and yours have shown.

R D

Masterton

VIA BALLOT BOX

Congratulations on your paper printing the comments of Jim Rimene on the subject of Maori councillors. He is quite right in what he says about any self respecting Maori aspiring to represent on the council doing so via the ballot box and having nothing to do with the patronising automatic appointment in this important role.

I don’t think mayor Patterson and her councillors have done themselves any favours when it comes around to election day. As for Mary Tipoki’s letter in the same edition this just stirs up both Maori and Pakeha. I have never heard about this separatism being advocated in 1939 nor have I ever heard of Major George Clifton but then there have always been bigots in the past and I suppose there always will be. Some people can always read into things what they want to read.

I would ask that the councillors concerned rethink their position in this very important matter.

K H

Masterton

TEXTS section

■ love Tony Walls letter in WTA on Tuesday. Have to agree with you entirely. If maori want to sit on council then get off your butts and get voted on.

■ Hear hear Tony Wood. The best letter so far regarding the outrageous Maori appointments to the council. Roll on November and election day. I wonder how many Maori will legitimately put their names forward. Bob P.

The New Zealand Herald 19/5/16

MOKO’S ABUSE

The “Mum speaks out” got my attention. She does not take the blame but how were CYF to know the children were in danger if nobody notified them? And where was she during the two months she left her children in the care of those scumbags? And where was the children’s dad? It is sad, and almost predictable, how in cases such as this there is no mention of a dad.

And where was the extended family? No, it does not take a village to bring up a child, it is primarily the responsibility of the parent(s) and family. Not the village’s or the Government’s or CYF’s.

Alan Duff’s article is spot-on. He knows what he is talking about. Maori always pride themselves about caring family connections but it seems to be more talk than substance. The sad fact is that their so-called leaders, the top brass of the iwi who got huge pay-outs to right the wrongs that had been done, are only interested in playing the big boys’ game of investing and making profits, and being generously rewarded. Nobody holds them to account.

H V K,

Hamilton.

NZ Herald 19/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON SEATS

Ms Marvelly should note the Mayor of New Plymouth’s problems did not arise simply because he wanted Maori representatives on the council but because he wanted to give them unelected positions against democratic conventions, the wishes of councillors and a majority of the public as indicated by polls.

B J

Omokoroa.

Christchurch Press 19/5/16 (Also in Northand Age 19/5/16)

DEMOCRACY DEAD?

Are ratepayers aware that their rates help pay their council's membership to Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ)?

In August 2015, president Laurence Yule from LGNZ signed a memorandum of understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group. LGNZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving "economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision making".

Meanwhile the Ministry for the Environment, at Minister Nick Smith's direction, sent a group of ministry employees around the country to 'consult' with the community about freshwater.

The deal is done. The Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to LGNZ. Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the rate-paying public in their wishes to not have' representation based on ethnicity.

M J A

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 19/5/16

FISCAL FOOLS GET NOTHING RIGHT

Prime Minister John Key and others were advised a year ago to put in place a stamp duty/ land speculation tax but all the politicians pooh-poohed that proposal — existing tax rules would have stayed in place.

Now we are back on the land tax bandwagon way after the event when the Government should have addressed the issue in 2015. Any land tax must be imposed at the point of sale, not 12 months later.

It needs to be self assessed, self-policing and paid before any transfer is registered. By all means allow a residential exemption for New Zealand citizens, on the primary family home lived in for at least two or three years prior to sale.

Tax collected could have gone into major infrastructure and Greenfields development but frankly the horse has bolted.

House prices New Zealand wide have gone through the roof, depositors and savers shafted by pathetically low interest rates now used to fund low interest loans to crazed house purchasers and property speculators.

Still, why be surprised — these fiscal political fools get nothing right, we have a poor health system (huge waiting lists), failing education systems and welfare schemes are a joke. Don’t forget freshwater and foreshore and seabed either. Grade F for fail all round.

R P

Matapihi

Taranaki Daily News Letters 18/5/16

VOTE ON MERIT

I don’t care what colour, race or planet you’re from. If you’re good enough I will vote for you.

Of critical importance is that anyone who is in public office must have the capabilities, skills and experience to increase the collective pool of ‘talent’ tasked with running said office.

Simply having an interesting opinion, lineage or pastime is not enough to be entrusted with the decisions of our province.

Councillors with anything less than actual experience and knowledge to make logical decisions are a waste of resources and race has certainly shown no propensity for guaranteed skills when looking at many past councillors who have excelled at being paid – Pakeha public office pests.

Race knows no bounds with incompetence and delusions of grandeur.

There is some incredible talent amongst local Maori and contrary to Mayor Judd’s recent public relations disaster, I damn well will vote for a Maori candidate if he or she can do the job better than I imagine I can.

Any action that diminishes racism should be a good thing but Judd has handled this very badly and taken us all down with him inadvertently and collectively tarnishing New Plymouth residents via the media as ignorant rednecks.

Big deal if you’re a recovering racist, you are not unique in making mistakes in life. Get on with your epiphany in your own time whilst the rest of us enjoy the company of our life long Maori mates. What a clown.

J G

New Plymouth

ALL ONE

Maori, Pakeha; we all bleed the same colour, so what’s the real difference.

P G

New Plymouth

GLAD JUDD’S GONE

It is good to see Mayor Andrew Judd is not going to stand for mayor at the next elections.

When a Mayor can’t accept a binding referendum of 83 per cent against a separate Maori ward in the district, then he is out of touch with the people that elected him.

When you get people on council that impose their own views on the community then there is a problem with that person.

This mayor and those councillors voted in favour of Maori wards should also be removed from office as they will be a danger to the city.

I B

Wanganui

WHO’S THE SCOUNDREL?

Danny Keenan adopts his usual racist position in claiming (TDN, 12/5/16) that democracy is not a victory for minorities. Has he forgotten that on the present District Council there is a Maori member, voted in by the majority?

His claims about Maori voting rights in the early colonial period confirm his ignorance. Initially, only adult males (including Maori men) with a property qualification had the right to vote. As this excluded many Maori who held land in common, the Maori seats were introduced giving all Maori men voting rights when many Europeans had none. Probably their number was proportional to the number of others with the vote.. His claim that there should have been 15 is speculation.

Then he misquotes Dr Samuel Johnson who actually said ‘‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’’ So who is the actual scoundrel?

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

THANKS HEATHER

Thank you to our deputy mayor Heather Dodunski (TDN, May 12) for supporting the bulk of our district’s citizens who reject being branded racist. Matt Rilkoff (editorial) and others have drawn the clear distinction that the poll was not a call to ban Maori councillors, but that they be elected in ‘‘open’’ vote. Unfortunately, the mayor’s belated personal learning curve (epiphany?) has been allowed and encouraged, to dominate our local affairs and news to an unwarranted extent.

To Danny Keenan of Whanganui who quoted ancient history, and perhaps too, to the supporters of Maori wards, I suggest that they defer to more recent history, when just prior to local government amalgamation there were numerous councillors of Maori descent, including deputy mayor of Waitara, who were all elected in an ‘‘open’’ system. And they weren’t elected or regarded as ‘‘ Maori’’ councillors, just good citizens working for their communities.

Keenan despairs at the working of democracy as how he views it, but he needs to embrace it, and widen his outlook. Numerous wise people have claimed, that in spite of its shortcomings, it is by far and away the best system on offer.

Apart from now being one much larger authority and more difficult for an individual candidate to be widely known, not too much has changed, other than waning public interest and increasing apathy.

Times and peoples’ attitudes do change, and it is good to have the current mandatory six-yearly review of representation in local government. That is probably frequent enough, especially considering the furore caused by the last one!!

D M

Waitara

BOTH SIDES

Andrew Judd, Mayor New Plymouth claims to be a ‘recovering racist’. The public outburst is the result of a backlash to his initiated referenda to have Maori seats on council, in which he was roundly defeated. Whilst he is entitled to his private opinion he was elected to promote democracy, not separatism . There is nothing in the Local Government Act which denies Maori from standing and being elected to council. How does Andrew explain Winston Peters’ ongoing electoral success?

Andrew might consider reading both sides of the story. Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the now authenticated Littlewood draft which undeniably is the English draft of 4th February 1840 would be a good place to start. Nelson Mandela spent his life promoting ‘equality’ for his people not ‘speciality and separatism’ as tribal interests have been promoting since 1975 when New Zealand’s Treaty history was rewritten.

M J A

Tauranga

WARDS IN ACTION

Congratulations to the people of New Plymouth for dissuading Andrew Judd from standing for public office. It is surprising that he managed to become mayor when he apparently had so little regard for democracy. To better understand what he had in mind in his enthusiasm to create a Maori constituency, let’s look at what has happened in other councils which have already done that.

The Eastern Bay of Plenty Regional Council has three Maori constituency seats and eleven ‘general’ constituency seats. In the 2013 local authority elections it took 2804 votes to get three councillors in Maori seats, or an average of 934 votes each. By contrast, it took an average of 10,049 votes to get a councillor in a general seat.The Waikato Regional Council in 2013 had 12 general seats and two Maori seats, it took on average 1243 votes to gain a councillor in a Maori seat and a average of 9,053 to gain a councillor in a general seat. There are many other examples. Voters who cast their ballots in the general constituencies could be forgiven if they gained the impression that their votes were almost worthless. This inequity would have arrived in New Plymouth had Judd’s plan succeeded.

My view is that if councillors are going to sit around the same table, get paid the same, and make decisions affecting the whole community, then they require a mandate from the whole community. What more proof do we need that this profoundly undemocratic form of electoral welfarism needs to be got rid of?

G L

Hamilton

CROWD WISDOM

Tamati Coffey said on Seven Sharp recently ‘‘Maori are under-represented in local government, while the ‘tyranny of the majority’ reigns’’.

As Dr Muriel Newman (NZCPR) has pointed out in one of her newsletters, ‘‘extremist minority groups often raise the spectre of the tyranny of the majority in their call for special government favours’’. But that’s a cop out. A population is made up of individuals, each with their own individual views that need to be respected. That they concur with others over how their country should be run to make up a majority, is not a crime but a strength. The majority view is the summation of all of the individual minority views. It’s not tyranny – it is the wisdom of the crowd.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Dominion Post 18/5/16

REVERSE RACISM

I am appalled by the blatantly slanted article by Dave Armstrong (May 16); it matters not what sort of car Mike Hoskings drives. nor where he lives - he is deserving of an opinion.

You also make a point of saying that if Maori were to stand for election like anybody else Pakeha won't vote for them. Rubbish. New Plymouth District Council has councillor Howie Tamati, elected on his own merits, not his race.

Mayor Andrew Judd was defeated in his bid to introduce Maori seats on the council by democratic vote: once by his own council and again by public referendum. He then wrote to the United Nations on the subject. This mayor is not the hero you are trying to make him out to be. To have any race-based seats on any council is a form of reverse racism in itself.

J W

Levin

TO THE POINT section

* Dave Armstrong (May16) advises that "New Plymouth is the centre of a region with a large Maori population but little Maori representation". There is no reason that the large Maori population can't select Maori candi-dates and vote for them. Why discard democracy in favour of more racial preference? It didn't work in South Africa, why would it work here?

N H

Thorndon

* Our democracy is precious. When any person by reason of ethnicity is placed - not voted - on to a local council and allowed to vote, it is not a democratic act There should be no laws based on race in a democratic country. Democracy has flourished so far but we must beware of those who wish to destroy it.

I F,

Island Bay

* It is likely that the outcome of the New Plymouth poll on a Maori ward shows support for multiculturalism over biculturalism. Those who see this as ingrained racism are wrong.

M W,

Tawa

Waikato Times 18/5/16

MOKO’S DEATH

Good luck to the Waikato Times editor in his campaign against child abuse and murder. Kiwis have been here before. He should focus on Maori abuse of children -this is the real issue.

Take out the Maori figures (5.75 times higher than European) and New Zealand has the lowest abuse figures in the OECD. Maori have an under class who have normalised violence, most clearly seen in gangs. Currently 24 percent of all Maori males in their 20s have done jail time - a triumph of the hippo campus over the frontal cortex.

It is time to confront the fact that violence is endemic in parts of Maori society. There's nothing new here. On the facts presented in the Moko case, the "social worker" was naive and gullible to the point of negligence. She ignored red flags. "Trained social worker"? Really?

How serious does a case have to be before children are actually visited? Mahia Te Tomo describes herself as a "manager". Does she have any proper qualifications? Who is being less than open about what really happened? They seem to have forgotten the most important thing children.

M L

Hamilton

PARTNERSHIP DEALS (Also in Hawkes Bay Today 18/5/16)

Are ratepayers aware that their rates help pay their councils’ membership to Local Government NZ?

In August 2015, LGNZ president Laurence Yule signed a memorandum of understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group. Local Government NZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving "economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision making".

Meanwhile, the Ministry for the Environment, at Nick Smith's direction, sent a group of ministry employees around the country to "consult" the community about Freshwater.

The deal is done and the Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to Local Government NZ. Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the ratepaying public in their wishes to not have representation based on ethnicity.

M J A

Tauranga

NZ Herald 18/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON LIFE

Dame Anne Salmond finds inspiring the Whanganui Treaty settlement whereby a river is “recognised as a legal person with rights of its own”. This in the same country that denies such legal personhood and ensuing protection to the unborn child. Am I the only person who despairs of modern madness?

D G,

Beach Haven.

Wairarapa Times-Age 18/5/16

TEXT section

■ so good to see Jim Rimene in WTA May 16.1 agree with everything he said. John Key got it wrong with the flag. Masterton council has got it wrong with allowing 2 iwi to be present at meetings etc etc. They must be voted on to council by the public which includes Pakeha and our Maori friends. Problem solved. Good on you Jim Rimene and Gary Caffell

■ If Maori want 2 bon Council why dont they put their names forward and be democratically elected as everyone who wishes to be on council does. ■ I'm none the wiser after attending 'SuperSeniors' today and why was Alastair Scott there?

Hawkes Bay Today 18/5/16

TEXT US section

■ Treaty settlement. Who's going to gain from that? Should set up jobs for everyone, not just you leaders. Whanau should set up education programme for those struggling to keep kids at kura.

Dominion Post 17/5/16

THE KEY TO DEMOCRACY

It beggars belief that those pushing race-based agendas in our government bodies start crying racism when people object. Democracy has been successful in keeping the peace in Western countries precisely because it's based on equality of citizenship. Playing around with this fundamental rule to give greater entitlement to self-interest groups is a recipe for disaster (just look at the Middle East). It breeds the sort of anger. resentment and nastiness that New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd says he's been subjected to.

Our current MPs. who have been elected by voters on the general roll demonstrate that race is not an issue to Kiwis. Although putting what's good for our cities or country ahead of one's own personal or family interests probably is. Being prepared to work hard for the entire population, not just your mates, is also important.

No person or group should ever be guaranteed an easier, unchallenged route into government. Long live our democracy. It's certainly taking a battering at the moment.

F M

Whangaparaoa

LGNZ ACTIONS (Also published in the NZ Herald 17/5/16)

Are ratepayers aware 'their' rates help pay their councils' member-ship to Local Government NZ?

In August last year, LGNZ president Lawrence Yule signed a memorandum of understanding with the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Group. Local Government NZ has done a deal to create partnership obligations to councils involving "economic development, environment, infrastructure, employment, social issues, health, housing, energy and local democratic representation and decision making".

Meanwhile, the Ministry for the Environment, at Nick Smith's direction, sent a group of ministry employees around the country to `consult' the community about fresh water. The deal is done and the Iwi Leaders Group's seven outrageous demands are virtually signed, sealed and delivered thanks to Local Government NZ.

Democracy is being sorely undermined when LGNZ can ignore 75 per cent of the rate-paying public in their wishes to tot have' representation based on ethnicity.

M A

Tauranga

The New Zealand Herald 17/5/16

MIDDLE NEW ZEALAND

Lizzie Marvelly’s blatant, sweeping and derogatory remarks on what she perceives as “white privilege” and attitudes have the potential to damage racial harmony in this country and her punitive aggression towards the so-called white-dominated middle class is regrettable. Her blatant lack of respect and “blame game” towards the majority of fairminded people in this country shows the problem is not ours but hers alone and should not be given oxygen.

B E

St Heliers.

Wairarapa Times-Age 17/5/16

BLATANTLY RACIST

I note that Nelson Rangi is claiming that opposition to the appointment of two unelected Maori representatives to the MDC (with full voting rights is “racist” ( Times-Age, May 11). Well he would say that, wouldn’t he, given that he is highly likely to be one of the appointees to what will be a rather well paid job considering the low hours required to do it.

In this case, however, I agree with him about the “racist” bit. It is blatantly racist to have even one appointee to what is a democratically- elected government organisation, based purely on their race, and without any elections being held for the post.

This whole business makes a mockery of the entire democratic process. Why bother having local body elections at all, then? Just appoint the usual suspects every three years and we can save everyone the time and cost of a bothersome election. That is where most of the unease is centred around this decision.

Where does something like this end? How long before the local iwi decide they want four unappointed people (or six, or even more) on the council?

While I fully support the concept of having iwi input and consultation into councilcontrolled areas such as waterways, reserves, etc. I am utterly against any form of voting rights being granted to anyone who has not been elected through the accepted, democratic methods. It’s called democracy Mr Rangi, and if you don’t think that there is enough Maori input into the council, then the solution is to get your people to vote, instead of holding out your begging cup and demanding to be appointed solely because of your race.

T W

Carterton

Northland Age 17/5/16

BACKLASH

Andrew Judd, Mayor of New Plymouth, claims on TV 1 May5) to be a 'recovering racist'.

The public outburst is the result of a backlash to his initiated referenda to have Maori seats on council, in which he was roundly defeated. Whilst he is entitled to his private opinion, he was elected to promote democracy, not separatism There is nothing in the Local Government Act which denies Maori from standing and being elected to council How does Andrew explain Winston Peters' on. going electoral success?

Andrew might consider reading both sides of the story. TeTiriti o Waitangi and the now authenticated Littlewood draft, which undeniably is the English draft of February 4, 1840, would be a good place to start.

Nelson Mandela spent his life promoting equality for his people, not speciality and separatism, as tribal interests have been promoting since 1975 when New Zealand'sTreaty history was rewritten.

M J A

Pyes Pa

Waikato Times 16/5/16

COUNCIL ELECTIONS

With the local government elections later this year, the chance for accountability for their actions by present-day councillors should be taken.

The establishment of two Waikato Regional Council seats based on race were implemented without real consultation or a referendum.

This needs to be tested by asking each aspiring candidate: Do you support the continuation of two councillors based on accident of birth?

Where electorates were surveyed to see if part-Maori should elect their own councillors, the answer was a clear no - Hauraki District Council, 80 per cent no; Waikato District Council, 78 per cent; Nelson District Council, 79 per cent; Far North District Council, 68 per cent. The Colmar Brunton poll 2012 (Consumer link) showed 70 per cent support for abolishing Maori wards in local government.

So why should the Waikato Regional Council continue to have two seats based on race when democracy says they should be gone? Future candidates need to let us know where they stand in representing the views of their electorate.

P H W

Thames

New Zealand Herald 16/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON MIDDLE NZ

Lizzy Marvelly asks “What on Earth is middle New Zealand?” The short answer is: 80 per cent of New Zealanders.

And yes, from her writings, along with Mike Hosking’s, I believe it does not include her.

GEOFFREY T. PARKER,

Kamo.

Taranaki Daily News 16/5/16

FLAWED MODEL

Watching Andrew Judd implicate the whole district as racists for reversing the ill-considered decision to adopt Maori wards highlights the problem that we have with our out of touch politicians and bureaucrats who loath the idea of effective community voice.

I voted against the proposal twice, once as councillor and second as a citizen in the referendum, for a range of reasons, none of them associated with somehow continuing to marginalise an important group in our community from involvement in any decision making.

I just happened to think that the representative model as it operates in local government is flawed and corrupt and saw no need to entrench it even further by adding another ward layer to it.

Our system already does everything to minimise ordinary citizens, not just Maori, having an effective voice in decision making on topics that matter (spare me the box-ticking response about opportunities to "consult" or "deputations").

You’d have to be blind, cynical, or delusional to think that adding another seat around the Council table would fix that.

Just read this Council’s Significance and Engagement policy to understand the true intent and limits on community engagement.

I suspect that a large part of the no vote can be attributed to a backlash from a population consistently ignored by councillors and bureaucrats in favour of insiders.

Interestingly Judd’s response wasn’t "how did we get this so wrong?" but "what can we do to remove the right of binding referenda?" We should all feel uneasy by what that statement implied.

L H

New Plymouth

Bay of Plenty Times 16/5/16

PERFECT NAME

It seems that the name Toi Oho Mai Institute of Technology is a perfect name for a student institution. The name will be abbreviated to TOIT, which is well-known to be part of the student mantra. “I will study when I get around TO-IT”; “I will hand in my assignments when I get around TO-IT”; “I will repay my student loan when I get around TO-IT.”

M G

Omokoroa

Hawkes Bay Today 16/5/16

FAIR COMMENT

Bruce Bissett wrote that the presumptions of too many pakeha are racist.

Bissett looks like a pakeha, so is he being unconsciously racist?

Bissett’s rant was triggered by racism allegations in turn sparked by a comment by TV presenter Mike Hosking on outgoing New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd.

Hosking’s full comment was: “Sad to say I'd never personally attack him obviously but he's completely out of touch with middle New Zealand — there's nothing wrong with Maori representation on councils cause any Maori that wants to stand for a council is more than welcome to do so and you can sell your message and if you're good enough you'll get voted on.” Is that true, false, racist or fair comment?

Our Hastings council shows that there is no impediment to Maori and everyone else to get voted in should they choose to.

Look at the website and count up the numbers.

If Hosking’s comment is deemed racist then it is clear that: (1) our democratic system of one person one vote is on the way out, and (2) there is no longer freedom of speech in NZ.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

CRYING RACISM

Horiana Robin keeps crying “racism” about Mike Hosking’s comment when what he said was correct.

He stated that people should be democratically elected by vote and not automatically by the colour of their skin.

The ex-mayor of New Plymouth tried to force a Maori Advisory Board on the New Plymouth council against the wishes of 83 per cent of his constituents.

They held a referendum and he was massively outvoted.

Exactly the same outcome would happen in Hastings as we already have three Maori council members who advise on Maori interests.

If anyone wishes to be on any board, council or go into Parliament they put their name forward and are voted either in or out.

Ethnicity, religion, age and sex are not taken into account. The best person for any position is voted in democratically.

One person, one vote, with all constituents treated equally under the law.

If I went on to her marae and demanded an automatic seat on her marae board because I was a European would she agree? I seriously doubt it!

Jacoby Poulain, Adrienne Pierce and Henare O’Keefe JP put their names forward for the HDC and thankfully were voted in.

They all work extremely hard for their constituents and are respected by all. (Abridged.)

J S

Hastings

Hawkes Bay Today (Text Us section) 16/5/16

■ If Maori want a seat on council, why don't they stand for election the same as everyone else? Why do Maori need their own seat allocated? I am not racist, with friends of all races and they are all Kiwis to me. I was born in England but am Kiwi now. Remember Dame Whina Cooper. One race, one people.

