NZ Herald 30/9/16

ON PARTNERSHIP

It’s official. The Maori Party is running the country. The Prime Minster has admitted defeat, saying the Government will put the Kermadec sanctuary on hold indefinitely if he cannot get Maori Party agreement.

S S

Meadowbank.

Northern Advocate 30/9/16

FINANCIAL TRUTHS

Apparently our recent governments regard the majority of New Zealanders as being of inferior mentality, unable to face the truth.

Being in a situation where they can manipulate the media, those in power bombard us with messages that “all is well”, when the underlying facts reveal a radically different story.

Recently we were told that New Zealand has a rock star economy — and that is in a nation with an insurmountable national debt (interest on that debt is around $100 million each week, without repaying any of the capital). The fact we owe more than $100 billion is swept under the carpet in the euphoria of announcing a budget surplus.

This is a debt that can never be repaid under our current monetary system and is a terrible legacy for future generations, betrayed by governments that place short-term political advantage ahead of our country’s welfare.

We are being progressively led into poverty by incompetent political leaders whose only solution to the nation’s financial problems is to invent another tax.

The most insidious tax ever invented is GST.

Here we see someone who is already taxed on any income received from providing a service being doubly taxed for performing that service.

Governmental greed at its worst.

Another blatant lie is the benefit of unlimited free trade, but free trade agreements with slave-labour countries are the root cause of unemployment and poverty in our own nation.

Local manufacturers cannot compete with cheap products that are flooding our markets.

They are being forced to either shut up shop or move overseas.

This may be helping developing nations but it is destroying our own.

Then there is our nation’s true history, with our real indigenous people concealed under a mountain of political correctness and guilt-ridden appeasement.

Now race-based appointments are also being made under the guise of cultural sensitivity.

Politicians beware. Your people are beginning to awaken.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Dominion Post 29/916

DENIAL OF LOGIC

Many New Zealanders continue to suffer from the massive inequality and harm to the state started by the 1984 Labour government and continued seamlessly by National.

Now one of that cabal, failed short-term prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, wants to transfer power from elected representatives to the courts, thus breaking with one fundamental principle of a modern state - the separation of legislature and judiciary. He then breaks with an even more fundamental principle, the equality of all people in wielding political power.

He would have no discrimination by gender but calls for discrimination by race, by requiring the modern rewritten form of the Treaty of Waitangi to be key in his constitution.

The first principle of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is simply that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". There is a denial of simple logic in Palmer's call for both the end of the monarchy and his reliance on the Treaty, which gave sovereignty to the Crown.

If the Crown is replaced, one essential party to the Treaty is removed. Perhaps this provides Palmer a free pass, as the new republican regime could then accept a newly minted version of that Treaty, with division and partnership replacing equality. [abridged]

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

NZ Herald 29/9/16

UNELECTED OFFICIALS

Greg McKeown has it right in his "It's time to put elected officials back in control of council" article. It reminded me that there were those of us in the smaller burghs, which were forced into a takeover (rather than a merger) by the then Auckland City Council, who could have predicted the future situation of the elected officials vis-a-vis the unelected ones. It has become a mockery of our concept of democracy. Let other regions beware, it could be your turn soon enough.

D P

Kawerau.

Hawkes Bay Today 29/9/16

CRAVEN POLITICS

The lush Kermadec Islands, lying to the north of the North Island, and the seas around them, are New Zealand's northern outposts, perhaps, in their unspoiled and unsettled state, on the tropical edge of our consciousness They shouldn't be.

This is pristine island and ocean; the islands already protected, but not the ocean or fish. The proposal to create a marine sanctuary here is timely, justified, and widely supported.

This isolated area now illustrates Maori and government politics at their most craven and venal. Maori want to throw a net of claim over "traditional" waters they have never fished. How do you spell "greedy"?

The Government, fearful of alienating reserved-seat Maori Party support, is putting the issue in the "too-hard" basket. How do you spell "gutless"? The behaviour of both is the purest of naked self-interest. "Principle", what's that?

A R

Napier

Northland Age 29/9/16

FRESHWATER SWINDLE

There is mounting anger about how the government is dealing with freshwater and its future control. While Prime Minister Key and his Cabinet ministers are on record as saying no one owns the water, they go on to say the government acknowledges that Maori may have undefined interests in freshwater, whatever that inane statement might mean.

Government and iwi groups are surreptitiously exploring these, and remember, control of water effectively means ownership.

In reality the government administers freshwater, its use and allocation, as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis. Those who claim, however, government or its representatives have held secret public excluded meetings with Maori tribes to the detriment of all other citizens are on to it, and look to be correct. Whether government itself does sweetheart deals with tribes over freshwater or places pressure on regional councils to accommodate part-Maori interests is irrelevant; the result is equally bad.

Regional councils' draft regional water quality plan changes are in train, and with those councils that are beholden to race-based interests through council Maori committees, it is a foregone conclusion that part-Maori will receive race-based and co-management preferential treatment to the detriment of all other Kiwis if those councils and government have their way. (See 'Keep Water Kiwi' alert on the NZCPR website for full details).

The focus of citizens' anger should be the National MPs who are not being up-front with Kiwis. People should be outraged, so don't put up with it, demand a referendum on fresh water, and in the meantime put pressure on all local councils to stop caving in, electing only candidates who will not roll over. It has all gone deathly quiet recently, and the ploy seems to be to get submissions from local councils, particularly the bureaucrats who are keeping elected members out of the loop, on the question of forming CCOs to run freshwater schemes etc, leading to the possibility of unelected representation outside direct public control. Be on guard, voicing and making your opposition known to all council candidates.

Fresh water is a resource owned by no one but used by all. Currently it is managed by regional councils and unitary authorities, and it must stay that way. The Taranaki Settlement Bill is a case in question, and Winston Peters is correct, it is the thin end of the wedge with unelected voting representation fuelling this sort of nonsense relating to fresh water.

R P

Matapihi

The Press 28/9/16

PARTIAL DEMOCRACY DISTORTED

The Press tells me that of six appointed councillors a third will be from Ngai Tahu. Apart from the fact that it seems totally inappropriate that Ngain Tahu should be singled out to nominate any councillors, the fact they are able to nominate two of the six seems entirely disproportionate.

Why have iwi been given this advantage of representation over the general public? Presumably Ngai Tahu can also offer candidates for the elected positions. So they have the opportunity, like everyone else, to both offer and vote for candidates of their choice. This ‘‘partial return’’ to democracy is being distorted to favour a tiny segment of the population.

Democracy, like freedom, is not lost overnight, but incrementally. Doesn’t anyone care?

L T

Prebbleton

The New Zealand Herald 28/9/16

NO RACIAL BIAS HERE

Wellington rugby player Losi Filipo has been discharged without conviction for an assault charge against four people. This surprising court decision, among other things, brings into question the efficacy of Lizzie Marvelly’s September 17 opinion piece in which she suggests racial bias in the courts’ treatment and sentencing of Nikolas Delegat and Hautahi Kingi. We should stand by for Marvelly’s retraction or cone of silence, the later the most likely outcome.

B E

St Heliers.

Otago Daily Times 27/9/16

NATIONAL PARKS

PROF Jacinta Ruru (ODT, 13.9.16) states the Ngai Tahu claims Settlement Act 1998 captured her attention, and she wanted to understand why lands at the head of Lake Wakatipu, being "so obviously important to Maori, were locked up in national parks" with a legal ethos premised "entirely on mono-cultural Pakeha values for protecting land".

Basic scholarship could have answered her question. The land was sold legitimately to the Crown by Ngai Tahu. Their latest, but probably not their last, statement of claim to the Waitangi Tribunal argued unjust loss of these western mountains. However, the tribunal found otherwise and disallowed this aspect of the claim. They were not part of the Settlement Act.

The Aspiring National Park was established from Crown lands. The first suggestion the area warranted national park status was from the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1936. By 1939 the Department of Lands and Survey had identified "boundaries worthy of favourable consideration". In 1959 the first definite proposal was put to the National Parks Authority, but was put aside due to lack of public interest. By 1963 interest had grown and in 1964 the nucleus of the park was gazetted. The park has been added to since (Mason, BJ. 1989. Outdoor Recreation in Otago. Vol Two. FMC).

Prof Ruru's basic gripe is she disagrees with the protective purpose of parks. Like Messers O'Regan and Soloman, she wishes to revert to an utilitarian ethos, not unlike that of traditional foresters and miners — they too complain that our parks are "locked up".

B M

Ranfurly

Northland Age 27/9/16

THE TREATY THAT WAS

A pleasure to read Fiona Mackenzie's sensible and calm letter in your letters last week. How very disappointing to read Wally Hicks' (letters, September 20) perpetuation of the bizarre claim that part-Maori child abuse is an effect of British colonisation. Mind you, that once-prominent Napier barrister, Russell Fairbrother, once defended a vicious part-Maori rapist and killer of a Caucasian jogger on the basis that it was caused by colonisation.

But this has prompted me to remember how a former workmate from Argentina had, during his few years here, marvelled at the hatred of part-Maori for their Caucasian fellow citizens, and their demands for sundry privileges. He wondered if they might ever have considered what their status now would be if it had been French, Spanish or Portuguese who had colonised their part-ancestors.

And I'm further prompted to assert that a treaty ceases to exist, or certainly ceases to apply, when one of its parties ceases to exist I think that might've been what Donald Brash was trying to convey in that address to the Orewa Rotary Club.

The Treaty of Waitangi was between the British Crown and the aboriginal people of this country — the Maori, full-blooded, not part-Maori. Full-blooded Maori have ceased to exist The only successors now of those Maori parties to the Treaty are part-Maori and part the other party, as it were. While the Crown remains extant, the other party to the Treaty does not.

The Treaty has become obsolete, and it is well past the time when all citizens of this country expected nothing more or less than equal opportunity and equality under the law.

L L

Benneydale

ALL NOT WELL IN LAND OF LIES

Apparently our recent governments regard the majority of New Zealanders as being of inferior mentality, unable to face the truth. Being in a situation where they can manipulate the media, those in power bombard us with messages that "all is well," when the underlying facts reveal a radically different story.

Recently we were told that New Zealand has a rock star economy — and that is in a nation with an insurmountable national debt (interest on that debt is around $100 million each week, without repaying any of the capital), and the fact we owe more than $100 billion is swept under the carpet in the euphoria of announcing a budget surplus. This is a debt that can never be repaid under our current monetary system, and a terrible legacy for future generations, betrayed by governments that place short-term political advantage ahead of our country's welfare.

We are being progressively led into poverty by incompetent political leaders, whose only solution to the nation's financial problems is to invent another tax. The most insidious tax ever invented is GST. Here we see someone who is already taxed on any income received from providing a service being doubly taxed for pertaining that service. Governmental greed at its worst.

Another blatant lie is the benefit of unlimited free trade, but free trade agreements with slave labour countries are the root cause of unemployment and poverty in our own nation. Local manufacturers cannot compete with cheap products that are flooding our markets, and are either forced to shut up shop or move overseas. This may be helping developing nations, but it is destroying our own.

Then there is our nation's true history, with our real indigenous people concealed under a mountain of political correctness and guilt-ridden appeasement. Now we also have race-based appointments being made under the guise of cultural sensitivity. Politicians beware. Your people are beginning to awaken.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Waikato Times 26/9/16

‘PHISHING’ TRIP

The Maori Party is on a Kermadec Islands phishing expedition to see what treasure they can trawl up. They are set on preventing New Zealand establishing a marine reserve there, to the extent they are prepared to blackmail the government.

In Maori mythology Polynesians came to NZ via the Kermadecs and returned. There is no evidence to support this. Wind patterns suggest Polynesians came to NZ directly. There is one tiny bit of questionable evidence suggesting Maori may once have visited briefly, about 1300. The only thing that links Maori to the group is mythology. Prolific artefacts suggest a direct Polynesian connection. There is no evidence at all the Kermadecs were regularly visited. Maori never settled and any cooking fires are well and truly extinguished. Talk of the Kermadecs being port for waka repairs is just nonsense.

Maori Party claims must be seen as an attempt to rort privilege based on bluster and bogus history. Mythology is the equivalent of pub talk and just as reliable. The Maori Party has 1% of voters. It does not speak for Maori as more Maori vote National, Labour or Green.

M L

Hamilton

Sunday Star-Times 25/9/16

LAW AND RACE

I agree that the son of a Rich-Lister was given far too lenient a sentence, but I disagree with the notion that institutionalised racism is at play.

How is it that only white people can be racist? I well remember the anger when just last year it was discovered that police in South Auckland had been instructed not to ticket unlicensed Maori drivers caught behind the wheel.

They were instead to be referred for training as part of the Turning the Tide national policy.

If more crime per capita is committed by Maori, then common sense dictates that more Maori will end up in prison.

Surely, regardless of whichever racial group you belong to – if you do the crime, then you do the time!

R B

Tauranga

Herald on Sunday 25/9/16 (Online comment section)

* I think racism is experienced by all ethnicities. When we recognise racism is colourblind, then maybe we can work towards solutions. RICHARD

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 23/9/16

FIRST TASTE OF DEMOCRACY

We have just had the only experience of real democracy in my living memory. I refer to the binding referenda on the choice of our flag!

You and I had time for a meaningful debate, over the issue – and Kiwi's certainly expressed their views.

Then, because it was binding, we had a great response to the vote! The result does not matter to me. What matters is that you and I had our very first taste of real democracy. I hope it makes you hungry for more.

K E

Tauranga City.

THINK, PRAY AND VOTE

To honour those who've gone before us, who sacrificed much to secure our freedoms

and our democracy as New Zealanders, let me encourage every registered voter in 2016

– to think, pray and vote.

In 2013's local body elections only 37 per cent exercised this hard-won right, this means 63 per cent of us simply forgot, or avoided responsibility and decided not to vote.

Whatever was holding people back last time, I suggest not only are there some excellent candidates standing for mayor and council, but there are many important issues facing us as a family-friendly, dynamic and growing city.

Social, regional planning growth, historical and identity, economic, transport

issues and more.

Let's leave an enduring legacy our children will thank us for, because we took the time to think, pray and vote.

J M

Gate Pa.

The Press 22/9/16

REALITY CHECK OVER KERMADEC RESERVE

Nisbet’s cartoon is spot on (Sep 19). Traditional rights should only be permitted in traditional ways. Otherwise they are not ‘‘traditional’’ rights at all and are blatantly disadvantageous to the majority of the population, with no justification.

In a democracy everyone should be treated equally before the law.

New Zealand takes pride in being the first country in the world to emancipate women. Are we going to take the same pride in being one of the first democratic countries to erode our democracy?

L T

Prebbleton

AN OPPORTUNITY LOST

It would have been simple for Te Ohu Kaimoana to request confirmation that the Kermadec agreement does not create a prejudicial precedent for future negotiations. Instead Te Ohu’s action has created an impression that the primacy of guardianship (kaitiakitanga) has been blown out of the water.

Sir Maui Solomon has indicated it is a matter of loss of mana. I say a chance has been lost to show statesmanship, increase mana and unify all New Zealanders.

I have supported many of the Maori community’s endeavours as a strong Treaty partner. My daughter and grand-daughter have Nga Puhi whakapapa.

However, I am saddened this has become destructively divisive over claims of compensation and control and the consequent degrading of the strong conservation ethic which exists in all New Zealanders.

A R

Lyttelton

Taranaki Daily News 22/9/16

OUR BLOODY PAST

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr English, ( Taranaki Daily News, Appeal for shared sovereignty, August 22) we are going to have a national day commemorating the NZ Land Wars. Mr English said it was time to formally recognise the country’s bloody past.

There is no doubt that our New Zealand Land War history should be exposed for what it was and it would be a significant contribution by the Daily News if it played a major part in the research of the Taranaki Wars so that the facts may be presented to its readers as an educational exercise. So this raises the first question.

Will the researched material be subjected to censorship by Maori or non-Maori before it is published?

It is important that both sides of the events are factually/truthfully reported so that the public can judge for itself the reasons why there was a ‘‘bloody past’’.

Other questions are: Why were early settlers murdered by Maori? Why were lands confiscated by the Government? Why was law and order so difficult to achieve after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840?

One thing is for certain. The Land War history should not be a product of shoddy research or selective presentation of the facts.

Let us hope that the national day commemorating the New Zealand Land Wars does not generate more protests and a platform for further grievances but rather a day which celebrates how far we have come as a multicultural nation.

R W

New Plymouth

Northland Age 22/9/16

HAVE FISH HOOK.... .

In her September 13 column the tiresome Anahera Herbert-Graves refers to various high-sounding 'articles' from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to support her weekly race-dividing propaganda, without defining `indigenous peoples'.

According to David Round (law lecturer at University of Canterbury), "nowhere is there any definition of who or what exactly an indigenous person is in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples".

So what makes Herbert-Graves assume Maori are indigenous? They have only been here a mere 800 years. How do Maori claim to be indigenous when Japanese (Ainu being the exception) and Britons, who have occupied a country for thousands of years are not indigenous?

I guess the UN's and Herbert-Graves's criterion is 'having ancestors who arrived here first", therefore Sir Ed Hillary owned the top of Everest, the Americans own the moon, and the descendants of our early pioneers have more rights than recent fellow immigrants.

Today virtually all Maori are of mixed European and Maori descent. This is the 'whitening' of New Zealand, as the base colour early 18th Century was brown.

If this were not so serious, it would be laughable that these indigenous pretenders can hang a bone fish hook around their neck and claim fellow New Zealanders owe them.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

DON'T BE SPLIT

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris in 1948, sets out fundamental human rights that must be universally protected. The most important is that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". This is the equality of citizenship enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi.

The later UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, noted by Herbert-Graves (September 13), sadly contradicts that principle with its call for special rights for one section of the populace. Thus the third article, which Herbert-Graves relies on, suggests that the poorly-defined "indigenous people" should be separate, independent from all others, with the right to "freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".

We must be determined to remain one people and refuse to be split into two communities based on race.

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

The New Zealand Herald 21/9/16

STATUS COUNTS, NOT RACE

In December 2014, the son of a prominent New Zealander was initially discharged without conviction after pleading guilty to four charges.

The arguments presented by his lawyer sound remarkably similar to those put forward by Nikolas Delegat last week. The effect of a conviction was disproportionate to the offending and might adversely affect his future career.

This offender was not a privileged white person. He was the son of the Maori king.

Surely this proves that whatever weaknesses there are in our legal system cannot entirely be attributed to racism. Perhaps it is more a matter of social status, who had the skills to deal with the system and who can afford the best lawyer.

J D

Whangamata.

The New Zealand Herald 21/9/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON KERMEDECS

Could someone from Te Ohu Kaimoana or the Maori Party share with us the name of the iwi that inhabited the Kermadec Islands. Ngati Kawana-Moni?

C. C. M

Rotorua.

The Press 21/9/16 (In a few words section)

MARINE SANCTUARY DEBATE

How many Maori Party members have even been to the Kermadecs and why is a marine reserve so far away such a bad idea?

G M

Kainga

Dominion Post 21/9/16 (To the Point section)

* The arrogance of Geoffrey Palmer is astonishing. Does he think that striking a Rodin pose will give him some credibility as a "thinker'? His Treaty "principles" have been one of the biggest disasters, ever. There are no, never were, any Treaty principles, except those invented by the Waitangi Tribunal.

A H

Otaki

* Sir Geoffrey Palmer's suggestion for the country to become a republic is a bit much coming from a politician who couldn't wait to accept a knighthood, as past local and national ones have. A few years ago. Dame Cath Tizard said for the country to dump the monarchy. then accepted the governor-general position. What a bunch of hypocrites.

L R.

Paparangi

Taranaki Daily News 20/9/16

CASE QUESTIONS

In his ‘‘Opinion’’ (News 29/8/16), Dennis Ngawhare overstates his case and is wrong in several respects. He does not know, apparently, that the first armed rebellion post-1840 was that of Hongi and some Ngapuhi in 1844/5, with loyal Maoris playing a major part in its suppression.

To understand the Taranaki situation it is essential to consider the prolonged and brutal conflict between Taranaki and Waikato tribes in the preceding couple of decades which he seems, conveniently, to have forgotten.

This culminated in colossal slaughter at Pukerangiora, many captives being taken back to Waikato as slaves and others fleeing south.

Much of Taranaki was deserted when the British arrived, Charles Heaphy reporting 30 or 40 at Ngamotu Point, with a couple of families in the bush near Opunake.

Refugees and former slaves returning post-1840, disputed amongst themselves about who owned what, with armed conflict amongst them.

British settlers post-1840 found themselves in a chaotic situation and indeed paid for some land several times over.

