Gisborne Herald 27/9/17

ONE PEOPLE, ALL IMMIGRANTS

Re: Look back without bias, September 20 letter.

Sorry Joe, but in your statement that Maori were willing to share Aotearoa with these “later immigrants”, you seem to forget that Maori have never owned New Zealand and were, like the Europeans, immigrants themselves.

You wish to look back to how it was in 1840. Perhaps we “immigrants” should take back all the benefits brought to New Zealand and let you and yours go back to how things were in 1840. Would that suit you better?

You state that Maori now occupy all the dreadful social statistics, and are trying to get back to the position they once occupied.

Don’t blame us if undesirable elements among your people offend. We do not force-feed them with bad behaviour, bad ethics or bad family management. It doesn’t matter if you are Pakeha, Maori, Asian, Oriental or whatever, if you offend against the law of the land, you will get punished.

Believe me Joe, I do understand. I understand that, like Hobson said, “We are one people”. We are all equal, whether you like it or not.

It appears that you desire everything in favour of Maori. Sorry, but that is not going to happen. Get your mind away from 1840 and come and live in the 21st century.

Maori do very well under the Treaty and do receive many advantages over the other races residing in New Zealand. Perhaps they simply need to learn how to handle the benefits they receive.

We all suffer the handicap of inequality. It is not the sole property of one race.

MIKE MULROONEY

Northland Age 26/9/17

PHILOSOPHY OF ENVY

Ross Forbes (letters September 21), I am delighted that I hit a raw nerve and got your attention. I'm happy to say I was deadly serious about Ms Ardern, and sorry to say Muldoon and dancing Cossacks were never my thing.

Thankfully the possibility of a Labour/Greens/Maori Party coalition is no more. Perhaps I might just mention in passing that on election night, it looks like nearly two-thirds of all Kiwis agreed with me about Ms Ardern, because they didn't vote for her party.

Incidentally, the demise of the race-based Maori Party in Parliament can only be regarded as a plus, and viewed positively for race relations.

Oh, and let me make it clear, I have no time for the duplicitous National Party and its little tricks either.

Yes, unfortunately the failed Venezuela socialist experiment is entirely relevant here in New Zealand Good luck with the apparent rose-coloured view of socialism, the philosophy of failure, ignorance and envy, that promotes the equal sharing of miseries. Quod erat demonstrandum.

ROB PATERSON Matapihi

NZ Herald 25/9/17

MAORI PARTY

It’s fairly clear the Maori Party MPs, had they been re-elected, would have gone with Labour, so it’s a bit rich of them to talk about Maori going back to their abuser.

The party was formed to punish Labour for the Foreshore and Seabed Act. In this they were successful, in the process helping to inflict on us the most useless Government since the 1931 coalition. They should now congratulate themselves on a job well done and fade away gracefully.

WARREN DRAKE, Orakei.

Rotorua Daily Post 25/9/17

WE WON’T BE VISITING SPRINGS

After well over 40 years, and on principle, I, my extended family and our dogs will no longer visit Hamurana Springs, however beautiful they are, nor will I recommend them to friends.

I’ll suggest taking a picnic over to the Blue Springs near Putaruru.

Hamurana Springs are indeed beautiful, enhanced by the young trees planted over the years and nurtured by volunteers.

It’s unfortunate revenue gathering was a reason for wanting these springs given over to Maori ownership rather than the pride of knowing something so lovely was being freely shared with everyone.

That option would have seen experienced volunteers continue to nurture the area. (Abridged)

PADDI HODGKISS, Rotorua

Otago Daily Times 25/9/17

MAORI LANGUAGE

REGARDING C. A. Craig’s letter, (ODT, 20.9.17), while it is true that there were attempts by missionaries to construct a written Maori word, problems arose when these people would vary greatly on spelling and pronunciation.

In 1818 two Maori by the names of Hongi and Waikato, both young men of fine temper and natural parts and excellent representatives of their countrymen, were sent to England at the request of the Rev Samuel

Marsden in order to assist the celebrated philologist, the Rev Samuel Lee, in creating a New Zealand vocabulary.

Thus, in 1820, the first complete grammar of the Maori language was published under the title of A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand.

The attitude of C. A. Craig isn’t supported by the facts and strikes me as sad and old. MORGAN NATHAN St Clair

Wanganui Chronicle 25/9/17

AOTEAROA ORIGINS

Ian Brougham believes Aotearoa has never been a name for New Zealand (Letters; September 7).

Where has he been? From 1845, George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, used the name Aotearoa to mean NZ. During my childhood, Aotearoa was well-known as the name the Maori gave to these islands.

Kiwis understood it meant land of the long white cloud", and it has been translated as glaring light (Hochstetter); continuously clear light, or land of abiding day (Stowell); long white world (Wilson); long bright world, long daylight, long lingering day, or long bright land (Cowan); and long bright day (Tregear). See more at www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/aotearoa

Aotearoa was once used to mean the North Island but by the 20th century the name meant the whole of New Zealand.

The name of NZ's national anthem is God Defend New Zealand/Aotearoa, and the Maori version has Aotearoa as the last line in each verse. In 2015 the New Zealand cricket team played under the name of Aotearoa for their first match against Zimbabwe to celebrate Maori Language Week.

MARGI KEYS Springvale

Northern Advocate 23/9/17

TREATY MONEY

Maori and other politicians tell us that Maori have been adversely affected by the housing crisis, resulting from excessive immigration.

With the huge money given through Treaty settlements, why is there no willingness for a portion of this spent in constructing houses for their people? Would they see it as a bad investment?

R SYRON, Parua Bay

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 22/9/17

MURDERING THE LANGUAGE?

Once upon a time there was a Maori language but academics thought they knew better and set about changing it. Why? Pita Sharples had this to say on One News recently: “The Treaty is in our language and if it's in our language we can make it mean anything we want it to”. Which I take to mean te reo cannot be translated. How could it be trustfully translated if you can make it to mean anything you want it to? Why would academics want to murder their language?

Even so, te reo is still composed of bastardised English and Gaelic in an attempt to expand a seriously restricted communication mode for the simplest of words.

The language has been murdered by academics to such an extent it doesn't even sound like the original, statically rhythmed pre-principles of the Treaty of Waitangi era.

So sad to know this treasure's confiscated. Why did we need te reo when what we had was adequate and sounded far superior.

I BROUGHAM, Wanganui.

THE INFLUENCE OF GANGS

It is true that gangs do provide, for some young Maori, the family that they so sadly lack in their own lives. But what a poor substitute for a stable home and caring, responsible parents. This scarcely constitutes a community service that some Maori leaders claim benefits society.

B JOHNSON, Omokoroa.

Waikato Times 22/9/17

RANGIAOWHIA LESSONS

Tom O'Connor writes a compelling story and his assertions are well crafted to leave a particular impression. Unfortunately, many of his assertions do not stand detailed scrutiny.

For example, he claims that Kereopa Te Rau "finally gave himself up to prevent further British actions against Tuhoe" and in those few words leaves the impression that it was solely British forces involved in actions against Tuhoe and that Kereopa made a noble sacrifice.

However, James Cowan, in the second volume of his history of the New Zealand Wars reports the situation somewhat differently. He says Kereopa didn't give himself up and the main antagonists as far as Tuhoe were concerned at the time were Ngati Porou led by Ropata [Rapata Wahawaha].

I'm all for people learning more about our history. However, it is not the simple black and white story that people like Tom O'Connor would have us believe - and, without historical context, articles such as his are little better than name-calling. (abridged)

CHRIS LEE Tauranga

Tom O'Connor replies: Chris Lee is correct that history is never a simple black and white story and there are many nuances and fine details. However, Rapata Wahawaha of Ngati Porou was a major in the British forces during the land wars. He was not acting for Ngati Porou but for the Crown against Tuhoe who had given both Kereopa and Te Kooti refuge. The official biography of Kereopa states he gave himself up to avoid further bloodshed among Tuhoe. Cowan was not always accurate in his journals.

North Shore Times 21/9/17

A VOTER'S VOICE

I was so pleased to read your account of the Candidates Meeting in Beach Haven last Monday night, Sep 11

I was also frustrated that I could not attend, as I had intended, because I would have been vociferous in my support for Kym Koloni.

How wonderful! What a breathe of fresh air to hear someone speak up to challenge the race based policies of National, Labour, Greens, Maori et al.

I have never voted for NZ First before but if they have policies that help make us all one people with the law applying equally for all of us then they have my two ticks.

NZ First has gone some way to addressing these injustices but I would be really impressed if they would work towards scrapping the Waitangi Tribunal.

I hope I meet Kym on polling day so I can give her a big hug.

COLIN FRANCIS Beach Haven

Northern Advocate 16/9/17

DEAR SIR,

I can understand Jordan Williams, executive director of the New Zealand Taxpayers Union, taking umbrage regarding Jayne Golightly for not having New Zealand citizenship before taking office in a local government position, even though she has been here for most of her life. Obviously, she has been paid for her efforts.

Did we not have a politician in the Helen Clark Government in the similar position, and a quick ahem, and a law change, alter that so he could carry on?

The system should take some responsibility for any wrongs committed. All candidates for electoral office should prove citizenship before putting their names forward, a simple solution.

Slack record-keeping allowed my father-in-law to get a summons to appear for jury service – two years after he had died! My mother-in-law was deeply distressed about that!