JR

Wairarapa Times-Age 16/4/16

BENDING THE TRUTH ON TREATY

Abusing the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi has become a powerful political tool of racists in New Zealand who are trying to subvert our democracy by demanding special privileges for people with a bit of Maori ancestry. Some appear in the Times-Age for May 11.

One is PJ Devonshire claiming that appointing unelected Maori to the Masterton District Council is “a legitimate adherence to the Treaty of Waitangi, specifically the first and second articles”. The truth is that by the first article the chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Queen and by the second the property rights of all the people of New Zealand were guaranteed. Anything else is a blatant falsehood.

Another is Cheryl Cavanagh who dislikes letters from “out of-towners”. She brings up that modern fabrication, the so called “principles of the Treaty”, including the “partnership” lie. She also contradicts the truth with “Like it or not, we are formally two peoples, Maori and European.” If she knew any history she would know that as each chief signed on February 6, 1840, Hobson said: “He iwi tahi tatou” — “we are one people now” — which all thought a fine compliment.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

UNDEMOCRATIC

I would like to thank Gary Caffell for his very lucid explanation on May 11 regarding the rather hurried and controversial council decision that two iwi representatives should sit on two council committees.

I have no quarrel with people of any race being elected to council — anyone may stand on their merits at voting time and should be elected democratically. After all, we've had quite a few Maori folk who have proved themselves worthy — Ben Couch and Jeff Workman come to mind and there are more. This latest farce makes a mockery of democracy.

E A

Masterton

Waikato Times 14/5/16

HOSKING COMMENTS

Mike Hosking voiced a viewpoint that most Kiwis would agree with: Maori are eligible to be elected to a seat on any council on merit. Miriama Kamo accuses him of being racist and "out of touch with Middle New Zealand", yet it is she who appears to be living in an imaginary society.

A binding referendum held in New Plymouth rejected a proposed Maori Ward with a resounding 83 percent saying "no", with only 17 percent in favour. Those 83 percent are your middle New Zealanders and represent the views of the majority of middle New Zealanders. Remember when we used to have a democracy?

Political correctness once again has revealed its true purpose - the stifling of freedom of speech. Nothing Mr Hosking said was derogatory of Maori and could only be construed as such by those who are themselves racially motivated.

Councils are voted in to represent their constituents, therefore any proposed change to council structure must be put to the people first. Let all councils hold a referendum on the issue of Maori wards and the views of middle New Zealand will become apparent.

M M

Kalpara

Wairarapa Times Age 14/5/16

DON’T RUSH

Thank you to Andrew Judd for his comments on your front page story “Racist in Recovery”. In it Mr Judd urged Masterton councillors to continue to “have this conversation” about what he described as Treaty-based iwi representatives on the Masterton council. That is the very reason behind my notice of motion requesting that the iwi representation issue be held back until after the local body elections in October so that the new council can determine the next course of action.

This is a hugely important and complex issue with many sides to it and rushing into a decision, which is something the current council has done, is very unwise.

The delay does not necessarily mean the decision already taken won’t remain but at least the consultation process can be much more robust and thorough than it has been up to now.

GARY CAFFELL

Masterton district councillor

Southland Times 14/5/16 (Also in Waikato Times 14/5/16)

HOSKING ACCUSATION

Mike Hosking is being accused of, quote "a 'racist' editorial outburst" end quote, and that it is likely he will be in hot water from his employers TVNZ.

His final comments on Mayor Andrew Judd's interview were acceptable to middle NZ as all polling results on "race-based seats" within Local Government have been resoundingly negative.

The Human Rights Commission, when explaining Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees citizens:

1. Hold opinions without interference.

2. Freedom of expression including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds . . . either orally, in writing or in print in the form of art or other media choice.

Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act states that "everyone has the right to freedom of expression, freedom to seek and receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form".

The only good part of Seven Sharp TV1, is Mike Hosking's pertinent and succinct comments when he signs off, and my question is, "who has actually made that accusation"?

MJ A

Tauranga

Northern Advocate 14/5/16

MAORI SYSTEMS

I was talking recently to a part-Maori youngster, about 16 years of age, and asked him which school he was going to. He gave a rather startling reply: I haven't been to school for three years!"

The next question was, "Then what do you do all day?" His answer, "Nothing." Apparently at schools he had attended in the past he either created so much trouble (fighting, etc) that he was asked to leave, or he just walked out. He is a nice enough young man, but obviously nursing a lot of under-lying anger.

We are constantly informed in the news media of the wonderfulness of the Maori social structure, with millions of taxpayers' dollars being allocated to various Maori organisations. Well then, where are they — the marae, whanau, caring elders, Whanau Ora, other Maori-only institutions?

Here we have a youngster in desperate need of help, yet no one appears to be interested in helping him. His future seems destined to be a life on the dole, joining a gang, or just becoming another prison statistic. So where are his counsellors, his spiritual and cultural advisers, and his whanau support?

I will try to help him to the best of my ability, but then again, I am only a pakeha.

M M

Kaipara

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 13/5/16

REGARDING CHILDREN AS CASH COWS

Re: G Clark's letter ‘The Government encourages those irresponsible parents!' (The Weekend Sun, April 29).

G Clark rudely suggests I am “enamoured” by my “blue-tinted spectacles” which I sadly do not own, as he declares I'm incorrect in not blaming the Government for the fact that, out of all the children in New Zealand in Child, Youth and Family care a massive 60 per cent are Maori out of a population of just 15 per cent.

May I suggest G Clark visit his optometrist and renew his bi-focals as he reiterates exactly what I said – which is that there is too much easily accessed benefit money which encourages people to breed and regard their children as cash cows, or just breed because they are too lazy to use contraceptives and just do not care. G Clark always blames the Government for all his complaints and ailments.

The welfare system in New Zealand is one of the best in the world but it is abused by those who carelessly bring children into the world with neither the means nor desire to properly care for them.This is why I suggested there be benefits for the first two children only. And yes, sadly Maori do predominate the numbers who abuse their children.You cannot blame the Government for their lack of responsibility – why is it that 85 per cent of non-Maori have a cleaner record?

We are all NZers.

Perhaps the answer would be for the media to name and blame all abusive parents. The shame of public exposure of all cases of abuse just might prevent yet another attack on a defenceless child.

M B

Tauranga City.

Northern Advocate 13/5/16

HOSKING CORRECT

Mike Hosking voiced a viewpoint that most Kiwis would agree with: Maori are eligible to be elected to a seat on any council on merit.

Miriama Kamo accuses him of being racist and “out of touch with Middle New Zealand” yet it is she who appears to be living in an imaginary society.

A binding referendum held in New Plymouth rejected a proposed Maori ward with a resounding 83 per cent saying “No”.

Those 83 per cent are your middle New Zealanders and represent the views of the majority of middle New Zealanders.

Remember when we used to have a democracy?

Political correctness once again has revealed its true purpose — the stifling of freedom of speech.

Nothing Mike Hosking said was derogatory of Maori and could only be construed as such by those who are themselves racially motivated.

Councils are voted in to represent their constituents, therefore any proposed change to council structure must be put to the people first.

Let all councils hold a referendum on the issue of Maori wards and the views of “middle New Zealanders” will soon become apparent.

M M

Kaipara

Wairarapa Times -Age 13/5/16

OPINION OFFENDS

Your editorial (May 9) on iwi representation yet again makes the mistake of categorising people collectively as Pakeha' or 'Maori' as if this were the 19th century rather than 2016. Your implication that people of Maori descent cannot achieve in Western society without special assistance is both patronising and offensive. I do not think for one minute that you believe people of Maori descent are somehow less able, but that is certainly one of the implications of what you write. It also gives people an excuse to blame others (Pakeha'?) for their problems.

You list positions that apparently require people of Maori descent to fill them and write that patched gang members will become role models. Leaving aside the point that we actually need people of competence to fill these positions regardless of their background, perhaps you should make that point to the Governor-General or the high number of MPs of Maori descent. Once you embark on 'affirmative action', you devalue the achievement of those who make it through their own ability and efforts.

In this particular case, giving special privileges to iwi representatives effectively gives two votes to those who identify through the tribal system (which, of course, is very far from being all those of Maori descent). I'm sure a suggestion that those Maori should then be disbarred from direct voting for council would not go down well. The proposal that gives the representation to iwi leaders promotes their power, status and financial reward and thus reinforces tribalism, but probably brings little benefit to other Maori. Sadly it is tribalism which is often seen as a significant hindrance to the success of so-called indigenous people. By giving your support, how-ever lukewarm, to these pro-posals, you are acting as a fellow traveller with activists and radicals.

The lessons of the past are quite clear — appeasement of these people does not work. They only come back with more and more outrageous demands. For decades now, there has been an unrelenting Maori agenda and propaganda in schools, universities, colleges of education (sic) and the public service including the health sector, (which is perhaps where the mayor picked up her drippy ideas), but things don't appear to have changed for the better.

High time for a different approach, perhaps.

D F

Masterton

MORE DISCLOSURE

As one who lives in a multicultural family, I don't wish to get involved in a fight about race. But I firmly believe that elected representatives serve our community well. Many boards, community groups, etc, co-opt different groups when expertise is lacking. This can enhance the democratic process. If the council uses such expertise when needed no problem.

I do take issue at the cost. Question how much at $200 a meeting x two is it costing us. Many of us volunteer our time to assist our community for no recompense, and this is as it should be. I watch in horror at the amount paid to different co-ordinators, community leaders, etc, when pensioners and low income earners are struggling on less than these two will be paid for two meetings. All over our country we see inequality, where huge amounts of money are handed out to those who are supposed to make decisions to assist those in need. If you hand over say $5 to a service provider you expect to receive $5 worth of goods in return. When public money is spent, we surely can expect to receive value for money.

Perhaps as Gary Caffell says, a little more consultation, and full disclosure of costs, and perceived benefits could be in order. After all, as ratepayers and taxpayers it is our money being spent.

R D

Masterton

Taranaki Daily News 13/5/16

FALSE PLATITUDES

I believe as a community is it unfair for our district to be labelled racist as we have in national media over the week.

Mayor Judd is making a stand that he believes in his heart 100 per cent is the right one, and this reminds me of the saying ‘‘a man who doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything’’.

But let’s not lose focus of what an amazing community we are, shown by the amount of citizen awards we received this year as noted by the deputy Mayor.

On top of this let’s not forget the great work this council has done this term, including blueprint and district plan work, the work of resetting the PIF and adjusting the PIF release to an achievable level without hiking rates.

Continued growth within the district and more strategic focus has also been a focus this term.

Going forward we need a mayor who is stable and consistent who is level headed someone who understands the system and can operate and function within it but still be effective. Past.

Let’s not get caught up in what the national media think or say but when voting comes around this year lets hope a mayoral candidate comes forward who has the knowledge and ability and leadership values this community deserves to lead it into the next crucial three years. Cr Shaun Biesiek

Bell Block The outpouring of sympathy for Andrew Judd from the PC brigade will surely result in the Pope canonising him.

Judd served several terms as a councillor, watched over massive rates increases, the disembowelling of our Perpetual Investment Fund, doubling in size of council staff, the continued misinformation about the costs of Len Lye, just to name a few things.

If we look at the Maori ward issue why, during two or three terms, ‘‘seeing the pain in their eyes’’, was he not honest enough to raise the issue.

Had he not faced concerns from local iwi and hapu members who would have espoused this cause.

His epiphany, oddly, occurred only after he got the job, or was he a typical ‘politician’ with his own agenda which he did not have the honesty to tell the electorate?

What he wanted was positive discrimination for Maori which surely is a form of racism, just as the Labour Party in the UK’s policy of women only candidates was a form of sexism. It is tokenism of the worst kind.

For Howie Tamati to describe the referendum, as he did on the news last week as, ‘‘the tyranny of the majority’’, is shameful; someone should remind him what democracy means; those who really believe in it will fight for change.

There is a black President in the USA, whether you like his policies or not, he fought for that right.

Put up a ‘good’ candidate who will work for the whole community as well as ensuring indigenous interests are championed.

P B

Bell Block

Wairarapa Times-Age 13/5/16 (Text your thoughts section)

■ Whole heartedly agree with Tuesday TA Letters — rather patronising of MDC to allow a member from each tribe to join council meetings.

■ when r maori going 2 do what everyone else in this country does 2 get a job apply thats right apply, instead of expecting work positions 2 simply b given,? say that out loud @ they, I call u a racist, dont 4get though there r maori only schools, @ sports teams, so who r the racists?

■ Editor claims that Maori need an "artificial boost" to help them seek representation on council's. Are they really that hopeless they can't do that themselves like any other can-didate as had to do?

■ if Marama Fox claims the accountability on Maori committee meetings is so high,

How come they are not standing for Council? Stop always looking for a 'leg up' I'm sure Martin Luther King would think the same, Maoris are treated like royalty compared to the way Black Americans were.

■ mayor Patterson in your comment today in paper council wants to get a gauge on what public wants. Get this. People don't want unelected iwi undemocratically placed on the council.

■ Maori term a myth ... Read the only treaty Te Tiriti not the one from the Weetbix box ... Your arrogance promotes separatism.

Northland Age 12/5/16

WHAT BALONEY

Sam McHarg (letters May 5) observes that the "red-neck season has broken out again". Well, I can tell him that we red necks (New Zealand taxpayers), who have actually done an honest days work under the sun, can tell our pale brown. neck layabouts and their white neck buddies who don't know what a hard day's work is that we are getting sick of being falsely accused of all the harm they say we have done to them, their lies about the Treaty of Waitangi and their incessant demands for more and more cash and privileges from us.

McHarg lists a few examples of brutality by Europeans, to which we could add those of Asiatics from Genghis Khan to the Japanese rape of Nan king to Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Chinese in Tibet and plenty more, but all this has little relevance in New Zealand.

He appears to allege that Maori would not have got muskets had not European traders supplied them. Well actually, most sailors were quite reluctant to part with muskets, which were valuable possessions to them. Hongi went on a buying spree for muskets in England and got hundreds more in Sydney with money from the French and sale of gifts he had received, and so the slaughter escalated.

Then Anahera Herbert-Graves yet again (same issue) blandly states that "Prior to 1840, iwi and hapu were vibrant, functional constitutional polities with the right, capacity and authority to make politically binding decisions". Oh, boy. Lovely words, but what baloney.

It is a plain fact that life in Maori times consisted largely of unabated butchery, cannibalism, slavery and female infanticide. In a few decades of the musket wars nearly a third of the population was slaughtered by other Maori, but it suits today's racists to blame all the harm on the British, who actually saved them from self-destruction.

As for her Tuhoe — they never signed the Treaty because Hobson did not have sufficient troops to escort his emissaries and protect them from Tuhoe savagery. Perhaps Tuhoe should now forfeit all the privileges of New Zealand citizenship, plus all their ill-gotten gains from false Treaty settlements.

Appeasement never solves anything, as King Ethelred and Neville Chamberlain found out the hard way. It is high time for it to stop.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

PLEASE EXPLAIN

Perhaps Anahera Herbert-Graves could explain to me and other readers of the Northland Age why she rabbits on about history. Throughout history many injustices have taken place, affecting many people and ethnic groups. Perhaps the same person could explain what she is doing to improve her people's lives in 2016, to prosper, as I can see no benefit in digging up history.

Anahera, you need to move out of the square you are living in 150 plus years ago and start living in today's world if you really want to support and help your people. Many of your people have moved on from the past that you live in, and are doing very well for themselves and their families, knowing that living in the past prevents them from the benefits that 2016 and upcoming years offer them.

I may be no genius, but then I am no fool. One would consider the best things for Anahera's people today are issues like health, education, housing, drugs and alcohol, as well as violence control, dependency of welfare and an understanding that today is the most important day of anyone's life, as we cannot change yesterday and we may not see tomorrow.

People like Anahera Herbert-Graves are only fooling themselves, as nobody living today knows what those of the past were thinking or their intent when they signed the Waitangi Treaty. Many of your people served and died alongside what you call Pakeha, in unity for king and country, but also to protect what we had regardless of race or colour, to protect our way of life for generations to come. How many of your people would turn in their graves if they only knew the great division a few are trying to create through dwelling on the past?

Yes, I have served with your people, worked and lived amongst them as well as employed them Most of them very grateful to be a part of the New Zealand way of life that the early settlers offered them, and they knew there was no future for than with the fighting, rape, cannibalism, slavery, infanticide etc., which was taking place before the white man's arrival in New Zealand.

It is possible that the Maori race may have become extinct had it not been for the white man's intervention, or because of their savagery the above would still be happening today.

I believe the only reason for today's discontent is nothing other than the dollar sign in front of a few people's eyes, having more white blood in their veins than Maori, being discontent for no other reason than greed and power for themselves.

J B

Diggers' Valley

THE BICULTURAL MYTH

Whatever people may think, culture is not about the clothes we wear on high days and holidays, nor the ornament on a string around our neck, nor even about the moko on our chin. Culture is about how we actually live, work, play and relate to other people. Thus the typical part-maori — as almost all are these days — lives in a house with a real floor, supplied with piped water, electricity and sewage disposal. The family will get most of its food from a supermarket or a junk food outlet and its clothing from a retail store — not a flax root or grass skirt in sight. It will have a TV set, a refrigerator, a car and several cell phones. The men and boys will play or watch rugby —in one code or another — have a few beers with mates on a Saturday evening and sometimes go to church on Sunday.

There will be a hospital not too far away and even a helicopter to rescue really urgent cases. For all or most of the time, the language it speaks is English, and members will read or write in English as the occasion requires. Now there is nothing wrong will all this, and I hope it is a minimum for the majority. However, and this is the key point, in every single instance, everyone of these aspects of living, good or otherwise, is a direct inheritance from the family's Anglo-Saxon Celtic forebears and cousins. In short, its culture is British, none other, and its lifestyle not very different from that of most people in the United Kingdom or Australia and better than that of many in the United States. Of course there is some Maori influence around — the names of towns and rivers and so on, and if a local group offers a concert where the women and girls whirl poi and sing a canoe song, well and good. Most of us would go along and enjoy it, but, to be honest, these are not the essentials of life.

Again, concocted 'Maori' words on supermarket signs for words like 'biscuits', 'wine and 'air fresheners,' or for 'police' and 'council' on government buildings, are nothing but the window. dressing of foolish bureaucrats and others with nothing better to do. Somebody said not long ago that it is only a matter of time before the Maori language becomes an ornamental one like Latin, but even Latin has no need for such artificialities. And while we are at it, there is that haka composed by baby- eating savage Te Rauparaha, with words beginning "Kill him! Kill Him". It is surely beginning to look well past its use-by date, and it would be kind to consign it to the dust bin of history. Anyway, it probably makes much of the world believe we are half-naked savages with bones through our noses.

So, I say forget all this politically correct and self-conscious rubbish about 'biculturalism; which even Sir Paul Reeves could not describe coherently. Let us allow our culture to evolve naturally, without force-feeding. If some Maori flavour endures in it, so be it, but inevitably we are and will remain the nation founded by the British, and in that surely we are fortunate

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

FREEDOM TO SPEAK

Mike Hosking is being accused of, quote "a 'racist' editorial outburst" and that it is likely he will be in hot water from his employers, TVN Z. His final comments on Mayor Andrew Judd's interview were acceptable to middle New Zealand, as all polling results on race-based seats within local government have been resoundingly negative.

The Human Rights Commission, when explaining Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantees citizens the right to hold opinions without interference, and. freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or other media choice.

Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act states that "everyone has the right to freedom of expression, freedom to seek and receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form". The only good part of Seven Sharp TV1 is Mike Hosking's pertinent and succinct comments when he signs off, and my question is,'Who has actually made that accusation'?

M J A

Pyes Pa

The New Zealand Herald 12/5/16

TREATY COMMISSIONER

Gareth Morgan, the infamous Wellington cat-hater, now wants to neuter Mike Hosking. Why? He doesn't agree with The Hosk's opinion. In Morgan's view, "The time is overdue for a Treaty of Waitangi Commissioner to augment the role of the Race Relations and Human Rights Commissioners and specifically censure deliberate denigration of the Treaty." The liberal elite is alive and well in the people's republic of Wellington, but not freedom of expression.

D G

Beach Haven

Taranaki Daily News 12/5/16

JUDD’S DECEIT INAPPROPRIATE

Reading you paper recently, I was stunned by the reporting of the Andrew Judd "I’m not standing again" spat. All of the stories which I read on the subject cast Judd as some kind of Maori rights hero, and the New Plymouth populace as a bunch of bigoted racists for exercising their democratic right to vote.

Unless my memory fails me, Judd did not push his views on Maori wards during the mayoral campaign (when people could have chosen not to vote for him), and once elected, sought to impose his preference on the town. In my opinion, that kind of deceit is inappropriate, in even a politician, but to then go ahead and garner media sympathy for his fall from public favour (by drawing attention to that tiny minority of people who vented their anger in an entirely inappropriate way) is disgraceful behaviour for an elected official.

The media reporting of this incident has been equally shocking, with the usual band of screaming band wagon jumpers like Rachel Stewart allowed to mouth off their own personal bigotries, with no editorial checks or balances. Who are the real bigots here? The ones who brand an entire town as rednecks and racists, or the ones who exercise their democratic rights to prevent an unpopular decision from being forced upon them?

Is this not an appropriate time for the press to confront Judd, and ascertain why he was not more forthcoming on his views on Maori wards before he was elected? It seems apparent that this was the cause of the chain of events which has led to us being described as ‘‘the most racist province in New Zealand’’.

Judd needs to front up, and put the record straight.

M H

New Plymouth

A SMOKESCREEN?

I do not condone spitting and threats, however people in the public eye must be prepared for criticism and unwelcome publicity. Mr Judd is not the only public figure that bears this cross – just ask any other mayor in the country. The NPDC has been a dysfunctional organisation for quite some time, and Mr Judd’s ascendance to the mayoral chair has only exacerbated the seemingly inherent problems. Throughout his tenure Mr Judd’s performance and judgement have been questionable on many issues – the Maori ward debacle being only one example.

However, Mr Judd is using this particular issue as a smokescreen to divert attention from his many other failures and, in the process, transforming himself – with the help of people like Dame Susan Devoy and Willie Jackson – into some sort of folk hero. These people need to wake up and look at the bigger picture.

I do not believe that the people of New Plymouth are racist just because they disagree with Mr Judd’s ideas in relation to a Maori ward, but I must say I am very happy to be living in South Taranaki where our mayor (and council) just gets on with the business of looking after the community.

C C

Patea

YELLOW JOURNALISM

Before I get to the main issue I want to raise I must protest the unfortunate example of yellow journalism on the front page of Wednesday morning’s edition. The banner ‘The Rise of the Redneck Reputation’ above the front page story is scurrilous journalism, which doesn’t address the articles that follow, does a disservice to your readers and the citizens of New Plymouth, and is at odds with Matt Rilkoff’s balanced editorial on A7 which addresses the the issue that ‘Racism is an Ugly Accusation’. Shame on the headline writer who penned those words.

The whole issue around the subject of a Maori ward has been lost in the careless labelling of racism, and it’s interesting to note that neither Chris Manukonga nor Bill Simpson, candidates in the upcoming election, are in favour of a single Maori ward. Mr Simpson echoes a position I advocated when the idea of a ward was first put forward. I voted against the ward concept on the grounds that it didn’t go far enough. With five iwi having rohe within the district boundaries one representative wouldn’t, in my opinion, be sufficient. For me it smacked of tokenism. So racism wasn’t the reason for my ’no’ vote.