In 1860/1 alone, 177 settler farmsteads were destroyed by rebels. The conflicts were intermittent until 1869, not 1881 as Ngawhare claims.

Parihaka was occupied without force when Bryce wisely confronted its self-styled prophets with sufficient force to make it clear that resistance would be futile.

Ngawhare’s claim that ‘‘war spread throughout the country’’ is nonsense. There were no rebellions in the South Island while large parts of the North were not affected by the Waikato and Hau Hau rebellions, albeit the latter had its origins in Taranaki.

He overstates the influence of these conflicts, misnamed ‘‘Land Wars’’ but properly ‘‘tribal rebellions’’, until of course the Clark Government foolishly invited all tribes to bring forth their grievances, largely illfounded or imaginary, which multiplied.

Anzac Day clearly matters increasingly to New Zealanders today. It is properly the occasion on which to honour sacrifices made in all armed conflicts. We have no need for a spuriously named ‘‘Land Wars day’’ as well.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The New Zealand Herald 20/9/16

EQUAL JUSTICE

If two people commit the same crime, one Maori, one European, there is currently a very good chance the European will receive much more lenient treatment. This justice imbalance due to race is wrong. The issue is how do we fix it.

If two people commit the same crime they face the same penalty. It follows that any solution to the imbalance is not to lessen any penalty to Maori, but to greatly increase the application of penalty to Europeans.

Under-privilege is no mitigation and should not be offered as such in court, we are always accountable for our choices. Mitigation due to circumstance does occur, but only in extreme situations.

Equally, privilege and wealth is no reason for leniency. We also need much stronger and more transparent penalty for judges who bring down clearly biased sentencing decisions.

Resolving the racial imbalance is simple. The law needs to be applied to Europeans with much greater firmness. In a short time, the statistics will declare that regardless of who they are, to do the crime will result in a firm, unbiased penalty.

G L

Birkenhead.

NZ Herald 20/9/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON JUSTICE

There is no justice in our court system. Your sentence often reflects your skin colour, how much money the family has, whether you are a famous personality and whether you are a promising sportsperson. . Is this what our fallen soldiers fought for in two world wars?

N H

Warkworth

Hawkes Bay Today 20/9/16 (Text Us section)

■ So-called Maori words like ‘‘moto ka — motor car, pihikete — biscuit and panana — banana’’ are mere transliterations that ‘‘dilute’’ the language of Maori tipuna. I say to you, protect the language in its original form for it is far more precious than you realise

The New Zealand Herald 19/9/16

MAORI PARTY AND KERMADECS

It is very sad to see the Maori Party’s stance on the proposed marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands. It is essential that large no-take marine sanctuaries are established in our waters if we are to have any chance of restoring our depleted fish stock. Taking umbrage at lack of consultation and so-called “rights” reflects badly on the party.

It seems National has not handled things well, but political posturing by both the parties achieves nothing. Oceans and fish stocks are in trouble everywhere and we need to take urgent action.

A little graciousness and willingness to embrace the concept would greatly increase public respect. Good environmental initiatives from National are rare, please don’t derail this one.

J B

Tairua.

COMPARING SENTENCES

Lizzie Marvelly claims Maori are given harsher sentences by courts than Pakeha for the same crimes. The danger in cherrypicking crimes and comparing them side by side is that it doesn’t take into account factors such as premeditation, previous criminal history and remorse shown.

That said, I was left wondering what Marvelly, as a feminist, thought about the numerous studies showing that men are jailed for longer periods than women for the same crimes. A 2012 University of Michigan study found that men receive prison sentences 63 per cent longer than those for female offenders. This seems to be a good example of “female privilege” that feminists don’t like to acknowledge.

A S

Mairangi Bay.

The New Zealand Herald 19/9/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON SANCTUARY

So the Maori Party can put up with homelessness, poverty, unemployment figures, the racist justice system . . . yet when it comes to being blocked from catching fish in a proposed sanctuary designed to save fish stocks, they throw their toys out of the cot!

P J

Hamilton.

ON TREATY

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has called NZ First’s opposition to the Treaty settlement which imposes iwi representation on Taranaki Regional Council committees “bonkers”. I disagree. What is bonkers is committing future generations to arrangements such as this.

Today more of us are aware of environmental protection and yet the creation of reserves to protect marine habitats, such as the proposed Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, are being stymied by a Treaty settlement made 25 years ago.

S S

Meadowbank.

ON ‘THE SYSTEM’

Our “system” is not racist, it's all about money, and as the saying goes — money talks, bull**** walks. If our pea-brain society keeps going on about racism in this country like this, we will only create it.

G F

Taupo.

Dominion Post 19/9/16

NAKED SELF-INTEREST

The lush Kermadec Islands, lying to the north of the North Island, and the seas around them, are New Zealand's northern outposts, perhaps, in their unspoiled and unsettled state, on the tropical edge of our consciousness. They shouldn't be. This is pristine island and ocean; the islands, already protected, but not the ocean or fish. The proposal to create a marine sanctuary here is timely, justified, and widely supported.

This isolated area now illustrates Maori and government politics at their most craven and venal. Maori, want to throw a net of claim over 'traditional' waters they have never fished. How do you spell 'greedy'? The Government, fearful of alienating reserved-seat Maori Party support, is putting the issue in the 'too hard' basket. How do you spell gutless'?The behaviour of both is the purest of naked self-interest. 'Principle', what's that?

A R

Napier

AGAINST DEMOCRACY

I disagree with almost everything Geoffrey Palmer says about reviewing our constitution (September 17).

He is a lawyer attempting a power grab for the legal profession. He wants judges we cannot get rid of to change laws at their discretion while elected Parliament must obtain a time-consuming, high-threshold 75 per cent majority.

Palmer also wants to replace our monarchy with a head of state elected by Parliament rather than by we, the people. That provision is similar to the EU and one of the main reasons Britain chose Brexit.

Palmer's proposals are anti-democratic.

Stephen fry pointed out that "Countries that have kings and queens - which are rationally stupid, weird ideas - are empirically freer and more socially just than countries that don't." He gives eight European countries as examples, including Britain, Holland and Sweden.

I prefer to give more power to our monarchy and require more accountability from our underperforming justice system.

B D

Island Bay

Sunday Star-Times 18/9/16

IWI PAYMENTS

Adam Dudding (‘‘Who’s telling porkies?’’ Focus, September 11) is as guilty of post-truth (well, journalism, in his case) as he accuses John Palino of being.

Yes, cultural impact assessments and payments to iwi (‘‘bribe the tribe’’, according to one wit) were a very big pile of doo-doo hanging over the head of those unfortunate landowners sitting under a pink spot in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan, and many fell victim to this extortion racket before the Independent Hearing Panel came to its senses and threw it out.

I hope the media is inundated with horror stories of landowners falling foul of the resource procedure in this way, and I hope some clever lawyer finds these people and initiates a class action suit to recover these monies.

L M

Wellsford

IWI PAYMENTS 2

I was disgusted by your blase assumption that Palino was telling political porkies about tribal demands.

Despite there being a well established process for identify heritage and/or waahi tapu sites, council staff and the Independent Maori Statutory Board took to Auckland with a coloured pen, marking 3600 very broad-bush areas as sites of value to mana whenua.

For the past 3-4 years, affected homeowners seeking resource consent had to contact up to 19 tribal groups to see if they had an interest in the property, get each to process a Cultural Impact Assessment, and then pay whatever each tribe demanded.

With the people I interviewed this meant about 13 tribal groups, thousands of dollars paid with no receipts, and a few extra months added onto the consent process.

I don’t recall anything ‘‘of significance’’ being found.

F M

Whangaparaoa

Hawkes Bay Today 16/9/16 (Text Us section)

■ I was born into a mixed-race whanau and am proud of that fact. My siblings are in mixed-race manages and we share our aroha. Let's get over these stupid imagined so-called problems that dwell in people's minds. Both races have been together for hundreds of years and to me that is what makes us the unique country we are. Get out of the past and live with pride about who we are.

BJ

NZ Herald 16/9/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON APPEAL

Will the Independent Maori Statutory Board's appeal against the removal of sites of value from the Unitary Plan result in claims for legal expenses which the ratepayers will be expected to pay? I hope not.

A M

Pakuranga.

The Northern Advocate 15/9/16

TREATY CLAIMS

Pita Tipene is confused if he thinks the Treaty of Waitangi supports his promotion of separatist Maori wards in local government ( Advocate, September 1).

Despite the propaganda of the last 30 years, the Treaty was a simple and straightforward agreement wherein 540 tribal chiefs ceded their individual “sovereignty” to the Queen in return for protection, legal ownership of their lands, and the rights and obligations of British subjects. This was a huge benefit to the majority of native peoples, including the thousands of tribal slaves.

It did not, however, create or enshrine any separatist relationships.

With 176 years gone by, we now live, love, work and play together and share many of the same bloodlines. Are those with some Maori ancestry so very different to all other New Zealanders? Do they have such special needs or are they so dysfunctional that they can’t take responsibility for standing on their own feet and operate in the modern world? Well, quite obviously, the answer to that is no.

A quick look around and we see people with Maori blood achieving on their merits and performing brilliantly at the highest level in politics, the arts, the military, diplomacy, business, law, medicine, sports, and so the list goes on.

To suggest someone needs a special entitlement just because of their ancestry (or part of) is just ludicrous in New Zealand.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wanganui Chronicle 15/9/16

LAND SALES

I write in reply to Potonga Neilson (letters, September 8). He says the original intent of the Maori forebears was to preserve self-determination. In what way did the sale of their land take away their self-determination? They agreed to sell, and they received the money offered. They could have retained their land if they had wished to. Potonga said in his earlier letter that the arrangement was well discussed and "endorsed by all."

I have met Maori of the East Coast, Ngati Porou. They said they do not have the land problems of other iwi because Sir Apirana Ngata taught his people how to use trusts. My informant said: "I don't know whether my piece is that patch of clover or that swamp or that rock on the far hill, but every year I get my share of the profits earned by the farmers we hired to farm that land for us."

T P

Wanganui

Northland Age 15/9/16

NO EXCUSES

Associate Professor Leonie Pihama writes alot of nonsense, claiming that high rates of

child abuse amongst Maori are due to the trauma of colonisation (Stuff, 30/7/16). Her

unfounded accusations do nothing to help the children, but raise serious concerns about

the academic standards of the University of Waikato.

If Pihama were to do some honest research, she would find that colonisation brought

an end to the repetitive trauma of brutal intertribal warfare, along with its associated

cannibalism, slavery and female infanticide.

As Chief Taipari (of Maungatapu pa in Tauranga during the 1830s and 1840s) noted, Maoris were well on the way to exterminating each other.

World history is full of people suffering catastrophic trauma – the likes of which simply can’t be compared with the colonisation of New Zealand.

Consider the misery and destruction caused by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and so many others of their ilk. I’m not aware of any suggested, let alone proven, correlation between their survivors and child abuse.

While nothing can ever be one hundred percent perfect, colonisation helped Maori by introducing systems for law and order, property rights and political representation.

The new lifestyle benefits certainly outweighed the disadvantages with significantly more food, warmer clothing, better housing, medical care, infrastructure and opportunities. As a consequence, Maori life expectancy has risen steadily from about 20 − 25 in precolonial days to around 75 in 2012.

Many Maori have leapt at the opportunities offered by a more enlightened nation – from during the 1800s when tribal leaders insisted that Maori children learn English, and others established trading and export businesses, to our many Maori MPs and Governor General today.

Pihama also denigrates the nuclear family, preferring instead a collective responsibility model. While there are advantages to having ready access to help and support, many adults in one household did nothing to protect the Kahui twins; nor were the children of Auckland’s Centrepoint commune protected against Bert Potter’s proclivity for paedophilia. Instead, the adults protected each other, instead of the children.

According to all statistical research, the nuclear family has a much better record on child health and safety than any other model. Parenting is a hard job. It takes an incredible amount of love, effort, sacrifice and commitment.

This explains why child abuse within New Zealand homes tends to be strongly correlated with unwanted pregnancies, non-biological carers, low educational attainment, past and current exposure to violence, and excessive use drugs and alcohol. Children damaged in such environments grow up and tend to repeat the behaviours they learnt.

Government policies, ineffective social welfare departments, and community excuses for appallingly bad behaviour have facilitated bad parenting. The result is an ever expanding number of abusers and damaged children. Nothing to do with colonisation – just dysfunctional families and basic maths.

Tribal leaders and activists need to be held to account. Their status relies on having ever increasing numbers of disaffected and disadvantaged followers. How else are governments to be guilted into paying them exorbitant settlements, salaries and fees?

Most humans need to be pushed, inspired or challenged. If we are given excuses for our failures and we can blame others, many of us will take the easy way out. After all, any sort of success requires time, effort and long term commitment. So if Maori are going to improve their child abuse statistics, it’s time for Maori to take ownership.

No more excuses! Every parent must be held to account for the decisions they make – male and female. We must expect higher standards for the sake of our kids. Old fashioned, I know, but stop screwing around! If a man and a woman don’t want children, then they should use contraception or get a vasectomy.

Once you have kids, make them top priority. Give up drugs, alcohol and random parties – or seek help if you can’t. And no, you are not entitled to do what you want any more.

Embrace education. Celebrate success – not just on the rugby field – but everywhere − especially in school and in strong, loving relationships. Find good role models – there are many successful Maori to seek advice and support from.

Do it, for the children’s sake! And if your leaders say not to worry, it’s someone else’s responsibility, then they are not worthy of belonging to our wonderful country.

Instead of making excuses, Pihama and other Maori community leaders need to make more of an effort to help change attitudes amongst their people.

There is plenty of support available and much taxpayer money is being spent, but it won’t achieve much until Maori start supporting Maori, helping every individual believe that they can and must take responsibility for improving their own lives. Maybe then, they will be entitled to the precious children they create.

F M

Whangaparaoa

NOTHING OF VALUE

The spit-flecked ravings of Mr Howearth add up to a long, rambling rant in search of a supporting point. Other than showcasing the existence of diversity of opinion, they add little or nothing of value to the topic.

Much of your correspondent's world view appears to rely on moral equivalence. Moral equivalence is the assumption that two or more unrelated wrongs make a right (or at least cancel one another out). Hardly a substantive rebuttal of anything I've said in these pages.

In common with others of his ilk, Mr Howearth peddles the nonsensical post-modernist claim that there are multiple versions of history (Pakeha' history and `Maori' history to name but two) in order to wave away established historical facts that don't accord with his prior.

Perhaps our part-Maori Welshman could tell us what makes him think his version of history is the correct one. He might also let us know what gives him the right to impose it on everyone else. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan reminds us: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

REUBEN P CHAPPLE

Devonport

The Northern Advocate 12/9/16

MAORI SEATS

Contrary to Minister Flavell’s comments during a recent visit to Whangarei ( Advocate, September 1), designated Maori seats tarnish anyone holding them as racist, unethical, incapable of standing on their merits and possibly corruptible.

Minister Flavell and his fanatical ilk in the Maori Party make it fairly clear that they are after money, power and control, without the usual checks and balances. This is the sort of attitude that brings nations to their knees.

Councils were not created to promote one interest group or ethnicity over others. Their job is to ensure the city operates efficiently, effectively and healthily; ie, roads, water, sewerage and rubbish primarily — and to make sure ratepayers get the best value for money.

Our representatives are there to work in the best interests of the entire community, not for any particular cultural, religious, social, sporting or ethnic group. Nor are they there to fleece ratepayers for personal gain.

All New Zealanders have the right to stand for election and the right to vote. None of us are happy with the democratic outcome 100 per cent of the time but most of us acknowledge that democracy is the safest, most productive and peaceful form of government. At least we have a chance to vote any drongos out every three years. Which is certainly better than dishing out permanent appointments, with voting rights, based on a random ancestor.

A politician of Maori descent, Sir Peter Buck, once said: “Beware of separatism. Maori can do anything Pakeha can do, but we must all be New Zealanders first.”

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

FORGOTTEN PAST

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a charming lady by the name of Monica Matamua.

Amber-brown skin, green eyes and golden hair, quite distinctive from New Zealand’s part-Maori descendants.

But there is a problem — Monica does not exist.

You see, Monica is the leader of the Patupaiarehe people and her story is best described in her own words:

“I am now 82 and I wonder how long I have to live before recognition and justice is achieved for my people, the Patupaiarehe.

“I am not Maori. I am descended from that ancient people, the Patupaiarehe, who came to New Zealand over 2000 years ago.”

“My brother and I were chosen to take up our people’s fight to restore both our name and the land taken from us.”

“It is a terrible thing to experience at a marae hearing you are told to sit down and shut up, because you no longer exist.”

This was the learned decision of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Then I met George Connelly (Hori Kupenga Manuka Manuka).

George is the Te Upoko Ariki (paramount chief) of the Waitaha people, who he states arrived in this country in AD550 and settled initially around the Kaipara Harbour, and in AD850 spread to the South Island.

Again the Waitangi Tribunal refused to acknowledge the Waitaha as being here before the Maori, classing them as a subtribe of the Ngai Tahu.

As Ngapuhi chieftain David Rankin stated, “Maori are not the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand.”

It is high time that a royal commission of inquiry be conducted into questionable “findings” of the Waitangi Tribunal so that New Zealand’s true history can be brought to light.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

The New Zealand Herald 12/9/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON COUNCILLORS

The greatest strength of New Zealand society is that it is made up of a majority of well-thinking, broadly middle class, individuals. Accordingly, if a universal vote was taken as to the appointment of non-elected Maori to local body councils, with equal voting rights, it seems certain that such a divisive racist system would be opposed by an overwhelming majority of fair minded people.

H L G,

Remuera

Dominion Post 12/9/16

NO TO ASH POLICE

I am delighted that the Kapiti Coast District Council is concerned at pollution from the scattering of a few urns of ashes from deceased locals.

It is a shame that the same council has not applied an equal level of interest to the wide open drains that frequent the Kapiti Coast area that are choked with rubbish, an eyesore and have to be a health hazard.

I would be surprised if any of Don Te Maipi's iwi even contemplate gathering of wild plants in any of these places, with or without burial ashes scattered in the area.

To include a clause in the cemeteries by-law as "voluntary compliance" is also a farcical waste of ratepayers' money.

The council needs to put its money where its mouth is. If there is a real need to ban the scattering of human ash, then explain what that reason is and stand by it. As it stands I am totally underwhelmed by the explanation to date and the priority it has been given by the council.

That said, I would hate to see my descendants in the future scattering my ashes on Paraparaumu Beach in the dead of night in order to avoid being apprehended by the Kapiti District Council "ash police".

B L

Paraparaumu Beach

NZ Herald 9/9/16

BLAMING COLONISATION

Dr Rawiri Taonui writes a lot of nonsense. Readers of extreme patience will have got through his Dialogue article to a sentence saying: “Large numbers of Maori work with communities 24/7 and more”. Then another gem: “Duff connects child abuse, colonisation and anger but doesn’t join the dots.” How otherwise has he made the connection? Such of my ancestry that is not Irish is Polish. Poland and Ireland have spent most of the last 800 years suffering from being overrun and occupied or colonised by foreign powers. It never occurred to me that I might use that as an excuse for my wrongdoings; and if it had I seriously doubt my excuse would have gained much traction.

P N

Takapuna.

Bay of Plenty Times 9/9/16

CYF CHANGE

I totally agree with Maureen Anderson’s letter (August 24) regarding CYF’s name change.

My understanding is Maori claim it takes a community to raise a child, so on that basis, we are all responsible for the safety of children. Changing the name of the government department will not alter a thing.

When are we going to hear so-called “Maori leaders” speak out about Maori children being beaten to death such as happened to Moko and many others before him and insisting it must stop — now?

J H

Tauranga

Hawkes Bay Today 8/9/16

PARK OWNERSHIP

The assertion in “Aniwaniwa tendering by the book” ( HB Today September 7) that Tuhoe “now owns” Urewera needs correction.

According to Tuhoe Deed of Settlement, Te Urewera, the former national park, has its own legislation and exists as a separate legal identity, governed by Tuhoe and Crown nominees, who are expected to act in the best interests of Te Urewera.

What we now have is Tuhoe acting as if they own the area waging a cultural war to get rid of any vestiges of colonialism, which in this case means demolishing the Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre.

Any area or entity put in a noman’s-land co-governance zone, such as the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, the marine and coastal area, and now the Urewera park, ends up being dominated by the tribal part of any co-governance deal.

I’m glad that a number are fighting to keep the visitor centre, which is a unique building in a beautiful location.