Where is the Taxpayers Union hiding while the Government hands out vast sums of money to the Maori elite for supposedly past wrongs? Let us hear from them about that! At the last count it stands at $2.6 billion, and counting, and they pay minimal tax, yet not one cent has been paid out to the Patupiarehe, the Turehu and the Waitaha, the people from these nations being here for a lot longer than Maori, and their people decimated!

Jayne Golightly has been paid for services rendered. She owes us nothing.

KEVAN G. MARKS, Kaipara.

(Blue paragraph was omitted from published letter)

Waikato Times 21/9/17 (Also in Northland Age 21/9/17)

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

If only NZ voters would think beyond the ‘‘What’s in it for me?’’ syndrome.

If only they would consider instead, ‘‘What is the best choice for the future of NZ, and the heritage that we will be leaving our children?’’

Before you cast your vote please ask yourself, ‘‘Do I want a government hellbent on dividing our country in two, with privileges for some that are denied to the majority?’’ Or would I like to see existing racially-based legislation abolished and replaced with laws that treated all of us the same.

National, Labour, the Greens, TOP and Maori parties all have in their sights a rewritten Constitution that includes a distorted English version of the Treaty of Waitangi. Now there is nothing wrong with the original Maori wording, but allowing the Waitangi Tribunal to ‘‘translate’’ it nearly 200 years later was equivalent to letting a little boy loose in a lolly shop.

Before you consider voting for any of the above-mentioned parties please give thought to what it would be like living under a future constitution that legally enforced apartheid in our country; a nation in which one sector of the population had children with privileges that may not be available to your children; gave access to educational assistance and extra healthcare based on remote ancestry rather than citizenship; and deprived you of ownership of your beaches, nature’s wealth and even the rain that falls from the sky.

We are one nation and one people, despite the efforts of those who are intent upon driving a wedge between us, so come out of your political closet when you vote and think of what may lie ahead instead of ‘‘What’s in it for me?’’

MITCH MORGAN, Kaipara

Northland Age 21/9/17

TOXIC MIX

The upcoming general election's main protagonists are National and Labour/ Greens, and both groups, whether right or left, represent extremism personified, yet in essence strangely end up in much the same place.

Election bribes are the norm, regions are ignored, race-based policies abound, and frankly neither outfit could give a toss about ordinary Kiwis (irrelevant majority), their goals, aspirations or wellbeing.

Productivity is critical, yet politicians are fixated with consumption and rewarding people who will not contribute.

Labour currently are deeply socialist, verging on communist, and in tandem with rabid Green environmentalists, plus radical race-based Maori Party activists, committed to the return of Maori sovereignty, make up a toxic mix.

If that combo ever gets control, turn out the lights, because we are heading for a dark place.

The financial expectations of the usual parasites are unreal, accompanied by nauseating bleating and whining Ms Ardern's thrust was to tax everything, including the kitchen sink, potentially to plug massive fiscal gaps arising from the bubbles, bangles and beads dished out.

When the public clicked this was a dog (floated like a brick) the backlash came, and then wishy washy Ardern steps up and pulls the plug on some of the trash but not the water royalties, earmarked for sharing 50/50 with vested Maori interests.

Tellingly, Labour won't front up directly on taxes offloading/delegating to a hand-picked panel of "tax experts" to explore (yeah right!) with the evil day put off to 2021.

The problem is taxes, bribes, pork barrel politics, race-based lunacy are all short on detail, transparency, openness and honesty.

Giving your vote to the National Party (immigration, race-based RMA, foreshore and seabed debacle with multiple claims, freshwater divvy up and housing fiasco) or Labour/Greens/Maori combo (full race-based privileges, numerous new taxes, carbon emissions, zillion-dollar cycleways and splurging $180 million on inane 2030 compulsory Maori language) is akin to turkeys voting for Christmas, and this won't have any happy ending either.

ROB PATERSON Matapihi

ON THE BUTTON

Wally Hicks is right on the button in describing me as a minion. Well done Wally. Take a point and go to the top of the class! I am no expert; ex equals unknown quantity, and spurt is a drip under pressure.

I agree with Wally when he asks, what is history? He quotes E H Carr and his assertion of history, and continues with "monotonous regularity, a tiny host of Right Brigade camp followers and minions like Mr Marks prove Ted Carr to be correct". Now don't call me camp, Wally. I am a married man, have raised a family, and a grandfather.

He then goes on to quote Hobson's Pledge, Treatygate and Kiwi Frontline. Correct again, Wally. I cannot fault you. Kiwi Frontline consists of letters, published and unpublished, over the past three years by people much better educated and researched than myself, and contains much valuable information.

The most recent book, published last year, is 'Forbidden History,' by John Dudley Aldworth, an excellent, well thought-out alternative history of New Zealand, and probably much closer to the truth than some of the fiction which is taught in schools.

Without going into further details, I would suggest that you simply type 'Tross Publishing' into your computer, and you will discover many books that have been written about the history of New Zealand by people who have done their research. If you do not have a computer their address is PO Box 22143, Khandallah, Wellington 6441. Happy reading.

KAWENA HORI MARKS ( KEVAN GEORGE MARKS) Kaipara

YOU CHOOSE

Once upon a time there was a Maori language, but academics thought they knew better, and set about changing it.

Why? Hon Pita Sharples had this to say on One News: "The Treaty is in our language, and if it's in our language we can make it mean anything we want it to." Which I take to mean, "Te reo cannot be translated". How could it be trustfully translated if you can make it to mean "anything you want it to?"

Why would academics want to murder "their language"?

Even so, te reo is still composed of bastardised English and Gaelic in attempt to expand a seriously restricted communication mode for the simplest of words.

The language has been murdered by academics to such an extent it doesn't even sound like the original, statically-rhythmed pre-principles of the Treaty of Waitangi era. So sad to know this treasure's confiscated.

Why did we need te reo when what we had was adequate and sounded far superior?

IAN BROUGHAM, Wanganui

Wanganui Chronical 21/9/17

THINK BEFORE TICK

People going to vote in this election should think carefully which party they support to be the government for the next three years.

Under National, our debt to foreign countries has trebled from $18 billion in 2008 to $58 billion in 2016.

National have put in place the Marine & Coastal Act where tribal groups can declare it sacred, and as regards the marine title, if you are building or extending your boatshed with-out tribal permission, you can be fined — 90 per cent goes to the tribes and 10 per cent goes to the Government.

Labour were the government who put in place the false document, the English draft of the Treaty. By doing so they removed all non-Maori out of the treaty so that they could give special rights to Maori.

IAN BROUGHAM Tawhero

Dominion Post 20/9/17

ALL REALLY ISN'T EQUAL

The first paragraph said it all in Council boss gets salary increase (Sept 16). Not the fact that Wendy Walker received a 5.6 per cent pay increase to $333,680 but that Porirua Mayor Mike Tana, who backed the increase, said: "She is a woman and she is a Maori."

So what is Tana implying? That this is why Walker got the job? Because she's a woman and Maori?

Just imagine the hue and cry if Justin Lester said Kevin Lavery deserves to be chief executive of Wellington City Council because he's a man and white.

Truly, the first paragraph said it all, "All is not equal when it comes to the Wellington region's top council earners." I'm just grateful I'm not a Porirua ratepayer.

RAYWARD CHUNG Broadmeadows

Otago Daily Times 20/9/17

TE REO

TO call "te reo" the Maori language is a total misnomer. English speakers translated the language as it sounded to them, Maori having no written language. What it would have looked like in Mandarin or Arabic had they arrived first is anyone's guess. To have this foisted on our schools as compulsory would be completely unacceptable.

C.A. CRAIG Puketi

Gisborne Herald 19/9/17

TREATY NO PARTNERSHIP BUT MEANS WE ARE EQUAL

Please Josh, read Te Tiriti o Waitangi and show me where the word “partnership” appears. To suggest the establishment of an upper house made up of 50 percent Maori representatives and 50 percent Crown representatives is quite ridiculous. How can you suggest that they would make a fair decision for all? How could a group from 12 percent of our population have such a degree of control over new laws that would affect the other 88 percent of our residents?

The Treaty was not written to give Maori such a degree of power. There is no partnership. I have a copy of Te Tiriti and find no mention of that word anywhere. The Treaty was a document to give Maori certain guidance over contestable issues and at the same time ensure that everything was fair and equitable.

Maori were well protected by Te Tiriti but they had to also be aware that they were not the only race now residing in our country. The Treaty was designed to protect Maori rights over a variety of issues, while at the same time also protecting the rights of the new residents.

When chiefs signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Governor Hobson stated with each signature, “we are now one people”.

“One people” does not constitute a partnership, it simply means we are all equal. If we are all equal, then please explain to me how is it that you and many others think that Maori deserve more than Pakeha. Sorry, but I cannot understand that logic.

While I appreciate your views, Josh, please remember I, like yourself, am simply expressing an opinion. Surely, I am at least allowed that.

MIKE MULROONEY

The article the above letter relates to here > http://gisborneherald.co.nz/localnews/2979433-135/councillor-calls-for-more-commitment-to

Northland Age 19/9/17

SPITTING TAX

Ms Ardern has more than just a mouthful of teeth, because she is spitting out the tax like there is no tomorrow . Water tax (an iwi initiative), land tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and a wealth tax — the billions of dollars involved will increase everyone's cost of living by around 15 per cent without benefiting anyone.