The financial power and the significant asset base of the North Taranaki iwi could be the foundation of a Maori Council (and it could be a statutory body) with significant political clout to regularly sit down with the NPDC and discuss issues of mutual concern. That would be meaningful involvement in the local political process.

Finally, mayor Judd’s handling of the issue, both at the time and subsequently, hasn’t helped the situation. His naive assertion that he was ‘recovering racist’ was, for me, pathetic. He may have only recently acquired all this knowledge, but he was on council for a long time during which Puke Ariki mounted several significant exhibitions addressing a range of issues relating to Maoridom (including the very major Land Wars display). Did you not take the time to attend those Andrew? There was lots to learn there. I supported and voted for Andrew when he was on council, talked with him a number of times about local issues at his optical business practice, and volunteered in his mayoralty campaign. Donning the mayoral chains sadly seemed to change him.

C M

New Plymouth

BRING ON ELECTION

The October local body elections can’t come quickly enough now. Then we can elect a mayor who wants to promote our district, as opposed to one who seems to take satisfaction in making us infamous for being racist. He did not get his day of glory by being mayor of the first district to introduce a Maori ward and is now misreading the whole process, and misleading the media.

New Plymouth voted ’NO’ to the introduction of a Maori Ward.

The majority of us did not vote against Maori representation on the council. It was just not the right way of going about it.

Surely the whole process is to remove all racialism so why introduce something that is separatism in nature.

It’s all about equality so we should all be playing on a level field. Anyone can put themselves forward for election, but first they have to get themselves noticed and build up a reputation that makes the electorate have confidence in putting them on the council benches.

With Howie Tamati not seeking re-election after 15 years serving the community, let’s hope that there will still be Maori representation on the next council. We don’t need councillors who represent Maori; we need councillors who represent the whole district, albeit from a Maori perspective. We should all be working together in harmony to benefit our little bit of New Zealand no matter what our ethnic background is. Perhaps when the dust has settled we can regain our reputation for being a great place to live and work’ - but it will take time.

R J

Inglewood

MAORI IN BUSINESS NOT POLITICS

I have read the front page article and letters to the editor plus watched Mike Hosking on Seven Sharp, listened to his comments which I agree with, after Andrew was interviewed for the programme. I am left wondering why Judd has never acknowledged that he has Howie Tamati as an elected member of council and sits at the council table.

Maybe he has never noticed him there, plus also wonder why if he felt so strongly about a Maori voice that Howie was not selected for deputy mayor? If your readers read the article on PKW farms you will see that Maori are progressing very well and in fact leading the way in our province and maybe the smart ones find it more rewarding to grow their business than stand for election on the NPDC.

M V

Midhirst

Wairarapa Times-Age 12/5/16

DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM FOR ALL

There is a simple way in which Maori can get speaking and voting rights on the Masterton District Council.

That is to put up candidates and have them voted on to the council in the accepted fashion.

This is the process with which the rest of the citizens accept, and work, so why should the Maori not have to do the same?

The system that our government (national and local body) is democratic, one vote per citizen. There should be no variation, for political correctness, for Maori or for any other reason, from that practice.

T L

Masterton

VOTING RIGHTS

I consider Masterton District Council is most undemocratic in giving two iwi representatives speaking and voting rights, plus payment of our rate money, on a council that is democratically voted in by the ratepayers of Masterton.

These iwi should be treated exactly like we who can vote for our council. Maori are New Zealanders so let them stand for council like all the elected members have done.

The mayor and some of her fellow members are showing a crass ignorance of democracy. So much is being done and decided by people just being added without any consultation of, as in this case, the rightful public, the voting ratepayers.

Let this be a non-event in this year of council elections by urban and country electors. Who are these present members of the council who think this is fair? And who of us, the voting public, think this should be automatically decided by a council that may be ousted this year?

M T

Masterton

Wanganui Chronicle 12/5/16

MAORI ROLES

The Chronicle article of May 6 by John Maslin, re. "Maori roles still undecided", is of some interest in Whanganui. This has only arisen as part of the New Plymouth mayor's sudden resignation.

Councils are increasingly (and legally) required to consult with iwi. That seems to irritate some writers. The format can be as observer status or full voting rights on some standing committees, or a designated Maori ward representative. I would bet that most residents (no criticism intended) have no idea of how we consult with iwi. It's actually at the lower end of what's available to council.

The mayor stated that council has not debated the issue of appointing iwi representation at committees. Fair enough. It will come up in due time as part of any overall good governance review and forward planning.

Just economically speaking, we stand to significantly benefit by working within iwi settlement and the future business opportunities that will arise. In light of the resignation of the New Plymouth mayor, who secured a one-vote majority for a dedicated Maori ward representative (subsequently over-turned by an overwhelming referendum), the matter will need some steerage — one day.

As an aside, in Whanganui we have a problem with various past and present councils (in my respectful opinion) confusing and alienating sections of the public as to why two clear referendums on the "H" were ignored; oops a factor, but not binding? Done and dusted out-come. However, the issue of referendums is not. New Plymouth's referendum was binding and overturned the Maori seat at council vote. We must get Whanganui's future referendum guidelines sorted through community discussion.

I do not support a dedicated Maori seat at council simply because there has been zero recent community — or council — generated discussion. Where would that push come from? It hasn't. If and when it comes, the important aspect is we go to community as the first step, and that includes iwi. The current format is council working with the Tamaupoko Link.

R F

Aramoho

JUDD'S STAND

Re. Anna Wallis' editorial (May 10) "Mayor's stand for iwi right side of history": On May 6, New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd announced he would not seek re-election. What Anna hasn't mentioned was that [in 2015] Grey Power petitioned and forced a binding referendum where 83 per cent of those who voted were against the proposal of race-based [New Plymouth District] council representation.

Mr Judd wouldn't accept the result of the binding referendum. He considered the binding referendum was unfair. The feeling of the voters was that people should only be elected to council on their own merit.

Nothing in the Treaty says anything about Maori having special rights. What makes matters worse for the mayor is he did not express his view about Maori representation to the electorate before being elected, and didn't claim any mandate to advocate the separatist democracy he is now promoting. ( Abridged.)

I B

Springvale

Chch Press 12/5/16

NGAI TAHU DOES PAY TAX

I correct a comment by John Burn in his letter (May 7) that Ngai Tahu pays no tax? Ngai Tahu pays no income tax, but it does pay Maori Authority tax.

Ngai Tahu produces two sets of financial statements. One is for the Ngai Tahu Charitable Trust and the other is a consolidation of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu (Front) and the Ngai Tahu Charitable Trust.

It is in the Tront accounts for 2015 that the iwi reported non-taxable income of $139,404 ($172,254 for 2014) which will be income from its many commercial trading enterprises that the iwi claims have charitable status.

In 2015 the iwi paid tax of only $13,000 and reported a tax liability of $452,000 which, when grossed up at the Maori Authority rate of 17.5 per cent, suggests taxable income of $2.6 million.

Ngai Tahu was able to add at least $39m to its coffers through the exemption from income tax on its 2015 income, a subsidy from the taxpayers of New Zealand.

The iwi also reported details of remuneration in its Tront report with one unnamed person being paid between $800,000 and $809,000 and five other people paid over $500,000. Eight people were paid between $299,999 and $500,000 and 88 people earned between $100,000 and $300,000.

MICHAEL GOUSMETT

Rangiora

Dominion Post 12/5/16 (To the Point section)

Dame Anne Salmond's call for a waterways commission to urgently take charge of the country's water is timely. Any Waitangi Tribunal decision is likely to be in favour of Maori ownership. Our Government recently declared that water and air are owned by all of us (as the foreshore and seabeds were supposed to be). Now is the time for -all of us" to affirm this by appointment of an independent waterways commission.

M B

Auckland

The New Zealand Herald 12/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON RACISM

New Zealand has lost its way. Mike Hosking merely stated that democracy is for all to have the same equal rights to be voted on to council. It is Maori who are racist wanting preferential treatment!

C. H

Katikati

Kapiti News 11/5/16

UNWINNABLE

Karen Butterworth (letter May 4) has taken it upon herself to apologise to the readers, yet again. This time for her part in re-living the hurtful past. Her signing off seems a realization of the unwinnable position she has adopted.

I do not share her apologetic nature and believe rather than a head in the sand approach, we need to discuss this tribal tragedy that is unfolding before us. Karen informed us that she now intends to focus on a “nation” we can be proud of. The word “nation” describes a large body of people that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek a government peculiarly its own.

How then is this proud nation supposed to exist when we have a made up group of people effectively suing the descendants of innocent people who lived or governed generations ago. This apparently separate section of our nation is hell bent on obtaining sovereignty, ownership of natural resources and power sharing situations at every level of our lives.

Karen stated earlier that Treaty settlements that are paid out have succeeded in turning around Maori disadvantage and will save us taxes. Rarely have I heard a statement so far from the truth. Maori continue to fall further into the depth of despair, particularly since the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975, the worsening social statistics for Maori should be a source of shame for not only Karen Butterworth but for all Maori leaders in New Zealand. In chasing treaty dollars, making up a separate identity and wanting separate representation they have failed their people in the most miserable way.

There is no Maori leader in New Zealand today that can say that they have improved things for all Maori people, not one. This is disgraceful. Sir Apirana Ngata would turn in his grave at this racist political maneuvering.

Karen also informs us that Treaty settlements are nearly finished. Did she not read the half page advertisement in this very paper directly below a letter of mine (March 16) entitled in big blue letters “Hapu Gearing Up For Treaty Claims” where Ngati Raukawa have trained 23 students at Te Wananga o Raukawa to assist them in further claims against the tax payers of New Zealand.

Treaty claims are a racial epidemic in this country, they are a symptom of a society in a political melt down. The sooner we have some strong leadership that galvanizes New Zealanders as one people, as Hobson did in 1840 with his statement “he iwi tahi tatou”, or “we are now one people” the better.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

The New Zealand Herald 11/5/16

NEW PLYMOUTH’S OBJECTION

In the deafening silence from those paid to protect and promote New Plymouth, someone should offer a few words of defence. The district has reluctantly become the latest centre of debate about race-based local body representation.

A poll revealed the same scepticism exists in New Plymouth as just about everywhere else, to the notion that an exclusive Maori ward and seat on the district council would solve the problems that challenge countless government departments and budgets. If it would, those same wary voters would tick that preferential option in a heartbeat.

Instead, the electorate has decided universal and equal suffrage is too valuable to become the plaything of those seeking temporary, feel-good solutions that have not worked anywhere else.

Mayor Andrew Judd has brought an unfair stain on his community and is basking in the praise of a slice of the community focussed on the last century and not the next.

C L

New Plymouth

ACCEPTABLE COMMENT

Mike Hosking is accused of a “racist” editorial outburst on Mayor Andrew Judd’s interview. Hosking’s comments were acceptable to middle New Zealand as all polling results on ‘race-based seats’ within local government have been resoundingly negative.

Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act states that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression, freedom to seek and receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form”.

The only good part of Seven Sharp is Mike Hosking’s pertinent and succinct comments when he signs off.

M J A

Pyes Pa.

NZ Herald 11/5/16 (Short & Sweet section)

On Hosking Mike Hosking is accused of racism for suggesting it is racist to put people into unelected positions on councils based on their race. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Monty Python skit.

D A

Mt Albert

Wanganui Chronicle 11/5/16

`MUST READ'

Recently, I asked the Davis Library staff if a copy of a particular book was held by the library. The answer was no, but a copy would be purchased and added to the library stock.

Two weeks ago I was advised that the book was waiting for me to uplift. What a sound investment. This book, entitled One Treaty, One Nation, is written by eight well-qualified New Zealanders who are concerned at the way democracy and equality of citizenship is being undermined in our country.

It is a "must-read" for every-one who has had a gutsful of the special treatment and financial benefits afforded those people who declare themselves to be "Maori". Not only does the book disprove the myths and erroneous beliefs of this minority group, it also exposes the lies that some self-serving activists and separatists are inventing in order to gain further concessions and handouts at the expense of all other citizens.

The fact that the book is not widely available is testimony to its veracity and the unwillingness of some elements within society to widen the ever-increasing chasm between "Maori" and all other New Zealanders. This is despite the efforts of the racially biased Waitangi Tribunal and successive lily-livered governments who continue to drive the wedge deeper.

I recommend this publication to all those who seek the real truth about our history, especially the last 200-odd years, as opposed to the nonsense expounded by those who continue to pursue their fabrications for personal pecuniary advantage. A copy may be obtained via www.trosspublishing.co.nz ($40), or wait in the queue for the one held by the library.

D P

Eastown

The Southland Times 11/5/16

FAILING OUR CHILDREN

In the aftermath of Moko Rangitoheriri’s horrendous death, the major players in his life have, yet again, failed. Crown Law dropped a murder charge in favour for a guilty plea of manslaughter.

The wider iwi have also failed to keep him safe or condemn his abuse. It is my view that, yet again, iwi leadership have remained silent while everyone else looks for the usual reasons of hopeless whanau, dead brain Child Youth and Family management and the long-held cry of colonisation.

A way to engage iwi leadership would be to have a default clause in any Treaty of Waitangi settlement that required an iwi to return $1 million, for any child living in their iwi region, that dies from abuse by one of their iwi. Any tribe that refuses to pay back would not be able to lodge any further claims. New Zealand pays billions [of dollars] to iwi who favour ongoing growth in corporate wealth.

In relation to CYF, we have two issues. The female relative, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, advised she rang CYF 11 days before Moko’s death. It is alleged that CYF did nothing. It will have lodged the call into its computer system, which then prioritises the urgency of its subsequent investigation response, into one of four categories. The top category is 24 hours; the bottom is 28 days. If they hadn’t visited the child within 10 days, they must have put the call in the third-lowest of the four categories. I would like to see what information the CYF call centre staff were able to extract from the caller and what category it was placed in.

When CYF management are asked to comment, they make a ‘‘no comment because this case will go to the coroner’’. That will take months, if years, by which time a couple more Maori kids will be abused to death.

We really don’t need another coroner’s report that indicates CYF communication, Crown Law and whanau/hapu failure. Nor do we need to have a major costly shake up of CYF that goes beyond the next two general elections. All CYF media releases are ‘‘managed’’ by spin doctors out of their national office. If we were to do a poll of CYF confidence, the results would be ugly. I know it does excellent work but occasionally gets things wrong, with fatal consequences, lest we forget James Whakaruru.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust have it right. Anyone who kills a child, an elderly person or someone with a mental incapacity, should do 25 years, thus making a safeguard for our most vulnerable.

N C

Otatara

Taranaki Daily News 11/5/16

UNFAIRLY BRANDED

In parroting the Judd-as-visionary line, your correspondents Hudson and Russell (TDN, letters, May 9) mistake the underlying reason why his proposal received an overwhelming 'No'. Regardless of where one stands on the Maori ward issue, the whole business was precipitated by Judd's inappropriate use of a casting vote on 23 September 2014.

As it is inconceivable that one immersed in local-body politics is unaware that the status quo is the appropriate option in a tied vote, one can only surmise that Mr Judd determined to push his own barrow because it suited him to do so. This is not the cast of mind one seeks in a public representative, but its clear presence is demonstrated in his unwillingness to abide by his electorate's wishes.

This includes his call for revised legislation, his stating an intention to refer the citizens of New Plymouth to the United Nations and, most ill-mannered of all, his subjecting a royal visitor and the representative of a family traditionally above politics of any sort to a harangue on the importance of indigenous culture and the need for local councils to work with iwi. Visionary? Obsessive is surely a more appropriate term.

Mr Judd's pursuit of demagoguery indicates that he never grasped the notion that the citizens of New Plymouth will hold their elected representatives to account. Also contrary to Hudson and Russell's viewpoint is Howie Tamati's presence on the council. It alone is clear proof that outstanding community figures of any descent can win council seats, and long may recognition based on ability rather than ethnicity continue to prosper.

Mr Judd's petulance and media antics surrounding the announcement of his decision not to put his principles, intentions and values up for public endorsement or public rejection leave a taste in the mouth as their totality has left an electorate unfairly tagged as racist. If this is the extent of a mayor's concern for his community then I, too, would cross the street to avoid acknowledging him.

M B

Oakura

Wairarapa Times-Age 10/5/16

WRONG DECISION

The decision by Masterton District Council to allow ‘iwi representatives to join council committee meetings with speaking and voting rights’ is wrong in so many respects. It is undemocratic, divisive and patronising. It promotes separatism and tribalism, neither of which benefits those Maori at the ‘bottom of the heap’ nor those who do not support Maori special privileges. The only people who benefit are activists and tribal leaders.

Councillor Chris Peterson’s statements are just latter-day PC tripe with no basis in fact or history. Hooker’s comments about the about ‘ tangata whenua’ are equally fatuous. Gary Caffell’s remarks about the imminence of a new council are relevant. Even if the proposal had any validity, why the rush? Why not let the voters have their say?

D F

Masterton

DIVIDED NATION

I have been reading of the appointment to the Masterton District Council of unelected iwi representatives.

I do not understand why council services require separate racial consideration. Do footpaths, parking and dog control need a Maori viewpoint? Are libraries, parks, street lighting and rubbish collections any different for Maori?

As Maori are part of the general population and every council serves that general population then why the need for a Maori ward?

We are becoming such a divided country and race-based legislation should have no part in local or central government.

Surely this is an insult to Maori who are more than capable of standing on their own two feet.

No council should have unelected representatives with voting rights as this is a blatant violation of democracy.

R B

Tauranga

MAORI TERM A MYTH

I read that the Masterton District Council will be having two iwi representatives joining council meetings as well as speaking and voting rights.

Councillor Doug Bracewell said there was no voice for Asians. Councillor Johnathan Hooker stated that Asians are not tangata whenua. Even mayor Lyn Patterson stated on radio that Maori are tangata whenua. Those people on council who support the myth that Maori are tangata whenua do not know anything about our history. They are deceiving the public.

The true meaning of the words is “the ancient ones or the people before us” until Maori changed it to mean themselves.

Even the late professor Ranginui Walker, past head of Maori studies, had stated “the traditions are quite clear on one point whenever crew disembarked there were already tangata whenua (prior inhabitants), the canoe ancestors of the 14th century merged with these tangata whenua tribes”, in the treaty Maori are called tangata Maori.

Lyn Patterson said the council plan is to promote partnership with Maori as required by the treaty, what a load of rubbish. It doesn’t say anything about partnership in the treaty, she doesn’t know what she is talking about.

It seems that around the country the people who are promoting separatism/ apartheid are our white leaders who are in power, not the Maori people. I hope the people of Masterton will vote for a clean out of some of their councillors and mayor. Don’t let them deceive you. The treaty gave Maori the same rights as everyone else.

I B

Wanganui

Taranaki Daily News 10/5/16

HAS JUDD NOW RECOVERED?

The other night like many thousands of people throughout the country, I watched the Seven Sharp programme in utter disbelief I saw New Plymouth District Councils mayor Andrew Judd state that he is a recovering racist, I just could not believe what I was hearing. Question - Has he now recovered?

In any multicultural society there is absolutely no room for racism whatsoever. When the elections of Oct 2013 took place, of which I too was a candidate, Andrew Judd got elected to be the mayor of New Plymouth District Council of which I congratulated him on at the time. (In my opinion he got elected based on the district being sick and tired of lack lustre performances from the past). This position comes with a high degree of leadership, accountability and responsibility to all members of the district.

My question is why did he take the role on in the first place? I think he has let down the community of which he has been elected to serve. After all this is a democracy and we don't always get what we want and the people of New Plymouth district have spoken regarding the Maori seat on council.

I also for the record do not condone in anyway the actions that effected his family. Sadly, this has done nothing for the image of New Plymouth district and its people. It's about time the New Plymouth district was in the news for far better things, here's hoping!

C M

Former mayoral candidate

The Southland Times 10/5/16

EQUALITY COUNTS

Andrew Judd, mayor of New Plymouth claims on TV1 (May 5, 2016) to be a ‘‘recovering racist’’.

The public outburst is the result of a backlash to his initiated referenda to have Maori seats on council, in which he was roundly defeated.

Whilst he is entitled to his private opinion he was elected to promote democracy, not separatism.

There is nothing in the Local Government Act that denies Maori from standing and being elected to council.

How does Judd explain Winston Peters’ ongoing electoral success?

Judd might consider reading both sides of the story.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the now authenticated Littlewood draft, which undeniably is the English draft of February 4, 1840, would be a good place to start.

Nelson Mandela spent his life promoting ‘‘equality’’ for his people not ‘‘speciality and separatism’’ as tribal interests have been promoting since 1975 when New Zealand’s Treaty history was rewritten.

MJ A

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 10/5/16

INAPPROPRIATE

Re Peter Dey’s letter (April 23). Using Te-Moana-a-Kiwa, the original Maori name for the Bay of Plenty, for a teaching institution concerned with technological scientific and mechanical matters is inappropriate.

Maori did not have any concept of a written language until the arrival of Europeans.

Living in the present should not mean that the 3 per cent speakers of the 14 per cent Maori population should have disproportionate usage of language over English.

If culture can be expressed in the way we lead our daily lives then we are not a bi-cultural or multi-cultural society, but a mono-cultural one with minor ethnic variations. (Abridged)

B J

Omokoroa

The Dominion Post 10/5/16

IWI AND WATER

The free bottling and sale of New Zealand water by commercial organisations has prompted much public condemnation, resulting in a statement from the prime minister that no-one owns the water. Should we take this as an assurance, or a warning?

In 2004, Helen Clark's Labour government made an unambiguous statement that the foreshore and seabed belonged to everyone, confirming this by passing the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Seven years later, the National government repealed this act, and replaced it with the Marine and Coastal Area Act, which denied public ownership, and instead declared that no-one owned the foreshore and seabed. However, the same act created a different form of permanent property rights called Customary Marine Title. This was, and still is, available to iwi —and only iwi—who can prove historical and continuing usage of parts of the foreshore and seabed.

Now, proposed amendments to the Resource Management Act include provisions which, if passed, would give to iwi wide ranging powers over the management of New Zealand's water. Although the word "ownership" is not mentioned, the effect of the proposed provisions would be the same. Is this what the prime minister meant by no-one owning the water?

B C

Wadestown

Northland Age 10/5/16

WE DON'T

Nick Smith asked on Radio New Zealand, "How do we ensure that iwi are involved in the decision-making process around freshwater?" The only legitimate answer is, "We don't".

There is nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi or anywhere else which gives Maori tribes any right to be involved. To give tribes any involvement in the decision-making process which is not granted to others is strident racism.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Hawkes Bay Today 9/5/16

MISINFORMATION

Contrary to the suggestion by Pat Magill (May 4), Healing Our History — The Challenge of the Treaty of Waitangi by Robert and Joanne Consedine is not a good source for information about our early history.

These are muddled Irish Catholics who confuse our history with many other very different stories, including some from their ancestral home about the long history of how "Catholic Ireland was dominated by the superior force of Protestant England", even a personal experience in "the Celtic twilight".

This is a grievance book, not a reasoned account of the colonial period. It provides only confusion rather than an understanding of the real, the simple and straightforward, Treaty of Waitangi and its promise of equal citizenship.