But I don’t hold out much hope when I see the Crown nominees behaving in such a gutless manner, while the cultural vandals, Tuhoe, act in the interests of Tuhoe, without giving a hoot for the scenic location.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Northland Age 8/9/16

MEANINGLESS BABBLE

Since the indigenous people of New Zealand were all but exterminated by Maori, the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people is irrelevant in New Zealand today, however Matike Mai or Anahera Herbert-Graves or anybody else "saw" it (Northland Age September 6).

In 1840, the missionary-coined expression lino rangatiratanga' meant ‘full possession', guaranteed explicitly to all the people of New Zealand. Falling into disuse afterwards, its revival since by racist groups is nothing but political propaganda. In Herbert-Graves' "constitutional terms" it is meaningless babble.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

NO NEED FOR SPECIAL NEEDS

Are those with Maori ancestry really so very different to all other New Zealanders? Do they have such special needs or are so dysfunctional that they can’t take responsibility for standing on their own feet and operating in the modern world?

Well, quite obviously, the answer to all of the above is no. A quick look around us and we see people with Maori blood achieving on their merits and performing brilliantly at the highest level in politics, the arts, the military, diplomacy, business, law, medicine, sports, and so the list goes on. To suggest someone needs a special entitlement just because of their ancestry (or part of) is just ludicrous in New Zealand.

The Treaty was a fantastic document for its time. The chiefs ceded sovereignty and in turn, the Crown extended the rights and obligations of British citizens to all people of this land. Maori seats were created to give communal landowners a say in government in a time when only male landowners could vote − all this long before any women were entitled to vote.

Well, guess what? It’s 2016 and everyone over 18 years has the right to vote. To suggest that Maori can’t cope with that and still need special systems is simply absurd.

Councils were not created to promote one interest group or ethnicity over others. Their job to ensure the city operates efficiently, effectively and healthily, i.e. roads, water, sewage and rubbish primarily – and to make sure ratepayers get the best value for money.

Our representatives are there to work in the best interests of the entire community, not one particular ethnic group. Nor are they there to fleece ratepayers for personal gain.

Contrary to Minister Flavell’s comments during a recent visit to Whangarei (Advocate 1/9/16), designated Maori seats tarnish anyone holding them as racist, unethical, incapable of standing on their merits and possibly corruptible.

The performance of the individuals “appointed” to sit and vote on Auckland’s Council has certainly not been commendable to date. The development of a Unitary Plan for the region had these mafia-like people demonstrating an unethical, bullying self-interest with no respect for homeowners, due process or corruption-proof systems. And they weren’t even elected or able to be challenged by the tribes they are supposed to be representing!

All New Zealanders have the right to stand for election and the right to vote. None of us are happy with the democratic outcome 100% of the time but most of us acknowledge that democracy is the safest, the most productive and peaceful form of government. At least we have a chance to vote any drongos out every three years. That is certainly better than dishing out permanent entitlements based on a random ancestor.

Minister Flavell and his fanatical ilk in the Maori Party make it fairly clear that they are after money, power and control, without the usual checks and balances. This is the sort of attitude that brings nations to their knees.

Sir Peter Buck once said: "Beware of separatism. Maori can do anything Pakeha can do, but we must all be New Zealanders first."

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Rotorua Daily Post 8/9/16

ETHICS QUESTION

In a previous letter (August 24) I questioned the ethics of the current council in providing a ladder to co-governance for Te Arawa.

Should any of the unelected appointees on committees of council get elected to council their places will automatically get refilled by Te Arawa Board appointees, further consolidating co-governance.

I and many others will never accept this arrangement for three reasons. First, these nominees can't be unelected. Power in perpetuity is dangerous because it generates tyranny.

Second, these nominees will inevitably serve factional tribal interests, not all of our people, in the public interest.

Third, the power of elected representatives is legitimised by the consent of the governed (ratepayers). These nominees will never have true consent and I will regard their authority as illegitimate. And so will, I predict, many others.

In my view most non-Te Arawa Maori and non-Maori will be voting for the restoration of democracy in everyone's best interest. ■ Abridged

R W

Rotorua

Wanganui Chronicle 7/9/16

POINT LOST

Nigel Brooke, in attempting to rebut Bruce Moon's letter on the "H" debate, has made a nonsense of the discussion.

We have been told repeatedly that Wanganui should be spelled with an "H" "because that is the way Maori spelled it".

In this instance we have Daniel Harding decrying Ian Brougham for disagreeing with that claim. In his letter Daniel said non-Maori should not tell Maori how to spell Maori words.

Bruce Moon wrote a reply to Daniel pointing out the illogic of that claim, since the only-oral Maori language was made a written language (ie. spelled) for Maori by Europeans.

Nigel Brooke then replies, in effect, that we should ignore all evidence about the way Maori words were pronounced or spelled because the language has developed.

Well, there went the entire debate. So it now has nothing to do with the correct way of spelling or pronouncing words or the way it has always been done, but rather with some ethereal claim of how it should be said or spelled now.

Nigel claims language cannot be controlled — this is false as language can and often has been controlled, especially for political purposes.

K A B

Gonville

The Northern Advocate 6/9/16

RECOGNITION DUE

In 1867, the Maori people were granted seats in Parliament as a temporary measure. In 2016, almost 150 years later, those temporary seats are still there.

In 2010, Pita Sharples went to the United Nations to sign the declaration on indigenous rights as pertaining to the Maori people. The decision would help restore New Zealand’s mana in handling these rights. Did it need restoring? Many settlements have been signed and multi-billions of dollars have been paid to the Maori elite, which the UN reports as "imperfect".

Does the UN know, or even care about, the Patupairarehe and Waitaha people, who were here long before Maori, and were slaughtered by them in their thousands, and that some of their descendants live among us today? Did Mr Sharples tell the UN about them? Possibly not. And so I agree with the UN, it is imperfect!

These people have two things going against them. They are quiet and peaceful people. Does the Government recognise them? If not, it is about plurry time they did! And it is about time that they did something about those temporary Maori seats in Parliament as well!

KEVAN G MARKS

Kaipara

Northland Age 6/9/16

MORE USEFUL

The letter of Reuben Chapple (No 'unjust' war, September 1) is impressive as to both its detail and its clarity.

It has prompted my brain to remember when I was on an important justice committee of the Catholic Church a few decades ago. Also on that committee was a part-Maori chap named Alvin Arnold, for whom this committee and other such church and `social justice'- related activities were his occupation.

Reuben Chapple has brought to my mind that Alvin proposed that the law of contracts should not apply to Maori. He gave no particular rationale for this extraordinary proposal, except that contracts are really a European idea. Needless to say, that proposal never saw the light of day. Another proposal that Alvin put forward was that, for New Zealanders, the Old Testament of the Bible should be replaced by Maori mythology.

Later I found that Alvin had changed his name. Like Steven O'Regan, who became Tipene O'Regan for political purposes, Alvin Arnold found the name Manuka Henare more useful.

Manuka now finds himself as Associate Professor in Maori Business Development at Auckland University.

L L

Snells Beach

Bay of Plenty Times 5/9/16

‘WARS’ STILL CAUSING CONFLICT

Regarding Dylan Thorne’s editorial (Opinion, August 25), let’s start at the beginning with Bill English announcing, according to media reports, a new holiday to commemorate the “New Zealand Wars”.

Last month, he and PM Key backtracked saying only a Commemoration Day would be approved, not a public holiday and would be a locally driven event (a bit like Easter trading).

Clearly, what had happened was the penny had dropped as 80 per cent of Kiwis don’t want a bar of a “wars”’ public holiday.

Mr English also had one other major problem viz. the proposal was being considered (not determined) by a Parliamentary Select Committee last Friday.

Turning to your comments on Guy Fawkes, it is a day informally acknowledged by the public, as is Halloween, not a public holiday and not officially recognised.

I agree with you they are nothingness days to Kiwis. Let me stress there were no Land Wars, or for that matter New Zealand Wars. The uprisings were open tribal rebellions and, as pre-warned, some land was confiscated but most was returned very quickly thereafter. (Abridged)

R P

Matapihi

ABUSE OR EXCUSE?

Child abuse is very much in the spotlight right now and I was shocked to read that Professor Leonie Pihama of Waikato University blames the effects of colonisation as the reason Maori abuse their children.

Colonisation brought better housing, medical care, transport, food and clothing. Where are the fern roots in supermarkets and flax mats in clothing shops today?

Colonisation brought an end to cannibalism, slavery and brutal inter-tribal warfare. A Tauranga chief noted: “If we continue fighting, our race will become extinct.” In short, colonisation was the best thing that ever happened to Maori.

Maori author Alan Duff countered the absurd claims of the professor by saying: “In 1823, Hongi Hika came down from the Far North and smashed my Te Arawa people, who had fled to Mokoia Island. Hongi and his warriors feasted on my ancestors' cooked bodies for six days; they took back an estimated 1000 captives as slaves.

Sounds like worse cultural devastation than being colonised.” (Abridged)

R B

Tauranga

Hawkes Bay Today 5/9/16 (Text Us section)

■ I read a headline in your paper that said ‘‘Charter school for Maori boys’’. If that had read ‘‘Charter school for pakeha boys’’ they would all scream racism. Starting to turn NZ into the South Africa of old.

Wanganui Chronicle 5/9/16

HELP CHILDREN

The new Children's Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, has a preference to use a Maori name for the newly-announced ministry for what was Child, Youth and Family.

The nation's children need to be protected and cherished, but when will Government and their highly-paid representatives realise it is the parents, grandparents and whanau who are the problem. The children are merely the consequences of dysfunctional parenting. Millions of dollars are squandered by culturally PC health, welfare and educational facilities without any proof of positive outcomes for children and tamariki.

All children that come to the recognition of any agency —doctors included — with symptoms of deprivation, malnutrition or abuse should be recorded with the Health Department and the families should be investigated immedi-ately. A name change is not the answer to deprivation. Tough Love and consequences for the parents is.

M J A

Tauranga

The Nelson Mail 3/9/16

SHARED SOVEREIGNTY

So the Maori King is appealing for a ‘‘shared sovereignty’’ ( Nelson Mail, August 22).

Article one in the Treaty of Waitangi says the chiefs of the confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand cede to the Queen of England forever their entire sovereignty of their country.

So if they signed the Treaty who are they going to share with when they already ceded it?

Non-Maori people have shared a lot with Maori since the Waitangi Tribunal started in 1980. We have listened to a never-ending grievance, blame industry.

Now they have been given a New Zealand Land Wars battle site with Maggie Barry’s blessing.

Bill English has said it was time ‘‘to recognise New Zealand’s bloody past’’ and has earmarked $4 million for commemorations.

Twenty other land battle sites in New Zealand can be claimed by Maori.

There is a battle land site in Wairau, near Blenheim to be put up for grabs.

D S

Stoke

Wanganui Chronicle 3/9/16

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

I would like to ask Gypsy Wright one question, following his comment that preferential treatment for Maori is justified because of "the land grab and other atrocities inflicted upon Maori". When will the equality he asks for be satisfied — will it ever be enough?

Squillions are paid in Treaty settlements with many privileges, such as Maori-only schools, education scholarships, language funding, radio and television, seats in Parliament, health and welfare initiatives, prisoner programmes, statutory boards, co-management of natural features etc. What of the special tax rate of 17.5 percent for Maori?

What of Ngai Tahu, who — as one of the country's wealthiest corporations — are now worth over $1 billion but pay no tax at all on any of their New Zealand businesses, because they are registered as a charity? They own Go Bus, Rainbow Springs, ShotoverJet and more.

Another "charity" is Waikato-Tainui and its Tainui Group Holdings which rakes in millions — mostly from its Te Rapa retail development, The Base. Once again, no tax.

Gypsy, when will you be satisfied? Isn't it time that we all just became New Zealanders?

R B

Tauranga

PLACE NAMES

What a weird and irrelevant letter from Nigel Brooke (Chronicle, August 30) in response to mine —as if his woad-decorated ancestors had anything to do with it.

The native language of most people of Maori descent is English and they already have some influence at the New Zealand variety —eh, bro! Few whose first language is a Maori dialect remain.

I am informed that the artificial form of it now taught as a second language is barely understandable to most of them.

I would not rely on what Jacinth Ruru says, and "Aotearoa" is not a real name of our country — see if you can find it in the Treaty of Waitangi.

However, place names are different and they become part of the common speech of everyone.

A referendum is an entirely reasonable way to find out what the residents of a town or city want it to be called. The wishes of a substantial majority of the people of your city have been ignored on shaky grounds.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 3/9/16 (Also in the Weekend Sun / Sunlive 2/9/16)

HISTORY LESSON

A petition fronted by two Otorohanga College pupils calling for a national day to remember the "land wars" has been successful Government has agreed to this without any knowledge of whether the general public wanted it or whether the historical facts for the request were accurate.

Maori fought alongside government and against government and much of what happened, can be better described as tribal rebellions, rather than land wars.

The more important petition to Peter Dunne, Minister of Archives, concerning the legitimacy of what is known as the "official English" version of Te Tiriti o Waitangi has been refused, despite the incontrovertible evidence which has been researched from Archives NZ, museums, microfilm, handwriting experts and historians that has been supplied to him (Abridged)

M J A

Tauranga

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 2/9/16

TAKE NOTE!

Re: R Paterson's letter ‘A sense of inflated entitlement' (The Weekend Sun, August 26)should be required reading for all who favour honest recording of our history. It is comprehensive but succinct and its accuracy can be readily verified. Politicians and iwi Treaty revisionists take note.

B J

Omokoroa.

KNEEJERKING ON LAND WARS DAY –

Re: ‘Setting a new holiday date' article on Sunlive.co.nz on August 21.

Well, let's start at the beginning with Deputy Prime Minister Bill English announcing at Ranigiri on August 19, 2016, according to media reports a new holiday to commemorate the New Zealand Wars. Well that interpretation is wrong because early last week, Mr English and Prime Minister Key suddenly backtracked saying only a Commemoration Day would be entertained, not a public holiday, and this would be a locally driven event - a bit like the Easter trading fiasco.

Clearly what had happened between Friday's kneejerking and Monday's light of day, was the penny had dropped with these slow learners who realised that 80 per cent of Kiwis don't want a bar of a ‘wars' public holiday.

A Gisborne poll held last week confirms only 20 per cent approved of such a public holiday. This ‘fete day' aberration was driven by the Maori Party, which gained only a pitiful 1.3 per cent of the 2014 popular vote, and its sidekicks. In addition Mr English also had one other major problem to overcome, namely the proposal was being considered - not determined - by a Parliamentary Select Committee at the same time on August 19.

Incidentally, any meaningful public consultation has been virtually non-existent on the topic.

Let's be clear there were no ‘land wars', or for that matter ‘New Zealand Wars' the uprisings were open tribal rebellions - and as pre-warned by Governor Grey land was confiscated but then much of it subsequently returned to Maori very shortly after the confiscations.

R P

Matapihi.

Northland Age 1/9/16

PLEASE, SIR . . .

Dear me. Anna Herbert-Graves has let her imagination loose again! Maori are not the indigenous people of New Zealand, so the pronouncements of the wets of the United Nations are irrelevant. For pale-faced people with a minority of Maori descent to claim special rights because they pretend to be indigenous is absurd.

They all have rights to determine who shall govern us. They have rather more rights already than most of us, as the number of Maori electorates is decided with a smaller number of eligible voters, and even fewer in proportion bother to vote.

How tiresome she has become! At present, with one member in Parliament by the coat-tailing provision which distorts MMP, the Maori Party holds the balance of power and exerts disproportionate influence. But this will not do for Herbert-Graves, from whom Oliver Twist could have learnt a few lessons.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The Nelson Mail 1/9/16

REVISING HISTORY

There’re times you wonder just how stupid some public figures appear to think we are. An item run, insulting of the elderly, on Matt Lawrey's Facebook page. Despite it remaining for days with Matt's obviously willing compliance - somehow it's not his fault because "it wasn't him" who put it there. Eric Davy hands out a print of the item - and Lawrey starts screaming "dirty politics." Our unlamented ex-mayor buys in, waxing lyrical on Lawrey's behalf and attempting to re-concoct history with his version of how "dirty politics" thwarted him.

Goodness, if ever anyone should have had the sense to stay quiet on such matters, surely Miccio would epitomise such a soul. At his first meeting, councillors had five-minutes' notice of his order paper to set up a Maori ward and entered the chamber to find its galleries packed with Maori.

That stunt required a referendum to overturn it, costing Nelson $98,000. Miccio crony-ised some councillors - only four stood-up against him - and in his one term, civic debt skyrocketed.

Take Trafalgar Park. God knows how much he caused to be blown on it and its virtually never used temporary seating, but ever since, park usage hasn't remotely paid-off. It's wonderful he's backing Lawrey.

J C

Nelson,

Northland Age 30/8/16

HOLIDAY HUNTING

Well, let's start at the beginning, with deputy prime minister Bill English announcing at Ranigiri, according to media reports, a new holiday to commemorate the New Zealand Wars. Early this week Mr English and Prime Minister Key suddenly backtracked, saying only a Commemoration Day would be entertained, not a public holiday, and this would be a locally-driven event (a bit like the Easter trading fiasco). Clearly what had happened between Friday's knee-jerking and Monday's light of day was the penny had dropped with these slow learners, who realised that 80 per cent of Kiwis don't want a bar of a 'Wars' public holiday.

The Gisborne Herald poll of last week confirms only 20 per cent approved of such a public holiday.

This 'fete day' aberration was driven by the Maori Party (who gained only a pitiful 1.3 per cent of the 2014 popular vote) and its sidekicks. Mr English also had one other major problem to overcome, viz the proposal was being considered (not determined) by a Parliamentary Select Committee at the same time on that Friday. Incidentally, any meaningful public consultation has been virtually non-existent on the topic.

Let's be clear, there were no `land wars', or for that matter New Zealand Wars. The uprisings were open tribal rebellions, and, as prewarned by Governor Grey, land was confiscated, but then much of it subsequently returned to Maori very shortly after the confiscations.

R P

Matapihi

Bay of Plenty Times 29/8/16

WAR EQUALITY

I completely support Richard Prince’s letter in which he correctly states that Maori and non-Maori who died during the so-called Land Wars ought to be remembered equally.

One has to wonder why, after about 170 years, iwi want to hold a commemorative day and dredge up the past? These uprisings against the Crown, breaking the Treaty of Waitangi, have long been settled and it would be a total distortion of history if only present day Maori were represented.

If today’s Maori really want to commemorate their fallen exclusively, the Musket Wars are perfect. (Abridged)

M B

Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 29/8/16

STANDING UP

A poisoned chalice indeed (Kate Kennedy, Letters, August 17). From her published remarks, one can only come to the conclusion that she is a rampant feminist greenie with ethnicity problems which she declines to identify.

May I be so bold as to suggest to her that the "light sprinkling of gender and ethnic diversity among the aspirants" is not a situation caused by the aspirants themselves, but rather a failing on the part of members of the feminine gender and people of "non-European" ethnicity to stand up and be counted.

The obvious question is: Why is her name not amongst those seeking office? Her attack on Ian Brougham shows her racist bias. I am sure his stand on linking councillor pay to attendance and reducing the number of incumbents to nine is not the cause of her caustic remark. This only leaves Mr Brougham's feelings that it is time for every member of every race in NZ to be treated on an equal basis.

Not long ago we saw local iwi blackmail the council over the port issue. The council backed down. To my mind, members of the local iwi are also part of the general community. Therefore, surely they should provide advice on matters that have a possible "ethnic" flavour as a matter of community spirit, not for profit. Good luck, Ian — I hope the disgruntled residents appreciate your stance on polling day. — Edited

D P

Eastown

LAND SALE

I reply to Potonga Neilson, (Letters, August 4). Potonga says that the land in question was not sold to the settlers but only rented out to them for a fee, so to speak. The settlers gained the right to occupy and nothing more. The land was not farewelled.

But that is not so. In any such arrangement there has to be a meeting of the minds. And Potonga makes it clear that the arrangement was well discussed and "endorsed by all". Not only that, Potonga describes the arrangement as a "sale". So in fact money changed hands and settlers moved in. End of story.

If the settlers were only given the right to occupy some land there would have been a term of occupation specified and a regular fee charged. So Potonga, produce the document with the terms agreed to. Perhaps you should "put up or shut up" as you say.

T P

Wanganui

Waikato Times 27/8/16

LAND WARS DAY

It is not a bad idea to commemorate the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s. It gives the opportunity to separate historical nonsense from cold facts. In the 1980s Kiwis believed the distortions perpetuated in both book and TV by James Belich. In his second edition preface, Belich finally, after much criticism, put his hand up to bias – putting it down to youthful enthusiasm.