As Churchill observed, trying to tax a country into prosperity is like standing on a bucket and trying to lift it up by the handle

Taxing everything is not surprising, because of the horrendous amount of cash needed to fund the pork barrelling and lolly scrambles arising from the plethora of unsustainable Labour policy election promises. This freebie stuff always appeals to many people's base instincts, like self-interest and greed.

Ms Ardern is clearly not au fait with finance, but probably doesn't give a tinker's toss anyway, because she won't ever have to make good any pie in the sky promises New Zealand politicians never do.

However, when one can't even get the fundamentals right it doesn't augur well for a main event, like running a country, but hopefully Winston Peters will be on hand to spell out the facts of life.

Disturbingly, Labour /Greem seem joined at the hip, with their inane race-based Maori policy manifestos, which will cost Kiwi taxpayers an out-and-out fortune to implement. While they are fawning, the erasing and rewriting of factual New Zealand history is also high on both their agendas.

Ms Ardern shoots from the lip staccato style, with pretentious politician's claptrap, failing to engage the brain before opening the mouth. After nine years in Parliament, mostly as a nondescript list MP, why the sudden star billing with the public? She has done nothing to warrant a cult-like mania, and the public don't realise the consequences will benefit only a privileged few.

Politicians robbing Peter to pay Paul means they can always count on Paul's vote. On the other hand, duplicitous National have nothing to gloat about either. They can't recognise the truth, can't keep election promises, have vague and wishy washy policies becoming stuck in a rut

Reality is also that the so-called rock star' economy ain't doing what Nats extol, plus they are also currently moonstruck and preoccupied with the Maori myth-making aberration promoted by Maori Party, which has alienated many faithful party stalwarts.

Young and "charismatic" recently elected leaders like Macron and Trudeau appear to be abject failures with beguiling on their minds, a handful of gimmes, a gobful of much obliged and thanks for coming, which isn't any recommendation. Ms Ardern looks like a lady in waiting ready to join them.

As a parting thought, try the Churchill truism: 'The vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings while the virtue of socialism (the philosophy of failure ignorance and envy) is the equal sharing of miseries." Now ain't that the truth!

ROB PATERSON, Matapihi

Nelson Mail 18/9/17

WATER GREED

Labour’s intention to pay part of their water tax to iwi demonstrates absolute political corruption.

Fresh water is constantly created and transported by the sun as part of the very air we breathe before being delivered by gravity.

Regardless of the water driving a turbine, passing through a digestive tract or irrigation, the cycle continually renews our fresh water.

To claim ownership of fresh water which in all probability was evaporated off the territorial seas of Australia is nonsense and all about naked greed.

For Labour to assign ownership to a sector based on race is immoral and will heap a curse on future generations of Kiwis of all races.

If Labour do set this dangerous precedent for their own political ends then they are naı¨ve or stupid if they honestly believe iwi will be content with payout only from irrigators and bottlers.

KEN MILLWARD Moutere

NZ Herald 16/9/17

COASTAL CLAIMS

To hang on to power, the National Party handed their Maori Party partners a “bone” called the Marine and Coastal Area Act. It allows granting of customary title to areas of coastal sea. In such areas the title holders will be able exercise powers that non- Maori do not have, including exclusion of access to specified areas for fishing or other recreation and power to veto every development.

There are hundreds of applications about to be considered by the High Court, covering all of New Zealand’s territorial waters. Wake up, it is not too late to get rid of this highly discriminatory act. One party, NZ First, is absolutely opposed to it.

REX BEER, Whangaparaoa

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 15/9/17

TOOTH FAIRIES AND OTHER MENACES

Ms Ardern has more than a mouthful of teeth because she is spitting out the ‘tax' – water, land, capital gains, inheritance and wealth taxes. Hardly surprising, because endless cash is needed for pork barrelling and lolly scrambles arising from an unsustainable plethora of Labour promises. This freebie stuff always appeals to people's base instincts like self-interest and greed. She's not au fait with finance but probably doesn't give a tinker's toss anyway because she won't ever have to make good the promises. It's pretentious politician's claptrap, failing to engage the brain before opening the mouth. When someone can't even get fundamentals right it doesn't augur well for a main event like running a country.

Labour/Greens seem joined at the hip, with their scary, inane race-based Maori policy manifestos that will cost Kiwi taxpayers a fortune to implement, while erasing history is also on the agenda. These include promoting a treaty-based constitution, driving unelected Maori seats on councils, promoting Maori self-government and a separate legal system.

After nine nondescript years in parliament, mostly as a list MP, why the sudden star billing?

On the other hand, National has nothing to gloat about either – they can't tell the truth, keep election promises, have vague and wishy washy policies and are stuck in a rut while the real economy ain't doing what they extol. Plus currently also moonstruck and preoccupied with the Maori myth-making aberration.

R PATERSON, Matapihi.

Bay of Plenty Times 15/9/17

PETERS AGENDA

Tommy Wilson’s article (Opinion, September 9) unfortunately has a slanted view of Winston Peters.

Concerns of economic decline, social direction of this country, the sale of public assets into foreign control and increasing unemployment and declining democracy was the turning point. New Zealand First was born.

The concept was of people first along with enlightened economic and social policies and to represent the views of all concerned New Zealanders in which the direction of our country was taking but most importantly to restore faith in the democratic process.

Why has Winston got support? Because he is “Kiwi not Iwi” and everyone has to be treated the same.

The Royal Commission on electoral reform recommended the abolition of Maori seas as there is no benefit to Maori, so why continue with Maori seats. Winston is going to sort it.

Give credit to Winston where it is due the Gold Card and its benefits to those who have them, the millions of dollars retrieved offshore back into the government coffers for us Kiwis. This is what we expect of our politicians. (Abridged)

MIKE LALLY Te Puke

Northland Age 14/9/17

REPENT AT LEISURE

Ms Ardern graduated in 2001 from the University of Waikato (doesn't surprise) with Bachelor of Communications (politics and public relations), then spent time as a researcher for her heroine Helen Clark before skiving off to London. Shot back to New Zealand for 2008 election, entering Parliament via Labour list and continuing for past nine years, mostly as a nondescript list

She's a committed socialist, gay rights/gay marriage advocate, republican, agnostic, feminist, trade union supporter, pro-choice abortion and carbon tax zealot, plus undoubtedly a Maori separatist / treatyist / race-based policy sympathiser.

The Greens and Labour Maori manifestos are scary, as they pledge to legislate to enshrine Maori as indigenous, promote treaty-based constitution, fund Maori providers for the public sector, connive with local government to reinforce the drive for unelected Maori seats, retain race-based Maori parliamentary seats, promote Maori self-government with a separate legal system.

Ms Ardern's working life has always revolved around politics. She proposes sweeping taxes on water (iwi initiative), land, capital gains, wealth, carbon emissions, plus reinstate death duties, inevitably supporting race-based policies.

Is this the type of person we need as our Prime Minister? Everyone will suffer - the wealthy, middle class and the strugglers — perfectly embodying Winston Churchill's truism, "The main virtue of socialism (the philosophy of failure, ignorance and envy) is that it promotes the equal sharing of miseries".

Policies are vague, confusing and unworkable, so a looming massive fiscal gap beckons.

Remember Venezuela, once the richest country in South America, had a thriving economy and solid middle class, but since the 1999 election of socialist Hugo Chavez it's now an economic basket case, with only an abundance of chaos, starvation, human misery and suffering. Inflation is running at over 700 per cent, so clearly socialism doesn't work, and never will.

This critique of Ms Ardern and Labour doesn't seek to minimise the adverse effect that Messrs Key and English and the duplicitous National Party have had on New Zealand society. As they say, act in haste then repent at leisure, so be very careful what you wish for at this 2017 Election - it may prove to be a deadly potion and formula for disaster.

ROB PATERSON, Matapihi

STAGE 3

Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, stated: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident".

Hitler and his cohorts used this to good effect. And so, too, do all the parties which stand up to be elected into government this year (with two exceptions, New Zealand First and the Conservative Party, the media ghouls having all but annihilated the latter. But they are only doing what they are told to do.

The Treaty of Waitangi is, seemingly, to become a part of a new constitution which involves a treaty partnership, thanks to Sir Geoffrey Palmer. What partnership? Nowhere in the Treaty is a partnership mentioned, nor is duality (we are now one people). Maybe they are handing out knighthoods now with packets of tea.

The Court of Appeal ruled in the 1980s that the Treaty of Waitangi is to be regarded by

government agencies and must consult with its Treaty partner before making major decisions. At least 22 laws are now on the statute books that require government agencies to have regard to 'the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi'. Why should I bother to vote if the Court of Appeal will overrule any law that the government passes?

But rest assured, I will vote. If we must have a new constitution, let us start with Queen Victoria's Royal Charter of November 16, 1840, and, if necessary, update it. Shakespeare would have had a field day about this.

KEVAN G MARKS Kaipara

READY TO BLOW

Racist behaviour is rapidly increasing by Maori. The latest craze by the separatists racists is to take a group of Maori-speaking people into a bank, Mcdonald's or anywhere else, shine a camera in the face of the unfortunate person serving them, talk Maori, then denigrate that person or business operator because no one can speak Maori.