DR JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

Wairarapa Times-Age 7/5/16

PRAISE FOR COUNCILLORS’ STANCE

The actions of councillors Goodwin and Caffell (Times-Age, May 5) in opposing the undemocratic appointments of Maori on to the Masterton District Council with voting rights is praiseworthy.

Their stance supports best government based on equality of citizens.

It is also totally justified under the Treaty Of Waitangi which guaranteed Maori the rights and privileges of British subjects in return for granting sovereignty to the Crown. Equality, not preference.

Mayor Lyn Patterson incorrectly infers that legislation “demands” Maori input in council decision- making. Instead the Local Government Act 2002 imposes “an obligation to consider what steps the council can reasonably take to encourage and assist Maori to participate in local affairs”.

“These provisions do not confer special rights and privileges on Maori that are not accorded to other tauiwi (other members of the public).”

Can the council let us know what other races or groups have representatives, with voting rights, to its standing committees?

Lastly, councillor Chris Peterson’s take on history seems contrary to many historians, and while I don’t agree with many things Gareth Morgan says, in this he is on the button. Councillors Goodwin and Caffell, New Zealanders salute you.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

NEPOTISM

The Masterton District Council appointment of unelected iwi with voting rights to council shows that the mayor and councillors who voted for such a measure stinks of nepotism and favouritism and special privileges to iwi.

Mayor Lyn Patterson says legislation requires Maori input into the council decision making process and is to promote a genuine partnership with Maori as required by the Treaty.

The mayor appears to be the only one in New Zealand who knows about it because no one else does.

The comments by the deputy mayor Graham McClymont telling councillors not to “fear” the reaction of Pakeha voters beggars belief, and spells out what he thinks about democracy — the one person, one vote flies out the window and don’t take any notice of what the public think.

Councillor Chris Patterson then adds to the debate by saying it was about “putting us on the right side of history”, and this statement makes the confusion complete as nobody else knows.

Ratepayers have a lot of problems in front of them with this council but give councillors Goodwin and Caffell a tick because they are believers in democracy and their ratepayers.

M L

Te Puke

MAORI INPUT

So Masterton District Council has voted to have unelected part-Maori representatives on committees with full speaking and voting rights. One speaker claims that this “would guarantee valuable Maori input in areas important for Wairarapa’s development, such as the environment”.

Why such input is more valuable than that of elected members is not stated. As Michael Skermer noted: “The relatively low environmental impact of hunter- gatherer societies is the result of low population density and inefficient technology, not from conscious efforts at conservation.”

Local Government New Zealand president Lawrence Yule has chipped in with the remark that: “Legislation, especially the Treaty, required councils to consult Maori.”

Now this is a blatant lie. The Treaty of Waitangi said no such thing and to have anybody so ignorant about it as president is an outrage.

If the memories of electors of Masterton are not too short, they have some chance to rectify this violation of democracy in November.

Perhaps the council members who voted for this measure were frightened to be labelled as racists. By voting as they did they have shown that this is exactly what they are. (Abridged)

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Waikato Times 7/5/16

WATER OWNERSHIP

While some of what Tom O’Connor says about water, ( Times, May 3, 2016) is reasonable, his statements about what was agreed in the Treaty of Waitangi depart a long way from the truth. He quotes the Waitangi Tribunal but the findings of that body are almost invariably twisted and in the case of water, grossly wrong.

There is just nothing in the Treaty to justify the false 2012 ‘‘ruling’’ of the Tribunal ‘‘that Maori have traditional rights and interests in water guaranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi’’ and its finding ‘‘that those rights were equivalent to ownership under the Treaty’’.

We do better to look in the Treaty itself, as too few actually do, to find out what it says. Contrary to O’Connor’s claims, there is nothing in Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi which says, in both Maori and English, that Maori could retain everything they owned unless they were willing to part with it. In fact the word Maori is not even present in Article Two. What it actually does is guarantee the continued possession of ordinary property (which is what taonga meant in 1840) to ‘‘tangata katoa o Nu Tirani’’ that is ‘‘all the people of New Zealand’’.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

COURT CHARGES

Moko Rangitoheriri died in Taupo hospital, August 2015 and two people have pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter rather than stand trial for murder.

Tribal elite blame all the negative statistics held on Maori on the ‘‘colonial oppressors’’ - but how can anyone, other than Maori be held responsible for these tragic consequences to so many of their mokopuna?

Millions of Europeans and other cultures suffered enormous hardship and brutality in the 18th century and they did not have a welfare system to cosset them.

Anne Tolley quotes the majority of children known to CYFs are Maori and says we (the government) have to partner with iwi, whanau ora, procurement agents, purchasing agents, with Maori academics, and with Maori whanau.

The taxpayer spends billions of dollars annually on a multiplicity of Maori initiatives, but nothing changes. Where does the responsibility lie?

MJ & GV A

Tauranga

Southland Times 7/5/16

JUSTICE QUESTIONED

Manslaughter convictions for the carers of a horrifically abused Taupo toddler show the judiciary is prepared to apply a cost/benefit to murder placing a monetary value on the life of children. While a manslaughter conviction was conviction, it won’t gain time served for the proper conviction, murder.

What else could it be? The pair tortured the child by kicking him, stomping on him and slapping him. They rubbed his own faeces in his face. He was eventually beaten to the point where he suffered facial swelling, internal bleeding, septic shock from his leaking bowel and swelling of the brain.

Moko was left for four days suffering those injuries before the couple rang 111, saying he had fallen off a wood pile.

The rhetoric blithely blames everybody else and their inaction.

The truth be told, nobody really cares. It is becoming so rampant that the constancy of it is making us immune; our only real interest is the depth of brutality attached to it. Just another beaten brown face.

‘‘Maori don’t care, why should we’’ is the unspoken reality, thought few will admit it.

Child Matters chief executive Anthea Simcock asks ‘‘What can we do that we’re not producing other adults who might end up doing such horrific things to children in the future?’’.

Well, the time is long overdue for Maori to face up to the malaise that taints them; their whole culture needs to change.

We see little brown faces of mokopuna who have been abused and pummelled to death rarely are there white faces.

Maori exist in disproportionate numbers in all the worst statistics; they are a blight on our communities and an embarrassment to their tribes,hapu and iwi.

The data indicates they long in need of a long hard look at themselves their lifestyles and the consequences of that lifestyle It is ironic that they bleat on about the importance of whanu time and time again, yet it is the whanu that is doing the damage to the mokopuna. Time to tell it like it is and to hell with the PC rubbish. Deal with the data, not racism and emotion. Nobody understands that lives are being lost but nobody cares.

P E-M

Hamilton

TRAGIC DEATH (Also in the Chch Press 7/6/15)

Moko Rangitoheriri died in Taupo hospital in August 2015 and two people have pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter rather than stand trial for murder. Tribal elite blame all the negative statistics held on Maori on the ‘‘colonial oppressors’’, but how can anyone, other than Maori, be held responsible for these tragic consequences to so many of their mokopuna?

Millions of Europeans and other cultures suffered enormous hardship and brutality in the 18th century and they did not have a welfare system to cosset them.

Anne Tolley quotes the majority of children known to CYF are Maori and says we (the government) have to partner with iwi, whanau ora, procurement agents, purchasing agents, with Maori academics, and with Maori whanau.

The taxpayer spends billions of dollars annually on a multiplicity of Maori initiatives, but nothing changes. Where does the responsibility lie?

M J A

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 7/5/16

WAR OF WORDS

Re Tommy Wilson supporting the demand for a day commemorating the NZ Wars (Opinion, May 2). This idea is, in my opinion, little more than an attempt by activists to rewrite history, pull on the korowai of victimhood and so gain additional leverage over the Government and further privileges and compensation.

A more suitable and less contentious commemoration for Maori would be to remember the Musket Wars in which upwards of 60,000 were killed. Is this unappealing as the British were not involved and so has little political mileage?

Wilson, in his column, then supports the new name for the Polytechnic. Gordon Roberts, in his letter on the opposite page, in attempting to translate Toi Oho Mai illustrates the pointlessness of the name. It seems it could mean anything or maybe nothing at all. Bay of Plenty Institute of Technology says it all and needs no more elaboration. (Abridged)

R P

Welcome Bay

The Northern Advocate 6/5/16 (Also abridged in NZ Herald 6/5/16 Short & Sweet section)

STRIDENT RACISM

Nick Smith asked on Radio New Zealand: “How do we ensure that iwi are involved in the decision-making process around freshwater?” The only legitimate answer is: “We don’t.”

There is nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi or anywhere else which gives Maori tribes any right to be involved. To give tribes any involvement in the decision-making process which is not granted to others is strident racism.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wairarapa Times-Age 6/5/16

MAORI RULING TOO RUSHED

There has been an interesting reaction to my decision to vote against the proposal to have two iwi representatives appointed by committee to the Masterton District Council. There have been some who have seen it as an insult to Maori and others who have seen it as standing up for pakeha sick of what they consider to be “tokenism”.

In truth my decision was based on the fact that councillors had less than 24 hours to digest what was being proposed and I felt it made no sense to rush into a vote on such a radical change over which consultation with the wider public had been virtually nil. The democratic process deserved better than that.

It also seemed to me that with the local body elections just a few months away it would have been more prudent to spend that time consulting with the community before recommending the next course of action — if any — to the new council.

GARY CAFFELL

Masterton

Southland Times 6/5/16

PROTECTING CHILDREN

Child Youth and Family (CYF) is a racist institution and iwi should be given the right to care for children in state care, former Maori Party leader Tariana Turia says.

Dame Tariana is known for using her tongue as her taiaha and wasted no time sharing her thoughts.

Maori comprise 60 per cent of children in CYF care.

Dame Tariana believes there is an unconscious bias in CYF system. ‘‘I have to say institutional racism is rife right throughout government agencies including CYF.

‘‘The whole way in which they view certain groups of people, their attitudes against those groups of people and the way they use their power against those groups of people, is horrendous.

‘‘Here we have an organisation that has been failing for many, many years, miserably for that reason, iwi should be given statutory rights to care and protect their children where they can, by removing tamariki away from their kainga, their whakapapa, its only going to perpetuate the problem.’’

For that reason, she said, iwi should be given statutory rights to care and protect their children where they can.

Well they can’t. I see a complete and utter disconnect in her statements, the iwi had the statutory rights in the first place by the very nature of their birth into the iwi, then the iwi failed them which led them to placed in CYF care.

CYF doesn’t pick on a certain demographic, that demographic presents itself by its behaviour to CYF, a person concerned for the welfare of the children has contacted CYF. Empirical evidence for the year 2015 shows how many benefit babies there are relative to total births, (being a benefit baby means relying on apparent or care givers benefit) by the end of their birth year most will become reliant nearer to their birth date rather than their first birthday, many will go on to experience long term deprivation.

Child poverty is largely (thought not exclusively ) the result of benefit babies, the worst areas are those with the high Maori populations Gisborne and Northland, of all benefit babies 54 per cent have a Maori parent or care giver.

Almost three quarters of benefit babies are on a single parent benefit, that’s the nub of the problem, a lack of two committed parents prepared to take financial responsibility for having a child

Dealing with data rather than tainted racist emotion presented show this malaise has its roots within it own demographic.

P E-M

Hamilton

The New Zealand Herald 5/5/16 (Also in the Northland Age 5/5/16)

COLONISATION BLAMED

Moko Rangitoheriri died in Taupo Hospital in August last year and two people have pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Tribal elite blame all the negative statistics held on Maori on the “colonial oppressors”, but millions of Europeans and other cultures suffered enormous hardship and brutality in the 18th century and did not have a welfare system to cosset them.

Anne Tolley quotes the majority of children known to CYFs are Maori and says the Government has to partner with iwi, Whanau Ora, procurement agents, purchasing agents, with Maori academics, and with Maori whanau.

The taxpayer spends billions of dollars annually on a multiplicity of Maori initiatives, but nothing changes. Where does the responsibility lie?

M J A

Pyes Pa.

Wanganui Chronicle 5/5/16

TE PUTAKE HOORAY.

The so-called Whanganui Region Maori News, Te Putake, is back after an absence of several months. My question is ... why? This insert in the Chronicle is totally unnecessary as it contains nothing that could not, nor should not, be included in the daily newspaper and is often duplicated from the mainstream publication. Is it a way to thicken the usually slim Wednesday paper once a month or is there an ulterior motive?

The only acceptable justification for this publication is if it was written in te reo and targeted at a minuscule element of the local population who may use te reo as their daily language and read written commentary in the same language. Obviously this is not the case, so the only reason for having a few pages designated as "Maori news" is to appease a small section of the community and meet the self-imposed PC — desires of the Chronicle hier-archy or their NZME masters.

I am sorry, but this seems like a blatant act of preferential treatment or racism, neither of which has any place in New Zealand society today. A response may be appreciated by a vast majority of the city's population.

D. P

Eastown

Editor's response: No duplication; no devious thickening; no self-imposed PC-ism; no racism. The Chronicle has numerous pages devoted to specific interests from sport to motoring to the arts — they are aimed at those with that particular interest, though we hope everyone will find something of value there. There was a feeling that the Chronicle was not connecting with a number of Maori and Te Putake is a way of addressing that. Mr Partner can skip that part of the paper, but hopefully he won't ... he, too, may well find something of value there.

Taranaki Daily News 5/5/16

IN PERSPECTIVE

I would like to thank Bruce Moon (TDN, letters, May 4) for putting in perspective the extreme violence in NZ prior to the Treaty of Waitangi. The death toll in the 40 years from 1800 makes the next 40 (roughly to Parihaka) look like a drop in a bucket.

Close to home, we in Taranaki have only to recall the appalling massacre, torture and cannibal feasting on locals by the invading Waikato at the fall of Pukerangiora Pa. As someone opposed to all forms of violence to all living creatures - be it world war or violence in the home or cruelty to animals - believe we should be very careful not to disguise the violence of all the New Zealand wars from future generations by way of sanitised education and sincerely trust that this is not happening.

To that end perhaps the emphasis of celebrating Waitangi day could be turned to feature the start of peace in New Zealand.

E S

Inglewood.

Northland Age 5/5/16

MODERN FICTION

Herbert-Graves is at it again (May 3) with her bogus claim that the Treaty of Waitangi gave Maoris an "equal constitutional relationship with the Crown".

Nothing could be farther from the truth. If she and others actually read the treaty, they will find that by it the chiefs ceded sovereignty completely and forever to the Queen. Note: it was ceded, not "taken," as Herbert-Graves claims. The consequence is that all Maoris became subjects of the Queen— British subjects— for which read New Zealand citizens today. By article third they received the great gift of equality with other subjects, equal under the Crown.

Her "equal constitutional relationship," sometimes called "partnership," is a modern fiction conjured out of thin air by racist political activists, and calling it a "promise" is a blatant falsehood. She should get over her delusion to the contrary.

The consequence is that, in spite of her outrage, the Crown, or de facto the government of New Zealand, does exercise unilateral power, and in doing so does not, repeat not, breach the treaty. The treaty was indeed breached by various tribes when they rebelled in the early colonial period, but they were treated with remarkable leniency subsequently, albeit there was some confiscation of land of which they had received due prior warning and ignored. Were it not for the activities of the corrupt Waitangi Tribunal today all this would belong in the past and forgotten, but alas, this is not so.

If Herbert-Graves reads a bit more of the treaty, she will find that tino rangatiratringa, or possession of ordinary property was assured to "tangata katoa o Nu Tirani", that is "aIl the people of New Zealand," and all means all. It also illustrates the fiction that our country is "Aotearoa". Nu Tirani is a straight transliteration of New Zealand and no Maori is on record as objecting to this when the treaty was signed.

As for her "fluid and dynamic constitutionalism that provided a natural rhythm and order to Maori society", it is actually hard to square this with the brutal tribal warfare with cannibalism on a colossal scale, slavery and female infanticide, which was the practice of pre-colonial Maoris. In a mere 30 years about one-third of the entire population died in consequence, and, as Paul Moon has noted, the psychological scars may remain to this day. This was what Maoris did to Maoris, and cession to the Queen saved them from more of it.

In short, Herbert-Graves and her cronies have created a fantasy world of their own. Her Iwi Chair's Forum and Matike Mai Aotearoa are nothing but pressure groups. No part-Maori today has any more constitutional rights than any other New Zealander. This is called democracy. Woe betide us if we allow it to be undermined by the efforts of the racists amongst us.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

YOU'RE WELCOME

I have come across a rather unusual concept called 'decolonisation,' — a programme for Maori to rid themselves of "multiple layers of colonial oppression and imposition of Pakeha world-views". To fully immerse themselves in this concept, perhaps the devotees of de-colonisation would wish to experience the life of their early ancestors.

My old books tell of rampant inter-tribal warfare— a tale of rampaging cannibal tribes slaughtering their way around the country. Life was short, harsh and brutal. Maui Pomare studied Western medicine when he realised that many aspects of Maori culture conflicted with health and hygiene, and actively sought to banish the influence of the tohunga.

He believed assimilation into Pakeha society presented the best hope for Maori people. I wonder if it is even appreciated how much these people owe their comfortable lifestyle today to their unthanked colonial ancestors who have taken them from Stone-age to Space-age in a very short time. Surely more a cause for gratitude, acknowledgment and celebration!

R B

Tauranga

Taranaki Daily News 4/5/16

TERRIBLE TIMES

Frank Gaze (TDN, April 28) speaks of "those terrible times 150 years ago" and bemoans "our lack of thought about [conflicts] in the 19th" century. Well, conflicts in the 19th century began in 1800, not 1840, and a few facts and figures should help remedy "our lack of thought".

First, the years 1800-1840 were times of brutal and barbaric fighting between Maori tribes with wholesale cannibalism and slavery. A careful and conservative estimate is that there were 32,325 deaths directly attributable to this warfare in a population of about 120,000 in 1800.

In the next 40 years, the early colonial period, tribal rebellions led to the killing of about 750 Government forces, colonists and loyal Maoris, including women and children, and 2000 rebel fighters, a total of 2750. This total was exceeded in just two actions in 1821 near Auckland when Ngapuhi overwhelmed local tribes.

In World War I, about 18,000 New Zealand soldiers were killed, died of wounds or sickness and a further 41,000 were wounded but survived in a population of 1.1 million. It is not hard to work out what were the really "terrible times". For Gaze's "150 years" read "200".

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 4/5/16

NAME WILL BE DISREGARDED

I do not think that Mike Lally (Letters, May 3) or Robin Bishop (Letters, April 30) need to worry too much about the name change of the Bay of Plenty polytech to the so called gifted Maori preamble.

This in time will be totally disregarded and it will become know as Technological Institute and possibly later on, for the benefit of overseas students, Western Bay of Plenty Technological Institute, or WBPTI.

Simple, straight forward and just rolls off the tongue.

Students will go for the subjects not the name.

Let’s hope the new council will show more backbone in renaming our place names.

M B

Tauranga

BROWNTON?

Tommy Wilson (Opinion, May 2) talks of the cultural footprint in his column.

Tommy, have you realised that while the European place names are being challenged by Maori, no one is attempting the reverse? There has never been any suggestion that a Maori name become anything other than what it is.

However, it does make me think of a new European moniker for our city and I have a suggestion.

Our city could be re-named Brownton in honour of Archdeacon Alfred Nesbit Brown.

Perhaps one of our churches could also take on a namechange — Brownton Abbey has a nice ring to it.

R B

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 3/5/16

NAME CHANGE A FAILED PLOY

Robin Bishop’s letter (Letters, April 30) and her concerns about the name changing going on in Tauranga — one has to agree with her. There was no public consultation.

The Bay of Plenty Polytech is also changing to a name nobody can pronounce and then telling us it is a marketing ploy for students.

Don’t they realise that English is the most spoken language in the world? Why would all these Asian students come to New Zealand, to learn English. So much for their marketing.

I thought Western Bay was bad enough with the PC stuff but Tauranga makes them look like Little Red Riding Hood. (Abridged.)

M L

Te Puke

The New Zealand Herald 2/5/16

MAY 3 IS NZ’S REAL BIRTHDAY

Did you know that tomorrow, May 3, is New Zealand’s Independence Day? Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated November 16, 1840 was New Zealand’s true founding document and first constitution as it separated New Zealand from the New South Wales dependency on May 3,1841.

That is the day New Zealand became an independent British colony with its own governor and constitution, a legal government under one flag and one law with courts to enforce the law.

While we celebrate the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6 every year, this day only gave sovereignty of New Zealand to Great Britain and tangata Maori the same rights as the people of England under the dependency of New South Wales.

Queen Victoria or Lt Governor Hobson did not have the power or authority to give tangata Maori any special rights or privileges in the Treaty of Waitangi that were not already enjoyed by all the people of England, and none were given.

ROSS BAKER,

Researcher, One New Zealand Foundation Inc

Wanganui Chronicle 2/5/16

COMMON GOOD

Your correspondent Louise Barnicoat is upset because she received a newsletter from MP Chester Borrows about Anzac Day in which Maori were not specifically mentioned. I feel that it was distributed by your MP to the general population of the area and that, as Maori are part of that general population, it has reached you all.

The Anzacs who fought together did it for the common good of our country and race did not play a part at all. I am sure that, at your actual celebration on Anzac Day, Maori would have been appropriately honoured.

It saddens me when I read that Maori are demanding that they be acknowledged additionally as if they are a separate people. We are all New Zealanders, and I hope we all continue to see ourselves that way and that no more division is created than is necessary. (Abridged.)

R B

Tauranga

Hawkes Bay Today 2/5/16

ALL IMMIGRANTS

Does Horiana Robin not understand the meaning of the word indigenous? Indigenous = born, growing or originating in the locality, not imported. Maoris sailed from Hawaiki to New Zealand about 1250AD in five canoes, arriving only about 400 years before British colonists. Therefore nobody in New Zealand is indigenous. We are all immigrants.

J S

Hastings

Hawkes Bay Today 30/4/16 (Text 2 Ed section)

■ Re Horiana, I think you are trying to rewrite history. My great grandmother was a school teacher, she said the Maori children had to speak English at school so they could learn to read and write wkh the rest of the class. Any child, Maori or Pakeha, who disobeyed the school rules was punished or strapped. If the language was taught in the home it would never have been lost, as with other races. Lucky the early missionaries recorded and wrote it down for you.

■ Fostering Te Reo, another great example of passing the buck Horianna Robin. Maori have let themselves down and their language. Look in the mirror and you will find the problem. Too many Maori Just couldn't be bothered ADM

■ Years ago Te Reo was taught in the home. Can parents not do that now, harping on about what happened to Maori years ago is getting this country nowhere.

■ Horiana Robin. If you think I am going to waste my vote in favour of the current, national government In the misguided hope that the current PM gives a flying duck about keeping Te Reo alive then you are sadly mistaken.

■ How are the Kermadecs customary fishing grounds for Maori? It would seem to be a long way to paddle a waka there and back.

Bay of Plenty Times 30/4/16

NAME CHANGES

There are two local name changes in our news this week and I am sure that I speak for many with my opinion on both.

My local library is in Greerton Village which the council are refusing to name Greerton Village Library. There is a huge clue in the names of Greerton Village Community Association and Greerton Village School — so it is obvious that the library also be named Greerton Village Library. Cynically, I feel that it is already a done deal and the logo and notepaper is already printed up as "Greerton Library" — and the wishes of the people are ignored.