Other historians, such as Chris Pugsley, have pointed out a host of factual errors in Belich’s book. Belich has refused to say what made him write such a ‘‘revisionist ‘‘account.

It is easy to forget that the defeat of the Kingitanga at Rangiriri and in 17 other conflicts stopped New Zealand becoming two separate nations – one following a Maori king and the other Queen Victoria’s New Zealand government. Without the support of Maori who remained loyal to the government, defeating the Kingitanga forces would have taken far longer. As the war dragged on, most of the actual fighting was done by loyal Maori troops.

We owe a debt to Waikato Christian Maori who warned of attempts to kidnap settlers’ wives and children, who guided ships, provided food for the troops and guided soldiers past Kingitanga fortifications. The commemoration is a chance to honour them and General Cameron who brought the Waikato war to a speedy end.

M L

Hamilton

LAND WARS DAY 2

Let the battle begin over the day.

We respond to the front page (August 20), commemorating a national day for the New Zealand Land Wars.

The New Zealand History Federation propose July 12.

In 1881, this is the day that King Tawhiao went to Pirongia and symbolically laid down his arms to Mair as a token of surrender and ended the New Zealand Wars.

Whilst this day does not tie in with any "event", it would avoid any thought of raising one conflict event, Rangiriri that was handed back on Friday, over Orakau, Gate Pa or even Kororareka, or one race over the other as the gesture is symbolic representing both side. We welcome comment historyfederation@gmail.com. as we have proposed this event to the powers to be in the Beehive.

N C

Secretary, NZ History Federation

MAORI MOKO

In times of great social change, it is quite common for some people to cling to the past in any way they can. This is what some Maori are doing with their tattoos and resurrecting their old language.

It is natural but it is always futile. Far better to try to get to grips with the change, at least for the young. The English language has evolved as a combination of Celtic, Anglo Saxon, Latin and Viking, as it has become the universal language of commerce and communication.

By all means keep Maori for cultural reasons, but it should not be imposed on the greater society, who are also grappling with this unprecedented rate of change, brought about by the internet. Being literate in computing is essential if you do not want to be left out of society. That requires the use of the English language.

K F

Hamilton

Bay of Plenty Times 27/8/16

WAR CASUALTIES

Dylan Thorne (Opinion, August 25) writes that commemorating the New Zealand Wars will encourage greater cultural understanding.

If the Government is going to have discussions only with the Maori Party and iwi then it will do no such thing. It seems to have been forgotten that roughly one-third of the casualties in these wars were British troops or constabulary. Are their descendants not to be consulted, are their views not to be considered?

The unease is this will be nothing more than an excuse for those with vested interests to improve their own ideological or financial position. I am not totally against the idea but without a balanced history and buy-in from the Pakeha population it will be seen, like Waitangi Day, as little more than another day of ugliness and division.

R P

Welcome Bay

Rotorua Daily Post 27/8/16

TE ARAWA CANDIDATES

Congratulations to the three selected Te Arawa people who have put their names forward for democratic election to the Rotorua Lakes Council (Rotorua Daily Post August 20).

I presume that, if they become elected, there will be no further need for Rotorua ratepayers to have to fork out $250,000 per year ($291,000 in election year) to fund a Te Tatau oTe Arawa board!

$1,040,000 every four years would go very nicely towards providing a shelter for Rotorua's homeless people. I am not surprised at Te Arawa supporting the current mayor and council. Who wouldn't when they give you free voting rights on council.

D T

Rotorua

Northern Advocate 27/8/16

ADDRESS ISSUES

We now have local hapu engaged with council in the "strategic partnership forum" known as Te Karearea.

The issue of Maori inclusion on council business is contentious. However, if a majority of elected council members supports it, then it follows that it becomes council policy. Voters at the coming election have their opportunity to make their views felt by voting according to whether they wish for this policy to continue.

My main concern is, are these appointees representative of the urban reality of Maori in this city? What positive contribution can they make toward solving the many serious issues plaguing this town?

For Te Karearea to dismiss or ignore the reality that Maori play a significant part in statistics concerning criminal and antisocial activities in and around Whangarei is to deny, perhaps, its greatest possible opportunity to contribute to the positive development of this town.

Engaging in marae protocol, understanding concepts such as whakakaitiakitanga, being aware of cultural sensitivities, learning to reo; in fact being inclusive and promoting racial harmony and awareness is very good.

But what about family violence, street violence, truancy, drug trafficking, the pernicious influence of gangs, robbery, youth suicide, homelessness, burglary, arson and other such devastating issues?

For Te Karearea to prove its worth, some nettles need to be grasped. Suggestion: street lighting in Otangarei that actually illuminates the area. And how about changes to street layouts that make the suburb accessible by more than one or two obscure corridors.

Integrate it into the town as a whole, unlike what it is now, Whangarei's very own roughly circular, very separate ghetto. Get real with these issues and work together to find some real solutions.

lf Te Karearea can achieve this, it will have done something not only for Whangarei, but indeed for all New Zealand. (Abridged)

G M T

Whangarei

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 26/8/16

A SENSE OF INFLATED ENTITLEMENT?

The recent Maori Fisheries Trust advert in The New Zealand Herald this month titled ‘When is deal not a deal?' is full of arrant nonsense claims.

The Sealord 1992 deal skewed the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi - the legitimate Maori version - which doesn't mention fisheries anywhere simply guaranteeing the same rights to all New Zealand citizens. Neither does it appear in the widely accepted, authenticated final English Littlewood Draft currently housed in NZ Archives. Only vested interests or hidden agendas opposing the Littlewood Draft think otherwise.

Pre-European Maori with unstable canoes rarely fished out of sight of land - they had no need to - and probably never visited the Kermadecs about 1000km away or knew where they were. The only meaningful contribution Maori made to Kermandec conservation was they never visited it. Current claims that tribes are being punished are unmitigated rubbish.

Treaty settlements are often based on bogus claims, which are routinely accepted by the biased and dysfunctional Waitangi Tribunal with successive treacherous governments and politicians then handing over taxpayers' cash and assets willy nilly in the name of political correctness or political expediency. To most Kiwis there is no honour in that behaviour.

The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill already goes too far in offering part-Maori tribal interests any say in its management to which they are not entitled so if they know what is good for them, the malcontents should just put up with it and shut up.

It's said: “People who take more than their fair share always feel an inflated sense of entitlement”. Ain't that the truth!

R P

Matapihi.

Wanganui Chronicle 26/8/16

MAORI DIALECTS

Daniel Harding, in his "forth-right" reply to Ian Brougham (letters, August 18) suffers many delusions.

Pre-European Maori had no written language, so the "correct spelling" of anything was meaningless. Europeans spelled words as they heard them, the missionaries taking particular care. Thus we have "wenua" for "land" in the Treaty of Waitangi, not "whenua", and "February" transliterated as "Pepueri". One only has to look at the Treaty to see that, clearly, there was no "wh" as in "when" nor "f" as in "February" in the Ngapuhi dialect.

There were many dialects of Maori, some mutually unintelligible. The place names Wangaloa in the south, Akaroa and Akaloa in the centre and Whangaroa in the north use the same word. Which is right or wrong? The Maori name for Wellington harbour is spelt Wanganui-a-tara by librarians at their recent conference. Of all people, they will have got it "right". The generally accepted Maori spelling of Lyttelton harbour is Whakaraupo — that makes four spellings for the Maori word for "harbour", and all, I suggest, are equally legitimate.

So how did the tribes of the area actually say the name of the river which became that of your city? Certainly both forms were used, but an excellent example is that of Archie Bogle, prince of surveyors in the district, who frequently employed local Maori to assist him. Invariably he used the form he heard and that was Wanganui, only noting Whanganui in the index of his book Links In The Chain as an alternative.

Mr Harding, in telling us to "respect the Maori language", demonstrates only his ignorance of it. In the circumstances, perhaps the wishes of the residents should actually be given some weight — 80 per cent of them prefer Wanganui but their wishes have been arrogantly over-ridden on spurious grounds by ignorant people with the power to do so, who hold a clear choice — democratically expressed — in contempt.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dominion Post 25/8/16

WE ARE 'ONE'

If there are two things that unite the Maori King's muddled vision for the future with that of New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd sitting proudly in front of the majority-approved national flag and the separatist 'Maori' flag, it would be a breathtaking ignorance of the Treaty of Waitangi and a withered understanding of what democracy is.

Nowhere in the Treaty can anything be twisted to mean anything other than two peoples resolving to come together under one government under one law. Hobson greeted each signatory in 1840 with, in Maori, "Now we are one". That 'oneness' underpins our democracy.

One citizen: one vote, regardless of race, colour, religion, or gender. Sir Apirana Ngata, perhaps the greatest of post-1840 Maori leaders, said: "The Treaty made the one law for the Maori and Pakeha." Ngata regarded this one law and equality before it as the most important part of the Treaty. Sir Peter Buck said: "Beware of separatism. The Maori can do anything the Pakeha can do, but . we must all be New Zealanders first."

The Maori King and the New Plymouth mayor, and the supporting chorus of separatist muddlees, have lost the plot. The majority must keep them to it. [abridged]

A R

Napier

The New Zealand Herald 24/8/16

ONE ‘H’ REMAINS

One of my wife’s forefathers, James Lockhart Stevenson, was Mayor of Wanganui in 1896, some 30-odd years after the town’s name was changed from Petre. The recent inclusion of the letter “h” in the name has been a source of irritation to her. We note with pleasure that the TV One weather map has maintained the original preferred spelling.

P C

Parnell.

Bay of Plenty Times 24/8/16

NEW NAME NO FIX

The new Children’s Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, has a preference, in my view, for the newly announced name for what was CYF, to be a Maori name.

The nation’s children need to be protected and cherished but when will Government and their highly paid representatives realise that it is the parents, grandparents and whanau who are the problem. The children are merely the consequences of dysfunctional parenting.

Millions of dollars annually are being squandered by culturally PC health, welfare and educational facilities without any proof of positive outcomes for tamariki.

All children who come to the recognition of any agency, doctors included, with symptoms of deprivation, malnutrition or abuse should be recorded with the health department and the families be investigated immediately, not in six months. A name change is not the answer to deprivation. Tough love and consequences for the parents is.

M J A

Tauranga

Rotorua Daily Post 24/8/16

IS IT ETHICAL?

The list of "Te Arawa Candidates Chosen for Election" includes David (Rawiri) Waru. If elected he would move from being an unelected member of the council's operations and monitoring committee to becoming a member of council. In this case his place on the O&M would presumably be given to another from the Te Arawa Board, if the current regime is re-elected. This would make Te Arawa's representation even more disproportionate given their population. If not elected Mr Waru would apparently continue in the same seat on the O&M Committee, possibly alongside others from Te Arawa who have been elected, also potentially adding to their already disproportion-ate power. This can't be right.

The problem in my view is that the unelected members from Te Arawa already on committees of council can't be unelected. They or their replacements will be in power forever. Only the same number or more can be elected and thereby preserve or reinforce co-governance on council.

Since Te Arawa members get to vote twice, once for their board members and once for council members, they have twice the voting power that I do. How can that be justified?

I thought that all people's vote were of equal value in determining who has power over us. If not, we are on the pathway to tyranny. Is this an ethical approach to a democratic system? The only way of stopping this nonsense is to treat the council elections as a referendum on co-governance and to vote for the restoration of democracy.

R W

Rotorua

Waikato Times 23/8/16

TE REO

David’s Coy letter to the editor (August 18), criticising Robin Bishop, shows clearly he does not understand the New Zealand way of life solely because he was bought up in post war Britain.

None of what Robin Bishop says is racist, bigoted or ignorant.

When I was at school in 1949 and the 1950s, not many Maori were interested in learning the language and none that I know of.

Te reo was never prohibited at the school or at any others that I know of. So where did Mr Coy get this from?

What Mr Coy has to get his head around is if you want to learn a language, you do it yourself.

I, myself, am of Irish descent and chose not to learn Gaelic. My choice - as like a lot of other people who prefer English as their language.

What a waste of millions of taxpayers’ dollars being spent on Maori language that nobody is interested in learning.

If you want to learn something, you will do it by choice yourself, not have it forced down your throat, which you are not interested in.

So am I to be branded racist by Mr Coy?

M L

Te Puke

TE REO 2

Your correspondent David Coy castigates me because I commented on the proven fact that Maori are not interested in learning te reo in spite of all efforts to promote the language.

He asserts that the British and their language and customs have come to dominate our country by prohibition of te reo.

How much further from the truth can he get? The Maori language has not only not been prohibited, it is actively being encouraged at governmental level with squillions of dollars being thrown at it annually.

With the arrival of ‘‘the perpetrators’’ that Mr Coy mentions, Maori did not lose a language but they gained a more valuable one. It was simply the task of our colonising Europeans to gather New Zealand and the Maori into the modern world.

Today, the mixed race descendants of the old-time Maori have been equipped with the language, education, skills, technology and legal right to stand in the modern world on an equal basis with anyone.

Also note the fact that there was no genocide in New Zealand after Maori accepted the British law and order they requested.

To quote Mark Twain - Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

R B

Tauranga

Northland Age 23/8/16

TIME'S UP

It is more than time that the Waitangi Tribunal is disbanded, and as a country we should insist on it.

The definition of democracy is that we are all treated equally regarding race, gender and religion.

History is being re-written at an alarming rate by those with an agenda, and is clarified by Ngapuhi elder David Rankin, who states: "The Tribunal makes up history as it goes along, and evidence is shaped to fit pre-determined outcomes which fit the separatist agenda. The sooner it is shut down, the better."

Maori author Alan Duff predicted 20 years ago that the claims would never stop. "It is champagne that comes from that tap, so why would they walk away? It is time for Maori leaders to step away from that tap!"

We should all simply be Kiwis, with the same rights and privileges. The never-ending treaty claims and the corrupt tribunal which spawns them should not even see the light of day.

As the watered-down bloodlines of today's Maori owe as much, if not more, to their European heritage as to any Maori ancestry, then it must be time to give the treaty the kudos it deserves - a prominent place in Te Papa as a historical document of no relevance today.

R B

Tauranga

NZ Herald 22/8/16 (Short & Sweet)

ON COMMEMORATION

Why not also have a day of remembrance for all the inter-tribal warfare prior to the signing of the Treaty, believed to be the worst casualties rate than WWI for all combatants.

How would that be taught impartially inter alia in schools with local iwi still unwilling to recognise, apologise or to claim compensation from the effects those battles had. Lest we forget, New Zealanders both Maori and European, including German and Japanese, have days set aside to remember all war dead.

M H,

Piha.

Bay of Plenty Times 22/8/16

OFFICIAL ENGLISH

On Saturday I read with much surprise the comment by Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft about the newly announced Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

He prefers the Maori name of Oranga Tamariki but it was his following comment that so surprised me.

He said, “Most New Zealanders fail to recognise that we have three official languages, one of which is Maori”.

He is wrong! New Zealand has only two official languages — and English is not one of them.

Only Maori and Sign Language are officially recognised in law and, surprisingly, English is only a de facto national language and has never been legislated into law.

In this day and age, there is nothing we should take for granted, particularly as English is the language most New Zealanders use every day in general conversation, commerce, parliamentary and local government business, education, and court proceedings.

Therefore to correct this oversight I am running a petition to legislate the English language into law. Anyone wanting to sign this petition can contact me on 027 233 1595 or at petition@inbox.com

I am surprised that a person of the commissioner/judge’s standing and credentials did not know this fact.

ROBIN BISHOP

Tauranga

Northern Advocate 20/8/16

WHAT ARE OPTIONS

Democracy or ... what???

In response to correspondent Juliet Golightly, I wish to thank her for such learned enlightenment.

And here was me not even suspecting that I supported Darwinist racial views, was an Aryan cultural supremacist and apparently a tyrant as well.

Any references in my letters about evolution have always referred to social evolution, without any racial undertones, and to my thinking the only race of any importance is the human race.

Whether any individual is white, brown or technicolour has no bearing whatsoever on any viewpoints previously expressed.

Ms Golightly's disparaging references to the democratic system have some legitimacy, but it is futile to condemn an existing system without suggesting a practicable alternative.

Tyranny occurs when a minority faction or individual enforces their agenda over and above the wishes of the general populace. Majority rule is the antithesis of tyranny.

Any criticisms made concerning part-Maori have had nothing to do with whether they were brown or white. My primary concern is that activists are denying the reality of their genetic make-up, selecting only the bit that suits them, and brainwashing their children into becoming race sensitive.

With today's mixed heritage, being Maori is no longer a biological fact. It is a matter of selective belief and as a belief; should be recognised as a religion.

Minority groups are entitled to do their own thing — except when it contravenes the law — but they should never expect special rights just for being different.

As for "gender neutral' proponents; Male and female are the basic components for the survival of the human race, thus any orchestrated attempts to remove masculinity from males and femininity from females can only be the product of distorted thinking.

Political correctness is a subversive weapon being used to destroy cultural values that have proven historically to be tried and true.

Democracy is the fortress that separates freedom from tyrannical enslavement.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

EQUAL TREATMENT

Recently there have been a few letters re democracy. I would like to share a quote from Stephen Franks with your readers: The core value of democracy is simple — The ruled can vote to remove their rulers. Handing the balance of power, permanent seats to unelected aristos of iwidom is racist and destructive. It is being replicated around the country right now!!"

Further, democracy is based on the simple principle that all citizens must be treated the same under the law. Every individual has the same rights and indeed has the same responsibilities under the law.

Within society, people may share common views and interests with others, be those cultural, religious, ethnic, social or perhaps sporting. All such groupings are basically tribal in nature. But forming such groupings, call them what you may, does not give the members collectively, any special rights under the law.

Democracy is based on giving equal rights to individuals. Giving special rights or privileges to groups, however configured, can not be good. If you start treating one group of people either better or worse than others, it will end in tears.

GEOFF PARKER

Kamo

Wanganui Chronicle 20/8/16

THAT 'H' AGAIN

Am I dreaming, or has the nation finally decided to adopt the public's demonstrated preference? For several nights, our beloved city has been shown as Wanganui (without the 'H’) on the TV1 weather segment. It featured again on August 8.

It appears that we have been through the "please the natives" phase which resulted in our place having a totally unwanted 'H' in the city's name and have at last come out the other side. I doubt that this had anything to do with Whanganui District Council nor the wishes of our mates Ken and Tariana, so how did it happen?

Are we going to see another moan to the Land Information/ Geographic Board, or are we going to finally see democracy upheld?

D P

Eastown

NZ Herald 20/8/16

HARVESTING KERERU

Len Gillman’s proposal that kereru are so bountiful that they can be harvested by Maori as part of their customary rights under the Treaty of Waitangi must be one of the most irresponsible letters of all time.

Who in their right mind would want to kill these beautiful birds for a bit of exotic protein. There are plenty of alternatives.

I really object to this being the legal right of Maori under that ubiquitous banner of the Treaty. Yes, Maori do have rights and these are met in many ways, but there is still an over- arching duty and right of the Government to rule on national issues that affect us all.

J D G,

Remuera.

Northland Age 18/8/16

DELUDED SOULS

The recent Maori Fisheries Trust advert is full of claims that are arrant nonsense. The 1992 Sealord deal skewed the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi (legitimate Maori version), which does not mention fisheries anywhere, and simply guarantees the same rights to all the people of New Zealand. Neither does it appear in the widely accepted, authenticated final English Littlewood Draft (currently housed in New Zealand Archives). Only those deluded souls who have vested interest or hidden agendas in opposing the Littlewood Draft think otherwise.

Pre-European Maori rarely fished out of sight of land with unstable canoes (they had no need to), and would probably never have been anywhere near the Kermadecs (1000km away), or even have known where they were. The only meaningful contribution Maori made to conservation of the area was they never visited it.

Current claims that tribes are being punished is unmitigated rubbish. Far too many 'Treaty settlements' are based on bogus claims which have inevitably been accepted by the biased and dysfunctional Waitangi Tribunal, with successive treacherous governments (politicians) then handing over taxpayers' cash and assets willy nilly in the name of political correctness or political expediency. To most Kiwis there is no honour in that behaviour.

The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill already goes too far in offering part-Maori tribal interests any say in its management, to which they are not entitled, so if they know what is good for them, these malcontents should just put up with it and shut up. As they say, "People who are given whatever they demand soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose any sense of proportion" — ain't that the truth!

R P

Mount Maunganui

The Northern Advocate 18/8/16

TRUE DEMOCRACY

Re Mitch Morgan letter August 8.

Further to this letter I note another writer has made positive comment regarding democracy re the recent exit referendum in the United Kingdom.