This just keeps getting more ridiculous, and dangerous. When are we going to get a government that stops this happening?

It's a fact Maori can't be bothered speaking their own language, but now the racist radicals are saying everybody else should.

It's a choice — if you want to learn Maori, fine, but please don't push your racist rhetoric down the rest of Kiwis' throats.

REX ANDERSON Lower Hutt

RESTORE CONSTITUTION ROOM

On April 17, 2017, the National government dismantled the Constitution Room at Archives New Zealand and separated the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi from our true constitution documents that have been held in the Constitution Room at Archive New Zealand for over 25 years.

The declaration and the treaty were placed under darkness in the new $12 million He Tohu exhibit at the National Library, Wellington, and the Royal Charters/Letters Patent and Proclamations that separated New Zealand from New South Wales making New Zealand into a British colony were placed in Archives New Zealand's repository, where they will be forgotten and lost forever, among the six million insignificant documents held there.

This corrupt act is to allow the National government to write a new constitution based on the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi that played absolutely no part in shaping New Zealand or setting up our political, legal or justice systems under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

To hide a country's constitutional documents is corruption of the worst kind.

For further information: www.onenzfoundation.co.nz At election meetings around the country the people of New Zealand must ask their candidates, will they resurrect our Constitution Room with our true constitutional documents the National Party has destroyed?

IAN BROUGHAM Wanganui

WHY ONLY THREE?

It's great to see acting Chief Archivist Richard Foy responding directly to issues raised in your newspaper. I too have been very interested in the whys and wherefores related to the relocation of only a few of the constitutional documents from the Constitution Room at Archives NZ in Wellington to the National Library a few hundred metres away.

I have endeavoured to get answers to my questions by seeking information through Official Information Act requests. Archives NZ has provided me with a list of the documents which were in the Constitution Room, and has also provided some project reports, which mention that at one stage the scope of the move would involve at least 83 documents.

I have also downloaded and looked at the photos in relevant albums on the website Mr Foy mentions.

I wonder if Mr Foy would be good enough to answer the following questions: When was the decision made to reduce the scope to only three document sets, by whom, and why?

* What has happened to the document which is the so-called Littlewood Treaty (the final draft of to Tiriti o Waitangi), which was in the Constitution Room but has not been included in the set of photos on the web site?

CHRIS LEE Tauranga

Bay of Plenty Times 14/9/17

LAND SALE DOCUMENTED

The heading “Historic land grievance still raw” (News, September 12) stated “the basis for the protest was the question of what happened to the property after it was acquired by the Church Missionary Society for the welfare and advancement of Maori”.

That is a little misleading, in my view, as the society legally purchased the land to mainly provide a base to house their representatives.

The land purchased, on which the current central city of Tauranga was established, has a well-documented history.

Reverend Alfred Nesbit Brown, on behalf of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), on October 30, 1838, purchased the 30 acres of land at the northern tip of the Te Papa peninsula.

On March 30, 1839, an additional 1334 acres was purchased with the deeds of sale signed by local chiefs.

Then, all purchases of land made before 1840 became subject to review by the Land Commission set up by Governor Hobson after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Commission found no muskets were part of either settlement, therefore Rev. Brown’s purchase was approved.

Later the Crown acquired much of that land to establish the town of Tauranga.

In 1873 Archdeacon Brown personally purchased 17 acres of land from CMS which he named “The Elms”.

This iconic property was purchased from Brown’s descendants in 1998 by The Elms Foundation to maintain and preserve Tauranga’s history for all New Zealanders.

The Elms property has the distinction of having New Zealand’s first freestanding library in its grounds, and is Tauranga’s historic icon.

JIM SHERLOCK Tauranga

The Press 13/9/17

MAORI LANGUAGE WEEK

The original Maori language consisted of some 800 words.

With the arrival of the European, Maori adopted the huge flood of new European words, but there was a problem: Maori had English vowel sounds and the digraphs wh and ng, but not the consonants b,c,d,f,g,j,l, q,s, v,x,y and z. The language already had a lilt with a vowel placed after every syllable and word ending. The early Maori palate had trouble articulating English sounds and their attempts became part of the Maori language.

Consonants were omitted or replaced, and extra vowels were added. Hence we have Henary for Henry, Hori for George, Honi John, Wiremu William, Nu Tirani New Zealand, Tipani Steven, Anaru Andrew, hoiho horse, hipi sheep, hu shoe, tokena stocking and pata butter.

Today Maori can generally speak English well. Nevertheless we have a whole taxpayer-funded department inventing new Maori words emulating the mispronunciations of the 19th century – TeTari Taake for Inland Revenue and Nga Pirihimana for the police.

Apart from the original 800 words, is the language really so commendable?

HAROLD THOMAS Halswell

Rotorua Daily Post 13/9/17

ROTORUA MAYOR MATERIAL

Your correspondent Jim Adams claims that he wishes to stand for mayor at the next local body election (Letters, September 5).

Bearing in mind that Mr Adams is a relative newcomer to New Zealand, I suggest he consider taking two paths forward.

* Doing his homework on the Treaty of Waitangi (I find his flippant attitude to the Treaty offensive)

* Studying the history of Rotorua spanning the past century.

Thus enlightened, he may become mayoral material.

JACKIE EVANS Rotorua

Northland Age 12/9/17

POOR SUBSTITUTE

It is true that gangs do provide, for some young Maori, the family that they so sadly lack in their own lives. But what a poor substitute for a stable home and caring, responsible parents. This scarcely constitutes a community service that some Maori leaders claim benefits society.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

WATER INTO GOLD

The threat of a nuclear holocaust looms closer to becoming a reality with every passing day, as North Korea's unstable leader displays irrational bravado by rattling his nuclear sabres.

It is obvious that if such a war did erupt then North Korea would be wiped off the map, but we must also consider the possible aftermath of a radiation-saturated atmosphere, when rainwater from our skies may well become undrinkable. What would then become the most precious commodity on the planet?

Why, of course, the pure water contained in underground aquifers, protected by nature from contamination by any nuclear fallout. In such a catastrophic event, the availability of untainted water would determine whether one lived or died, becoming more valuable than any amount of silver or gold.

And yet we give it away and send it off to foreign countries without any thought for the future. It is time for politicians to pass legislation protecting our most valuable asset. The survival of our nation might well be at stake.

MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

NZ Herald 11/9/17

WATER CLEANUP

For those wanting more clarity on election policies, can we please add water taxes to the list?

How will they be used to clean up rivers? Once they have been collected and distributed to iwi and the like, will they ever do more than enrich a few?

And why all the fuss about rivers when our city sewerage and stormwater infrastructure has been so neglected our beaches are too often unswimmable?

FIONA MACKENZIE, Whangaparaoa.

Otago Daily Times 11/9/17

PETER Carey (ODT opinion, 4.9.17) is disingenuous in attacking Dr Muriel Newman's factual article about fresh water.

She advocates for this fundamental necessity of life to remain a public resource, managed by impartial, elected government for the benefit of all Kiwis (and not just those with some Maori ancestry).

In stark contrast, Mr Carey supports privatisation so that the greedy and power hungry can exercise control over the economy and the population, while charging exorbitant sums for rights to use it.

While some regional summer shortages suggest the current system could do with a tidy-up, his complaints are farcicaL He says existing fresh water resource consents of 35 years are too long, whereas he'd be quite happy to give "control" to the tribal elite in perpetuity.

Concern for the health and availability of our waters is not a race-based issue, felt only by those with Maori bloodlines. That's just absurd. It's an issue for all New Zealanders and not one which would be fixed by privatisation. That would be a recipe for disaster.

Water isn't and must never become a race-based entitlement [Abridged]

GEOFF PARKER, Kamo

Northern Advocate 11/9/17

DIVIDED SOCIETY

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable." Thus wrote Henry Lewis Mencken, an American journalist and critic.

Right here in Godzone, we are subject to the usual bluff and ballyhoo which precedes an election. If there is no change, things will remain the same! Whoever holds the treasury benches, Labour or National, will still kowtow to the Maori elite, handing out money like confetti, for supposedly past wrongs.

Whichever party is in power after the election should negotiate with the Patupiarehe, Waitaha and Turehu, what is left of them, because they were here long before Maori elite, and were all but wiped out by them.

The Crown (ie, the taxpayer) would like to know how much longer they have to live in a divided society. Both major parties rail about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. What principles? Why has Queen Victoria's Royal Charter been forgotten?

The National Government have recently come up with a small token to the Moriori people, which should have been paid by the Maori tribe which decimated them, not today's taxpayer.

I am waiting to hear from both parties when they will tie up the commitments for "past wrongs" so we can do away with the Maori seats in Parliament and that august body, the Waitangi Tribunal. Perhaps I will need another lifetime!

KEVAN G MARKS Kaipara

NZ Herald 9/9/17

MONUMENT STORY

Labour activist Shane Te Pou is demanding the removal of Otahuhu’s statue of Colonel Nixon because he claims at the battle of Rangiowhia, “Nixon’s troops set alight the town church, killing 12 people who were hiding inside”.

The town’s two churches survived the battle, the Catholic church until the 1880s, the English church is still there today.

Rangiowhia supplied food to the Kingite garrisons. It was attacked on February 21, 1864. An effort to storm a whare, the floor of which had been excavated down to form a rifle pit, resulted in the deaths of Sergeant McHale who was dragged inside, Colonel Nixon was shot through the lungs and mortally wounded and Trooper Alexander shot through the throat.