The other bone of contention is the new name change for Cambridge Park, once again a done deal, and without the courtesy of even seeking an opinion of the local residents. Two residents have already written letters to this newspaper about it, and while they are the ones who have put pen to paper, there will be many more just as outraged. I find it appalling that rate-payers wishes are not being listened to. (Abridged)

R B

Tauranga

Tauranga's recent history of name changes

■ Churchill Park to Matiu Kauri Grove.

■ Hammond St Reserve to Te Pahou Reserve.

■ Harbour Bridge and approaches to Te Awanui Drive.

■ Route K and Waikareao Expressway to Takitimu Drive.

A link to an article re the above letter > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11631576

Wanganui Chronicle 30/4/16

DAY OF UNITY

Louise Barnicoat has missed a few things — not only were there no people with Maori features or names in Chester's letter, but there were no women, no "outed" gays and no conscientious objectors. Maybe Chester has realised that "He iwi tahi tatou" — "We are now one people". We are Kiwis, one and all Who knows, maybe one of those pictured could have felt he was a Maori or gay or ... ?

As for being mono-cultural, Louise also assumes that they were all Christian Europeans — no Jews, no Muslims, none married to Maori or women of other races.

Anzac Day is the one day that, so far, has not been ruined by racist activists and other groups. It is a day of unity and the celebration of the honesty, courage and community that makes New Zealand stand out from the rest of the world. Let's keep it that way and make it our official New Zealand Day instead of the mess that Waitangi Day is.

T O'C

Heads Road

SEPARATIST VIEWS

In Thursday's letters, Louise Barnicoat bemoans the fact that our MP Chester Borrows did not mention Maori specifically in his newsletter. Last time I looked, Louise, we were all New Zealanders — a term that encompasses all races. May I suggest you stop whinging and take your separatist views elsewhere as there is no place for it in our society.

D P

Eastown

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Did you know that May 3 is New Zealand's independence day? Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/ Letters Patent dated November 16, 1840 was New Zealand's true founding d °cement and first consti-tution as it separated New Zealand from its New South Wales dependency on May :3, 1841, — when New Zealand became an independent British colony with its own gover-nor and constitution to form a legal government under one flag and one law, with courts and judges to enforce the law.

While we celebrate the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6 every year, this day only gave sovereignty of New Zealand to Great Britain, and tangata Maori the same rights as

the people of England under the dependency of New South Wales. Queen Victoria or Lt-Governor Hobson did not have the power or authority to give tangata Maori any special rights or privileges in the Treaty of Waitangi not already enjoyed by all the people of Eng-land, and none were given.

On May 3, 1841, New Zealand became a British colony under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed. While this day was celebrated at the time, it has gone unnoticed ever since. We must again celebrate May 3 as our independence day.

ROSS BAKER

Palmerston North

The Northern Advocate 29/4/16

CORRECT HISTORY

New Zealand is a divided society and, as such, it is not a democracy.

People who were here before Maori arrived were decimated by natural disasters, such as tsunami, volcano and “natural selection”. However, some did survive, and have been drawn into Maori society.

A recent hour-long documentary acknowledges this, but it has been ignored by our socalled authorities!

Why? Because it is not politically expedient, that’s why!

The media, parliamentarians, educational staff, Department of Conservation and even the members of the legal profession ignore this and, over the past 30-odd years, have been trying to write this out of our history.

Sooner or later, New Zealand will become a republic, and this anachronism should be sorted out and canned before then. The sea bed now belongs to “somebody”.

Next on the agenda is fresh water. What next?

One well-known businessman was charged because he wanted to change a window.

You can guarantee it will not stop there.

That there were people here before Maori is a certainty. Why aren’t these people paid out handsomely?

Now don’t think that I am getting at Maori elite. I am not, but while our “powers that be” dance to their tune, they will keep it up.

This is the price of political power that we are currently paying.

Let’s have a referendum on whether we should continue to “front up”.

New Zealand’s future will remain cloudy (Aotearoa) until her past has been unearthed.

K G. M

Kaipara

Northland Age 28/4/16

ETHNICITY ANOMALIES

Many Kiwis are Making valid protests about Waitangi Claimants with very slight Maori bloodlines (ethnicity), and looking for a formula on how to address this anomaly. Well here's the solution; it's called the ethnicity equalisation scheme (EFS).

For openers, we must address the quixotic definition of Maori in S.2 Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974, which most sensible Kiwis consider to be farcical because it seeks to create a statutory Maori race.

If claimants are going to use any level of Maori ethnicity for Waitangi claims etc. then a scheme is required with authenticated certified documents to ensure whakapapa are accurate, with birth certificates, driver's licences and passports etc. endorsed, all showing the degree of ethnicity attributed to claimants. This must be the minimum prerequisite legal requirement prior to obtaining any payments from Waitangi claims. All this actioned at the cost of the claimant.

It follows, when looking at a tribe of say 2000 Members', there must be supporting documentation and evidence for each and every tribal member, with lists made available for public inspection, and then the ethnicity of the whole tribe must be averaged out. Should the perceived grievance claim or any other claim (hard to take seriously) for some reason be successful, and for example assessed at say $32 million, then if the average Maori ethnicity of the tribe is one eighth the payment out would be only $4 million, and the $28 million balance would be withheld, along the same lines as the 'contributory negligence doctrine' to the extent of seven eights representing the ethnicity percentage other than Maori, and funds returned to the New Zealand taxpayer via the government, ie, not paid out Now isn't that a fair and equitable outcome?

Because Kiwis are entitled as of right to know all those who are claiming to be statutory Maori are providing accurate documentary proof, and word of mouth mumbo jumbo is not good enough. If citizens don't want special endorsement there is no need to complete any details, and they will simply receive a normal Kiwi passport without notation - the choice is theirs. Of course other citizens could also choose to apply for the ethnicity endorsement at their own cost. Current assessments indicate no one can claim to have 50 percent Maori ethnicity, and therefore, other than by virtue of the statutory definition, everyone in New Zealand must currently be classified as non-Maori.

R P

Matapihi

DAMNED H OUT!

Dammed h, not to be seen again in Wanganui, Wenua, Waiitiri (southern form) and warn — surveyors spelling in the Wanganui Bush where they were often glad of the shelter of one on a stormy night. Out too with fong or fung the pronunciation of pseudo-educated radio and TV announcers.

Jean Jackson, a friend of mine who features in your columns today, told me that many Maoris, especially women with tattooed lips, couldn't say "L" So the Williams, father and son, transliterated February (the 6th there of, remember) as Pepueri, and they will not have been wrong.

Funny that all our treaty scholars, Orange, Mutu, Salmond, Loveridge etc. etc, have never noticed that.

And while my ink flows freely, please inform your eagle-eyed proof readers that I use the normal English plural Maoris, as everybody did until today's PC mania swept over the country—usage from very early days in the southern heartlands where I come from. Please ask them to desist from changing it.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

ONE BIG MYTH (Also published in Southland Times 26/4/16)

We have been living a lie for the last few hundred years.

There was never a great fleet of canoes that sailed together down from the Pacific Islands bringing hundreds of Maoris to New Zealand.

In The Penguin History Of New Zealand, on page 38, author Michael King referred to the so called 904AD Kupe landing as “The great New Zealand Myth”.

King says the Kupe myth was created by two Europeans and then taught throughout primary schools from 1910 through to the 1970s.

Maori map records show that their historical Kupe sailed into Hokianga harbour in 1325AD not 940AD. Also the Maori book Mataatua, page 6, describes this region as “Hawaiki”, well inside New Zealand waters, that several canoes set sail at different times to establish tribal settlements elsewhere in new Zealand.

The true historical evidence clearly shows that some canoes of the so-called great fleet canoes did not arrive in New Zealand from overseas; they simply sailed down the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand from “Hawaiki”, that is, the Hawaiki located in the upper North Island of New Zealand.

Also, a Professor Howe obtained his research from Maori people who were fully aware that Hawaiki is a name found at the following locations: Hawaiki – Tamaki Auckland; Hawaiki – Maketu northern side of Kawhia Harbour; Hawaiki – Aotea Harbour on the southern side of Aotea harbour. It means simply “a place where we have just arrived, or have just landed’’.

Maxwell C Hill has put out two excellent books on New Zealand’s true history To the ends of the earth and To the ends of the earth and back again.

I B

Wanganui

INDEPENDENCE DAY (Also published in Southland Times 25/4/16)

Did you know that May 3 is New Zealand’s Independence Day? Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/ Letters Patent dated November 16, 1840 was New Zealand’s true founding document and first constitution as it separated New Zealand from New South Wales dependency on May 3, 1841 and New Zealand became an Independent British Colony with its own governor and constitution to form a legal government under one flag and one law with courts and judged to enforce the law.

While we celebrate the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6 every year, this day only gave sovereignty of New Zealand to Great Britain and tangata Maori the same rights as the people of England under the dependency of New South Wales. Queen Victoria or Lt Governor Hobson did not have the power or authority to give tangata Maori any special rights or privileges in the Treaty of Waitangi not already enjoyed by all the people of England and none were given.

On May 3, 1841 New Zealand became an Independent British Colony under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed. While this day was celebrated at the time, it has gone unnoticed ever since. We must once again all celebrate May 3 as our Independence Day. The day New Zealand became an Independent British Colony under one flag and one law, irrespective of race colour or creed.

ROSS BAKER

Researcher One New Zealand Foundation

Palmerston North

Kapiti News 27/4/16

TREATY TALK

Karen Butterworth ended her letter (April 20) with “these columns are not the proper place” to discuss the Treaty. I sense she knew the truth was about to come out. I am sure that many things in our exchange were news to many people, most Karen and I agreed on.

Such as: Tuhoe rising up against the Crowns sovereignty endangering the lives of peaceful New Zealanders of any race. In the Crowns eyes despite Tuhoe not signing the Treaty, under the law they had repudiated any entitlement it may have given them. Yet in modern times Tuhoe are about to be handed nearly $170 million dollars along with an apology from the government that quelled their murderous ways back in the 1860s. An apology for having the audacity to protect the people and sovereignty of New Zealand.

We also agree that New Zealand’s foremost expert in the Treaty, Dame Claudia Orange did not bother to mention at all in her up dated book ‘The Treaty of Waitangi’ the most significant find of the century with regards to the Treaty, a signed draft of the Treaty in English, written in the handwriting of James Busby and signed by Governor William Hobson was discovered in 1989 and is stored in Archives New Zealand. It can’t be a back translation as it is dated two days before the Treaty was written in Maori. Not even Karen can figure out why she did not mention this in any of her books.

Karen also agrees that there were no people known as ‘Maori people’ in New Zealand up until about 1850, a decade after the Treaty. And therefore there is no mention of ‘Maori people’ in the Treaty at all. This will be news to many, in fact most will not believe it. However, it is true, even in the latest September 15, 2007, 7th Edition of “A Dictionary of the Maori Language” available on Amazon, it states it very clearly.

This question then must be asked: If Maori did not exist before 1850, why do we have an Act in Parliament today that allows for only people of the ’Maori Race’ to make claims to the Waitangi Tribunal that rely on breaches of a Treaty that does not mention them? And that question is directly linked to the reason Dame Claudia Orange did not mention the newly discovered English draft. Because the draft makes it clear the Treaty is not with Maori but with all the people of New Zealand. New Zealanders have been seriously misled for many decades regarding our history and the treaty, many like Karen do not wish to discuss it, or they will label you a racist for raising it.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

Taranaki Daily News 27/4/16

IWI FACTS

NPDC records state that they will not get involved in any treaty settlement - it is between the Crown and iwi. The NPDC is giving iwi 76 ha of land. Only 48 per cent is from the Peka Peka Block and three out of the six seats look after the Waitara lease money. The other three are controlled by the NPDC.

Mayor Judd stated that Pakeha are brought up racist. It may be true where he grew up but not in Waitara where all races have intermarried and have grown up together. I have two Maori grandchildren and a Maori great-granddaughter. The NPDC offered iwi the lease sections at under $30,000 each which they said was true market value. Now they are saying we will have to pay unimproved value plus expenses - about $100,000 for the same land.

E W

Waitara

Northland Age 26/4/16

ALARM BELLS

Ms Herbert-Graves— Anahera, but really Angela? —has served notice (April 19) that she will use these columns to advance the claims of a racist pressure group in this country for a so-called 'constitutional transformation.' She cites a `working group' of the Iwi Chairs Forum, whose representative, Margaret Mutu, chairs the group.

The mere mention of this part-Scottish, part-Maori woman should ring alarm bells amongst alert New Zealanders. For instance, in one 2007 interview with a reporter from the English Guardian Weekly, she made no fewer than 18 statements which were perversions of the truth.

Herbert-Graves would have us discard the Westminster constitutional system, which has evolved successfully over centuries, for her "inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa," based on pre-Treaty Maori lore, Busby's futile 1835 Declaration of Independence,"indigenous rights instruments," and of course the Treaty of Waitangi.

Perhaps she should be reminded for a start that by theTreaty, Maori chiefs ceded sovereignty completely and for ever to the Queen, and all Maori, including the many slaves of other Maori, became fully-entitled British subjects— a magnificent gift never before granted a native people. And that was that — a done deal in 1840, which it is nonsense for those like Michael Cullen to call a "living" document today.

She should be reminded too that a substantial majority of the chiefs who signed Busby's piece of paper duly signed the Treaty, and thus ceded rights they might have asserted previously. Her Whakaputanga, or declaration of independence, died 176 years ago, or earlier.

She should also be reminded that the decades prior to 1840 were a period of utmost savagery amongst Maori tribes, with rampant slaughter, cannibalism, infanticide, slavery and land loss, to which, apparently, her tikanga applied.

Again, Herbert-Graves claims that the preceding dialogue has been going on for more than 170 years! That would take us back to about 1844, the year of Hone Heke's rebellion. We remember that it was he who, disgruntled with loss of lucrative trade to Auckland, cut down the flagpole at Russell three times—some "dialogue".

It would he wise to recall that not long ago, her forum put pressure on the government which duly appointed a Constitutional Advisory Panel, in which Maori extremists were heavily included. It proceeded to distribute widely its propaganda with statements referring to spurious "treaty principles,' one being "Partnership is the most commonly referred to principle," with similar distortions of the truth. It expressed favour for the Bolivian constitution, in preference to our tried and true British one. Really!

Fortunately, at the time, we had the good sense to reject their nonsense. It is this sort of extremism that Herbert-Graves would have us accept, and which will be foisted upon us if we let down our guard. They will not desist. The price of liberty, we know, is eternal vigilance. If New Zealanders cease to be vigilant their democracy will be in dire peril.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

A CHARADE

The announcement that influential Maori leaders including Dame Tariana Turia, Sir Mark Solomon and Sir Tipene O'Regan have joined the fight against the creation of the Kermadec Islands Ocean Sanctuary must have come as a blow to a government that over the years has bent over backwards to give iwi leaders whatever they want. Perhaps National will now begin to recognise them as fair weather friends.

Their legal action exposes their claims of being dedicated conservationists—and the only legitimate guardians of the country's natural resources —for the charade that it really is.

Real conservationists, including the US-based Pew Charitable Trust, have been pressuring the government for years to extend the Kermadec Island marine reserve. The current reserve, originally put in place in 1990, covers only the 12-nautical mile territorial sea. The proposed new sanctuary would extend that reserve to the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone limit, covering an area twice the size of New Zealand.

The Kermadec region lies midway between the Bay of Plenty and Tonga, and is one of the most geographically and geologically diverse areas in the world. The sanctuary would create a no-take, fully-protected zone, preventing all fishing and mining in the area adding to the protections that are already in place. Creating the sanctuary would also help New Zealand meet its international marine protection obligations.

Primarily found in the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Aichi Target 11 requires that by 2020 New Zealand must ensure that 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity, are conserved. At the present time, although we have 44 marine reserves covering around 9.8 per cent of our territorial sea, this equates to less than one per cent of New Zealand's total marine area. And while there is some protection in almost a third of our Exclusive Economic Zone, through a ban on bottom trawling in Benthic Protected Areas, these are not recognised as full marine reserves.

The United States and Australia lead the world in marine protection, with the US having upwards of 30 percent of their marine estate classified as protected. The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, which would encompass 15 per cent of the Exclusive Economic Zone, would not only enable New Zealand to meet its Aichi Target, but it would also make an important contribution to a growing network of marine protected areas across the Pacific.

John Key announced the planned Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last September: "New Zealand welcomes the focus on the sustainability of the world's oceans and marine resources— a goal which resonates strongly with our region where so many draw their food and livelihoods from the sea. New Zealanders value our coasts and oceans, which are an important part of our culture, economy and environment, and we are committed to managing them sustainably."

The Maori elite, however, are uniting behind Te Ohu Kai Moana, the Maori Fisheries Trust, in its legal action against the Crown. They claim the new sanctuary would cut across their fishing rights. The Minister for the Environment disagrees: "The claim that this new sanctuary undermines the 1992 Treaty of Waitangi fishery settlement is incorrect The government always retained the tight to create protected areas where fishing would be disallowed, and has done so in over 20 new marine reserves." In justifying his decision to create the sanctuary, the minister explained that no fish has been taken from the area by Maori since the 1992 settlement, despite over three million tonnes being caught elsewhere.

Five non-Maori fishing companies are also affected, but since they have onlymcaught an average of 20 tonnes of migratory species (which can be caught elsewhere) out of a national annual catch of 650,000 tonnes, the government has proposed that no compensation should be paid.

The minister also refutes the allegations being made by iwi leaders that they were not consulted over the proposal, saying that that he met with them before the announcement was made. While Maori leaders are claiming they have been wronged by the deal, and will try to gain compensation through the courts, their actions are exposing their rent-seeking agenda.

By positioning themselves as guardians of the country's natural resources they have been effective in gaining sweeping new rights under the Resource Management Act—and potentially, over the management and control of fresh water. Publicly demonstrating that their driving ambition is really money and power could change all that.

DR MURIEL NEWMAN

NZ Centre for Political Research

Wanganui Chronicle 25/4/16

DEMOCRACY FAILS

My question, put to Winston Peters at a Grey Power meeting, was: "If in government, will you make referendums binding in New Zealand? Under Michael Laws, 75 per cent of Wanganui voted against putting 'h' in our name, yet mayor Main's iwi and the Geographic Board foisted it on our city. That is not democratic."

He answered by letter: "The referendum you refer to was initiated by the council to ask the people, so it should have been designated as a binding referendum. There is no point in such referendums unless they are binding. In Wanganui's case, the local people spoke but the Wellington-based Geographic Board went ahead and ignored them. Worse still, a pan-Maori answer was applied to a local Maori dialect which had never used the 'H' in their pronunciation of Wanganui. For example, when did you ever hear of Tariana Turia using the 'H' in Wanganui?" The Treaty was signed with-out the "h".

K S

Gonville

Hawkes Bay Today 25/4/16

ALL IN SAME BOAT

Does Horiana Robin not understand the meaning of the word indigenous? Indigenous = born, growing or originating in the locality, not imported.

Maori sailed from Hawaiki to New Zealand about 1250AD in five canoes, arriving only about 400 years before British colonists. Therefore, nobody in New Zealand is indigenous. We are all immigrants!

J. S

Hastings

Wanganui Chronicle 23/4/16

TREATY PRINCIPLES

Reply to Potonga Neilson letter (April 14): Thank you, Potonga, for admitting there were never any Treaty of Waitangi principles or partnership. It's a pity a few more people don't accept this. Attorney-General Geoffrey Palmer introduced the five principles for Crown action on the Treaty in 1986 to make it easier for the Waitangi Tribunal to settle claims.

While it appeared in our law, they were not made public until three years later. The principles were based on Freeman's compiled English version. The Tiriti o Waitangi had only one principle — "He iwi tahi tatou": "We are now one people". The five principles were to help settle claims between the Crown and Maori without any consideration to non-Maori. The principles are now part of our law and must be considered by all government departments in their legislation.

I B

Wanganui

Bay of Plenty Times 23/4/16

WHY CHANGE PARK’S NAME?

As a resident living close to Cambridge Rd, two days ago I received a letter from the council just addressed “to the resident”, advising that there is a proposed name change for Cambridge Park which was formerly the Cambridge Rd rubbish dump site.

The letter further stated that the council intends to commence the process to change the name of the reserve, at the end of May 2016 and that the proposed new name is Te Waha O Te Marangai which they advised literally translates as “the mouth of the storm”.

From the response that I have received from the council, to a query that I submitted, it appears that the opportunity for the community to either object or support the proposal does not exist and it appears to be a fait accompli with a report just going to councillors to decide the fate of the park’s name.

In my view this is just unacceptable as the proposed new name is difficult to pronounce and the translation of the mouth of the storm means nothing whatsoever to the area and also why change something that is not broken and at what cost to ratepayers?

M B

Bethlehem

REAL MOUTHFUL

I agree with Robin Bishop (Letter; April 18 ) the title Toi Oho Mai Institute of Technology is a non-sense and the Bay Institute of Technology would have been just fine. As for being a gift from iwi across the region, that's a bit rich. It is simply an imposition foisted on Bay of Plenty citizens who didn't ask for it, by indeterminate iwi and the polytech with no prior public consultation, coupled with an "our way or the highway" attitude.

To those that have opposed it, the name is not a treasure, it is unpronounceable mouthful to many of us. Bay Institute of Technology is the appropriate name and we should all fight back, ignore and show our opposition to the "new name" and just run with Bay Institute of Technology until common usage wins the day. Public pressure and ridiculing this new aberration should do the trick. While on the subject the Toi Moana handle for Bay Regional Council should be treated in exactly the same way and with the same derision. (Abridged)

R P

Tauranga

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 22/4/16

INSISTING ON ‘ONE LAW FOR ALL’

Thanks to The Weekend Sun for highlighting on page 3 of last week's newspaper – with Andrew von Dadelszen's column on April 15 the intolerable pandering to political correctness regarding the above mentioned law breaker.

Let's get the wheels turning and bring it to an end. Andrew's polite description of this diabolical abuse of the law of the land discloses - if further disclosure was necessary - the strife society shall incur unless lawbreakers are confronted and dealt to effectively.

Pandering to such a person is as impossible as it is unacceptable. Your report shows this part-Maori has applied force to the person of another; used aggresive and abusive language to people pursuing their lawful rights of access; trespassed by camping without authority; and committed that wilfully by refusing to depart when required to do so by the Police as agents of the owner. When will he be confronted by the law? God help us.

Cannot the Mayor and his team demonstrate some intestinal fortitude and insist that action is taken? Failure to do so is a further disgraceful exhibition of the effects of 40 years of bowing down to the Treaty of Waitangi, bent out of shape by Palmer and crew in 1975.

Plenty of examples of failing to stand firm and say ‘enough' exist without allowing this performance to continue unabated. It would be difficult to view one law for all citizens as unreasonable. Let's insist that in Tauranga it applies.

B A

Pyes Pa

Bay of Plenty Times 22/4/16

APPEASEMENT

In regard to Bay of Plenty Polytechnic adopting the name Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology (News, April 16), to rename a technical institution in the language that had no concept, in my view, of written records will cause international obfuscation of immense proportions in spite of Dr Amanda Torr’s assurances and reasoning.