Why is the clear meaning of democracy not recognised in New Zealand?

I am open to discussion on whether the majority counts, or the rule of law favours the minority.

I believe the Magna Carta dated June 15, 1215, could be the forerunner document of democracy.

Anarchy (misrule, indulgence, and so on) has replaced democracy. It’s interesting that J Golightly always plays the race card.

I haven’t a clue how J Golightly interweaves human rights into the debate. The human rights issue cuts both ways, I think.

Tongue in cheek, perhaps all the also- rans, within the Olympic Games, should receive a medal?

As long as I can remember, some 80-plus years, those with the most votes win.

Opting in people who are not voted into office is no more than tokenism, making a mockery of the election process.

B J C

Whangarei

Waikato Times 15/8/16 (Also in the Bay of Plenty Times 15/8/16)

NO TROJAN HORSES

Registration of candidates for the upcoming local elections finishes this month. From this list of candidates will be drawn our representatives. These will be the front door representatives.

Judging by previous elections, however, some of these representatives will be Trojan horses and after election will be seeking to open the back door to unelected race-based representatives to have voting rights etc. We have seen this in several places around the country - Rotorua, Masterton, New Plymouth etc - against the wishes of the voters as proven by many referendums on this subject.

Those candidates who have these intentions should declare them to the electorate. Voters should have the right to know before the elections, not after. Let's have some honesty around this basic democratic issue.

G F

Tauranga

The New Zealand Herald 15/8/16

ON TYRANNY

Marama Fox cites “tyranny of the majority” in her call for special Maori favours. A population is made up of individuals, each with their own views. That some concur to make up a majority is not a crime but a strength. It’s not tyranny, it is the wisdom of the crowd.

GEOFFREY T. PARKER,

Kamo.

Waikato Times Weekend 13/8/16

BLAME GAME

Peter Dornauf ’s article ‘‘People must stop blaming others" covered just about all the letters in today's paper (Monday, August 8). I was going to write in reply to Associate Professor Leonie Pihama's article but kept putting it off, but after reading Monday's letters in reply to Professor Pihama blaming deprivation and that colonisation is to blame for all the problems that Maori people are facing today, well! This is exactly what I intended to say and there it was right in front of me and I totally agree with everything Robin Bishop and Steve Inness had penned.

Then came Rainga Wade's letter about racism, well there I have to disagree. English is the universal language which can be used in every country in the world and the way it is trashed by some Maori people in this country today, is no different to the pronunciation of some Maori words and placenames which are misspelt, or pronounced and this to my knowledge does not make it downright discrimination as Ms Wade suggests, except to those who I feel go around wearing blinkers and cause problems. Back to Peter Dornauf s column: never a truer word spoken.

A R

Thames

Bay of Plenty Times 12/8/16

CLARK UN TILT

Full marks to Dover Samuels for his condemnation of the Maori Party’s stance in its refusal to support Helen Clark in her application for the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations. He rightly pointed out that we are all New Zealanders together and as New Zealanders we should all be proud to be supporting her. He refers to utu as a basis for this refusal based on the Labour Party’s stance on the Declaration of Indigenous Peoples and the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed legislation.

The original foreshore and seabed legislation in 2004 was carried out by Labour respecting and acknowledging all Maori cultural rights and also with the Crown protecting the natural resources of New Zealand for all New Zealanders in perpetuity. Even Winston Peters stated that the act favoured Maori in its interpretation.

Notwithstanding that the National Government continues gifting title and ownership of our natural resources in subsequent legislation.

I believe that the Maori Party owes Helen Clark an apology as its selfish stance will undoubtedly have affected the outcome of the UN proceedings. (Abridged)

R.E.S

Mount Maunganui

The Northern Advocate 12/8/16

ANCIENT RIDDLES

On Sunday, August 7, at 7.30pm, Choice TV ran a programme entitled Heritage Rescue, a look through New Zealand museums to be a part of a factual television series focused on helping revitalise historical sites and museums. What an interesting programme.

I am looking forward to seeing the programme pertaining to people who were here before Maori — the Patupairarehe, Waitaha, and Moriori. Should I hold my breath? We are well aware of what happened to the Moriori. Much the same thing happened to the others as well.

During a meeting of the Waitangi Tribunal, a lady from the Patuairarehe people asked a question pertaining to her lineage, and was told that they were now extinct. What conceited arrogance!

These people number several thousand today. The problem with these people is that they are peaceful people. There is nothing wrong with that, but it seems to me that if you want to be heard, you must make a noise, and a big one at that.

All these people want is to have some of their land back, which was taken from them at the point of a spear, and onsold to the government of the day, plus a financial adjustment. Then they can live in the peace that they really deserve, and, I might add, have their true history written into the museums and school books!

KEVAN G MARKS,

Kaipara.

Taranaki Daily News 12/8/16

KERMADEC BILL GOES TOO FAR

While I am not a fan of Naughty Nick Smith (TDN, letters August 5), I am even less of a fan of indigenous pretenders who seem to be creative with the truth.

The Sealord deal of 1992 dishonoured the Treaty of Waitangi which does not mention fisheries anywhere but guarantees the same rights to all the people of New Zealand. Fisheries are only mentioned in a false document in English, used as the second page of the agreement at Waikato Heads for an overflow of chiefs' signatures.

Before the arrival of Europeans with seaworthy boats, Maoris in canoes seldom if ever fished beyond the sight of land and probably never in the Kermadec area. Their 'conservation' was only because they seldom if ever went there.

Moeahu's claim that they are being ripped off is nonsense. Far too many "treaty settlements" are based on false claims inevitably accepted by the Waitangi tribunal with successive governments eagerly opening the taxpayers' purse. There is no honour in that.

The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill already goes too far in offering a tribal say in its management which is more than they deserve.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Northland Age 11/8/16

TREATY DISHONOURED

Whether what Anna Herbert-Graves says (August 9, 2016) is deluded or deliberate might take a psychiatrist to find out. Two things are certain. She ignores the historical evidence and dishonours Te Tiriti.

If New Zealanders are foolish enough to accept a written constitution in which she and her henchmen have had any hand, they will live to regret it.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The New Zealand Herald 11/8/16

COLONIAL EXCUSES

A great opinion piece by Alan Duff on Monday, “No more excuses”. Over time I have written several pages of my experiences and observations in interacting with Maori both in business and at a personal level. Some good experiences, most bad, but being a white Kiwi, I’ve never had the guts to release it from its cocooned existence buried in a folder in my computer for fear of being labelled a racist. Just writing it allows me to get it off my chest and move on.

I met Ranginui Walker a couple of times at family functions to which I was loosely connected. I respected him. He had dignity and a commitment to his cause but what a pity that so many elders like him dedicate themselves to looking backward rather than forward.

G. M,

Pukekohe.

CRIME AGAINST BUSINESS

Alan Duff’s latest article hits the nail on the head when writing about past atrocities committed by various countries and how these have not resulted in the victims becoming criminals or cruel and selfish people themselves.

How true that in New Zealand the people who have no understanding of the labour involved in creating a successful business are the ones who are likely to commit crimes against business owners due to ignorance, lack of respect, envy and the like. The fact that Alan Duff is himself of Maori ancestry lends such weight to his words as he is able to confuse those who want to give him the “racist” label.

The real tragedy is that the very people who would benefit from understanding his articles are the most unlikely demographic to ever think of reading a newspaper.

S F,

Mt Roskill.

Wanganui Chronicle 11/8/16

DIFFERENT PICTURE

H Norton (Letters, August 1) describes several publications as fantasy, and "a virtuoso of the commonplace". Among those listed, I am the author of When Two Cultures Meet, and a co-author of One Treaty, One Nation and Twisting the Treaty. I have also written Two Great New Zealanders, Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata.

I have had a varied career as a scientist, and all I write is based on fact. The events that I consider are well known, but the picture that emerges differs markedly from today's dominant narrative, which is what seems to bother Norton.

Observations tell us that around 1840 there were few young people, and a shortage of girls, among Maori. This guaranteed a population decline for some years. followed by steady recovery and population growth by the beginning of the next century. Yet claims are made today that colonisation led to a population collapse. Surely the cause of the lack of young girls is to be found in what happened before colonisation, a time of extraordinary intertribal warfare and social disruption.

By the time Hongi Hika died in 1828, many northern chiefs had recognised the social de-struction of those wars. Ngapuhi, under Tamati Waka Nene, asked Britain for help, supported and celebrated the Treaty, fought against Hone Heke's rebellion and offered assistance to the Government when the kingite rebellion around 1863 threatened their own position as members of the New Zealand nation.

Apirana Ngata did much to develop and improve Maori society as an MP and government minister. He supported the 1907 Suppression of Tohunga Act, which so many chiefs had called for. His 1922 discussion of the Treaty of Waitangi is of considerable relevance today.

I have followed the settlement with Ngati Toa, which gives them Taputeranga, the island of Island Bay, where I live. My efforts to make submissions have shown me how these significant decisions are made behind closed doors, shutting out the public and ignoring inconvenient facts.

There is much that is false in today's accepted history of our country. My effort is to under-stand and tell what did happen. Criticism, and correction of any errors, is welcome, so long as it makes reference to facts rather than offering only invective. (Abridged.)

JOHN ROBINSON

Wellington

Southland Times 10/8/16

NATION'S CHILDREN

As is her winter custom my wife knits for the Romanian orphans. Of these that miserable country seems to have an endless supply but is not alone in producing unwanted children.

Unwanted that is, unless they and their parents are latched permanently on the welfare nipple, and a whole bunch of political posturing co-dependent hand wringers are on well paid NZ taxpayer funded sinecures.

Two years ago in an extended stay in Gisborne I happened to attend a gathering of young and expectant mothers being taught to make flax baby sleeping pods by local kuia. An expert can weave these baskets in about 20 minutes. It is these the Government is to fund following a storm of allegations of institutionalised racism by Maori activists and their opportunist apologists.

Why stop there? Maori tribal leaders have recently signed a covenant "with the "nation's children", promising to treasure and respect them and make childhood a time of joy and light" Big of them.

Maori make up 50 per cent of children raised in single parent families wholly supported by the state. Instead of this masquerading grand gesture covenant, if these leaders, their cash-registering-eyes glazed at contemplating their snouts in the welfare trough, instead fixed up the cultural propensity of Maori couples failing to responsibly raise their children together, they might do something worthwhile for the "nation's children" .

Trickle-down welfare cheats beneficiaries and taxpayers and the children of both are thus deprived.

M C

Manapouri

Waikato Times 9/8/16

PIHAMA ARTICLE

I would like to respond to Leonie Pihama’s article in the Waikato Times (July 30) by saying that blaming colonisation for Maori abuse of children is not the answer. I saw poverty in our village in the 1960s amongst the Maori families (eg, no shoes in winter) and I remember that many of us helped them out. When I have been to hospital on many occasions, I see mainly Maori there; likewise in the courts. I don’t believe it is entirely the European systems - it is Maori choices. They are in big numbers in McDonald’s and KFC because they can’t be bothered cooking at home and fill our hospitals because of this. They choose to drink, smoke and have drugs in their homes when their children have no food or proper clothing.

Mothers choose different partners over and above the safety of their children. It is too serious to look back and blame now. Are you going to turn the clock back? No, it is now down to choice and responsibility.

Accountability should be to their kaumatua, but I don’t think that is on their wish list, either. If you wish, you can take your land and start over, but I believe it is too late for that now.

S B

Hamilton

PIHAMA ARTICLE 2

According to Professor Pihama (Waikato Times, July 30), colonisation, the nuclear family and parenting programmes designed by non-Maori are the reason why the statistics on abuse of Maori children are so appalling. It’s true, as the professor claims, that the culture of most native communities, including Maori, suffered from the laws and attitude of the colonisers. But that was a long time ago. Surely it’s past time that the learned Professor Pihama got over it.

Nothing is preventing Maori from adopting their family culture, speaking their language and abandoning the nuclear family concept in favour of a collective family approach. Huge progress has been made by successive governments in righting the wrongs of the past. But I suggest that thinking such as that of the professor is unhelpful and will do nothing towards bringing about change. There is nothing constructive in her views that will help improve the current situation. Indeed, her huge chipon-the shoulder approach only serves to antagonise the non-Maori community who, for the most part, support the revival of Maori culture and language.

V A

Morrinsville

Northland Age 9/8/16

NONSENSE

Most readers, unlike KT Howearth (Pakeha concepts, letters August 2), would have grasped that previous letters referred specifically to Maori tribal warfare in New Zealand. Further, his moral equivalence argument comparing world wars with the Maori wars is a nonsense.

Howearth did get one thing correct — the treaty was broken in 1862-63 (his dates), but not by the government of the day, as he asserts, but by tribal infighting over the selling of land. This squabble spilt on to innocent settlers' farms until law and order was eventually maintained.

The Maori language treaty that was signed by approximately 500 chiefs was a great race-uniting document that gave all New Zealanders (not just Maori) equality, protection (law and order) and legal ownership of their lands. All benefited.

Land not for sale? Hundreds of sale deeds, online at Victoria University, bearing the signatures of Maori vendors suggest otherwise.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

SOMETHING FISHY

So the northern tribes are throwing their toys out of the cot because Nick Smith won't give them rights over the Kermadecs. Actually he dishonoured Te Tiriti by giving them any fishing quotas in the Sealord deal, because Te Tiriti does not even mention rights to fisheries.

The handsome quota that they did get would have helped with unemployment in the North, but the Ngapuhi lads didn't want to take that opportunity because it would mean leaving their mummies (whanau). Once were warriors? Yeah, right!

Instead they came to a deal for money with foreign companies which keep their crews in slave-like conditions. That's OK then? I have a friend in Nelson, is a woman of Maori descent, who took a deep sea fishing course, joined a vessel with an Icelandic skipper and fished in the Indian Ocean off Mauritius. So this is women's work apparently - too tough for the big boys of the North. Ah, well!

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Waikato Times 8/8/16

PIHAMA ARTICLE

In a recent article, Associate Professor Leonie Pihama gives a very distorted opinion on the high rates of child abuse amongst Maori – she blames the effects of colonisation as the reason Maori abuse their children.

I am very surprised that an academic of her standing and qualifications should stoop to such wild claims which are so far from the truth.

She claims that children were not abused in their earlier stone-age culture. If female infanticide is not abuse, what is it? Colonisation brought them better food, clothing, housing, medical care and transport. Where are the fern roots in supermarkets and flax mats in clothing shops today?

Colonisation brought an end to cannibalism, slavery and brutal intertribal warfare. Chief Taipari of Tauranga noted, ‘‘Maori are well on the way to exterminating themselves.’’ The arrival of the missionaries and subsequent colonisation saved them from that fate.

In short, colonisation was the best thing that ever happened to Maori.

Instead of making excuses for their negative behaviour, Pihama and affected Maori families should take a hard, honest look at themselves. Much taxpayer money is being spent on their behalf; but first and foremost, they must take responsibility and endeavour to help themselves.

R B

Tauranga

PIHAMA ARTICLE 2

Associate Professor Leone Pihama (Waikato Times, July 30) claims that deprivation suffered as a result of colonisation is the reason Maori beat their kids to death more frequently than any other race.

How convenient is that? If you are not responsible, then there can be no obligation on you to do something about it.

The whole of South America was traumatised by the Spanish. The Chinese and Koreans were murdered in huge numbers by the Japanese. Both of these powers brutalised their subjugated peoples, and they suffered far more oppression than did Maori under the relatively benevolent British administration, yet I’m not aware of an epidemic of child murder in China, Korea or South America.

Presumably, therefore, there must be something unique about Maori which makes them more susceptible to murderous impulses as a result of their experiences.

Maybe the answer can be found in the inter-tribal savagery that prevailed before colonisation even occurred.

The good professor would do well to research exactly what that unique quality is. She has, after all, been the recipient of an expensive post-colonial, European-style education, which on the evidence so far would appear to have been an expensive waste of time.

S I

Whitianga

The New Zealand Herald 8/8/16

OCEAN SANCTUARY SUPPORTED

I believe most New Zealanders are strongly in favour of the government setting up the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary and the objections of some to the idea should simply be disregarded.

Claims of “exercising conservation in the Kermadec region” are rubbish, as profit or compensation are obviously the key drivers to their objections.

Too much of the ocean around New Zealand and elsewhere has been plundered by foreign fishing boats or New Zealand companies using mainly foreign labour anyway, which we are all sure was not the intention of the Fisheries bill.

Similarly, Maori claims of ownership of water need to be seen for what they are — ludicrous — as would be claims by anyone or any organisation to ownership of water, while Marama Fox needs to accept the Seabed and Foreshore Bill legislation for what it is — New Zealand law that most agree with.

P C

Rotorua.

The Northern Advocate 8/8/16

SERIOUS THREAT

The evolution of Western society has been based upon the principle of democracy — the wishes of the majority based upon the greatest good for the greater number.

Now a subversive doctrine is undermining that freedom.

It is called political correctness.

Political correctness is a system wherein minority groups are glorified, with consequent favourable legislation enforced that is often to the detriment of the majority.

Therein lies the traitor in our midst, the poison that is destroying the freedom for which so many have fought and died.

Our public education system has been infiltrated with a "gender-neutral" programme, actually encouraging children to display lesbian, homosexual or transvestite behaviour and banishing any references to boy/girl male/female identification.

Anti-smacking regulations have led to a generation of unruly, out-of-control youngsters who know that they have more legal rights than their parents.

Pregnant teenage girls can be spirited away from classes to have an abortion without parents even having the right to know.

An entire school can be re-organised around the concept of special needs for one disadvantaged pupil, again disrupting the basic principle of democracy. The welfare of the majority of children must not be compromised just to accommodate one "different" child. There are other alternatives.

Then we have the minority group "Maori are special" proponents. What a load of cobblers to even suggest that someone who is perhaps 63/64ths Pakeha and 1/64th part Maori should receive privileged treatment above all others because of a remote connection to a race that exists in name only.

The greatest good for the greater number may not be the perfect ideology but I have yet to hear of a better one. Make no mistake — the end goal of political correctness is the destruction of democracy.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

NZ Herald 6/8/16 (A quick word section)

The Kermadec advertisement Is full of misleading statements.

The Sealord deal of 1992 dishonoured To Tiriti which does not mention fisheries.

Maori "conservation" of the Kermadecs was probably because in their canoes they seldom fished beyond sight of land.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 5/8/16

LAND GRAB ACTUALLY LESS AREA

Recently there was an article by your very worthy reporter John Cousins about the battles of the 19th century. The last sentence of the article states that “land was subsequently confiscated”.

For two decades prior to 1860, Tauranga had been a peaceful settlement when, in 1863, a group of Ngai Te Rangi joined the Kingite movement in the Waikato thus becoming an enemy of the Crown. In 1865, the Tauranga district of approximately 290,000 acres, was to be confiscated due to these tribal rebellions. However, Governor Grey promised that only one-quarter of Ngai Te Rangi's land would be confiscated and only 50,000 acres was taken. Eventually much of the land was returned.

Since then there have been two treaty settlement payments — in 1981 a payment of $250,000 was made to the Tauranga Moana Maori Trust Board and the recent full-and-final settlement of $38 million.

This information comes from my old book A Centennial History of Tauranga much of which is taken from the journals of Archdeacon Alfred Nesbit Brown of the Te Papa Mission House.

R B

Tauranga

The Northern Advocate 5/8/16

ENGLISH WEEK

Just what is this all about?

No disrespect at all but I don’t have mokopuna, I have grandchildren. I don’t have a whanau, I have a family. What the hell does “churr Bro” mean? What language is that? Why don’t we have English language week once in a while? Wouldn’t that be refreshing.

R P

Kamo

Bay of Plenty Times 4/8/16

HUMAN RIGHTS

Peter Dey (Letters, August 3), quotes the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25: “Everyone has the right, etc”.

His interpretation of a “right” is that someone else should supply or pay for that “right”.

The holistic view of Article 25 is that everyone should have the “opportunity” to participate in adequate living standards, health, housing and medical services, etc.

What the United Nations is silent on is “who” should provide for it.

It is my view that Government should have policies and acts that are strong in “giving opportunity to all citizens” to achieve the prerequisites of the Universal Declaration.

It is then up to the individual to participate and build their own “right” to the necessities of life.

Governments’ existing policies continue to create an everburgeoning “racist and dependent” welfare state.

M J A

Pyes Pa

Wanganui Chronicle 4/8/06

FANTASY V HISTORY

Your correspondent H Norton considers the book One Nation, One People to be a work of fantasy. I have also read the book and I note that reliable sources are included for all the points made. I am becoming increasingly alarmed as the history of our country is being rewritten and sanitised.