The whare was now on fire, probably ignited by powder flash and burning wadding. The flames drove out several combatants, some still firing their weapons and one trying to surrender, who were shot.

This was a battle hard fought by both sides and certainly not the atrocity the monument destroyers would have you believe.

RICHARD PRINCE, Tauranga.

Northern Advocate 9/9/17

FREE THINKERS

Re: Noel Hillliam.

Some people set themselves up to be ridiculed simply for publicity. I doubt Mr Hilliam is that sort of person. I admire him for having such an open mind to other possibilities, even probabilities

Why do some people feel threatened by new insight and questions? Who Is right or who is wrong doesn't matter. What does matter is the chance to break the conspiracy of silence, challenge the institutional thinking and acknowledge new information.

Do not dismiss him. People are afraid to change their minds and remain closed to arguments from another angle. Entrenched thinking, be it about politics, religion, archaeology etc. Is it little wonder the world spins with everyone claiming they are right?

What harm can come from open. peaceful, respectful dialogue on Noel Hilliam's theories/claims?

Put aside the political and academic culture, who knows what an upturned apple cart could produce. In the meantime I will continue to be intrigued by Noel's assertions.

Odd that the New Zealand Archaeological Association can only come up with words like "spurious" and "deplorable". Heritage New Zealand has equally closed minds. May I suggest these historians just may have got it wrong?

Just because you disagree with another's theory there is no need to attack their character. Discuss, argue but show some respect.

Mrs M J ADAMS Raumanga

Wanganui Chronicle 8/9/17

PAYING FOR RIVER

Regarding the Wanganui Chronicle story about river obligations on September 4, it is my understanding that the river now belongs to Maori and it is also my understanding they received a payment.

So shouldn't it be their responsibility, not Horizons or Whanganui District Council —which is us ratepayers. Hope you get it sorted.

JMJ MORRIS Wanganui

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 4/9/17

ENVIRONMENTAL ENIGMAS

The various policies floated by the four main political parties last week:

National has a wishy-washy environmental policy, recently amending the RMA with the aid of Maori Party minnows entrenching race-based iwi provisions. Vacillates on scrapping Emissions Trading Scheme. Shelved Kermedec Ocean Sanctuary (1000km away) when pressured by Maori interests whose only contribution to Kermedecs' conservation was that they never visited the place. FAIL.

Next up Labour's main thrust. It supports ETS, proposes a water tax on all commercial users (without any legal right) lacking specifics other than policy is race-based, handing 50 per cent of revenue to Maori interests. FAIL.

Greens want to revamp the RMA, charge for commercial use of water, change the ETS to Carbon Tax plus other inane environmental initiatives. FAIL.

NZ First wants to repeal existing RMA provisions relating to iwi consents and associated race-based policies, ensure a sustainable water supply, charge for exported bottled water, and scrap ETS/carbon tax nonsense – laudable. PASS.

The Supreme Court decision seizing on letter of the law concerning the Ruataniwha Dam project when rejecting a swap of 22 hectares of DOC land for 170 hectares of other suitable land is farcical. Provided dams are for the common good and meet strict guidelines, surely that is okay. Seriously, how can anyone now expect the Supreme Court to ever do the right thing in the future?

R PATERSON, Matapihi.

CONSTITUTION ROOM DISMANTLED

On April 17, 2017 the National government dismantled the Constitution Room at Archives New Zealand and separated our true constitutional documents from the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Waitangi and the Women's Suffrage Petition.

The Declaration, Treaty and Women's Suffrage Petition are being placed in the $7.2 million He Tohu exhibit at the National Library, Wellington, while the Royal Charters and Proclamations that made New Zealand into a British colony under one flag and one law are being placed in Archives New Zealand's repository where they will be forgotten and lost forever amongst the other six million documents. These constitutional documents must now be ordered to research them – if future researchers know they exist.

This corrupt act is to allow the government to write a new constitution based on the Treaty of Waitangi that played absolutely no part in shaping New Zealand or New Zealand becoming a British colony with a political, legal or justice system under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

R ANDERSON, Lower Hutt.

DEMOCRACY THREATENED

A quiet, bloodless revolution has been developing in New Zealand and people are too busy getting through the day to be aware of its insidious nature.

Radicals now control the bureaucracy at all levels of government, including education and health.

They've connived to ensure that like-minded followers have been appointed to the judiciary, governor generals, human rights and race relations commissioners, local authority representatives and, most obviously of all, as editors and journalists in the news media. History and reality are being rewritten to suit a cult-type of mania and, as a result of this racial divisiveness, New Zealand is imploding. The facilitation of this state by morally corrupt and double-dealing politicians has undermined democracy for the appeasement of regressive, tribal control.

As tribal control doesn't function anywhere else in the world, why would they believe that it would work in New Zealand?

The associated generous remuneration, expenses, grants, settlements and taxes are all paid by us as the taxpayer without due consultation or consent.

What prospect do patriotic Kiwis have these days? Their daily experiences, common sense and understanding of the human psyche counts for naught.

Which illustrates that evil prospers when good people are too complacent and do nothing.

J WRIGHT, Otumoetai.

NZ Herald 7/9/17

SWITCHING SUPPORT

I am concerned the Maori Party are trying to position themselves as a parliamentary immovable object. In 2008 the aggrieved political leadership of Maoridom broke with Labour. They have been Nationalised for three governments. Ngaruawahia politicians made a clear National swing some time back. Now with a strong swell of Labour support, suddenly the president of the Maori Party, and others, decide they can work with Labour.

If Labour can indeed “do this”, I hope it is without returning a party that needs to spend some time in the wilderness standing for its values. Democracy has no place for parties that are perpetually in office, regardless of change.

JASON CONWAY, Te Atatu.

Northern Advocate 7/9/17

WAIPOUA DIG

Obviously Cohn Edwards is ignorant of the fact that the Waipoua Stone Village was subjected to an archaeological dig approximately 20 years ago. In my letter I mentioned nothing about Celtic houses as this theme doesn't pass the test of "Occums Razor" which indicates that the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

This archaeological dig, conducted by university staff, was somewhat of an enigma as the results have been hushed up! An embargo was placed upon the results that are not to be made available for public scrutiny for at least 50 years.

Once again a classic example of the academic filter which allows correct suppositions to be swept under the carpet if they disagree with current teachings.

The Waipoua area is fascinating as it contains not a pile of farmers' rocks but a 300 hectare stone village, as well as a stellar observatory. One rock marker here weighs in at at least 30 tonnes.

Close by, 3000 hectares of coastal lakes and swamps between Aranga and Dargaville have been drained by 2.5m square dead straight channels, the longest being 1.5km. This indicates a large thriving community of "un-knowns" who lived in this area prior to the Maori occupation. These "unknowns", that some call Patupaiarehe, were interviewed by Sir George Grey in the 1860s.

One just has to consult the annuls, to find the truth, instead of trying to bolster arguments with wild supposition. Patupaiarehe are genetically linked to Sumaria as proven by Ancestry DNA. Sources: Journals of the Polynesian Society and records of Sir George Grey.

DAVID BRIND Maunu

Wanganui Chronicle 7/9/17

H DEBATE

I read Margi Keys interesting letter about inserting the "H" in Wanganui, but she did not mentioned why the "H" was inserted. When the last Whanganui District Council wanted to insert the "H" in Wanganui, I looked for some information.

What was found is that on May 23 and May 31, 1840, the Treaty document was signed "Chief of Wanganui". In the Treaty there are no words spelt with the "H” — the word for "land is wenua".

Also, talking to the Waitaha paramount chief I was told that Wanganui is a Waitaha name. Wa is energy, nga is many, nui is large, and the name Waitaha means "beside the waters, who lived close to the sea, lakes, or rivers".

There is a pa just outside of Wanganui called Waitaha Pa; also Wanganui in the South Island is spelt without the "H". Margi also mentioned Aotearoa. New Zealand has never been called Aotearoa.

IAN BROUGHAM Tawhero

Northland Age 7/9/17

INTO THE ABYSS

A race-based stealth campaign has been evolving in New Zealand over recent years, but most ordinary Kiwis are too busy merely getting through the day with work, family and financial commitments to recognise its insidious nature.

Radicals now control the bureaucracy at all levels of government, including university, tertiary education and health sectors. Radicals strive to ensure that like-minded followers are appointed to the judiciary, the Waitangi Tribunal, as Governors General, Human Rights and Race Relations commissioners and local authority representatives.

However, most conspicuously they promote and support many compliant editors, commentators and journalists in several parts of the news media. The accompanying generous remuneration packages, expenses, grants, settlements and taxes are all paid by the taxpayer (that's us), plus full legal costs, to mount spurious claims, without any public input, consultation or consent.

Our history and factual past are being rewritten to suit an almost cult-like mania, and as a result this country is sinking into a dark abyss.

The facilitation of this state of affairs by the morally corrupt and double-dealing Beehive politicians has undermined democracy for the sake of regressive tribalism and separatism, which is unpatriotic, unforgivable and unacceptable.

As tribalism and separatism hasn't and doesn't work anywhere else in the world, why would these PC idiot magnets ever believe that it would work in New Zealand, or don't they even care?