We currently spend over $40 million a year on the promotion of Te Reo. This renaming shows how far many in academia are willing to go to placate Maori at the expense of all other ethnicities and also indicates an alarming tendency to project ethnically selective agendas into our schools to the detriment of objective, rational learning. (Abridged)

B J

Omokoroa

The Northern Advocate 20/4/16

MAORI LANGUAGE

Correspondence regarding Maori language in schools has left me quite bemused. My understanding i s that the initiative to speak only English in schools came from the elders themselves to ensure that their children could make their way in a predominantly English speaking world.

My best friend at school was Maori — she said they were not allowed to speak Maori at school and their grandfather even got cross if they spoke it at home. That seemed to be the norm in the 1930s and 40s. I also got the “cuts” at school for no other offence but fidgeting and doodling during class lectures. I copped it too with a length of supplejack because some boys had hidden the strap. That really hurt, so the strap was soon “found”. I also got smacked when I got home for getting smacked at school!

Corporal punishment was part of school life. Get over it.

Oh, I forgot — the Government should apologise to me too for inhibiting my potential artistic ability.

M L

Opua

Waikato Times 20/4/16

MPS RESPONSIBLE

If Maori get any control of the nation’s water and show the same ability they have shown in their control of Maori health, employment, education, teenage pregnancy, child abuse, welfare dependency and crime, then New Zealand is in for a very rough ride.

This is not a racist rant but a logical assumption and the public will rightly hold all MPs personally responsible allowing it to happen on their watch.

B J

Omokoroa

The New Zealand Herald 20/4/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON WATER

If iwi are to be given rights to the water, do I then send them the clean-up bill after a flood for sending me more water than I wanted?

M M

Whangaparoa

Bay of Plenty Times 20/4/16

NEW NAME TOTAL CODSWALLOP

Regarding the name change of the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (News, April 14), what a load of old codswallop. Who on earth dreamt this one up? The Bay of Plenty name is known throughout the world, wherever Kiwis have travelled.

If the name is changed to Toi Oho Mai Institute of Technology, the institution will become a source of ridicule. Get rid of all this politically correct nonsense and keep it as Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. And let’s maintain the prestige of our polytech.

D J R

Bethlehem

The New Zealand Herald 19/4/16

FRESHWATER HUI

Your columnist Lizzie Marvelly writes a hard-hitting piece about ownership of freshwater which strongly implies that anyone other than Maori wanting a say about this very important matter, is racist.

Maori are a race and their participation in discussions about water is in that capacity.

The Government is holding hui throughout New Zealand to have open discussion with Maori to gauge their interest in water ownership. The same happened with the foreshore and seabed. No public meetings were held throughout the country for anyone else.

There is no doubt that water take is confused and needs to be sorted out but not on a basis of race ownership or influence. A sustainable way which fulfils the needs of our population now and in the future with free access to households the priority, is the way forward.

R L

Whangarei

DISTURBING PROPOSALS

Lizzie Marvelly made it clear she does not agree with the sentiments expressed in the Keep Water Kiwi advertisements, recently published in the Herald. Having read the Government’s Next Steps for Fresh Water consultation document, I believe there are very good reasons for the concerns raised in these advertisements.

The document contains a number of controversial proposals and yet there has been a very feeble attempt by the Government to communicate their intentions to the public. There has been no full page advertisements, no TV commercials, no direct mail to citizens, and only nine public meetings held throughout the country, including just one in Auckland.

Whether you agree with the advertisements Ms Marvelly objects to or not, at least more citizens are now aware that public consultation is under way. All New Zealanders are stakeholders with rights and interests in fresh water, and all our voices deserve to be heard.

However, time is running out, as submissions close on April 22.

S S

Meadowbank.

Dominion Post 19/4/16 (To the point section)

* No matter how much money is thrown at expanding and enhancing the use of to reo. until there is a crucial groundswell of Maori prepared to put the effort into learning the language and then passing it on to their children. nothing will succeed in the long run. Calls to make the learning of the language compulsory for all New Zealanders risk alienating some of us who endorse its health and promotion.

C B

Te Aro

Northland Age 19/4/16

COMPLETE BIAS

Compare the fuss made over the insignificant flag issue with the absolute silence on water—the essence of life. The government showed complete bias in the appalling scheduling of 'water consultation,' that's been and gone without anyone noticing.

There were nine public meetings versus 11 hui through the whole of New Zealand. Poor attendance was guaranteed by the lack of advertising or media promotion, devious timing, or venues which were difficult to get to or park at.

The 1.6 million people from Auckland's massive region obviously don't count for much. To provide for them there was one, single meeting at 5.30pm — so right in the midst of the horrendous rush hour traffic and it wasn't even at a central location. Consequently there were fewer than 100 people there, and the media failed to report a single thing about it.

Iwi corporations have their sights firmly on water and the money, and it appears that the government will do everything it can to ensure they achieve their objectives.

F M

Whangaparaoa

WEASEL WORDS

Refer government document on 'Next Steps for Freshwater'. How cleverly MP Nick Smith's weasel words bamboozle the public. Question 1.1 on page 40 says, 'Amend Objective A2 ... etc... to within a 'freshwater management unit' rather than within a 'region'.

For the public's information, freshwater is managed within a 'region', and the region is based on water catchment areas under the Local Government Act reorganisation in 1989. The regional counciIs set policy and management of freshwater, and that must comply with the National Policy Statement.

The public need to know that the proposed 'freshwater management unit' will be defined by tribal interests rather than the existing regional catchment boundaries.

Should this change succeed, it will add another layer of consultation, many new jobs and a lot of money which will ultimately be funded by the ratepayer.

M J A

Tauranga

SO WHY SELL?

"The importance of land, or whenua, to Maori cannot be overstated." So says Meka Whaitiri (letters April 14).

What she needs to explain is why, before I840,the chiefs practically fell over themselves in their eagerness to sell land in exchange for European material goods, the quite modest value of those goods showing how little they valued their land. Thus two-thirds of New Zealand was sold by them, including the whole of the South Island. That some, in their eagerness, even travelled to Sydney to sell is clear evidence that they were under no pressure to do so.

She goes on that their "whenua has a cultural and spiritual significance, etc., etc." which hardly accords with their reckless eagerness to sell. This "significance" will be like the Ngai Tahu claim that Mount Cook is a most sacred ancestor which most of them, living in a few squalid coastal villages, never saw once in their lives.

The communal holding of Maori land suited their hunter gatherer society in which it is better to hunt in bands and the prey is where one finds it, but today this practice is archaic. Individual farming of agricultural and pastoral land evolved in the rest of the world, albeit some being rented, because it is much more productive. This remains so today, where much under collective Maori title is little more than waste land.

By contrast, Maori farmers holding land under individual title may do just as well as any other as shown by the Hadfields of Mangaroa on "Country Calendar" last Saturday.

In an endeavour to rescue Maori from ill-considered disposal of their land, Hobson proclaimed immediately on his arrival that all pre treaty sales would be subject to review, and scaled down if appropriate, while all subsequent sales would be to the Crown only. Of course this provision for their protection brought squeals from some who claimed that they could get a better price by selling to private interests. Well, if so, they did not have to sell, or could have negotiated for a better price with Crown agents.

Whaitiri goes on: "over a century of struggling with the effects of bad legislation that disadvantaged Maori ... led to massive land loss". This emotive talk of" land loss" has been very popular amongst Maori extremists ever since Whina Cooper's so-called hikio or land march and is today actively being foisted on our children in NCEA propaganda, but there is no such thing, albeit some land is taken for public works under the same conditions for all owners.

Successive governments in colonial days endeavoured to construct legislation to reconcile two very different landholding practices, and the Maori Land Court, set up for this purpose, has done so reasonably well. The cry has gone up of Maori being under pressure to sell, but this is not something confined to them. Desirable land under any ownership is always subject to pressure from eager buyers.

Again, Maori land-owners have over many decades had favourable concessions with respect to payment of rates, and the difficulty of identitying the individuals to bill has led to no rates being levied at all. The owners no doubt use Scotfree the roads, bridges and amenities paid for from other people's rates. In fact, a recent Maori buyer of freehold land announced that he intended to convert it to Maori title and thereby escape paying any rates.

Whaitiri would no doubt explain this as a desire for a "connection to ...personal and tribal identity". It looks to me more like a straight tax dodge, about which so much outrage is being expressed in this country at the moment.

The Waitangi Tribunal, she says, has released a highly critical report on the current draft TeTure Whenua Bill saying "it remains to be seen whether the Minister will do the right thing and take the tribunals' recommendations on board." We may recall that the tribunal invariably accepts tribal claims, no matter how blatantly false, such as the Ngapuhi claim that they never ceded sovereignty, and the Ngai Tahu which close analysis has revealed is "a swindle".

It is to be hoped that the Minister will, for once, ignore the 'recommendations' of this racist and corrupt body and the wrath of Maori land-owners predicted by Whaitiri, who is doing nothing but seeking political capital. The Whaitiris I knew in my schooldays in Bluff would be ashamed of her nonsense.

And finally —to those to whom the Treaty of Waitangi is near-gospel — the word in it for land is "wenua" and the Williams, father and son, who wrote it, will not have got this wrong.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The New Zealand Herald 18/4/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON WATER

* Lizzie Marvelly should realise that the Government, with the Maori Party, already pays royalty for fresh water with more royalty payments to come.

R B

Te Awamutu.

* The “racist rhetoric” Lizzie Marvelly claims she abhors is not coming from those who stand for equality of citizenship and democracy, but rather those promoting special rights and privileges regarding fresh water. The Government should not give control to vested interests at the expense of the community. This is the path to separatism and racial disharmony.

R P

Tauranga.

* Over 90 per cent of rainfall is produced by evaporation from the oceans. The world spins on its axis, and produces weather patterns that arrive at New Zealand carrying rain. That rain falls, evaporates or runs back into the sea, and the process repeats itself. Every country in the Southern Hemisphere shares this. For Maori to claim any ownership or control of this water is naive. The rain falls evenly on all New Zealanders.

A E

Glendowie.

The New Zealand Herald 18/4/16

MARVELLY HOLDS NO WATER

The water debate is for everyone except those who criticise a tribal claim for ownership of water, according to columnist Lizzie Marvelly (April 16).

Marvelly may not know that the Fresh Water Iwi Leaders Group wants a $1 billion "capacity building" fund plus tribal ownership of fresh water, ownership of all Crown-owned river and lake beds, and of the water column. The Fresh Water Iwi Leaders Group took this position around the country last year for tribal ratification.

Marvelly writes "Maori have rights and interests in land and water until they voluntarily decide to gift, sell or assign them". She may not be aware that New Zealand 19th century land sale deeds show that chiefs sold the water along with the land.

The current claim for tribal ownership of water goes back to 2012 when the Government prepared to sell 49 per cent of State-owned electricity generators. The Government declared no one owns fresh water.

"Disaffected former politicians" have noticed that the tribal claim for ownership of fresh water has been included in the "Next Steps for Fresh Water" consultation and are quite rightly drawing the public's attention to it.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings.

Bay of Plenty Times 18/4/16

NAME BOWS TO MAORI INTERESTS

I am gobsmacked over the pathetic explanation given by the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic for their name change to the difficult “Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology”.

The reason given is that “polytechnic” has a slightly different meaning overseas so “institute of technology” works better for an international market.

The more than obvious name would be Bay of Plenty Institute of Technology. The location is crystal-clear and so is the clearly-defined type of education.

The name change will have those of the international market checking the spelling of this unpronounceable name every time they use it.

We all know that his has absolutely nothing to do with the market and everything to do with bowing down to Maori interests.

I also query why this newspaper referred to Mayor Island as Tuhua (Mayor Island) — when did that happen?

The general public are so fed up with Maori-everything in our faces every time we open a newspaper, turn on the radio/television — or attend an institute of technology.

R B

Tauranga

Weekend Sun (Tauranga) 16/4/16

DEAR EDITOR

Now most of the fuss over the flag debacle has died down, it is high time attention was given to the appalling number of Maori children and young people who are in CYF care - out of the whole total, 60% are Maori from a Maori population of 15%¬ As usual the Government will be blamed but it is not the Government`s fault but that of the abusive, uncaring parents of these neglected children. What can be done to halt this shameful state of affairs?

Firstly benefits should be restrictcted. Teenagers must learn that getting pregnant and goin g on a benefit is not a career choice. The benefit ought to be only paid to unmarried mothers over the age of eighteen and every effort made to get the father`s financial support. Benef[ts only paid for the first two children - if you continue breeding with neither the means or will to look after your offspring, you must take full responsibility for them. It would seem that the "loving whanau" is a myth.

Parenting skills sould be taught in schools. The CYF do a great job but what about the million- dollar funded Whanau Ora? What amount of care for young Maori are they giving? To stop benefit money being used by abusive parents for drugs and alcohol, food and clothing stamps should replace money - non-transferable!

Maori tribes have been given over $3 billion taxpayers` money to settle, often dubious claims. It is time they spent some of it helping Maori families giving their children a safe, loving home, 60% of Maori children in care is a disgraced to all Maori

M B

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 16/4/16

SEATS NOT NEEDED

Maori are intelligent and articulate people. They do not need to be held by the hand and led like innocent little children. There are a lot of Maori who hold prominent positions in all facets of society to bear this out politicians, sportspeople, singers, actors, business people, etc.

The vast majority of Maori get on with their lives in this 21st century, living, loving and working alongside and with the rest of New Zealand and don't see the need to be set apart from the rest of society. Anyone who thinks they need someone to hold their hand and lead them along the way is doing them a grave misjustice.

District councils represent all people and there should be no need for racially-based seats on any governing body. It seems to me that an extremely small minority have their own interests at heart, which does not necessarily reach out to the rest of Maoridom. Why can't that minority just let all New Zealanders get on with living in and enjoying this great and cosmopolitan country? (Abridged)

R S

Tauranga

NZ Herald 16/4/16

WORTH SAVING?

If a language needs a law to save it, is it worth saving? Legislation to encourage wider use of Maori language has come into force but whether it will be enough to achieve what it sets out to do, that te reo Maori is normalised across society. Is highly debatable.

Even now, when there are about 460 kohanga reo throughout Aotearoa and more than 70 kura kaupapa and wharekura. the language is languishing. Despite every effort to date, the number of Maori language speakers is slowly declining.

A new law is not likely to change the gradual decline in the language as long as English remains the world language of science. technology. travel. entertainment and sport.

J G

Red Beach.

Wairarapa Times-Age 16/4/16

REAL HISTORY

Mick Ludden, like MP Marama Fox, needs to learn the truth.

Bryce was a hard man and no “hero” of mine but our history must be told accurately.

At Nukumaru near Taurangaika, a large party of Hau Hau rebels was encamped. Some boys with them foolishly started disturbing the animals at a nearby farm. Bryce was leader of a mounted party sent to attack the rebels.

Hearing the noise, his party rushed in to attack only to find that they had killed two of the boys and wounded a few more before it was realised what they were — regrettable but understandable.

So much for Ludden’s “murder and mutilation of unarmed children”.

Again at Parihaka, it was Bryce who realised that if he assembled an overwhelming force, the inhabitants would not fight. His cannon were not even loaded.

Hence we had children with flowers, etc, and Te Witi has had all the credit but it was the humane actions of Bryce which deserved it.

Parihaka was the centre of a nasty cult which the government should have acted to suppress much more quickly. There are more details in the letter from Geoff Parker ( Times Age, April 11) — another “out of-towner”.

Ludden should get over his phobia about our legitimate discussion of national issues. And I’ll back the quality of my research against what he says any time.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

MAORI EDUCATION

I hope this continued exchange of correspondence is not becoming tedious, but some things cannot go unchallenged.

My original point was about the Ka Rewa Centre at Lakeview School and ‘Maori precepts and principles of health, welfare and well-being’.

Mr Cholewa turned this into comments about culture in general. Since Ka Rewa is a new (possibly unique) initiative and Lakeview School is a junior school, Mr Cholewa’s claim about Maori children staying longer at school and achieving higher NCEA grades cannot be relevant. Perhaps he is confusing this with a report claiming such successes for Maori students at Kuranui College.

However the Kuranu programme has a number of aspects and I suspect the college’s recognition of previous low expectations of certain students (this ‘tyranny of low expectations’ is a shameful blot on our education system, badly affecting children from low socio- economic backgrounds, often Maori), greater emphasis on the value of education and the imposition of stricter discipline are all major factors in that success.

D F

Masterton

Dominion Post 16/4/16

SANCTUARY VISIONARY

As a foundation employee of the NZ Fishing Industry Board and one of the architects of the ITQ quota system, I am delighted with the Kermadec Islands sanctuary proposal - exactly what this country should be doing to show it takes seriously its guardianship of the marine resources we hold in trust for the future. It is an example to the rest of the world.

However, the reaction of some Maori leaders was disappointing -and quite contrary to their usual stand on environmental matters. There may have been a lack of consultation by the Government but this is not sufficient reason to oppose the sanctuary.

There is some grandstanding on the matter. Is it really reasonable for Maori to claim any fishing rights in the Kermadecs? Even if, stretching credibility, it was, it is in the interests of Maori, and indeed all those concerned for the state of the ocean's fish stocks, to give unqualified support to this sanctuary. Any real or imagined benefits from fishing in the area can easily be forgone.

The principle of the sanctuary is right beyond question. This visionary proposal should receive unanimous endorsement in Parliament. [abridged]

R A

Hamilton

Wanganui Chronicle 16/4/16

'H' ATTACK

Regarding the Chronicle article on April 6, "Verbal attack on girls over the 'H"'. Tania King, principal of Whanganui Girls' College, is appalled at a verbal attack to some girls from the college. It is not fair to blame the girls for the "H" being put into the spelling of their school — the blame for putting the "H" in rests with the principal and school board members.

Tania King said the decision to change the school name was done in a "transparent" and "robust" fashion with full consultation. As Wanganui is not a Maori name, who did they consult with? She goes on to say: "One of the most important values is respect" So what about showing respect to the people who the name belongs to who were living here more than 300 years ago before the arrival of Maori? I feel sorry for the students of the college as your principal and board members have deceived you.

I B

Aramoho

Bay of Plenty Times 15/4/16

GREAT COMMON SENSE ATTITUDE

The letter from Nichola Edwards (Letters, April 14) who, while being of Maori decent herself, maintained that no special treatment was required to get elected is a winner, and with an attitude like that you would get my vote Nichola.

The reality is that Nichola probably won’t stand for election because she has far too much common sense and if I have learnt one thing over the years of voting at both local and national level is that common sense is an attribute of sparse quantity in the makeup of most of those elected which probably doesn’t say a lot about those of us who bother to vote, myself included.

B W B

Tauranga

VIEW A TONIC

Nichola Edwards (Letters, April 14) — you are a tonic!

Thank heavens for people like you.

A common sense lady who wants us all to be simply Kiwis.

This issue of Maori seats on councils raises its head every so often.

Our council has refused to entertain the idea and rightly so.

As is already stated by Tauranga City Council, there is already adequate Maori representation on the Tangata Whenua Committee, the Wastewater Management Committee and various working groups.

I am sure that most Maori feel as you do, that we are all New Zealanders, each with our own proud culture, and I applaud you for your stance.

You are an antidote to the actions of radical Maori, who twist the Treaty to suit their separatist agenda.

Thank you Nichola, you have brightened up my day no end.

R B

Tauranga

MAORI WARD

Ratepayers should have a say if there should be a Maori ward (News, April 12) as they are the ones footing the bill.

It’s bad enough that council can do as they like and spend as they like regardless of what ratepayers say let alone have no say on who should be on the council, Maori are on several committees now.

People need to work for their position and get the votes like everyone else. It shouldn’t be handed to people for nothing.

J D

Tauranga

Waikato Times 15/4/16

MAORI WARDS

Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, at the urging of New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd, will present a petition to legislate for the creation of Maori wards on every local council.

A referendum was held and more than 80 per cent of New Plymouth ratepayers voted against Mayor Judd’s proposal to establish a Maori ward on the New Plymouth council. Now he is lobbying central government.

The establishment of a Maori ward would be separatist and will not ‘‘better reflect the make-up of the community’’, as Mr Flavel quoted.

Mayor Judd is not representing the majority of the ratepayers’ views.

P V P

Hamilton

MORE FOCUS ON CHILDREN

Anne Tolley is now attempting to heal a social experiment that has failed miserably. Over the past 40 years, the New Zealand taxpayer has poured billions of dollars into all things Maori without any idea as to what all that money has produced.

A panel of experts finds that 35 per cent of all Maori children, but only 11 per cent of non-Maori children, came to the notice of CYFs in their first five years.

Once again, tribal elite within institutions, universities, charitable trusts, Maori corporations, etc, are doing well financially while the whanau at the other end of the ladder are deprived of the basics needed to grow healthy, happy children. A job, home, warm clothes, a full belly, appropriate reading material, someone to teach them morals and ethics and most importantly, lots of love and attention.

This is not the fault of politicians – they are not responsible for how our young fry turn out. It is 100 per cent the fault of the parents, families/whanau and the community at large.

So, yet again, more money will be thrown at the lost cause because those responsible for the deprivation will not uplift their obligations to raise their children correctly.

M J A

Tauranga

Wairarapa Times-Age 15/4/16 (Text your thoughts section)

■ re Maori wanting special wards on local councils How about Maori becoming NZers and stop all this special things just for them. It's getting be-yond a joke. How about one law for all seems to work elsewhere

■ hey Mick L, so Maori were all pasifists and peaceful protesters yeah right. you state we need to foot the bill for what we all owe. owe what? how come all Maori settlements get back to money they haven't earned. until this country drops the owe me mentality this country will be forever hamstrung. my ancestors owe nought they helped build this country paid our taxes for your settlements for millennia.

Christchurch Press 15/4/16 (In a few words section)

GREED BEHIND ATTACK

Shame on [Tipene] o Regan and his Maori mates attacking Nick Smith for trying to save part of the ocean from human greed. They are using the Waitangi Tribunal industry to try to enable their plundering of this area. Maori are not the conservationists politically correct Pakeha academics would have us believe. Their history is one of slaughter, annihilation. slavery, cannibalism and squandering of resources. Much like the English.

R W

Ferrymead

Dominion Post 15/4/16 (To the point section)

WHAT HAPPENED TO KAITIAKITANGA?

The iwi leaders' legal move on the Kermadec marine reserve proposal is troubling. I understand and fully support Maori resistance to the erosion of their rights, which has been demonstrated repeatedly by successive governments, but there is a longer-term issue here. which is the protection of the sea and marine life for future generations. Doesn't kaitiakitanga outweigh any possible future resource plunder?

L W

Kelburn

The New Zealand Herald 14/4/16

MAORI WARDS

Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, at the urging of the New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd, will present a petition to legislate for the creation of Maori wards on every district council.

A referendum was held and more than 80 per cent of New Plymouth ratepayers voted against Mr Judd’s proposal to establish a Maori ward on the New Plymouth District Council. Now he is lobbying central Government.

The establishment of a Maori ward would be separatist and will not “better reflect the make-up of the community”, as Mr Flavell is quoted as saying.

P V P

Hillcrest.

Bay of Plenty Times 14/4/16

MAORI SEATS

I am Maori. I am totally in opposition of “special Maori seats” on councils (News, April 12), even in government for that matter. What makes some Maori feel they need to create special seats to ensure they get elected, or to ensure they get a seat.