My father was an historian and I have his old books, which tell the history as it happened — and daily I can see the propaganda machine being wilfully set into motion.

In our history there were goodies and baddies on both sides, and the Treaty payments have more than paid for any wrongs incurred 150 years ago.

A recent example of sanitised history is in China where the 1989 incident of Tiananmen Square has been excised from their history.

A balanced book such as the one mentioned above corrects the nonsense being peddled to us by those with an agenda to cleanse their history. Note: Most times when another "wrong" is discovered, the till in the Office of Treaty Settlements flies open. (Abridged)

R B

Tauranga

The Northern Advocate 3/8/16

HISTORY MYSTERY

A BBC documentary entitled Ancient British History mentioned that some 3500 years ago, people living on the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, had a huge barbecue, slaughtered some 600 beasts, then vanished.

British archaeologist Arthur Jones discovered the ancient city of Knossos about 1900 on the island of Crete, in the Aegean Sea, which was destroyed by a tsunami which wiped out the Minoan civilisation about 3500 years ago, and devastated Egypt. What caused it? Was this where the story of Exodus in the Bible came from? The sun disappeared for four days over Egypt, creating such cold as was not known before, noise became deafening, pestilence and devastation became rampant. Egypt became desolate and people moved eastwards to get away.

In 1980, Mt St Helens was said to have blown half a cubic kilometre of ash into the air. The island of Thera, now known as Santorini (St Irene) in the Aegean Sea, is said to have blown some 40 cubic kilometres of ash into the air about 3500 years ago, altering the course of history worldwide.

Did the Egyptians who went east merge with the people of Taiwan, and later sailed into the Pacific, bring a Nile River plant they called raupo with them? In the 1860s, Maori people took 60,000 skulls to a fertiliser works in Auckland which paid 3 pence (2c) per bag of bones. They were not Maori bones. DNA tests showed them to have come from Wales - 3500 years ago! Is there a connection here?

KEVAN G MARKS

Kaipara

Northland Age 2/8/16

FINALLY

Wally Hicks has finally conceded that European influence ended centuries of Maori tribal warfare (letters July 14). While most of his assumptions as to how are risible, he has accurately identified European law and enforcement, plus the fine work of the missionaries, as the main reasons.

New Zealand's constitutional system recognises that all citizens are equal. Sadly, over the last 40 years, Maori elite and their sycophants have undermined this premise to their personal advantage. Wally and his fellow travellers are campaigning to accelerate this corruption by advocating a new constitution based on their re-interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi (Anahera Herbert-Graves's weekly waffling is evidence of this).

According to Wally, history is mostly opinion. I’m sure taxpayers will be delighted to know that our generous government has 'gifted' over $3 billion in claims settlements to Maori tribes, as well as $1.16 billion annually for Maori tribal initiatives. All this based on someone's ... opinion!

Independent polls on Kiwifrontline.com tell us that approximately 80 percent of New Zealanders support racial equality and one rule for all. Would Wally and his fellow separatists accept the result of a nationwide, binding referendum on this? Bring it on! l am confident all other New Zealanders would.

Lastly, he does not question the veracity of the infomiation on Kiwifrontline.com, only its construction. l take this as an endorsement, especially as there's no race-based funding for those promoting equality. It relies on people volunteering their time and energy to fight for justice.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

WRECKS GALORE

I read an interesting article in the Dominion Post of .luly 21 where King henry XIII's flagship the Mary Rose is finally on show about 470 years after the warship sank (in 1545).

In New Zealand 1900 known shipwrecks are officially recorded from Kaipara Harbour to Manganui Bluff 100kms of coastline. There are 110 officially recorded in 1521. Thirty Spanish ships called in to Hao Atoll. One of the ships picked up 100 islanders and brought them into the Kaipara Harbour to a Waitaha village called Aotea. This ship was called Tai-nui. Archives in Madrid have numbers including some from the ships in 1520.

One wreck remaining in New Zealand is of an old Chinese junk which is about 412 feet long. Also other ship wrecks have been identified as Spanish and Portuguese.

Our New Zealand governments won't allow any ancient shipwrecks to be brought to the surface, as it would expose our true history of New Zealand which they don't want you to know about. You could be sent to prison if you did. There are ship log books that are still in existence in archives around the world recording some of these facts other in Chinese, France and England bringing peoples here from all around the world.

IAN BROUGHAM

Wanganui

NZ Herald 2/8/16

WAIPOUA FOREST ‘CONSPIRACY’

In Paul Little’s article on NZ conspiracies, he gets a few facts wrong.

The remains in the Waipoua Forest are not monoliths but stone houses and walls made by the Turehu people.

Artefacts found with them have been carbon dated at around 1200 years old, about 500 years before the arrival of the Maori. The survey of these was done after Lands and Survey stumbled across them. All participants of the survey were sworn to secrecy and the results are in the archives of the Kaikohe Court, sealed until 2063.

Contact and communication with these people is written about in Captain Cook’s journals. It is thought they originated from the Pict people of Northern Scotland.

Fortunately other people have also found the Turehu structures, and photographs and details of them, and many other pre-Maori people, can be seen in Maxwell Hill’s book To The Ends Of The Earth.

W. M

Whangarei.

Wanganui Chronicle 1/8/16

PLACE NAMES

I have endeavoured to pronounce Maori place names and words accurately since my schooldays. On the matter of the local "H," a Maori friend did research for me. Potonga Neilson's reference (letters, July 28) to the Ngapuhi dialect cannot be correct, since it was in fact the Ngapuhi young people who made the "wh" into an "f" in the 1960s.

What is more curious in Potonga's letter is that he says that I am ignorant and know nothing about to reo, when in fact I was making a case for correct pronunciation of Maori.

But Potonga seems to be so immersed in grizzling about Pakeha and their doings that he cannot recognise my plea. I can image a complaints department receptionist having a sign on the wall behind him saying, "Would you like a little cheese to go with your whine?"

T P

Wanganui

Waikato Times Weekend 30/7/16

TE REO MAORI

In reply to Peter Holbrook (Waikato Times, July 21) who wrote a very sincere letter of his observations on the subject of te reo.

I would like to update Mr Holbrook on a couple of points. ‘‘The familiar story’’ of punishment for children who were made to speak English in school was not at the behest of the government or the settlers – certainly, those children were punished for speaking Maori at school, but it was at the request of the Maori leaders of the day. They could see that learning and speaking English was the way of the future. In fact, those wise Maori could see that the way of life that the settlers brought with them was of far greater advantage to them than their pre-colonisation stone-age lifestyle.

As to ‘‘those in authority who deliberately set out to destroy the culture of minorities’’ – our country is bending over backwards to further the use of te reo by spending up to $600 million annually. The simple truth is that Maori are not interested in learning the language – it is the old story of ‘‘you can take a horse to water . . .’’

R B

Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 29/7/16

IWI NEEDLESS IN ORCA RESCUE

I see that an international orca expert from the US is being brought over to provide assistance and advice for a baby orca which has lost its mother (News, July 28).

The Dept of Conservation and Orca Research Trust founder Ingrid Visser are also working to save the orca.

Here we have two specialists who between them have years and years of experience in trying to understand and save orca.

Why oh why then does iwi have to be involved to formulate a plan? Why do iwi have to be involved at all, after all their expertise would be next to nothing. Is this involvement of the iwi just to keep them happy? (Abridged)

R D

Tauranga

Northland Age 28/7/16

DELUDED FANTASY LAND

The Treaty was a straightforward agreement by which the chief ceded sovereignty to the Queen completely and for ever and all Maoris (including the slaves of other Maoris) became fully-entitled British subjects - a magnificent gift.

All, repeat all, the chiefs at Waitangi who spoke on it acknowledged that by signing they would become subordinate to the Governor and hence to the Queen, even those who opposed it initially. Specifically they were Te Kemara, Rewa, Moka, Kawiti. Hakiro and Tareha. All duly signed. Nobody expected that they would cede their 'mana', not mentioned in the Treaty. It was, a personal attribute, though it was clear that their rights to continue the former practices of cannibalism, arbitrary killing and slave-keeping would be absolutely forbidden.

The statements of the individuals she quotes, Emma Henry, Rima Edwards and Matiki Mai, are similar nonsense and her talk of a "sovereign nation" of "Aotearoa" is yet another delusion. The word "Aotearoa" does not even occur in the Treaty and her statement that "Next week we will continue to explore the context of this sacred covenant" will be yet another excursion into her fantasy land. Watch this space!.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Hawkes Bay Today 28/7/16 (Text Us section)

■ Further to being strapped for speaking Maori in school. I was strapped many times for using my left hand when writing. The god old days! WP

■ To AM. Treaty settlements been paid millions. Maybe its time the Urban Maori started to ask where their money is or perhaps take legal action. M

■ So Peter Hemopo thinks Corrections is racist and disrespectful towards Maori,what a joke . Respect goes both ways, as a retired prison tutor I saw many examples of blatant disrespect by Maori prisoners for myself and prison guards purely because we were non Maori.The simple solution is not to go to jail in the first place and the perceived problem would not exist!

The Northern Advocate 26/7/16

TRUE DELEGATES

There has been a disturbing trend of local councils appointing unelected part-Maori representatives, granting them full voting rights. One must question the legality of such actions.

The incumbent board members were elected to a council that had a set structure, therefore any changes to that basic format should require prior consent from those whom the council claims to represent. Arbitrarily changing the rules after an election is a violation of voters’ trust. Any proposal for major change should be a part of an aspiring candidate’s electoral campaign. Only then will the people have a true voice.

There is no problem in consulting with local Maori but council members must be careful to differentiate between what is good for the community and token appeasement of taniwha at the bottom of the garden.

Any candidates with racially based policies must make their intentions very clear before voting time. (Abridged.)

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Northland Age 26/7/16

PAYING FOR CHOICES

I hear more and more talk about racism at all levels of government. How about we prevent any whiff of it in New Zealand by banning all references to race or ethnicity in our legislation?

All citizens of a democratic country are entitled to equal treatment and protection under the law. Let's make sure that this includes access to the essence of Iife, fresh water.

As for what we want, let people speak whatever language they choose, but let taxpayers also choose which language they wish to subsidise in school s, in the media and on government departmental signage.

If it's money and status we are after, Iet us earn it by working for it – not by claiming any privilege. Taxpayers don’t mind helping people with real needs, but resent having to pay others for their selfish choices or sense of entitlement.

F M

Whangaparaoa

SECOND CLASS CITIZENS

Brian Gillespie (Northland Age, July 12) is seriously mistaken with his claim that I present my "own one-track and selective version of history". What I do is write, using reliable sources, to counter gross lies like those of Sam Phillips who claims that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty and Anna Herbert-Graves who pretends that the 1835 "declaration of sovereignty" was not a worthless piece of paper. Their aims are raw political advantage and material gains— today.

Gillespie seems unaware that there is a vast industry in New Zealand intent on perverting our history. While both before and after 1840, Maori chiefs eagerly sold land to colonial interests, this is now portrayed in false information fed to schoolchildren as "Iand loss" at the hands of wicked white colonisers. It is pretended that tribal rebellions which dishonoured the Treaty of Waitangi in the early colonial era were "land wars" which somehow the rebels had to fight for unfounded reasons and we are now expected to celebrate. These were minor affairs compared with the colossal slaughter and cannibalism amongst the tribes before 1840 which they all seem conveniently to have forgotten.

At the behest of the corrupt Waitangi Tribunal, which always supports appellants' cases no matter how fraudulent, large amounts of taxpayer money and resources are being given to tribal elites while the condition of many poorer part-Maori people gets worse and worse. There is something fundamentally rotten in all this. So while Gillespie seems to think that I should "get a life" I advise him to enjoy his until the day when he wakes up to find himself a second-class citizen in his own country.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 26/7/16

TAKE ARSON THREAT SERIOUSLY

I don’t believe that someone can make a threat such as to set fire to any new houses that may be built on Matakana Island by TKC Holdings (News, July 13). It really is past the stage of just waiting for something to happen. Any threat like that should be taken seriously and dealt with immediately.

TKC Holdings plan to build seven lifestyle properties on their own land on the forested side of Matakana Island, and the Western Bay of Plenty District Council has issued the required certificates of compliance.

This entire country is becoming more and more multicultural and, for one small group to resort to such threats because they fear that “new arrivals would have a different outlook, a different culture and different values”, is very irresponsible.

In New Zealand we all have to learn to adjust to different cultures, different outlooks and different values, in order to allow this country to grow and develop into a society within which everyone can feel secure and accepted.

For one small group to try to isolate themselves when it suits them, is unacceptable.

After all, we’re all New Zealanders and should be working together for the good of all.

(Abridged)

I A

Tauranga

Southland Times 26/7/16

THE MARY ROSE

I read an interesting article in the Dominion Post (July 21) where the flagship of King Henry the eighth ship the Mary Rose is finally on show after about 470 years after the warship which sunk during a battle in 1545.

In New Zealand there are official recorded 1900 known shipwrecks, from Kaipara Harbour to Manganui Bluff 100kms of coastline. ,Approximately there are 110 officially recorded in 1521. There were 30 Spanish ships called in to Hao Atol. One of the ships picked up 100 Islanders and brought them into the Kaipara Harbour to a Waitaha village called Aotea, this ship was called Tai-nui.

Archives in Madrid they have numbers including some from the ships in 1520. One wreck remains in NZ is of an old Chinese Junk.

Our New Zealand governments won't allow any ancient shipwrecks to be brought to the surface as it would expose our true history of New Zealand which they don't want you to know about. You could be sent to prison if you did.

There are ship log books that are still in existence in archives around the world recording some of these facts other in Chinese, France and England bringing people here from all around the world. (Abridged, Editor)

IAN BROUGHAM

Wanganui

Wanganui Chronicle 25/7/16

REVISED HISTORY

Potonga Neilson ( June 29) has (re)written NZ history to a point that is mischievous. I don't know what history books he reads, but I would suggest he cleans his glasses and reads them again. He claims "History informs us that the cholera epidemic of the late 1700s wiped out two-thirds of the native population" then adds "It was more like 90 per cent." Not so! A cholera epidemic began in India in 1816 and reached Britain in 1831. Concern was expressed in New Zealand in 1832 that cholera may come this way, but it never did.

In fact, most of the loss of the Maori population was self-inflicted with tribal wars killing thousands at a time, which caused the greatest loss of numbers. Potonga then claims that "... in 1835 there was no such place as Taranaki." He needs to look at the Taranaki Iwi website "taranakiiwi.org.n z/taranaki-iwi-history" where he might find the name has been around for a bit longer than he believes.

He states that only two Taranaki tribes took part in the actions at the Chathams, and that "they were transported there by a colonial pakeha". In fact, the first mate had been kidnapped and threatened with death unless the captain co-operated. The initial invasion consisted of something like 900 Maori. The cannibalism, slavery and theft of land continued until, after 30 years, only 160 landless Moriori were left. Much of this was written about by Frederick Hunt, an early settler on Pitt Island whose descendants live in the Chathams to this day, and in the journals of botanists and the logs of traders who visited the islands during this time and who witnessed the atrocities first-hand. Potonga can find out much of the history he likes to write about with a little research.

T P

Wanganui East

Northern Advocate 25/7/16

FIRST SETTLERS

Re KG Marks' letter, Northern Advocate, July 21, "NZ History". While embargoes are in force we will never learn the truth. Many people over the years have questioned the secrecy over this matter. Lies, if they are repeated often enough, become accepted as the truth. Clearly, many people, are already convinced as to who were the first settlers in New Zealand. This whole matter is wrapped up in myths and fairy stories. Why are artifacts concerning the history of NZ banned from the public eye? Who is afraid of the truth?

BJ C

Whangarei

Daily Post Rotorua 23/7/16

WATER IS FOR ALL

I note that a hui on "why the wai is important" was held in our city this week, hosted by both the BOP and Waikato regional councils. While there may have been many interesting items relating to fresh water on its agenda, another theme will no doubt be the ongoing demands by Maori for a proprietary right to fresh water.

They want a preferential allocation — in perpetuity — that can be commercialised. In the consultation document Next Steps for Fresh Water that was released in March, National has proposed to implement water rights catchment by catchment (via regional councils), and in turn hapu by hapu.

While the Government's position is very clear — "no one owns the water" — the consultation document articulates a very clear message that control, tantamount to ownership, will be passed over to iwi. And to avoid any political backlash the Government intends to pass the responsibility for such allocations to regional councils.

Needless to say, water is the lifeblood of our nation. It is a critical natural resource underpinning our economy, environment and way of life.

This is a clear case where John Key needs to stand firm against iwi claims for special treatment over water, just as previous prime ministers have. If he doesn't Winston Peters wilL He has stated that NZ's freshwater resources are the birthright of all Kiwis and he strongly opposes National's policy.

M M

Rotorua

Wanganui Chronicle 23/7/16

NOT A RACE ISSUE

I have read recent comments in the Chronicle and on intemet news channels about the standing down of Ngapari Nui from his "job" at Wanganui prison. My under-standing is that this action has been the result of his past and present involvement with the Black Power gang. As someone who has no gang connections, I would say: "Fairy nuff."

However, the reaction from Maori has been the exact opposite, as anyone with a modicum of intelligence could have predicted. What was a decision based on "gangsta" connection has now been turned into an issue based on race by people such as Kelvin Davis and Dame Tariana Turia. One can only stand in awe and admire the ability of activist Maori to take an issue and turn it into a racist indictment about their chosen ethnicity. Who are the real racists in New Zealand?

D P

Eastown

WORK FOR EVERYONE

I read in our Chronicle where our council chief executive Kym Fell has done a reshuffle of staff jobs —which is good — but two positions are still to be filled.

One of these jobs is general manager people and culture, while the council will shortly advertise the role of kaiwhakahaere (cultural adviser), a job already budgeted within the annual plan. I would take it that the cultural adviser will be advising council on Maori culture only, which would be racist — and getting paid for it.

Our council is suppose to work for all the people in Wanganui and should be seeking advice from the rest of us without any payment. Is this council of ours still going down this separatist line? The sooner we get a council that will treat everyone equally, the better we will be off.

IAN BROUGHAM

Springvale

Northern Advocate 21/7/16

NZ HISTORY

MP Louisa Wall says that New Zealanders do not know their history. I agree. I was taught at school that the Maori people landed in the Bay of Plenty in five canoes, rested, and split up and spread through the country. Three of the canoes were the Takitimu, Tainui, and Aotea. The names of the other two I have long since forgotten.

The land was said to have been uninhabited upon their arrival, which now appears to be false. It seems that there were at least three other races of people here before the coming of the Maori. There are experts of history who say that there is no evidence of these people, but I am informed that there are several thousand sites throughout the country that have been identified for archaeological purposes, but permission has been refused by certain authorities to do so.

One of the biggest sites, a large dormitory, used by the Chinese for some 2000 years, is at Okains Bay, on Banks Peninsula, while mining for various metals. Perhaps Ms Wall could give us an explanation as to why archaeology is forbidden, plus explain why there are 105 embargoes throughout the country, which includes stone buildings and walls in the Waipoua Forest, and I am threatened with violence if I go there?

We have a right to expect our elected representatives to be truthful about our nation's his-tory so that we can move forward together as one people!

KEVAN G MARKS

Kaipara

The New Zealand Herald 20/7/16

GANG AFFILIATION

Professor David Williams in his open letter to Corrections Minister Judith Collins supporting Ngapari Nui as a prison kaiwhakamana completely misses the point. If he was a former gang member who had rejected gang life I would agree with Williams but he is not, he is a currently patched member of Black Power. While he may not be actively recruiting, his presence gives credibility and validity to gang life. Judith Collins’ decision is absolutely the right one.

R P,

Tauranga.

Wanganui Chronicle 20/716

REFERENDUM

I hope that any new people standing for council will push for having a binding referendum on the "H" being put into the spelling of Wanganui. We as ratepayers should stand up for a referendum and don't let people outside of Wanganui tell us how to spell our city name. (Abridged.)

IAN BROUGHAM

Wanganui

The Northland Age 19/7/16

RACIAL EQUALITY

Re. Wally Hicks' letter, July 14 on racial equality. The Treaty was ratified by "the borders of New South Wales (NSW) being extended to encompass all of the islands of New Zealand" and by this means Maoris became British citizens devoid of racial privilege.

Founding document? NZs true founding document is Queen Victoria's Royal Charter of 16-11 -1840. Ratified on 03-05 1841, this Royal Charter authorised our split from NSW to become an independent British colony, Hobson's promotion to become our first Governor, our first constitution, English law only, our own Courts to oversee English law only, English language and eventually our own flag which is older than Australia's.