What chance do genuinely concerned patriotic Kiwis have these days? Their everyday experiences, common sense and understanding of human frailties counts for nothing. As Edmund Burke bluntly observed, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing! In a nutshell, complacency is fatal. The question is how on Earth has it ever come to this point?

But take heart. Every New Zealand voter has the opportunity to change this sad state of affairs at the upcoming general election, and to stop being enslaved and paying lip service to the 0unfounded fictional false non -existent principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

So, people, take the opportunity to make a stand, because you will get no apology

from me for speaking out against race-based rorting.

ROB PATERSON

Matapihi

ANOTHER LIFETIME

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to prevailing superstitions and taboos. almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable?' Thus wrote Henry Lewis Mencken, an American journalist and critic.

Right here in Godzone we are subject to the usual bluff and ballyhoo which precedes an election. If there is no change, things will remain the same. Whoever holds the treasury benches, Labour or National, will still kowtow to the Maori elite, handing out money like confetti, for supposedly past wrongs.

Whichever party is in power after the election should negotiate with the Patupiarehe, Waitaha and Turehu, what is left of them, because they were here long before the Maori elite, and were all but wiped out by them.

The Crown (ie the taxpayer) would like to know how much longer they have to live in a divided society.

Both major parties rail about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. What principles?

Why has Queen Victoria's Royal Charter been forgotten?

The National government have recently come up with a small token to the Morion people, which should have been paid by the Maori tribe which decimated them, not today's taxpayer.

I am waiting to hear from both parties when they will tie up the commitments for `past wrongs' so we can do away with the Maori seats in Parliament, plus that august body, the Waitangi Tiibunal. Perhaps I will need another lifetime.

KEVAN G MARKS Kaipara

THE WHOLE TRUTH

The government has set aside $4 million to celebrate the Land Wars over the next four years, starting this year, on October 28. Another day for weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Bill English said at Turangawaewae Marae that "it is on this day we start the process, the recognition and the retelling of histories that we have not heard before. There is an obligation to tell the full story."

I agree. Let's have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help all of us.

Cherry Grove is a beautiful, quiet spot in Taumarunui, on the confluence of the Wanganui and Ongarue rivers. Some 600 Patupaiarehe people lived there in peace and harmony until 1832, when 1000 Maori attacked, killed and ate some of them, took most of the rest as slaves, leaving few to escape. Let us hear about the atrocities that the war-like Maori committed against peaceful Maori, Moriori, Turehu, Patupaiarehe, and Waitaha.

Why did DOC cut down some 12 oak trees in the Bay of Islands, almost two metres thick, and reputed to be over 800 years old? These, and many other stories, will need to be told If we are going to have a remembrance day of the land wars, let us not have it in sepia and white duotone, but have it in full colour.

KEVAN C MARKS Kaipara

Rotorua Daily Post 6/9/17

TREATY RE-WRITE

Jim Adams (Letters, August 28) is completely wrong when he describes the Treaty of Waitangi as confused and not worth the paper it was written on, no matter what his UK barrister friend may say.

By far the best book on the Treaty was written by prominent Maori scholar and political leader Apirana Ngata in 1922 —The Treaty of Waitangi, An Explanation.

There you will find an accurate and clear translation from the Maori.

The Treaty was well understood until the recent spread of misinformation.

It made New Zealand a British colony and gave Maori all the privileges of British citizenship.

As for rewriting a 177-year-old treaty, what does that mean? Those who were here in 1840 are long gone.

JOHN ROBINSON Waikanae

Bay of Plenty Times 6/9/17

LETTERS TAIL WAGGING THE DOG

I agree with Bryan Johnson (Letters, August 31).

I am also an old bloke and the changes I have seen make me wonder.

Progress, I am all for it. The tail wagging the dog, no. I have a granddaughter who wants to study to be a nurse.

When you look up the course details, it’s Maori, then English?

I did not know that English was now our second language.

When will New Zealanders wake up?

DANIEL SYCAMORE Poike

HibiscusMatters 6/9/17

PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

I write in response to the article Jackson Rebukes Brash from same Orewa Stage (HM August 16).

Willie Jackson is not keeping on top of current affairs if he thinks Maori groups are not receiving "special privileges". Just this year, approximately 580 claims for varying levels of control of every inch of NZ's coastline (including all of the Hibiscus Coast) have quietly been lodged.

All associated legal expenses have to be paid for by the taxpayer. Meanwhile, other Kiwis wanting to defend their interests in the coast have to pay all costs themselves. The same situation applied to Auckland's Unitary Plan. Staff included many totally unreasonable demands of the Independent Maori Statutory Board with no questions asked. It took a few civic-minded individuals paying over $100,000 to hire lawyers to prove that just the imposition of thousands of "Sites of Significance" (which impacted homeowners) were unsubstantiated and unjustified.

Currently Auckland's Local Boards are being "encouraged" to develop Relationship Agreements with each of the 19 Maori tribal groups in the region. These guidelines state that the tribal groups should be "prioritised as key governance stakeholders; should be engaged earlier than the general public; should have greater levels of shared decision-making power than other stakeholders; should be recognised as co-governors; and they should be empowered to propose the scope and extent of their own involvement". Guess who's paying?

These are just a few examples of the "special privileges" being handed to tribal groups in NZ today. None of these opportunities for unelected, unaccountable power and control (paid for by taxpayers and ratepayers) are being offered to any other Kiwis. (abridged)

FIONA MACKENZIE, Whangaparaoa

BRASH COMMENTS

You recently reported on a speech by Labour candidate Willie Jackson in which he claimed that my speech to the Orewa Rotary Club in 2004 was a "cynical, manufactured, racial smear, calculated to twist the best egalitarian values of us as a people into a misdirected mob, with all the rationality of a lynch mob." (HM August 16). He claimed it "sowed anger, fear and resentment". He argued that it was quite false to claim, as I had done, that Maori had been given greater civil, political and democratic rights than any other New Zealander.

Then how does he explain the Independent Maori Statutory Board, whose unelected members enjoy voting rights on most Auckland Council committees?

Or the requirement imposed on all local governments to consult not just with their community but especially with its Maori members?

Or the insistence in many Treaty settlements on co-governance between local government and local tribes?

Or the massive funding — up to $412,000 per claim — provided by taxpayers to support claims for customary marine title over enormous tracts of the coastline?

Or the lower corporate tax rate on Maori incorporations, and the zero tax rate applying to the businesses which have emerged from Treaty settlements?

I stand by every word in my Orewa speech.

DON BRASH, Eden Terrace, Auckland

Rotorua Review 6/9/17

SELFISH POLITICS

With the council performing so badly, and still believing it can rectify matters by intensifying its PR, it is hardly surprising that so few letters have been submitted to Conversations about the national election.

The `Meet the Candidates' event held at Toi Ohomai was earnest and painful.

Seven candidates gave pre-prepared answers to two questions; what are they each going to do for students and for Te Reo Maori.

They all spoke well, with impressive surety, but with the sun directly behind them. The result was a blinding bid war of raw pork, without any serious acknowledgement of the event's co-hosts; Toi Ohomai's Multicultural Society.

I waited in vain for any reference to what any of the candidates would do to boost the glue that holds our community together on a day-to-day basis; practical interculturalism.

Only National and NZ First candidates seemed to have any inkling of the need to balance the needs of people, profit, planet and progress to sustain prosperity. Most seemed mired in a selfish politics of ethnicity.

REYNOLD MACPHERSON

Bay of Plenty Times 5/9/17

MINORITY CONTROL

I totally agree with Bryan Johnson's claim (Opinion, August 31) that New Zealand has beome controlled politically, judicially, culturally, academically and educationally by an ethnic minority.

I am so over the changing of the names of everything to Maori and having people tell me Maori is my heritage when it plainly isn't, just as it isn't for many of my friends who live here whether their back-grounds are Indian, Asian, Dutch, British or American.

Unless one embraces everything Maori we are having the "R" word thrown at us.

I was born here, as were my parents and those before them, but I don't identify myself in any way shape or form to be Maori, but have always been proud to call myself a New Zealander.

BRIAN WAYNE BROWN Pyes Pa

Northland Age 5/9/17

E FOR EFFORT

Environmental policies have been floated by the four main political parties in recent days. National only have a wishy washy environmental policy, having recently amended the Resource Management Act (RMA), with the aid of Maori Party minnows, entrenching race-based iwi provisions. Resists bottling tax, vacillates on scrapping the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and shelved excellent Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary (1000km away) when pressured by vested Maori interests, whose only contribution to the Kermadecs conservation was that they never visited the place. Fail.

Next up, Labour's main thrust is that it supports the ETS, proposes a water tax on all commercial users (without any legal right to do so), lacking specifics about the policy other than it will be race-based by handing 50 per cent of revenue to Maori interests. Fail.

Then the Greens want to revamp the RMA, charge for commercial use of water (also with race-based handouts), change the ETS to a carbon tax, plus of course all the other usual inane environmental initiatives. Fail.

New Zealand First would repeal existing the RMA provisions relating to iwi consents and associated race-based policies, ensure a sustainable water supply, charge only for exported bottled water, no race-based privileges, and scrap the ETS /carbon nonsense —sensible and laudable. Pass.