Front up with the rest of the candidates and win that seat like everyone else. Not all Maori vote for Maori candidates. Some of us actually vote for the best candidate, be it Maori or whatever background that person has.

Both my sons aged 19 and 20, have always been encouraged to be proud to be Maori, but never to use being Maori to get any “special treatment”.

N E

Papamoa

Dominion Post 14/4/16

WATER OWNERSHIP

The Government is calling for submissions regarding water control. I see it as being who "owns" the water, not just control.

Water, like oxygen, is a commodity of nature, ungoverned by any earthly being. It has no ownership or control, especially by racially discriminatory sections of the community.

This madness regarding ownership of our national resources further splits our racial makeup and further drives a wedge between many great cultures. This is being driven by greed and avarice and not cultural sensitivity.

Would any beneficiary from a sale of water royalties be liable for drownings or flood damage or would this be too much to expect?

While I appreciate being able to make a submission, I feel it carries no weight whatsoever. I have seen so many political decisions made by panels stacked with those for the argument and the vast population are too lazy or lacking the know-how to have their say.

I am at my later part of life, but fear for my children and their families. I just wish that governments, now and in the future, would look at the bigger picture.

R P

Island Bay

Wairarapa Times-Age 14/4/16

MISINFORMATION

I was astonished when I read the blatant misinformation in Alwyn Owen’s letter re. Parihaka (April 9).

He wrote “there are numerous accounts of the cleanliness of the settlement, of the cheerfulness and good health of its inhabitants”, and yet the Auckland Star published on September 22, 1875, “In this ‘republic of peace’ more than a thousand Maori were huddled together in most unhygienic conditions. In Parihaka there are nearly two hundred cases (of measles) and there have been about twelve deaths.”

And the Taranaki Herald reported on September 12, 1881, “Parihaka was infected by vermin and was absolutely filthy through lack of sanitary precautions.”

These Parihaka people were not the law-abiding citizens Owen paints them to be: “Yesterday a party of twelve Maori, when returning from Parihaka, entered Loveridge’s store at Oakura, commenced pulling things about, and were very bounceable. The Constabulary had to be called in to eject them,” wrote the Auckland Star on June 24, 1879.

Te Whiti and his followers had for 14 years been squatting on land confiscated in accordance with the rules of the time.

Over this period, these peaceful pillars of society stole horses from settlers’ farms, pulled down a newly built stockyard at Ngakumikumi and ploughed up settlers’ land.

“Such incidences indicate the belligerent nature behind the facade of passive resistance that settlers had to long endure,” wrote Dr Kerry Bolton in his recent work The Parihaka Cult.

Behind the line of singing children a stockpile of around 250 weapons, including breechloaders, Enfields, revolvers and a variety of ammunition was discovered, so one would have to agree with Owen’s statements that “Maori were considered a warlike race”.

Bryce was wise not to take the situation lightly.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

Taranaki Daily News 14/4/16

DEFINING OUR TREASURES

On the business page (Taranaki Daily News, Tuesday, April 12) you featured the Governor General with a New Zealand falcon which was described as "a taonga - a treasure". The bird, like all living things, certainly is a treasure. But a taonga?

On the front page there was an article about taonga being returned to Puke Ariki from a private collection. Now these were, unquestionably, taonga.

The early definition of the word meaning personal property made these tools and weapons taonga to the original owners. I am not sure whether in those days personal property (which would have, pre-Treaty, presumably, included slaves) belonged to the individual or to the whole hapu/iwi. Or possibly to the chiefs.

This was, then, the property guaranteed to the people of New Zealand (Nu Tirani) by the British - except that by accepting the sovereignty of the Queen and the rule of British law there would no longer be slave ownership.

Anyway, while these taonga are clearly so, I am not sure how a free flying bird, whose ancestors have been here for a very long time, could possibly be the personal property of any one or more humans.

And in the same line of thought you can see how, at the time the Treaty was signed, any reference to the word, taonga, meant just personal property as opposed to birds, lizards and, certainly, not to anything which did not exist at that time. Any comments or corrections would be most welcome.

E S

Inglewood

The Wellingtonian 14/4/16

HONE HEKE AND THE UNION FLAG

Re Rose Hudson's letter (April 24), she is right in saying the flag referendum was unnecessary. However, I suspect the good lady has undergone some politically correct brainwashing about Hone Heke, the Union Flag, and his axing the Russell flagstaff in the mid 1840s.

As this was after the Treaty had confirmed British sovereignty over New Zealand, it was perfectly proper to fly Britain's flag, and no other, either with, or instead of that same Union Flag.

It seems Heke just wanted to go back on the chiefs' acceptance of British sovereignty. I am unsure as to whether he really imagined he could end British rule by removing its symbol, the flag of the United Kingdom. If he indeed thought so, he wasn't very bright! I seem to recall that he cut down the flagstaff three times, not four. After the third time, the authorities built a blockhouse, with armed sentries, near the flagstaff to prevent any further insults to the British flag. There had been nobody able to stop Heke's axings before it was guarded. Seemingly this "hero", once he was aware of those armed sentries, attempted no more attacks on the flag-he wasn't going to risk being shot dead, was he?

Our country has never been a "condominium" with divided rule: the Treaty said not one word about any "partnership" between the Maori people and the Crown. To fly a Maori flag alongside our existing one would be to recognise a non-existent condominium and drive a wedge between our Maori citizens and all the others.

H W

Miramar

Northland Age 14/4/16

NO SUCH PLACE AOTEAROA?

No such place. Because there was no pre-European Maori nation state, Maori had no name for what is now New Zealand as a whole. It was left to European explorers to remedy this deficiency. The first to do so was Abel Tasman, who in 1642 named our country Staten Landt, in the mistaken belief it was part of a Great Southern Continent. Tasman's error was soon corrected. The following year, 1643, the Dutch Legislature renamed his discovery Nieuw Zeelandt, Anglicised to"New Zealand." This has been our country's name for the 373 years that have since elapsed.

The agenda of those promoting Aotearoa as an alternative name for New Zealand is to imply that a pre-existing Maori nation state was rudely subsumed by 19th Century white settler governments, and must accordingly be reinstated as 'co-equal' to our existing government, that governs for all New Zealanders. But the Treaty of Waitangi was not with a collective 'Maori.' It was with tribes, most of whom signed it, some of whom didn't. New Zealand in 1840 consisted of hundreds of these dispersed and petty tribes, each in a constant state of war with one another and lacking any concept of nationhood. Some 512 chiefs signed the Treaty, while a substantial minority refused to, meaning there were probably more than 600 of these individually insignificant groups.

Assertions that a Maori nation state existed when the Treaty was signed rest upon formal recognition by England's King William IV in 1836 of the 1835 Declaration of Independence of the so-called Confederation of United Tribes and associated flag. Any 'official' recognition of pre-Treaty collective Maori control of New Zealand must be placed in its proper historical context, which ethnic nationalists conveniently omit to do. The so-called Maori flag (not the Tino rangatiratanga flag, fudged up in the 1990s) was adopted by Northland chiefs in 1834 at the behest of British Resident James Busby, after a New Zealand-built ship owned by Europeans was impounded in Sydney for not flying the flag of a recognised nation state. Busby presented the chiefs with a variety of designs. They eventually chose a flag modelled on that of the Church Missionary Society, with which they were well familiar. This was not a Maori initiative, but a Pakeha-brokered expedient to protect New Zealand's pre-Treaty commerce. Nor was the 1835 Declaration of Independence driven by the puny number of Maori chiefs who signed it. This"paper pellet to fire at the French" was fudged together by Busby to head off Colonial Office fears of an impending take-over by French adventurer Baron De Thierry.

InitiaIIy carrying the signatures (or rather the thumbprints) of 35 Northland chiefs, the Declaration was ultimately signed by just 57 chiefs, all residing north of the Firth of Thames. These chiefs represented less than 10 percent of all the tribes of New Zealand, so the Declaration can hardly be held up as evidence of a national consensus.

The arguments of Maori sovereignty activists are further undermined by the impotence of the handful of chiefs who signed the Declaration to act or even deliberate in concert. Signatories had pledged "to meet in Congress at Waitangi in the autumn of each year, for the purpose of framing laws for the dispensation of justice, the preservation of peace and good order, and the regulation of trade." Inter-tribal animosities meant this body never met nor passed a single law, despite the common undertaking to do so.

The North and South islands had a variety of Maori names in 1840, the most popular being Te Ika-a-Maui and Te Waipounamu respectively. There was, however, no pre-existing Maori name for what is now New Zealand, because as we have seen, there was no Maori nation state or national consensus to form one. Had there been a Maori name for New Zealand, the missionaries who drafted both the 1835 Declaration and the Maori Treaty text of 1840 (fluent Maori speakers all) would have known of and used it. Instead, they used the same transliteration of New Zealand (Niu 'Tirani) in both documents to get their point across.

Maori sovereignty activists, who regard the Treaty of Waitangi as written in concrete if it advances their agenda, have smuggled Niu Tirani out of the public square, because its use in the Maori Treaty text underscores the total bankruptcy of their claim to nationhood. Aotearoa has been smuggled in as a substitute.

Aotearoa was originally an alternative pre-European Maori name for the North Island. In the late 19th Century European authors William Pember Reeves and Stephenson Percy Smith began using it in Maori-themed works of fiction as a fanciful name for the entire country. That's all it ever was. As Muriel Newman notes in a recent article on the New Zealand Geographic Board's proposed name changes to the North and South Islands, "The board ruled out Aotearoa for the North Island on the basis that it has been popularised as the name for New Zealand." "Fabricated" is a far better word.

The race-hustlers pushing alternative Maori place names intend to insinuate into the public mind, through as many channels as possible, their' One country, two peoples" mantra. Constant repetition then creates the false impression of widespread popular acceptance of what is really nothing more than a propaganda claim.

REUBEN P CHAPPLE

Auckland

Kapiti News April 13 2016

CRY FOR JUSTICE

Karen Butterworth’s cry for justice (April 6 letter) for poor Maori added weight to the very sad article published on page 4 of the same edition regarding the apparent despicable way in which Pakeha treated the Tuhoe people of the Te Urawera ranges.

Karen then promotes a number books including Claudia Orange’s The Treaty of Waitangi to back up her claims, inferring that she and these history revisionists know more about the Treaty of Waitangi than I.

Allow me to promote myself, I have studied the treaty for many years, in 2013 I lodged my own Treaty claim with the Waitangi Tribunal and I am an author of a book about my claim and the despicable way in which our history is being altered, called Cannons Creek to Waitangi. My book sits back to back in many book stores and libraries with Dame Claudia Orange’s warped view of reality.

This so called authority on the Treaty did not feel it necessary to mention in her updated books that the English draft of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi, written by James Busby and signed by William Hobson was discovered in 1989 and sits in Archives New Zealand. What sort of great authority on the Treaty fails to mention the most significant discovery of modern times which reveals the truth about the Treaty?

She has remained silent on this discovery because it is now evident that Maori people were not even mentioned in the Treaty, let alone given any separate rights. We get even more silence regarding the fraudulent use of the James Freeman English version of the Treaty by our government when they have the actual draft in their possession.

This criminal disregard for facts by so called authorities is also evident in the Tuhoe article on page 4 as it fails to mention Tuhoe took up arms against New Zealand and fought against the combined Maori and colonial forces, killing many of them in battles such as the one at Orakau in 1864. Tuhoe also supported Te Kooti’s attack on Mohaka in April 1869 killing about 60 Maori and 7 settlers.

Taking up arms against your own county is an act of treason.

Despite this and many other discretions Tuhoe were given $60 million in 2008 and a further $170 million in 2013 in Treaty Settlements. You guessed it, like locals Ngati Raukawa who are in the process of dreaming up yet more treaty claims, Tuhoe never signed the Treaty either.

In this country there is nothing more lucrative than acts of treason and I adjudge that suing your fellow innocent citizens using fictitious stories just as treasonous.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati beach

The Daily Post Rotorua 13/4/16

MAORI WARDS SEEN AS SEPARATIST

The call by the co-leader of the Maori Party to have Maori wards on all councils must be seen for what it is — a separatist demand by Maori which, if successful, would only serve to further divide communities.

Once again Maori are demanding special privileges, and in this case disregarding the principle of one person, one vote. So much for democracy.

Once again this claim by the Maori Party overlooks the fact that any Maori can stand for council today, and succeed. As we know, here in Rotorua three of the 12 elected councillors were Maori.

I have no doubt that a call to get rid of both the Waitangi Tribunal — which is well past its use-by date — and the Maori seats, would receive far more support nationally than this latest racist call by the Maori Party.

M M

Rotorua

Southland Times 13/4/16

CYFS REVIEW

Having worked in social services for three decades, I can predict that the five-year implementation timeframe to get the new structure up and running will do nothing but take us past the next two elections.

Putting services back into one large single service is what we had in the Menzies building 30 years ago, until Treasury and non-social workers got hold of the Department of Social Welfare.

As for the new service being ‘‘child focused’’, we’ve have had a ‘‘child-centred’’ approach within CYFS and the Family Court for more than a decade.

The real issue and the only one that will make a significant difference to our country’s child welfare record is to deal with the main cultural group for children in care.

Maori make up 60 per cent of the children in care, while they only make up 12 per cent of the population (that is a five fold increase by population). Maori also feature in more than 50 per cent of the prison population, poor health and life expectancy, failure in education etc. I don’t accept that the police or courts (or prison systems) force Maori to commit crime in the first instance, just as CYFS social workers and police do not fail Maori kids who are subject to abuse and neglect.

The key responsibility goes back to Maori families and their hapu groups, which are too accepting that failure is their lot in life.

Just about every child abuse death in recent times is at the hands of a Maori family. And while every man and his dog makes commentary on this, when do you ever see local Iwi leaders standing tall and publicly stating that a particular child death in their Iwi is not acceptable. The leadership is invisible.

Until Maori make such failure unacceptable and until individual families take responsibility for providing a violence-free home for their children and stop blaming the government agencies for the way they are treated after the event, then nothing will change. While Maori continue to fail as a group, we all fail.

Pouring money at this society wide problem will continue to fail until Maori have a mindset change.

N C

Otatara

NZ Herald 13/4/16 (Short & Sweet)

ON SANCTUARY

I think it fair that any iwi that paddle their canoe to the Kermadecs can fish in the new sanctuary as long as they wish.

D K,

Hillsborough.

Hawkes Bay Today 13/4/16

LETTER OF LAW

The concept of one law for all quite simple, even though Pete Thompson of Hastings appears a little confused about it in his letter complaining about pamphlets in his letterbox.

I cannot comment on the pamphlet because I have not received one.

However, to give an example, for a driver running a red light, in an ideal one-law-for-all jurisdiction, the penalty would be exactly the same for Maori, non-Maori, Indian, Asian, African, French, or German, etc, and irrespective of social standing.

This is not rocket science and should not be controversial in a society in which rights are based on citizenship, not ethnicity.

Problems start with statements like “rednecks are . . . ”, “Chinese are . . . ”, or “Maori are . . . ”

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

The New Zealand Herald 12/4/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON WARDS

It still amazes me how the unvoted group of Maori on the Auckland Council are allowed to be there and vote on things affecting all of Auckland. If Maori want a say, get out there like the rest of us have to and earn that right.

S. B,

Glendowie.

New Zealand Herald 12/4/16

WATER RIGHTS

Compare the fuss made over the trifling flag with the absolute silence on water — the essence of life. The Government showed complete bias in the appalling scheduling of “water consultation” that’s been and gone without anyone noticing. There were nine public meetings through the whole of New Zealand.

Poor attendance was guaranteed by the lack of advertising or media promotion, devious timing, or venues which were difficult to get to or park at.

The 1.6 million people from Auckland’s massive region obviously don’t count for much. To provide for them, there was one meeting, at 5.30pm — in the midst of our horrendous rush hour — and it wasn’t central. Consequently, there were fewer than 100 people there and the media failed to report a single thing about it.

Iwi corporations have their sights firmly on water and the money, and it appears the Government will do all it can to ensure they achieve their objectives.

F M

Stanmore Bay

NZ Herald 11/4/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON TREATY

No, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand does not need you to write constitution with the Treaty of Waitangi entrenched in it. You have already done enough damage and caused huge division in this country when you dreamed up the Principles of the Treaty some years back. This is now a divided country. United we stand divided we fall.

C H

Katikati.

NZ Herald 11/4/16

MAORI WARDS INAPPROPRIATE

Enough is enough. The petition to Parliament of Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell calling for Maori wards on every district council in New Zealand is racism at its worst. NZ is a democracy and to allocate special wards to one particular race is appalling. Have we lost our long fought for and cherished democratic values on a fair vote for all races to be represented by people we the people of New Zealand vote on to these positions?

To be allocated special wards for representation without the opportunity for all eligible voters in that area to have a say on who represents them and who will have a vote on local matters concerning the whole public is a kick in the guts for democracy.

I believe Mr Flavell’s time would be better spent addressing problems facing Maori such as high unemployment, high percentage of people in prison and the low numbers attending school.

L T

Taupo.

The Northern Advocate 11/4/16 (Also in Chch Press 11/4/16 and Northland Age 12/4/16)

WATER PRICE

The Maori Party was one of the first to raise the need for commercial operators to pay for fresh water. Once there is a price on water, tribal leaders will claim compensation for lost revenue and royalties for future revenue. Greens, Labour and ACT are playing into their hands.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Bay of Plenty Times 9/4/16

REALITY CHECK ON TREATY

Tommy Wilson’s rather halfhearted apology for endeavouring to rewrite or add new meanings to the Treaty shows the unreliability of whakapapa (oral history), it being rewritten or embellished over time to suit the agendas of those giving it or receiving it or both.

Tommy is still having trouble with his translation. He claims Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te moana, ka ora te tangata means “if the land and the waterways are healthy, mankind is healthy”. If that is the meaning he wants then may I suggest: “Ki te ko i te whenua me te moana hauora ka he hauora te tangata”. Without hauora, which means health or healthy, his sentence has little meaning.

Tommy’s admission that he had failed the “gold rule of journalism” by failing to check the validity of his information may bode well for future columns, that by practicing the golden rule, we shall see a better standard of journalism.

R J P

Tauranga

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 8/4/16

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Your readers may not know that in Parliament and behind closed doors meetings are being held between the Iwi Leaders Group and some cabinet ministers that will give control of New Zealand's fresh water to 15 per cent of our population.

That would simply not be acceptable in democracy.

This proposal will make a complete mockery of the democratic principle that we live by. It would eliminate the public's right to consultation and disenfranchise the elected councillors.

L C

Otumoetai

Bay of Plenty Times 8/4/16

INFIGHTING RIFE

Bryan Johnson’s letter ( Letters, April 7) about the so-called Land Wars also raises concerns in me.

The history of our country is bei ng c herry- pi c ked and overlooking the real tragedy which was the thousands of Maori who died at the hands of their own people pre-1840.

My old book, A Centennial History of Tauranga tells of the taking of Tauranga by Ngati Ranginui and details this nasty affair involving the planned drowning of two children to provoke battle, followed by much biffo and bloodshed.

Warfare was an integral part of the Maori way of life and utu was a response to any offence given. It was the arrival of the colonists at the request of Ngapuhi leaders, and the missionaries who taught Christianity to Maori, which finally ended their centuries of warfare.

Are these battles being faithfully recorded as a true history, or are our children being whitewashed with a euphemistic story of a peaceful utopia until the colonists arrived to spoil it all?

R B

Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 8/4/16

TREATY MISTRUTHS

Potonga Neilson needs to start using the Norse side of his brain, because then he may get a better perspective of the world generally instead of wallowing in La La land.

The Maori version (Tiriti o Waitangi) is the only legitimate treaty, being translated from the Busby/Hobson final draft (aka Littlewood draft) into Maori by Williams.

It has only three articles, all very simple and straightforward, (a benign document we can all live with) despite efforts by treatyists, separatists and revisionists to embrace Humpty Dumpty's pronouncement "that the words mean what I want them to mean" then rabbiting on ad nauseam, concocting fabricated interpretations to accommodate hidden agendas.

There were never any Treaty principles, there is no partnership and one would have to be a Post-1975 PC lawyer/judge/politician or separatist hooked on legal fictions to think otherwise.

After 175 years surely we as Kiwis can progress and get on with our lives, free from the revisionist and separatist Treaty nonsense being espoused, which frankly has no place in the Kiwi psyche. Along with around 80 per cent of Kiwis, I am well and truly over the charade.

R P

Matapihi

TREATY'S PURPOSE

Maureen J Anderson (letters, March 23) is right about the Treaty of Waitangi.

To add to her letter, the Treaty gave sovereignty to Britain and tangata Maori, not tangata whenua, the same rights as the people of England under the dependency of New South Wales until 1841. On May 3, 1841 the Treaty had served its purpose of gaining sovereignty over the islands of New Zealand and giving tangata Maori the same rights as the people of England — no more, no less.

The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in the first five months of 1840 by over 500 chiefs, was a document to allow New Zealand to come under British sovereignty and laws. This was explained by Sir Apirana Ngata, Minister of Native Affairs, in his book The Treaty of Waitangi. He stated: "The chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England the sovereignty and authority to make laws."

He also said: "If you think these things are wrong, then blame your ancestors, who gave away their rights when they were strong."

I B

Wanganui

The New Zealand Herald 8/4/16

KERMADEC CASE

Nick Smith's announcement of the 620,000sq km ocean sanctuary is brilliant. This is exactly the stuff we need for global fish stock to regenerate.

This area, about 1000km northeast of New Zealand, only became officially part of New Zealand because of the extension of exclusive economic zones agreed by the United Nations in 1982 as part of territorial definitions.

So I shake my head, stare at the sky, and cringe when the Maori gravy train proclaim rights to this piece of New Zealand they never lived in, never fished, never heard of, that only became part of New Zealand because of modern political and legal machinations.

D F

Grey Lynn.

The New Zealand Herald 7/4/16

STORY OF NIXON MONUMENT

It is disappointing that a journalist of the stature of Brian Rudman has swallowed some highly questionable comments and unsubstantiated claims by Jock Phillips about the battle of Rangiaowhia without some research.

Rangiowhia, near Te Awamutu, was a village supplying food to the Kingite garrisons.

Standard war practice is cut off supplies to the enemy.

General Cameron outflanked the Kingites' heavy defences at Paterangi and Rangiatea and attacked Rangiowhia on the morning of February 21,1864. The Maori took cover in the raupo huts and opened fire on the cavalrymen. Casualties of the ensuing battle are recorded as Maori:12 killed including chiefs Hoani and Ihala and two daughters of Kereopa Te Rau. European: three killed and two mortally wounded, who included Colonel Marmaduke Nixon. Thirty prisoners, some wounded, were taken.

This was a battle hard fought by both sides and certainly not "an appalling act of genocide" as claimed by Phillips. Attempts to re-write history are highly damaging to race relations.

R P

Tauranga.

WATER CONTROL

We may as well just hand over the keys.

I’ve been working through the Government’s proposals for fresh water. Clean, healthy water must be the objective wherever feasible, but I didn’t realise we needed to hand over local government control and taxpayer dollars to politically motivated “iwi, hapu and whanau” to achieve that.