The correct name for "Land Wars" is "Maori Wars"; triggered by returned slaves from the Waikato chasing Taranaki settlers off their land at the point of their guns in 1844, 16 years before British are blamed, and this after they accepted payment for the land. Maori Kingites advanced to within 40 miles of Auckland and threatened to exterminate every white man, woman and child in 1860, three years before Government troops crossed the Maungatawhiri Stream.

My belief is that if Maoris were treated like grown-ups from the beginning, instead of children, they would be capable of standing on their own two feet like everyone else and would have no need for massive costs like $1,483,818,000 of 1993-1994 year. What would this be in 2016?

Around 2004 application was made to the highest International Court in the world,The Hague, for Maori Indigenous Rights and were turned down.

I B

Wanganui

The Northern Advocate 18/7/16

MAORI MEMBERS

There has been a disturbing trend around the country of l ocal councils appointing unelected part-Maori representatives, granting them full voting rights.

This has been done without consulting the electorate and one must question the legality of such actions.

The incumbent board members were elected to a council that had a set structure and set of rules, therefore any changes to that basic format should require prior consent from those whom the council claims to represent.

Arbitrarily changing the rules after an election is a violation of voters’ trust, so any proposal for major change should be a part of an aspiring candidate’s electoral campaign prior to the election.

Only then will the people have a true voice and no longer be deceived by those who may have a hidden agenda that overrides democracy.

There is no problem in consulting with local Maori to hear their viewpoint on certain matters, but council members must carefully differentiate between what is good for the community and token appeasement of taniwha at the bottom of the garden.

Politics and religion do not sit well together in local government.

People who consider that part-Maori need special help are being unwittingly condescending and invalidative of those of Maori descent who are quite capable of being elected to council on their own merit.

Part-Maori are in no way inferior to other citizens, so at least give them a chance to stand on their own two feet without brainwashing an entire mixed-race generation into believing that a smattering of ancestral genes makes them “special”.

Any candidates with racially based policies must make their intentions very clear before voting time.

Electors who still value democracy will then know exactly where they stand.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Wanganui Chronicle 18/7/16

TIME TO BE AS ONE

In reply to Rob Rattenbury (July 15) you suspect there is a sense of shame felt by Pakeha about events that happened 150 years ago. I for one feel no shame, nor I would think do most Kiwis. What happened in New Zealand hundreds of years ago would have happened no matter who landed here.

You compare the Australian Aborigines or the American Indian, they were hunted and killed, and still struggle in modern society. We can all agree things were different 150 years ago but Maori have had a better run at things compared with nearly all other races. Most Maori get on with their lives like the rest of us and appreciate New Zealand for what we have all made it.

It is the stuck-in-the-past whingers that keep coming back moaning. Maybe when the government finishes paying out the millions of dollars in compensation we can all move on and live as one, but somehow I think for some it is never enough.

P A

Wanganui

NO LAND WARS

Re Rob Rattenbury letter (July 15) —there were no "land wars" between Maori and the British. There were times when the British troops were brought in to bring law and order to the rebelling tribes.

Over 500 tangata Maori chiefs had signed the Treaty of Waitangi to bring law and order to all the people living in New Zealand. It must be remembered that between 30,000 and 50,000 Maori had been slaughtered after Hongi Hika had returned from England in 1820 with over 800 illegal muskets. [This] caused 13 Ngapuhi chiefs to write to the King in 1831 asking him to be their guardian and protector, not only from the French but also from themselves as they were quickly becoming extinct by their own hand.

While most tribes adapted to English law and order, a few took longer to accept what over 500 chiefs had agreed to when they signed the Treaty and continued to cause trouble. Taranaki was a shining example when they tried to reclaim land they had lost in battle to Waikato. Land was confiscated as punishment for those breaking the law.

Sir Apirana Ngata in his book The Treaty of Waitangi: An explanation —some have said that these confiscations were wrong and they contravened the articles of the Treaty of Waitangi, but the chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England the sovereignty and the authority to make laws. Some sections of the Maori people violated that authority, war arose and blood was spilled. The law came into operation and land was taken in payment. This in itself is Maori custom; revenge and plunder to avenge a wrong It was their chiefs who ceded that right to the Queen. The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty.

I B

Wanganui

Herald On Sunday 17/6/16

ENGLISH UNIVERSAL, NOT TE REO

I do not agree Te Reo should become compulsory in schools. This language is not used in any other country (It's Aotearoa, that's why Te Reo, July 17).

I don't know why a lot of people are valiantly trying to learn Te Reo. New Zealand is becoming a multicultural country and we have so many different people and other languages that to make a fuss over learning Te Reo seems much ado about nothing.

Let's be realistic. English is the universal language. Perhaps more importance should be placed on everyone speaking English correctly and fluently so as to meld into the rest of the world. If we are considering our children and their future we should be equipping them with excellence in a universal language.

I A

Tauranga

Gisborne Herald 16/7/16

IMPORTANT TO LEARN FROM PAST, NOT AGONISE OVER IT

John Porter in his letter of July 13 questions whether racism is a “two way street”. In New Zealand Maori enjoy many rights and privileges that are enjoyed by no other race. Many New Zealanders believe that this constitutes a form of racism. Others see this as a recognition of the special place of Maori in our society.

I believe most New Zealanders are not racist. What they do believe in, is everyone getting a fair go, being rewarded for effort, and in public life being elected on merit not appointed. Sadly some perceive this viewpoint as racist. Too often accusations of racism are an excuse for failure, or used as a lever by those with vested interests to improve their own ideological or financial position.

While it is important to learn from the past, there is little to be gained by agonising over it. The past cannot be changed but the future is there for all who grasp it.

John Porter writes a litany on the downsides of colonisation but fails to consider the benefits of civilisation. Would he really want to give up the benefits of the modern world, puffer jackets, electricity and the automobile, for a time of violence, poor nutrition, cannibalism and slavery.

He forgets that invasion and colonisation has always been a part of the human condition. For example, England was conquered in 1066 and prior to that by the Vikings and the Romans. Two World Wars changed the face of Europe. It is what you do today to build the future that counts.

My father, who spoke fluent te reo, understood the value of education and he and my mother made sacrifices to make sure I got the best education they could afford.

John Porter sees racism in society as a 10-lane “white” motorway with a “non-white” gravel track at the side.

Throw off the korowai of victimhood. Understand as my father did that embracing education, hard work and ambition is what brings success, and provides the means to get off the gravel and on to the macadam.

R P

Tauranga

LET US ALL MOVE ON

Re: Racism a two-way street? Not really — July 13 letter.

My “tempting morsel” appeased your taste buds but all yours did, Mr Porter, was whet my appetite.

You were obviously selective in choosing your “discriminated against” subjects, as is your right. Now, here is my “opinionated” retaliation.

As a Pakeha, I personally am absolutely no better than a Maori. I am proud of our bicultural relationship in New Zealand.

But racism is a two-way street.

I know Europeans who detest our Maori people. I know Maori who wouldn’t give the time of day to a Pakeha.

Mr Porter, I enjoyed reading some of your selected historical references. However, the white against non-white you stressed with abandon lost its impact through what some of us would call “overkill”.

Your whole argument, however, fell over when your letter ended with part of a sentence stating a two-way street “would take the form of a 10-lane motorway comprising arrogant white racism”.

Mr Porter, how much of your blood is Maori and how much is white? Your blood line may just put you on the “motorway”.

I am New Zealand-born, of European descent. My grandfathers were Irish and English. Both my grandmothers were English. Am I English, Irish or a New Zealander?

I could claim various ethnic origins but my choice is simple. I am a Kiwi. I was born a Kiwi and I will die one.

You are obviously a scholar Mr Porter and I congratulate you on your knowledge. But let us all remember, Maori in New Zealand do get benefits because of their race. There are no special benefits for any other selected race in our country.

Racism from any ethnic origin is not as bad here as you suggest. You are proud of your heritage, as am I, but please, let us all move on and stop this living in the past, continually cultivating past grievances.

M M

The New Zealand Herald 15/7/16

WHITE TEAM

What will Dylan Cleaver suggest next? That we do like South Africa and legislate that percentages of certain races be included in our Olympic team? I would think inclusion would be on merit.

We have clubs and associations in New Zealand for just about every international sport so ethnic participation can abound if there is desire to do so. Has Dylan not looked at the faces of our top male and female golfers lately?

B S

Wattle Downs.

The New Zealand Herald 15/7/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON RACES

Not many brown faces in the Olympic team, not many white faces in the Blues rugby team or the Warriors. It all depends on your physical makeup and what sports suits you. Sport is for personal enjoyment and that should be the end of the matter.

R D

Albany

Hawkes Bay Today 15/7/16 (Text Us section)

■ Was I caned for talking English in class? Yes, anyone who talked in class was. I certainly got my fair share.

■ The teaching of Maori language should not be compulsory in schools! It should be an option, the same as religious education is an option.

The New Zealand Herald 14/7/16

BEACH CLAIM

Like many others I donated to Givealittle to raise money to buy Awaroa Beach. I did this so that it could be bought, then gifted back to New Zealanders and to stop it being sold to overseas buyers.

I did not donate so that this land could be gifted to New Zealand only for an iwi to come along and say it is now theirs. If this land had been sold to an overseas buyer the iwi would have no claim on it and they shouldn’t have a claim now.

R W

Waipu.

CO-SLEEPING

I fail to understand why we are too timid to label harmful “cultural practices” as inappropriate. If Maori babies are eight times more likely to die from suffocation caused by bed-sharing and high smoking rates, then baby pods are not the answer.

A simple intelligent response is required. Parents, and especially mothers: if you are too selfish to give up your fags or get out of bed to care for your newborn then you are not fit to be a parent. Stay single please until you can live as a responsible adult. Enough of the cringeworthy racist psychobabble providing excuses for poor parenting choices, or the expectation that we should subsidise stupidity.

M M

Red Beach.

Northland Age 14/7/16

FURIOUS AND FALSE

I do not have time to respond here to the welter of furious and false accusations in the Age today (July12). All I have time to say is that Haami Piripi is reported in The Press, May10, 2010, as saying, "We didn't cede our sovereignty", etc, etc. This is a straight lie. That Anne Salmond supports this false claim means only that she is deluded or lying too.

For the true story of events at Waitangi around February 6, 1840, read my chapters in One Treaty— One Nation, (2015, LSBN 1872970443).

Just one more thing: Haami is also reported as saying, "We never ever saw an English version of the Treaty and we never signed one." Right on! There never was a treaty in English, and the piece of paper which is purported to be one is falsely so described.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

FABRICATIONS

It may come as a surprise to Haami Piripi that approximately 80 per cent of New Zealanders favour living in Dr Muriel Newman's democratic 'wonderland' in preference to his tribal cuckoo-land.

The Treaty of Waitangi was actually a cessation agreement: there is no inference of compromise, collaboration, co-operation or partnership in the wording of the Maori language Treaty that approximately 500 chiefs signed. It was a great race-uniting document that gave all New Zealanders (not just Maori) equality, protection and ownership of their lands, but it had served its purpose in 1840.

Further, 'principles' and 'partnership' that Piripi refers to have nothing to do with the Treaty of Waitangi 1840, and everything to do with what we might call the Treaty of Wellington (aka the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986). This is the point of entry to our national discourse for all the Maori grievance industry baloney, These fabricated 'principles and partnership' are capable of justifying any tribal demand, no matter how exorbitant, and are used to push the Maori supremacist agenda.

It is greedy power-hungry iwi leaders, the racially-stacked and biased Waitangi Tribunal, history-twisting academics/ historians, short-sighted, self-serving MPs and parasitic lawyers that will make us the Zimbabwe of the Pacific, not perceptive people like Dr Muriel Newman who are brave enough to advocate racial equality and one rule for all in a society that appears to have lost its sanity.

As for Wally Hicks (A lost cause, July 12), he continues to twist the past then talks about going forward — enough said there.

Finally, how can Brian Gillespie (Moving on, July 12) justify grouping Bruce Moon's informative correspondence in with Anahera Herbert-Graves' endless He Whakaputanga nonsense?

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

TWO SIDES

What goaded Haami Piripi into his rant about what he calls right-wing mongrelism ruining this country (Colonial defiance, letters July 12)?

Piripi doesn't like to see publication of what he thinks are extremist views by Muriel Newman of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, but is silent about extremist views in the same newspaper by Anahera Herbert-Graves.

The Northland Age is unique in that it quite rightly publishes both sides of the debate.

Piripi appears allergic to the notion that Maori may have been "deprived of any historical sovereign interests". Does he not realise that Article 1 of the Treaty that 512 chiefs signed in 1840 says that the chiefs "cede to the Queen of England for ever the entire sovereignty of their country?"

Piripi boldly signs his letter as a "treaty partner". I challenge Piripi to say exactly where in the Treaty the word "partnership" is used, or where any arrangement resembling partnership was described.

Piripi is a spokesman for the Iwi Leaders' Group, which has collectively siphoned more than $3 billion out of taxpayers.

He may be old enough to remember a time before ideology divided as into identity groups and race hucksters started peddling guilt as a cover for race-based compensation.

It appears analysis by Muriel Newman has hit a sore spot, sparking this latest fit of name-calling by Haami Piripi.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Gisborne Herald 13/7/16

NEW NAME?

I see that Dame Anne Salmond now refers to our district as “the Tai Rawhiti”. Does that mean that all posters, letterheads, signposts, maps, etcetera will need to be changed?

Watch this space!

M C

Wanganui Chronicle 13/7/16

MAORI NUMBERS

I am not sure where Potonga Neilson (Letters, June 29) gets his "real history" from, but a thesis from the University of Canterbury reads, "Epidemics prior to 1800 were not recorded at the time of their arrival" — so how does he know that "cholera wiped out 90 per cent" (his words) of Maori in the 1700s?

It has been fairly reliably calculated that there were around 120,000 Maori in New Zealand in 1800, so is Mr Neilson saying that before introduced diseases (1700s) the Maori population was over a million?

Historian James Rutherford (University of Auckland library) has written that between 1801 and 1840 about 42,000 Maori lost their lives in the musket wars (Maori against Maori), and in that same period only 13,000 died from diseases and other causes. That is just 333 deaths per year from disease in a population of about 100,000, therefore disease was hardly the greatest cause of "almost Maori extinction" as Potonga claims.

Furthermore, Dr John Robinson's research establishes that if Maori had not practised female infanticide their breeding numbers would have been in a better state to withstand the effects of disease and tribal warfare.

GEOFFREY T. PARKER

Whangarei

Hawkes Bay Today 13/7/16 (Text Us section)

■ I'm happy in mainstream healthcare with my chosen doctor and dentist and have no desire to use a Maori healthcar professional. So how do I get if name off the Maori healthcare register? Apparently because I'm Maori, I'm automatically registered—but isn't that discrimination?

Wanganui Chronicle 12/7/16

RIFF RAFF?

Potonga Neilson ( June 29) is again permitted to use the term “riff-raff” when describing early settlers, although he is getting the settlers of New Zealand and Australia mixed up.

Those coming here were generally tradesmen, merchants and farmers who paid for their passage. His “people with criminal tendencies” went to Oz for free. Modern-day examples of his definitive riff-raff” can be seen around the Wanganui courthouse every day that the court sits.

His ability to avoid subjects detrimental to his “chosen” race and fabricate historical “fact” to suit his own ideas is amazing.

Europeans did not bring cholera to NZ deliberately. Isolation in the far corners of the Earth prevented common diseases elsewhere being introduced for a time, but when those more t echnologically advanced peoples ventured about the world, their diseases went with them.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Maori could aptly be described as “stone age” compared to most other countries — not their fault, but again due to isolation.

Most Maori resources for the maintenance of life and death were based on vegetation and stone — vegetation for food and the construction of shelter, and stone for such activities as grinding vegetative matter for food and dispatching others to the great beyond in the form of weapons.

Not too many steam engines around, but hot stones were used to create steam to cook food. Claiming that a few Taranaki Maori were “naughty” is irrelevant, and as a Taranaki Maori he should accept responsibility for the actions of his multiforebears.

Potonga, you can spend as long as you like rewriting history. the Japanese tried after World War II and failed — you will too. (Edited.)

D P

Eastown

Dominion Post 12/7/16 (To the Point section)

The report is out Teachers are Failing Maori Students. Now we all wait for the other report: Maori Students are Failing Teachers.

- A G

Newtown

The New Zealand Herald 11/7/16 (Short & Sweet section)

ON LANGUAGE

Heather du Plessis-Allan says, “We have been marking Maori language week since 1975, yet the number of Maori speakers still keeps falling.” It should evolve naturally without force-feeding — if it becomes ornamental like Latin, so be it.

GEOFF PARKER,

Kamo.

The Press 9/7/16

MERCILESS

Labour MP Louisa Wall claims New Zealanders don’t know their history (Jun 30). This in respect of a recent treaty payout.

In a lachrymatory speech she recalled the execution of 130 Maori following their capture at the 1869 siege of Ngatapa. These were of course members of the killer gang led by Te Kooti.

Wall has not recounted the cause and some explanation is necessary.

In November 1868, along with his gang and chief executioner Te Rangitahau, he fell on the settlement of Matawhero, where he mercilessly butchered 32 settlers – men, women and infants. He also slaughtered many Maori of local iwi.

Te Kooti then fled in the direction of Ngatapa, killing numerous Maori of both Arawa and Ngati Porou, and kidnapping women for his seraglio from various Maori settlements.

Among those who fell to the patu were four chiefs, a fatal mistake in Maori society, which demanded utu.

Following his defeat at Ngatapa, Te Kooti fled to the north, but many of his followers were captured.

Ropata Wahawaha was the commander of the kupapa who had relations killed by Te Kooti and traditional utu by the kupapa was carried out.

Perhaps the Treaty Tribunal could consider payouts to the descendants of those who were killed and had their homes incinerated at Matawhero?

B O

Casebrook

The Northern Advocate 8/7/16

REAL WORLD

It would be nice to live in Juliet Golightly’s world wherein conspiracies do not exist, but unfortunately we live in a real world in which those with ignoble ambitions often distort the truth to achieve their own ends. There are three words designed to squash intelligent discussion; the first two being “conspiracy theorist” (insinuating that all who endeavour to expose a conspiracy are nutters, so don’t look there), and the third is the word “racist”.

Apparently people have great difficulty in understanding racism, with many confusing it with religious bias. Even our race relations officer accuses those criticising Muslim adherents as being racist when it is obvious that Muslims come in a variety of different nationalities and races.

To accuse someone of being racist when they espouse equal rights for all citizens is simply ignorance on the part of the accuser. Racist is a word that is used as an insult in an attempt to shut down any rational discussion of matters involving different races, whereas equal rights ensure equitable treatment for all. Those who favour privileges on the basis of ethnicity are the real racists.

Since the demise of the true Maori race, NZ is no longer a bicultural society as promoted by those who wish to live in the past. We have become a multi-cultural society, so the many diverse cultural practices and religions should be subjects for home education — not included in the curriculum of schools or other educational facilities.

Conspiracy theorists? Who are they? Mostly we are people who do not blindly accept what the mass media rams down our throats, people who have an innate resistance to being victims of social engineering. We are people who dare to question things that don't seem quite right and then have the courage to speak out.

However, if Ms Golightly is right, then the Gunpowder Plot never happened. Sorry kids, Guy Fawke's Day has been cancelled.

MITCH MORGAN

Kaipara

Bay of Plenty Times 8/7/16

WAR OF WORDS . . .

Peter Dey (Letters, July 7) has, in my view, simply failed to address the points I made in my letter (July 6).

The points I made were simple. No land had been confiscated prior to the Battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga, so it cannot be claimed as Peter Dey did (Letters June 29) that Maori were protecting their lands.

The Bay of Plenty was at peace and prosperous. During the 1840s and 1850s Ngai Te Rangi took advantage of new trade and agricultural opportunities. By the late 1850s, they owned numerous coastal vessels and supplied Auckland with wheat, potatoes, corn and onions among other produce. The Battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga were instigated by chief Rawiri Puhirake demanding the British come and fight him. Land confiscations were a result of Puhirake’s final loss at Te Rangi.

Nowhere in my letter did I raise the question as to whether or not land confiscations were reasonable.

R P

Welcome Bay

Wanganui Chronicle 8/7/16

NO 'H' IN ELECTION

I note that it is council election time and also Maori Language Week. I suggest we do not vote for anyone who wanted an "h" put in Wanganui. Why? Because they, along with the young Ngapuhi in the 1960s, have destroyed the phonetic spelling of the Maori Language. "Wh" was like our what, when, where and why and pronounced "hw". But young Ngapuhi made it an "f". Adding a silent "h" to Wanganui is a further despoliation of the language, "whouling up the the rheo" so to speak, in my view.