The recent Supreme Court decision seizing on the letter of the law concerning the Ruataniwha dam project, when rejecting the swap of 22ha of DoC land for 170ha of other very suitable land, is farcical. Provided dams are for the common good, meeting strict environmental guidelines, surely that must be acceptable, seriously, how can anyone now having regard to the current bias expect the Supreme Court to ever do the right thing by all Kiwis in the future?

It needs to be spelled out once again, no individual or group owns the water, and the New Zealand government administers water for all Kiwis. By all means put a levy on all exported bottled water, but it is insane to place a tax on all commercial users, which in reality is nothing more than a race-based initiative.

Certainly waterways need to be kept clean and healthy, so give the law the teeth to hit the transgressors. Never overlook the fact, however, that private individuals are often no better than businesses in this regard.

ROB PATERSON Matapihi

NZ Herald 4/9/17

IWI AND WATER TAX

Water comes from the "sky", at no cost, and 98 per cent flows out to sea. Apart from .0002 per cent used for bottled water, what nonsense Labour proposing to tax water use, and then handing part of this large payment to iwi.

HYLTON LE GRICE, Remuera.

MAORI COASTAL CLAIMS

Under the 2011 Marine and Coastal Area Act, tribal, hapu and whanau claims have been lodged this year for every inch of Auckland's harbours, beaches and seas.

So I asked Auckland Council how they were going to protect the interests of Aucklanders against these claims.

My local councillor had never heard anything about them (which is not surprising since the Government, the High Court and the mainstream media, including the Herald, has done little to inform the public).

The council via their website eventually responded after several weeks to say they had passed my query on to the Te Waka Angamua Team (which is focused on "leading and influencing better outcomes for Maori").

So it appears that no one at Auckland Council cares about defending the rights and entitlements of all Aucklanders when it comes to our coastal waters and harbours. So much for public representatives, let alone public servants.

FIONA MACKENZIE, Whangaparaoa.

Rotorua Daily Post 2/9/17

IDEAS MIXED UP

Jim Adams (Letters, August 31) has some very mixed up ideas. I did not claim that the Treaty was "immaculate in style and prose". I said it was written in plain words and accurately translated, as acknowledged by Ngapuhi chief Graham Rankin.

That It was understood by the chiefs at Waitangi on the day is verified by their own words, which were recorded by Colenso and checked by Busby. That there was any "meaning behind the wards" is Mr Adams' own fantasy.

As the tribes had killed about a third of their own people in almost ceaseless intertribal warfare in the preceding few decades, his notion that there was any "Maori nation" is another fantasy.

In my view the Waitingi Tribunal (albeit not a court of law) has twisted the Treaty's meaning beyond recognition and many millions of our money have already been paid out by a compliant government.

BRUCE MOON Nelson

Bay of Plenty Times 2/9/17

So, the policy to clean up the lakes and rivers is already changing with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern now proposing that the royalties for bottled water, irrigation schemes and other commercial uses, will now be used “to settle the Maori claim for ownership of fresh water and some going to regional councils”.

So this un-costed tax, the details of which are to be kept hidden until after the election, is now being used pre-election to persuade Maori to move their votes from the Maori Party to Labour.

If this is how Labour is going to behave pre-election, what on earth would they get up to post-election? (Abridged)

JAMES MARCH Pyes Pa

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 1/9/17

NZ FIRST NEEDS CHANCE TO PROVE ITSELF

P Dey (The Weekend Sun, May 26) was correct in saying all governments have accepted that Maori land was wrongfully taken. All the more reason not to vote for National or Labour because they're the only two parties that have created this mess, and they are still sucking up to these self-annexed people who want everything for nothing.

Maori had no meaning of ownership, no borders, took what they wanted and had no financial value on land. The two major parties along with the Maori have created this situation of false claims without consulting the rest of the country, so why would you vote for cheats and deceivers?

New Zealand First needs a chance to prove what it preaches – standing up to the Maori, stop the massive immigration, look after the elderly and generally put New Zealand first.

We are but a small country. More people equals more mess, traffic jams and fewer opportunities for Kiwis. It's your chance to stop National and Labour's hold on the country, and deal with the class system they have put in place.

R STEWART, Te Puke.

GOODBYE DEMOCRACY

At eighty-seven years of age I expect to shortly leave New Zealand perpetually. A country that, in my lifetime, has become controlled politically, judicially, culturally, academically and educationally by an ethnic minority of 14.9 per cent while 85.1 per cent of its citizens stand idly by. Vale Democracy.

B JOHNSON, Omokoroa.

BUDGET BUNGLING

Rocket Man alright but not quite in the way Mr Joyce might think. Reminds one of the John/Taupin tune Rocket Man "burning out his fuse…and it's gonna be a long, long time till touch down brings him round again". This was a nothing Budget, tinkering with the fringes, primarily dishing out $2 billion in Family Packages but not kicking in until 2018 – way after the elections when National has probably been booted out. It is sticking plaster stuff, buying votes with sweeteners for a non-event economy based primarily on property said to contribute about $30 billion with associated appendages, adding $52 billion more to NZ's economy, giving a massive fillip of $82 billion way ahead of agriculture etc.

It's a fool's paradise – that why the polis want to keep it revving otherwise it's an empty tank. NZ has $191 billion of debt and survives on borrowing way beyond our means. National is not prepared to front up to big issues like immigration that costs NZ billions of dollars a year. We may be short of funds for the 'money-go-round' but National can still find $122 million for Maori interests. This nonsense will not get mainstream Kiwis onside, neither will the inane rantings of the Labour/Green coalition.

The photo shot of the front bench marching down the Beehive corridors of power to present the Budget has the look of the Charge of the Light Brigade headed by Cardigan Lucan and Raglan, and like them these lightweight fiscal fiddlers are headed for disaster.

R PATERSON, Mount Maunganui.

Bay of Plenty Times 31/8/17

NO DEMOCRACY

At 87 years of age I expect to shortly leave New Zealand perpetually.

A country that, in my lifetime, has become controlled politically, judicially, culturally, academically and educationally by an ethnic minority of 14.9 per cent while 85.1 per cent of its citizens stand idly by. Vale Democracy.

BRYAN JOHNSON, Omokoroa

Northland Age 31/8/17

SILENT MAJORITY

It is apparent to any thinking citizen reading newspapers, that the majority of the national print media supports the racial preference given by the National Party to their political partners, the Maori Party, and are reluctant to print any dissenting points of view. In doing so they are denying freedom of speech to 86 per cent of the population.

Recently Don Brash presented an article from the Economist on the dangers of racial privilege, as shown by political practices in Malaysia. Four major national papers, including the Listener,' refused to publish.

The Listener's reluctance is no surprise. Its agenda is obvious. It listens with its left ear exclusively. Scarcely an edition goes to press without an article on Maori personalities, Maori culture, art literature and businesses. These articles often run to eight or 10 pages, with multiple illustrations. The articles often have political agendas, and personal opinions are expressed as facts, and accepted as such by naive readers. Few articles have been presented showing the solutions to Maori's many cultural, social and health problems.

Articles of differing cultural opinions are seldom published. Don Brash's Orewa speech is excoriated, when those who have the wit to read it fully would have to concede that all it proposed was equal treatment for all New Zealanders. So we are left with a voiceless multitude.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

A GOOD CHOICE

Peter Kerr (letters August 29) has not much idea of our history. Busby's fancy Declaration of Independence was a complete dead letter from the moment it was signed. The chiefs did nothing more about it, and were soon engaged in a civil war amongst themselves, in which senior chief Titore was killed.

Hobson's orders from the Colonial Office stated explicitly: "You will therefore frankly and unreservedly explain to the natives or their chiefs the reasons which should urge them to acquiesce to the proposals you will make to them... I have been guided by firm reliance on your uprightness and plain dealing"

Hobson, an experienced naval officer accustomed to giving plain orders to men with little education, carried out his instructions to the letter. This may be verified by reference to his final English draft of February 4, 1840 (nicknamed the Littlewood Treaty), which too few people do. When it was shown to senior Ngapuhi chief Graham Rankin in 2000, he said its meaning and that of the actual Treaty, in his own Maori dialect, were exactly the same.

That more than 500 chiefs throughout the country signed it eagerly indicates that Hobson's choice was a good one.

The Shaw Savill Line, which resurrected Busby's old rag, would hardly have used anybody's national flag as their own. If this has had a second resurrection in his part of our country then so be it. I, with most New Zealanders, prefer our genuine national flag.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

Waikato Times 31/8/17

WATER PROBLEM

Gareth Morgan climbed into Kelvin Davis because he is apparently being hypocritical by standing for a mainstream party in a Maori seat when Maori claim that under Article 2 of the Treaty that they own the water and the mainstream parties conveniently claim otherwise.

Legally, it may well be true that Maori owned the water back in 1840 but since then the clouds have gathered and settled all over the place. But all the water that lay in the ponds, lakes, streams and rivers in 1840 has probably long since made its way into the surrounding oceans and been replaced by new water under the new regime created after the Treaty was signed. You could then argue that this new water is owned by everyone and, ultimately, because it will suffer the same fate as the original water, no one.

It is just a pity that the eager beavers in Wellington cannot see that the resolution of what to do with our water is now political. They are quick enough to tell us that we can no longer effectively use a ladder so how come they can’t just pass a law that anybody that makes a commercial profit from this ‘‘universal’’ resource pays an appropriate levy.