How is it that Maori communal landowners don’t pay rates but the Government is proposing that other ratepayers be responsible for providing fresh water and its infrastructure to all iwi properties around the country?

National seems intent on creating a country divided into two — iwi and the rest of us — with the rest of us submissively following iwi orders and paying all costs. It’s time to stop blatant racism and extortion.

F M,

Stanmore Bay.

NZ Herald 7/4/16 (Short & Sweet section) Also Southland Times 8/4/16

ON WATER

The Maori Party was one of the first to raise the need for commercial operators to pay for fresh water. Once there is a price on water, tribal leaders will claim compensation for lost revenue and royalties for future revenue. Greens, Act and Labour are playing into their hands.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo.

Bay of Plenty Times 7/4/16

SHIFT FOCUS TO VICTIMS OF WARS

Instead of a commemoration of the misnamed Land Wars, the result of teachers betraying their trust by politicising their classrooms for what were in effect rebellions against the Crown, let us consider the souls of the 40,000 or more Maori who perished in the Musket Wars between 1810 and 1840.

B J

Omokoroa

CHARITY STATUS

have received some feedback about my letter (Letters, April 6), in which I stated that some of the wealthiest businesses in the country are registered as charities and thus pay no income tax.

As this is undemocratic, I suggested that “trading operations of charities be taxed” and a comment received, suggested that this would be unfair to genuine charities such as opshops who would then also be taxed.

That was never my intent. The system that the Labour Party so intensely lobbied for to protect tribal interests, needs to change.

By removing the charitable status of the business activities of these wealthy corporations that are not used to fund a charity, would then allow those parts of the business that do fund the charity to retain their tax-free status. They would therefore be required to pay tax on some of their commercial operations.

R B

Tauranga

Northland Age 7/4/16

IN REALITY

For the record, on Wally Hicks Tyranny' (letters, March 31), I for one will run with Bruce Moon's assertions which are accurate, factual, historically correct accounts, plus have a dose of commonsense over Mr Hicks' gobbledygook claptrap, which quite frankly is basicaIly an incomprehensible rant option when one can't win the debate.

It is only the separatists, grievers and appeasers that want to return to the "good old free-for-all days" pre-1840 of tribal slaughter, tohunga, cannibalism and slavery, which some like to call a tribal culture.

Bruce Moon's criticism of things like Network Waitangi, our country's new "quaint' name, the Orange Clockwork et al are all quite valid.

Kiwis only need to face reality, accept there are no Treaty partnerships, no special obligations and no Treaty principles other than those fabricated via political and legal fictions, disband the dysfunctional Waitangi Tribunal, can the false name Aotearoa and you will be on the right track. Oh, incidentally, and here is the clincher, you can't claim to have a racial difference if you are not in fact a race, and as by all accounts, as Maori have less than 50 percent bloodlines, then everyone in New Zealand falls into the category of non-Maori, other than statutory Maori created by Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974. QED.

R P

Mt Maunganui

LAND AND SEA

Even though Anahera Herbert uses the word "racist" three times in her 10-paragraph column titled 'Continued confrontation', she makes four indisputable points:

1. The elements of fishing quota involves species, quantity, time and location, and presumably the proposed Kermadec sanctuary is one of those locations.

2. The government entered into a fisheries settlement with Maori that presumably included the Kermadec zone.

3. The government declared a conservation zone in that area without talking to quota owners.

4. The wastelands policy was tried for a while during the 1840s but dropped.

This is not the first time that Conservation Minister Nick Smith forgot to consult 'Maori' over some aspect of government policy. He did something similar in his role as Housing minister over a housing development in Auckland.

However, I would like to add four further points.

1. The quota system that Anahera appears to claim as her right has brought fished-out coastal areas, epic waste through dumped by-catches and the use of slave labour on foreign charter vessels.

2. Anahera may not be aware that the fisheries settlement was based on the ridiculous recommendation by Waitangi Tribunal chairman Eddie Dude that Maori owned the sea in the same way they owned the land.

3. Neither does she seem aware that the Treaty rights' brigade routinely ignore Treaty principal No3, which says the "principles do not authorise unreasonable restrictions on the right of a duly elected government to follow its chosen policy", which in this case is the international good of a large marine sanctuary.

4. Anahera Herbert uses the words "steal" or "obtain through the pre-emption clause" when she should simply say that the chiefs, possibly her forebears, sold the land. And now, some who claim to descend from them want the land, the sea, and buckets of compensation.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

NEVER POLICY

Anahera Herbert-Graves' (Continued confrontation, April 5) has written of the idea that unused land in New Zealand should be the property of the state as "the Crown's racist 'wasteland' policy". This was not so.

The suggestion was made in an 1844 report from a select committee of the House of Commons, which was chaired by a Wakefield sympathiser, Earl Grey. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Stanley, refused to countenance any such measure. It never was official policy. When he became Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in 1846, Earl Grey had not changed his views, He prepared a new statute claiming that the Queen was entitled in right of her Crown to any waste lands in the colony, and the Governor could alienate such lands.

This was widely recognised to be contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi, and to the policies under which New Zealand was governed. Maori were disturbed. There was an outcry from missionaries and many other New Zealanders. Governor George Grey was opposed.

Faced with such a barrage of criticism Earl Grey was forced to abandon his projects. Crown policy returned to its recognition that all unsold land belonged to Maori.

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

NO ENGLISH VERSION

Several weeks after the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in Northland, the Crown dispatched Captain William Cornwallis Symonds to seek the aid of local missionaries in obtaining the signatures of Maori chiefs residing at the South Head of the Manukau Harbour, at Port Waikato, at Kawhia, and further south down to Taranaki.

Captain Symonds arrived at Port Waikato to find Reverend Maunsell had already taken advantage of a hui convened for another purpose to present the Treaty to local chiefs. That meeting had been held on April 11, 1840, before a large Maori assembly of approximately 1500. The official Maori language document, sent to Maunsell from Government House in the Bay of Islands and signed by acting Lieutenant-Governor Willoughby Shortland, hadn't been available to him at the hui, since it only showed up with Captain Symonds on April 14, 1840, some three days after the fact.

For the April 11, 1840 meeting Maunsell had instead utilised an authorised Maori text, printed by the Church Mission are Society. Two hundred of these documents had been produced by Paihia Mission printer William Colenso on February 17, 1840, for the information of CMS missionaries at other mission stations, and sent down by Colenso from Paihia via Captain Brown on March 4, 1840. Maunsell also had in his possession one of Colonial Secretary James Stuart Freeman's hand-written, unauthorised 'Royal Style' English Treaty texts penned for overseas dispatch on Freeman's assumption that this pretentious 'diplomatese' was more suitable for its intended audience.

How Maunsell had come by a copy of Freeman's document remains unclear, but we know for certain that it was not sent to him by the Governor for use at his meeting of April 1840, since it was not until several days afterwards, that Maunsell had access to any official Treaty document.

Maunsell presented the chiefs and tribes assembled at Waikato Heads with the standard Maori Treaty version, as set out in the CMS-printed Treaty text and identical to that delivered orally at other meetings held elsewhere in New Zealand. The first chiefs coming forward signed on the CMS Mission-printed sheet, but quickly ran out of room. Since paper was undoubtedly at a premium in pre-European New Zealand, the blank space at the foot of Freeman's unofficial hand-written English language version was soon pressed into service to accommodate the signatures that wouldn't fit onto Maunsell's printed Maori version. Freeman's unauthorised piece of paper was used at Waikato Heads in no other capacity but to receive 32 overflow signatures for which there was no space on the printed Maori version after it had been filled up by earlier signatories.

Reverend Maunsell wrote a letter to Governor Hobson, describing what had transpired locally and passed both documents to Captain Symonds, who later returned to the Manukau Heads, where he obtained seven further signatures to Freeman's unauthorised English version. This paper ended up bearing the signatures of some 39 chiefs resident at Port Waikato and Manukau Heads.

By now it must be clear the 'English version' that appears in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and amendments is simply an accident of history. Had the blank paper at the foot of a ship's bill of lading or a stores manifest been used to capture the 39 additional Port Waikato and Manukau Heads signatures there would be no need for this discussion. The chiefs who signed the Treaty at Port Waikato and Manukau Heads, and all those who did so elsewhere, accepted its provisions based entirely on an oral delivery of the Maori text, making the Maori Treaty version New Zealand's "true and only" Treaty.

An English Treaty version was only written into the Labour Party's Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 to hand Treaty claimants the opportunity to exploit the differences between the two texts in transferring assets and rights to Maori, thus keeping them firmly m the tent for Labour.

Even if one is prepared to accept that the English version in current statute law should apply to interpreting the Treaty today, the notion that two Treaty versions exist in different languages can only be sustained by buying into the revisionist fiction that the Treaty was with a collective 'Maori.' Contrary to modern-day misrepresentation, the Treaty of Waitangi was not with a collective 'Maori,' but with tribes, most of whom signed it, some of whom didn't.

Under the legal doctrine of Privity of Contract, only the parties to an agreement are bound by it, or can claim its protection in the event of a breach. Accordingly, only those descended from the hapu of the 39 chiefs who signed the English version at Port Waikato and Manukau Heads can attempt to argue that there are two Treaty versions, and that the English version should apply to them. If validated, this would deny them recourse to the Maori version, since their ancestors never signed it. These 39 chiefs represent fewer than eight per cent of those who originally signed the Treaty, whereas the other 92 percent of chiefs accepted and endorsed only the Maori version.

This would naturally serve to disbar the vast majority of tribes from making Treaty claims based on the English version. But, as shown above, there is no English version. The historical record demonstrates conclusively that the Treaty of Waitangi Act must be amended to strike out that bogus and non-existent fabrication. This renders all Treaty pay-outs handed over on the basis of the English version, such as those to forests and fisheries, null and void. And any tribe who wrongly received such settlements should be required to repay this money to the Crown with interest.

REUBEN P CHAPPLE

Auckland

MONSTROUS CHARADE

In recent years, with the powerful advocacy of the Waitangi Tribunal, which always supports tribal claims, the Maori tribal elite has done marvellously well at the expense of the other citizens of New Zealand, yet many of their claims are false— those of Ngai Tahu, Tainui, Te Roroa, Ngatitoa Ngapuhi and Ngati Tuwharetoa to name a few. Now they are switching to fabricated stories of "land loss," yet the chiefs freely and eagerly sold two-thirds of New Zealand before 1840, and commenced doing so again after that date, and that they did so cheaply indicates how little they valued it.

The fundamentally false position of many of their prominent advocates is there for all to see — Tariana Turia with an American father, Steve O'Regan, son of an Irishman and about one-sixteenth Maori, Peter Sharpies with two Yorkshire grandparents. Remember that it was he who recited umpteen generations of his alleged whakapapa' at the UN, apparently impressing his naive listeners there with his "indigeneity"— what nonsense!

Then we have Anahera Herbert-Graves, who states that she is a member of all the tribes in the Tail of the Fish (Northland to most of us) and a few more, but her palpably English surname suggests a deliberate intention to conceal substantial white ancestry. How honest is that?

In a recent moment of truth, the late Ranginui Walker told Susan Devoy that he was the offspring of four ethnic groups Maori and Chinese, Lebanese and European. Why don't the others do the same? If these people are Maori then they are indeed examples of what Herbert-Graves calls survivors "as a 'golden tinge' on the skins of the Pakeha". And so we have their never-ending "grievances" about the alleged injustices suffered by a small minority of their ancestors, inflicted by people who were the majority of their own ancestors. Of course the rest of us must pay up in consequence. How absurd is that?

We also have "white-necks", guilt-ridden "liberals" evidently, who are their fellow-travellers.

It is Herbert-Graves' advice "that we also ought to work with our Pakeha allies, like those from Network Waitangi" A look at these people's documents shows what they are. One commences with the modern lie that "The Treaty of Waitangi is a partnership document"; another claims to encourage "those who do not have Maori ancestry to understand the Treaty of Waitangi." The arrogant presumption in this claim is breath-taking.

It is utterances such as these which actively promote false accounts of New Zealand's history, racist divisions and the destruction of democracy.

Recall that commentator Robert Wright wrote in The Atlantic Magazine for November 2013: "People magnify their grievances and do the reverse with their rivals …The intense tribalism we are seeing, domestically and internationally, does suggest that we may be approaching a point of true planetary peril."

New Zealand's recent history gives us copybook examples of such disastrous behaviour. It is high time that this monstrous charade was ended. We are fools if we let it continue.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Wairarapa Times-Age 7/4/16

MAORI AGENDA

I enjoyed Mick Ludden’s letter ( T-A March 29 (below).

I am particularly grateful to him for dispelling my ignorance about ‘what is going on in the education sector’.

I now know there is an aggressive Maori separatist agenda that is not accountable to anyone despite being financed from public funds!

D F

Masterton

Bay of Plenty Times 6/4/16

TAX RULES UNFAIR

Tommy Wilson's Monday column is usually much appreciated, and his mea culpa of treaty matters earns him my respect. He is interested in democracy, as are most of us.

However, we have the some of the wealthiest businesses in the country, who have legally stashed all their money into charitable trusts and, undemocratically, pay no income tax at all.

I n 2001 Michael Cullen, proposed that trading operations of charities be taxed. This didn't happen — and since tribal organisations are based on blood ties, they failed the common law public benefit test.

The Labour government intensely lobbied to change the law, enabling them to gain charitable status. It's time we requested that trading operations of charities be taxed – as proposed fifteen years ago by Michael Cullen.

Hopefully, one day, we will be a country where we live as one united people, all appreciative of each other's culture, with no race-based legislation, in a true democracy, where we are all treated the same regarding race, gender and religion.

R B

Tauranga

Northern Advocate 6/4/16

DIVERSE VIEWS

Speculation by Maori leaders on why they believed Maori voted to keep the British Union Jack on our flag, as reported in The Northern Advocate, raises points that must be challenged.

The concept that Maori people have a view that is distinct and homogeneous is too easily accepted. Only 45 per cent of people who claim Maori ancestry on the electoral roll are registered in a Maori electorate. When combined with those who are Maori and do not register this on the electoral roll, the total number of Maori people registered in Maori electorates is a minority.

Most vote on the general roll.

So it is incorrect to consider the voting results of the Te Tai Tokerau electorate as representative of Maori people. In fact, it is not just incorrect but a bit arrogant for Kelvin Davis and Pita Tipene to speculate on the views of Maori people because they have no more of an idea of how Maori people think than anyone can speculate how Europeans or Asians think.

This is because mostly people's views are formed by environmental factors not genetics.

There is no such thing as a Maori view, there are only the views of Maori people, and they are as individual and as diverse as any race. It is patronising and a little insulting to Maori people to think otherwise.

R G

Whangarei

Northland Age 5/4/16

THEORIES AND FACTS

Wally Hicks (letters, March 31) makes the fundamental blunder of confusing scientific theories with the facts of history. Scientific theories are always subject to revision and improvement as our understanding increases. They would not be scientific theories otherwise.

By contrast, the recorded facts of history should stand forever for all to see. The truth is not relative. Such records show that beyond any shadow of honest doubt, Maori chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Queen in 1840. (Read One Treaty — One Nation, ISBN 9781872970443, chapter 2, for a detailed account — none of Hicks' "cherry-picking" there!)

By contrast, there is a brigade of racists today, hell-bent on rewriting our history to the contrary, and I nominate Network Waitangi as a prize example. Their alleged "history" is based on incompetent research by such people as Claudia Orange (read Twisting the Treaty, ISBN 978187297=2, pages 295-301 for a few details, not the current Listener) and the ill-informed acceptance by Parliament of a bogus so-called 'Treaty in English' to stand co-equal with the real Treaty of Waitangi, written in the Ngapuhi dialect of Maori.

Much can be learned by dipping into the Iatter, even by people with a limited knowledge of that language. Few even try. Modern science establishes too that Hicks' "racial difference is a self-evident reality" has no sound basis at all. Given that most people who identify as Maori today have probably more European blood than any other (though I am not aware of any Department of Statistics efforts to find out), any apparent differences are becoming more blurred by the day. Of course they are at liberty to make such an identification, but it should not be an excuse for favoured treatment such as is braided out in many ways today — Whanau Ora and all that lot, for example.

Hicks goes onto assert that I am a member of a "brigade". I cannot speak for any other alleged member of this non existent brigade, but my position is simply that we should seek to restore the fairness for which New Zealanders were once renowned, that the corrupt and racist Waitangi Tribunal be abolished, the bogus name Aotearoa be expunged, that the false 'partnership' myth be disposed of, and nothing should remain in law to give preference of any sort on the basis of race. If that makes me a member of New Zealand's KKK, "identified" by Minister Finlayson, then so be it. To me an insult from that man is a compliment.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

CULTURAL PRETENSIONS

Wally Hicks (letters March 31) provides a long, incoherent rant on Treaty issues, to which I feel obliged to respond, since he mentions me by name. The elephant in the room is that even if the Treaty of Waitangi provides for race-separatist special privilege (it doesn't), the 'Maori' of today are not the Maori of 1840, but New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent who have chosen to identify monoculturally as Maori, elevating one set of ancestors and trampling down another. Yet traditional Maori culture says that one is to honour all ancestors equally.

For many decades now there has been no discrete or separate Maori ethnic group. All so-called Maori alive today have European ancestry. Indeed, it would be virtually impossible to find a 'Maori' who doesn't possess more of the blood of the colonisers than that of the colonised. To illustrate this point, prior to the passage of the Electoral Amendment Act 1975, the legal definition of 'Maori' for electoral purposes was "a person of the Maori race of New Zealand or a half-caste descendent thereof." After panicked complaints from its Maori MPs that soon nobody would be eligible for the Maori roll, the then Labour government changed this to read "or any descendent of such a person." Undercurrent electoral law, New Zealanders with Maori ancestry can determine once every electoral cycle if they wish to be on the Maori roll or the general roll. We thus have a legal definition of Maori that defies definition in the courts, since it is entirely based on an individual's periodic decision to identify as Maori.

Writing in 1972, historian Joan Metge offers a compelling explanation as to why a subset of New Zealanders today might continue see themselves as 'Maori.' She states: "New Zealanders, both Maori and Pakeha, tend to identify others as Maori if they 'look Maori,' that is if they have brown skin and Polynesian features. Those whose Maori ancestry is not so evident in their appearance are left to make their own choice."

Since the Maori phenotype tends to predominate in a person's appearance, many New Zealanders who are considerably less than half-Maori will be identified by others as Maori whether they like it or not. This psychic wound is often compensated for by aggressively embracing a collectivist Maori identity, and seeking utu from the majority culture these people feel shut out of. The psychological roots of treatyism may well amount to little more than the hurt child looking for someone to punish. The rest of us should not be obliged to validate someone else's adjustment issues. Nor should public policy support the notion that anyone who is less than half-Maori be regarded as Maori. And nor should it dignify their cultural pretensions, particularly with other people's money.

Anyone who is less than half-Maori claiming to be Maori is best described as an indigenous pretender. The standard response when this is held up is, "Maori will decide who is Maori." In a free society, individuals are at liberty to form groups and combinations for any lawful purpose, and indeed, many choose to do so. There are rugby clubs, bowling clubs, bridge clubs, film clubs, swingers' clubs, various religious congregations and any number of other organisations catering to the sporting, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual needs of members. Individuals of mixed European-Maori descent indeed have every right to identity with Maori culture and affiliate to a Maori kin group. But since this is a personal choice, [part-] Maori groups rightly have the same status as any other community group with a voluntary membership, such as a rugby club or a bowling club. And the same right to demand large sums of money and political patronage from their fellow New Zealanders as the members of a rugby club or bowling club. None.

REUBEN P CHAPPLE

Auckland

Bay of Plenty Times 5/4/16

FLYING UPWARDS

Laurie Loper (Letters, April 4) raises the uneasy issue of socalled “white flight” and suggests that parents wishing to send their children to out-ofzone schools are chasing a myth.

Is “white flight” truly a reflection of ignorant parents or is it a reflection of culture and aspiration? If culture is important to educational outcomes, and kohanga reo, kura kaupapa and Maori immersion schools suggest it is, then it is entirely understandable that “white” parents are looking for schools that better reflect their culture and values.

The New Zealand School Report confirms higher decile s c hools c onsist entl y outperform lower decile schools.

The data s how t he proportion of pupils well below standards in reading, writing and maths generally increases the lower down the decile scale a school is.

Conversely, the proportion of pupils above the standards trends upwards as the decile increases.

To suggest t hat decil e rankings are not indicative of a school’s performance is to simply put one’s head in the sand.

When confronted with this, is it surprising aspirational parents want to send their child to a school with a culture they better identify with, less social problems, and better outcomes?

R P

Welcome Bay

The Southland Times 4/4/16

FRESHWATER

Nowhere in the public consultation document on the Government’s proposals for freshwater management do the ‘Freshwater Iwi Leaders Groups’ appear.

The Iwi Leaders Groups demands are:

1. Transfer of title to all Crown owned river and lake beds and title to the water column above to regional tribal groups.

2. Title in freshwater consistent with Waitangi Tribunal rulings.

3. Guaranteed allocation of fresh water for all marae and marae housing.

4. Free water infrastructure for for maraes and marae housing.

5. Tribal participation at all levels of fresh water decisionmaking that may include tribal representation on councils, joint management agreements, and comanagement of waterways.

6. A $1 billion of public money to build the capacity of tribes to implement fresh water management and control.

7. Tribal involvement in resource consents or an allocation of tradeable water rights.

Fresh, clean water is of paramount importance to everyone and any benefit, physical, cultural or financial, granted to one race over another should never be considered.

It is very important that every member of the public has their say by April 22 on this New Zealand wide issue.

M A

Tauranga

Northern Advocate 4/4/16

LAND WARS

A petition has been presented to Parliament seeking a public holiday in commemoration of Maori killed during New Zealand’s so called land wars.

This raises an interesting question: Is this to be in memory of those Maoris killed defending the country’s laws while fighting alongside government troops, or those on the other side rebelling against the government?

It seems to have been overlooked that Maori were fighting against Maori, so you can’t have one without the other.

M M

Kaipara

Waikato Times Weekend 2/4/16

IS THIS DEMOCRACY?

John Key has misread the nation on his flag proposal, just as he is misreading the majority of the population on proposals to give more value and racial bias to Maori over and above other citizens. The flag referenda manipulated the nation’s thoughts away from the real issues of TTPA, changes to the RMA and the proposals to give management of freshwater to unelected Maori representation.

The nation has rising anger against multiculturalism, immigration, racebased agendas in Government and institutions, The Waitangi Tribunal, political manipulation of the media, crazy tax laws that have multinational corporations paying minimal taxes to the IRD, ridiculous tax exemptions for hugely profitable charitable organisations, and finally the $60 billion debt National has racked up during their tenure which will have to be repaid by our children and grandchildren. We, in New Zealand do not live in a democracy, it is the lobbyists who run this country to the detriment of millions of fair minded, hardworking Kiwis. Political capital and expediency does not equate with good governance.

M J A

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 2/4/16

NEW NAME DEFIES TRADITION

Your editorial writer Stephanie Arthur-Worsop ( March 18) seems to think that the proposed new name Toi Oho Mai for the new combined polytechnic will be okay if it is allowed to hang around long enough.

She claims it is a new institute and therefore needs a new name. As it is actually a combining of existing institutes, what happened to tradition?