T P

Wanganui

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 8/7/16

PROPOSED EQUALITY FOR ALL

RE: ‘Howls of the housing crisis' (The Weekend Sun).

Perhaps R Goodall could rationally ‘prove' that I am the racist he claims?

In my lifetime, there has been no event, process, opportunity or institution that Maori have been denied access to. But decades of parliamentary leverage has created a plethora of race-based legislative initiatives that give Maori special rights. There are some 22 projects and initiatives that I, as a European, cannot participate in.

The United Nations convention concludes: “superiority on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and there is no justification for racial discrimination anywhere, in theory or in practice”.

I would be very happy to debate the words, as written in Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi as signed by more than 500 Ragatira) with Goodall. That document is not racist, it proposed equality for all in the First Article.

MJ A

Pyes Pa.

NO GRATITUDE FOR SETTLERS

RE: ‘Howls of the housing crisis' (The Weekend Sun).

R Goodall's racist comment that they “absolutely love the housing crisis” because they imagines there are more ‘Pakeha' (non-Maori) homeless than Maori!

Goodall does not give statistics to support this fatuous statement but statistics show Maori are only 15 per cent of our population - the other 85 per cent being non-Maori. It therefore would not be surprising if there were more non-Maori homeless.

Goodall then tries to compare the present situation with that in 1840 when, after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, settlers began to arrive.

Maori were delighted to find they could get money from the sale of their land and this they did with gusto, sometimes the same tract several times over. The hundreds of sales are recorded on Victoria University's website.

As for housing, Maori had no idea what a proper house was like until settlers built theirs with running water and toilets. According to Charles Darwin, when he visited New Zealand prior to 1840, Maori lived in ‘filthy hovels'. Goodall shows no gratitude for the way settlers turned barren land into a country with houses, schools, universities, roads - and most of all knowledge and education.

Goodall's gloating over homeless non-Maori is derogatory to say the least.

M B

Tauranga City.

BE GRATEFUL FOR THE INTRUSION

Re: Stunned by verbal invective (The Weekend Sun, July 1).

Marama Fox should be grateful for the intrusion of colonists to New Zealand and the individual freedom granted her by the treaty, as a citizen of the Crown, to express herself as she did on TV3's programme as in pre-colonial times she would never have been able, as a woman, to speak let alone display such gross behaviour on any marae in the land.

B J

Omokoroa.

OWN UP AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Re: ‘They got away with murder' (The Weekend Sun, July 1).

We have to stop all the politically correct nonsense and pussy-footing around and admit that Maori are the main offenders when it comes to the horrendous killings of our children. They must own up to this and take responsibility for their actions. Only then will we see this problem solved. Houses where children are most likely to be put at risk must be identified and monitored and child education programmes put in place for the adults to prevent these crimes from happening in future.

The dole and DPB are too easily obtained in this country and become a permanent way of life for some. And often that is reflected in the backgrounds of the cases in which these vicious killers come. Often this is a generational way of life and that will only be overcome when suitable classes are provided for these young people to keep them in the education system until they reach a certain education standard before they leave school. Otherwise they just become drifters in life with the taxpayers keeping them.

M H

Hairini.

Gisborne Herald 7/7/16

STAND BY OBJECTION — SORRY IF IT WAS UPSETTING

Re: Tairawhiti Museum display of painting of four flags.

The country went to a referendum to get the views of the nation on our flag. The New Zealand flag depicted in the painting in question was defaced by putting it upside down. It was also below the two Maori flags. This is our nation’s flag, voted for by all races living in this nation.

This display, funded by Creative New Zealand and the Waitangi Day commemoration fund, has already caused controversy elsewhere in the country and this has been covered on national television. I did not know this before our visit to the museum.

I object to being labelled racist because I objected to the exhibition. I stand by my opinion. I am sorry if I upset the staff member by my attitude but I did not show any aggression against her. I only wished to say how wrong it is to deface our flag, everybody’s flag — like it or not. If you think this makes me racist then the whole nation has a problem.

R J

Northland Age 7/7/16

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

Wally Hicks (letters June 24) claims that my description of the butchery at Mauinaina is" disingenuous to say the very least. Designed, no doubt, to further frighten those who already share Moon's views anyhow."

Well, no, actually. l do not offer "views," but accounts from several historical sources, S Percy Smith, whom he presumes, not amongst them.

Hicks then attempts to shift the blame to Europeans, saying "This was the early colonial period. If it's a musket war it's part-European or colonial, not 'traditional'," and asks "What was it like before Europeans arrived?" The answer to that was supplied in 1771 by Lieutenant Roux, one of Marion Du Fresne's officers, who survived the killing and eating of his ill-fated captain. As he noted in his diary: the chiefs "declare war upon the slightest pretext, which wars are very bloody; they generally kill any prisoners they may capture."

Here are just a few quotations—selective of course, since I cannot throw several books at him. Re Mauinana in 1821: "It has been said that Hong Hika went to England in 1820 for the express purpose of obtaining arms, wherewith to combat his enemies of the Ngati-Whatua, who had beaten Nga-Puhi in the battle of Moremonui, in 1807, and also to strengthen himself against his other enemies of the Hauraki Gulf. So far as England was concerned, he was not very successful, though he was loaded with presents of other sorts which his friends there thought would be useful to him. In Sydney, however, he was able to gratify his desire for arms to a considerable extent, by exchanging his presents for muskets and powder. "The native accounts say that over a thousand of the Ngati-Paoa people fell in the taking of Mauinaina, and a traveller who visited the battle-field in 1844 records that the bone of 2000 men still lay whitening on the plain, and the ovens remain in which the flesh of the slaughtered was cooked for the horrible repasts of the victorious party."

Re: Matakitaki, 1822:

"It is stated that very soon after fire was opened on the pa, many of the Waikato people, who were now for the first time to see the effect of guns, began to leave, and as the firing increased a panic seized them, and they retired in such numbers that they pushed one another off the narrow bridge over the great ditch, when a dreadful scramble for life ensued in which many hundreds of people were trodden to death. "The ditch soon became full, and those underneath were trodden to death or smothered by the others. Some who were in the ditch escaped into the Waipa river, where they were shot by Nga-PuhL"

Hicks invites us to read about the Taranaki Wars. On the capture of Pukerangiora in 1831 we have:

"It is said that twelve hundred of Te Ati-Awa and their allied hapus were killed or captured in the final overthrow of the pa. The greater part of the prisoners were women and children, and these were driven back into the pa to be killed or tortured at leisure. That day Waikato glutted themselves on the bodies of the slain lying in gore around the pa.

"The next morning the prisoners were brought out, and those amongst them whose faces were well tattooed were decapitated on a block of wood, with the view of making mokaikai, or preserving them, as trophies to be taken back to the country of the Waikatos. Others, with little or none of this decoration, were immediately killed by a blow on the skull.

"It is asserted that Te Wherowhero, the head chief of Waikato and principal leader of the invaders, sat in the gateway of the pa, and as the prisoners were brought to him he killed one hundred and fifty of them by a blow on the head with his jadeite mere named 'Whakarewa,' and that he only desisted because his arm became swollen with the exercise. The headless bodies were thrown across a trench, which was dug to carry off the blood lying in pools about the plateau on which Puke-rangiora stood.

"Others, less fortunate, were killed with every conceivable form of torture; some again were cast into the ovens alive, to the amusement of their sanguinary foes. Young children and lads were cut open by incisions made hastily down the stomach, eviscerated and roasted on sticks placed round large fires, made of the pallisading of the pa."

Hicks finishes with more mumbo-jumbo from Herbert-Graves about her "new bi-culturally founded, multi-cultural written constitution." The best response to this is what the poet said: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Enough said?

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The New Zealand Herald 7/7/16

STRUGGLING LANGUAGE

In the middle of another Maori Language Week I am astounded to hear only 4 per cent of New Zealanders speak the language and a Google search indicates the main speakers of the language are elderly Maori. Best estimates (Statistics NZ 2013) seem to be that only 21 per cent of Maori have a reasonable knowledge of the language and that only 11 per cent of Maori are fluent speakers

In spite of all the taxpayer funding for promotion of te reo over many years and the attempts to have the language taught in schools, no progress appears to have been made. It would seem that the majority of Maori themselves do not accept the need to learn and speak their own language. If this is so then as a taxpayer I would have to query the wisdom of continuing to fund the promotion of the Maori language.

R S

Remuera

Wanganui Chronicle 7/7/16

WELFARE CONCERNS

In reply to Janet Mace (Chronicle, July 5): The great Maori leader Sir Apirana Ngata, Minister of Native Affairs, warned of the dangers social welfare would bring to Maori, and it is sad that this situation has been allowed to develop.

Figures show benefit dependence among Maori is more than double the rate for the population as a whole, with Census figures from 2006 showing 27 per cent of Maori between the ages of 18 and 64 years are receiving a benefit compared to 12 per cent in the total population. One in three Maori women are on welfare, compared to one in five Maori men. If age is factored in, the highest welfare dependency rate is for Maori women in their 20s, with 40 per cent on welfare (largely the DPB), while for men the peak is in their 30s with 20 per cent on welfare.

The Treaty of Waitangi, which was only to give sovereignty of New Zealand to Britain and tangata Maori the same rights as the people of England, is being used/abused as our founding document. Our true founding document was Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated November 16, 1840 which separated New Zealand from New South Wales and made New Zealand into an independent British colony. (Abridged.)

ROSS BAKER

One New Zealand Foundation

Bay of Plenty Times 6/7/16

CLAIMS WRONG

Peter Dey (Letters, June 29) claims that Maori were "simply trying to defend their land" at the Battle of Te Ranga.

Bay of Plenty was a battle ground — the Thames tribes, Ngapuhi, Waikato and the Arawa all taking part.

In 1842, Major Bunbury was sent to Tauranga with a view to curbing the Arawa tribes. In 1845 peace was inaugurated, and a stone inscribed "Te Maungarjongo 1845" (the peace making) was set up at Maketu. After several hundred years, peace reigned throughout the Bay of Plenty.

For Ngaiterangi and Tauranga a new era of prosperity had dawned. Unfortunately this was sacrificed when in 1864 the warmongering Ngaiterangi chief Rawhi Puhirake taunted the British demanding they come and fight him. He received no answer. He subsequently moved to Gate Pa where he got his wish, repelling the British. The next battle Te Ranga was for Maori a crushing defeat. This re-established peace in Tauranga and signalled the end of the New Zealand Wars (290,000 acres was confiscated with 240,0000 returned).

The British provided seed and help to re-establish crops. If it hadn't been for the actions of chief Rawiri Puhirake this land loss would not have occurred.

R P

Welcome Bay

Northland Age 5/7/16

OUR TURN

Now that the dust has settled on the UK Brexit referendum, it is fair to say Britain's exit from the EU, 50 per cent vs 48 per cent, will undoubtedly have serious consequences for Britain's financial well-being in the future. How could the UK remain with the basket-case EU, where it contributed more than it received, immigration of refugees was virtually unrestrained with free borders and so on —all out of control, effectively?

Now let's look at New Zealand — perhaps bumbling, stuttering Prime Minister Key should look at instituting a New Zealand Exit binding referendum to see if Kiwis support his government's race-based policies, handouts, the unrestrained fabricating of past Kiwi history, the stealthy freshwater sell-out and the ill-conceived foreshore and seabed policies, plus ballooning immigration.

Winston Peters is absolutely right — immigration and separatism doesn't and won't work. I can confidently tell you, and predict that 80 per cent of Kiwis would not support Mr Key or his government's policies on this front. Question: Does Mr Key have the guts to take a binding referendum vote to stop this politically correct (the theory of picking something up by the clean end) headlong plunge into separatism? The short answer is no.

Another thought; perhaps the South Island and Stewart Island should petition to secede from Aotearoa (?) New Zealand (North Island) and create South New Zealand (Sexit)— not a had idea. Roll on 2017 general elections.

R P

Mount Maunganui

FACT AND FICTION

Re 'Damned either way' (Letters June 30), Wally Hicks says, "European influence didn't end Maori tribal warfare at all ...", centuries of tribal warfare became non-existent by approx 1845. Perhaps Mr Hicks would like to explain what he considers ended the tribal warfare if it wasn't European influence?

Mr Hicks and the 'few other Pakeha' he professes to speak for would do well to acquaint themselves with the sound material on the Kiwi Frontline site he mentions, which notes that renowned historians Paul Moon, Claudia Orange and others acknowledge the practice of daughter slaughter by Maori in the early 19th century.

In his letter, Hicks makes it clear that he supports a new written constitution. I wonder if he sees this document based on the Treaty of Waitangi, in which non Maori would potentially become second-class citizens in their own country?

Finally, does Wally consider the views of close to 80 per cent of New Zealanders who support racial equality and one rule for all, as listed on the Kiwi Frontline polls results page, to be jaundiced, crass, prejudiced and unbalanced?

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

NOT INDIGENOUS

A lot of people consider Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, which they are not.

Unlike the Indians in North America and the Aborigines in Australia, who have been on their land for thousands of years, the Maori arrived in New Zealand about 1350AD, 400 years before Abel Tasman.

In 2010 John Key sent Pita (Peter) Sharpies to the United Nations to sign the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, without authority of Parliament or the people of New Zealand, Sharples telling the United Nations Maori hold a distinct and special status as the indigenous people, or tangata whenua, of New Zealand.

The late Professor Ranginui Walker and Maori legend tell a completely different story. The people of the 14th century found tangata whenua (original inhabitants) already living in New Zealand. Ngapuhi chief David Rankin stated Maori are not the indigenous people of New Zealand, "There were many other races already living here long before Kupe arrived."

Chris Finlayson has stated no documents exist today to define who is indigenous to New Zealand. John Key said that the document alleged to contain the information does not exist. Pita (Peter) Sharples has said "I do not hold a document that defines the New Zealand government's definition of indigenous people."

Captain Cook, Julius von Haast and Alfred K Newman mentioned there were people here before Maori Tangata whenua is a name used to identify the fair-skinned, red-haired people. Tangata whenua is a term only applied to Maori since the 1950s. The Celts, known as the Ngati Hotu, would more than likely be the indigenous people. Other pre-Maori people were the Chinese, Waitaha, Moriori, Patupairehe.

If Maori are to claim as the indigenous people of New Zealand then they must prove this with forensic (evidence), and that their ancestors' traditions and legends were wrong.

I B

Wanganui

Taranaki Daily News 5/7/16

HORI ST ORIGINS

In response to Steve Jones's letter (Taranaki Daily News, letters, July 1): Hori St in New Plymouth is named after James Cartwright George (Hori being the Maori name for George), who sold this land for residential development. In 1869.

JC George set up a business as a builder and cabinet-maker, and in 1888 he co-founded with Newton King the Crown Dairy Company.

During his time in New Plymouth he was also a member of the New Plymouth Harbour Board and had served with the Bushrangers and the Taranaki Rifle Volunteers. At the time of his death in 1905, JC George was President of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce.

KELVIN DAY

Manager Puke Ariki

Taranaki Daily News 1/7/16 (the above letter relates to this one)

HIGH TIME FOR A NAME CHANGE

Given the ever-increasing awareness of, and sensitivity to, all things Maori, I wonder if the district council will consider - or has ever considered - changing the name of Hori St in upper Vogeltown.

"Hori" was a common pejorative in my youth in the 1950s and 60s, predominantly for Maori but also to describe anyone considered shonky. It is still heard occasionally today among the older generation.

Surely the name is culturally inappropriate nowadays.

S J

New Plymouth

Southland Times 5/7/16

ATROCITIES

Interesting to listen to parliamentary speeches regarding an iwi settlement by the Crown and the MP stating ‘‘the Crown did inhuman acts on Maori people’’.

The truth is that prior to colonisation and for a couple of decades after the Treaty was signed, the worst atrocities on Maori was by Maori tribes who slaughtered, raped, made slaves of and cannibalised their Maori captives.

if we are to teach history in school from a Maori perspective, I hope that the developers of the curriculum read an interesting book called Stretching the Treaty.

This book unravels some of the nonsense that is the history that is put forward to justify Treaty claims.

N C

Invercargill

Wanganui Chronicle 4/7/16

LANGUAGE LESSON

Thank you, Potonga Neilson, for the lesson in the English language (Letters, June 29). It is a subject I did not do well in at school. You are quite right — the term "riff-raff' is not racist But neither are other derogatory terms such as "scum" or "trash". However, they become racist when applied to a certain ethnic group or sector of society, such as your reference to "colonial riff-raff'. But fear not. I'm sure Dame Susan is otherwise occupied right now.

M C

Wanganui

Hawkes Bay Today 4/7/16

RIFF-RAFF RENTERS THE PROBLEM

Here's yet another Labour MP bashing owners of rental properties to get votes. Meka Whaitiri says the three families her office is helping are unable to find private rentals —either because landlords don't want children, affordability issues, or the houses don't meet their needs. The first question from any property owner is about rental history. Property owners avoid non-payers who damage property and antagonise the neighbours like the plague. Is what Meka Whaitiri writes about a "Maori problem" or is it in fact a riff-raff renter problem?

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Sunday Star-Times 3/7/16

TAX IWI

Zac de Silva’s wonderful story about Jeremy Moon and Icebreaker (‘‘Rev-up with reinvention’’, Sunday Business, June 26) was quite inspirational.

Then I read the ‘‘Stars of Maori Business’’ article, where milk processor Miraka, Ngai Tahu Tourism and Tainui Group Holdings were the finalists in the business and innovation category.

However, Dr Michael Gousmett of Canterbury University (Letters, June 26) points out that 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’’.

There is such a thing as a level playing field. I felt proud of Ngai Tahu’s success, like many New Zealanders, until I read that article.

B R

Beach Haven

Bay of Plenty Times 2/7/16

TWISTING FACTS

It appears even after 152 years there are part-Maori intent on trying to cause racial disharmony by twisting historical facts. P Brooks and Peter Dey can take comfort by the fact that two settlements of $38 million each have been given to local iwi for alleged land loss.

Ms Brooks bemoans the fact that Governor Grey confiscated some land. Governor Grey warned Maori that if they rebelled against the Crown, breaking the covenants of the Treaty of Waitangi, land would be confiscated.

In fact only 4.5 per cent of the total land mass was confiscated and much was returned. Maori sold hundreds of tracts of their land to settlers, sometimes the same piece several times over. (Abridged)

M B

Tauranga

Gisborne Herald 1/7/16

ENOUGH HATRED ALREADY . . .

Re: Flag painting seen as racist and an insult, June 28 response to letter.

I wish to thank the museum’s director for her good explanation of why the referendum-selected NZ flag was displayed upside down and at half-mast beween two Maori flags held high in a painting at the Tairawhiti Museum.

However, while she would “always defend both an artist’s freedom of expression, and a visitor’s right of interpretation”, I don’t think tourists and visitors see it that way.

Our visitors from Europe are considering settling here and were very offended. They see this as a problem they must consider. The world is full of hatred between races and they want to escape it.

They wanted to visit Lake Waikaremoana, an icon of our district, yet local Maori were considering banning visitors from going there.

They were astounded to learn that the GDC buildings were going to be knocked down and rebuilt at a cost of $14 million or more. They commented that this would cost those who took that decision dearly.

But getting back to the display of what we considered to be racist paintings. Our visitors said that in their homeland France, at the world-acclaimed museum the Louvre — where my cousin’s mother was a curator — visitors could see some of the greatest paintings in the world, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. When they saw the defaced NZ flag painting in our museum they said that not long ago this insult was treason, punishable by death! The other painting of a Maori woman with her legs apart, giving birth, was really poor taste.

Our track record is not good in Tairawhiti. To be attractive to good immigrants who bring wealth and expertise, we need to show real quality at our museum.

Funding for this sort of offensive display by “Creative NZ and the Waitangi Day Commemorations Fund” is highly questionable. Why should taxpayers support unsavoury and racist “freedom of expression” paintings? It will be interesting what the Human Rights Commission comes up with regarding our race relations complaint.

A J

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 1/7/16

STUNNED BY VERBAL INVECTIVE

When viewing ‘The Nation' on TV3 on June 26, I was stunned to hear Marama Fox's verbal invective towards Dr Axel Gietz, representing Imperial Tobacco, who was brought from the United Kingdom to debate the tobacco industries' view.

The Maori Party co-leaders' 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 whilst she personally participates in, and owns the very best of the positive aspects 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 Lisa Owen, the interviewer, and political commentator Paddy Gower established that TV 3 did not support personal attacks.

MJ A

Pyes Pa.