GEOFF ORCHARD, Hamilton

The Press 30/8/17 (In a few words section)

ON PORT (AND DAIRY) EXPANSION

Interesting that Ngai Tahu can hold up the port expansion for ‘‘cultural reasons’’. How then can the biggest dairy farmers in Canterbury remain silent on the pollution of the region’s waterways through intensive dairying?

RON WILLIAMS, Clifton

Rotorua Daily Post 29/8/17

REWRITING TREATY

Even if true, Jim Adams’ generalisation about British treaties with native races elsewhere (Letters, August 28) with language “that would confound university professors” does not apply to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Hobson’s instructions from the Colonial Office stated explicitly: “You will therefore frankly and unreservedly explain to the natives or their chiefs the reasons which should urge them to acquiesce to the proposals you will make to them. I have been guided by firm reliance on your uprightness and plain dealing.”

Hobson, an experienced naval officer accustomed to giving plain orders to men with little education, carried out his instructions to the letter.

This may be verified by reference to his final English draft of February 4, 1840 (the “Littlewood Treaty”), which too few people do. When it was shown to senior Ngapuhi chief Graham Rankin in 2000, he said its meaning and that of the actual Treaty, in his own Maori dialect, were exactly the same.

By it, the chiefs ceded sovereignty completely and forever — despite false Waitangi Tribunal claims to the contrary — all Maori, even slaves of other Maori, became fully entitled British subjects and the property rights of all the people of New Zealand were guaranteed.

By November 1840, other constitutional developments were such that the Treaty had done its job and was history. Rewriting it today would be an absurdity.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

Wanganui Chronicle 29/8/17

EVIL PROSPERS

A quiet, bloodless revolution has been developing in New Zealand, and people are too busy getting through the day to be aware of its insidious nature.

Radicals now control the bureaucracy at all levels of government including education and health. They've connived to ensure like-minded followers have been appointed to the judiciary, governors general, human rights and race relations commissioners, local authority representatives and — most obviously of all — as editors and journalists in the news media.

History and reality are being rewritten to suit a cult type of mania and, as a result of this racial divisiveness, NZ is imploding.

The facilitation of this state by morally corrupt and doubledealing politicians has undermined democracy for the appeasement of regressive, tribal control. As tribal control doesn’t function anywhere else in the world, why would they believe that it would work in New Zealand?

The associated generous remuneration, expenses, grants, settlements and taxes are all paid by us, the taxpayers, without due consultation or consent.

What prospect do patriotic Kiwis have these days?

Their daily experiences, commonsense and understanding of the human psyche count for nought, which illustrates that evil prospers when good people do nothing.

J D WRIGHT Tauranga

Northland Age 29/8/17

WELL SAID

Your issue of Thursday August 17 was notable for the contributions of three correspondents.

Firstly, to Kevan G Marks of Kaipara, I agree with your comments and will second your motion to celebrate Independence Day. Maybe the Queen's birthday could be changed to commemorate the death of Billy T James, the day New Zealanders stopped laughing at themselves.

To Rob Patterson, of Mt Maunganui, and Ian Brougham, of Wanganui, well done to you both. It would be great if the facts you present could be acted upon to preserve our country's integrity. Not much chance though, when this National government won't ratify a referendum.

Chris Finlayson and the shonky Waitangi Tribunal, who have the power to rewrite history to obtain multi-millions from a bum-patting government, should be consigned to the scrapheap before someone charges them with treason.

I have always had Maori mates, and value them highly for their hard yards, balanced attitude and family commitment, as well as the laughs and there are many like them, but this government's proclivity for bribery must stop before a backlash develops, to everyone's detriment.

Some may ask, "Who is this honky writing this?" My mother was Tahitian.

This election, as the Greens have self-destructed, we have National led by a fraudster who has convenient memory lapses. Labour, happy with their show pony but the same tax syndrome. New Zealand First, led by the old warhorse, not perfect, but the only party with practical policies to progress our country. Think hard before you vote.

DON JACKSON Kaingaroa

LOST FOREVER

On April 17 2017, the National government dismantled the Constitution Room at Archives New Zealand and separated our true constitutional documents from the Declaration of independence, the Treaty of Waitangi and the Women's Suffrage petition.

The Declaration, Treaty and Women's Suffrage petition were placed in the $7.2 million lie Tohu exhibit at the National Library, Wellington, while the Royal Charters and Proclamations that made New Zealand into a British colony under one flag and one law were placed in Archives New Zealand's Repository, where they will be forgotten and lost forever amongst the other six million documents.

These constitutional documents must now be ordered to research them, if future researchers know they exist.

This corrupt act is to allow the government to write a new constitution based on the Treaty of Waitangi, that played absolutely no part in shaping New Zealand or New Zealand becoming a British colony with political, legal or justice systems under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed.

REX ANDERSON Lower Hutt

ARE THEY MAORI

There has recently been yet another lot of reportedly 'old Maori skulls' returned from an overseas institution included was a toi moko (tattooed head), one of many repatriated over recent years. In view of the well-recorded lucrative trade in heads (tattooed or not) during the 1700-1800s, I have some questions, as an avid student of New Zealand history.

First, how do we know all these remains are Maori? Do they have the Polynesian skull shapes and rocker jaws? Have they been forensically examined and had DNA analysis done?

You see, if they have round, high vault craniums, pyramidal-shaped nose cavities, square-shaped eye sockets and longer, narrow overall skull shapes, they certainly are not Maori. The chances are, they are Turihu or Waitaha skulls from the killing fields of yesteryear. Any of the toi moko which show reddish or blondish hair are certainly other than Maori

Are we, the public, going to be given the full story on these repatriated human remains? Perhaps the 'experts' can explain.

B JONES Hamilton

Nelson Mail 28/8/17

WATER ISSUES

The New Zealand public have been up in arms about water issues arising firstly from the poor quality or our waterways and more recently about water being bottled and exported for which there has been no payment.

The fact is that only a infinitesimal amount of water is involved in such exports but that is not seen as relevant by most. What we have witnessed over the last month is all political parties making statements about charging for water designed to attract voters. In every case it has been a political party "knee jerk" reaction with little or no specifics, resulting in a trail of confusion being left behind.

The issue of water rights and the ownership of water is a huge one as at goes to the heart of what we are all entitled to as New Zealanders. How will paying for water affect those industries who use water to produce goods that are vital to our economic wellbeing and how will that finally impact on us the consumer, which it surely will.

And will this open the door for another round of Waitangi Tribunal claims? This issue is going to rival the foreshore and seabed debate so buckle up and hold on as its going to be a very bumpy ride!

NEVILLE MALE Stoke.

Rotorua Daily Post 28/8/17

NEW TREATY FORMULA NEEDED

At a recent meeting with the Historical Group (U3A) we had a very interesting talk about the Treaty Of Waitangi — a subject that crops up frequently in New Zealand.

I came across this business of treaties while working and living in Canada — the Brits and the French were very fond of handing out “Treaties” to the North American Indian tribes.

A friend of mine, a barrister in the UK once told me that he was familiar with the Treaty of Waitangi and, in his opinion, it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on — as was the case with just about all the treaties ever put forward by the British Government to the natives of Africa, North America, India, Australia, Ireland and Wales; the Brits were very good at “Treaties”.

Their politicians — many of whom were lawyers — were skilled in the usage of words that would confound university professors let alone natives with only a limited understanding of English — the most versatile language in the world. It is the considered opinion of many that the Treaty should be scrapped and a new one negotiated and drawn up ASAP.

JIM ADAMS, Rotorua

The Northern Advocate 28/8/17

HISTORY FLAWED

In support of Noel Hilliam’s argument that earlier people inhabited New Zealand, one has only to visit the Bishops Museum in Hawaii, where they have determined the spread from Japan of a group called the Ainu, who sailed to Ecuador 18,000 years ago and went on to explore the entire Pacific.

Within this timeframe many more races travelled across the Pacific, including the Sumarians who stemmed from South America 9000 years ago, as well as the Indus Valley culture, the Egyptians, the Ptolemaic Greeks and the Chinese, all of whom have left evidence of their passing.

New Zealand was discovered in the 1450s by Portuguese navigator Christopher Mendonca. Now you will begin to realise how stilted and incorrect our history has become.

If New Zealand was settled from Eastern Polynesia 750 years ago, this does not take into account the Waipoua stone village, which dates to 1000-plus years ago or to its satellite villages at Maungatapere and in the Beachlands area. The site at Waipoua contains rock engravings similar to a site in Japan.

My whanau's iwi is Ngati Wai Ariki, who actually came from Samoa. They are the direct descendants of the Samoan chief Mungu, as proven on genetic and genealogical grounds. They have Chinese and South American genes in their genome, as proven by the Ancestry DNA presentation on TV.

Also noted on this presentation were a number of men who looked very similar to my brother-in-law, which is not surprising as they are genetically linked.

This then leaves us with the conundrum of incorrect university teaching and assertation.

A researcher by the name of Cedric Bell offered to give the sites of a number of Chinese treasure junks, sunk by tsunami, in both the North and South islands, but like ostriches with their heads stuck in the sand, they refused to acknowledge this data. What is going on?

The taonga and the respect for all things Maori is being concealed, which must be to this race's detriment. So to allow a race to succeed and rise intellectually, an in-depth study must be completed to allow the race to proudly and correctly take its place on the world stage.

D BRIND, Whangarei

Northern Advocate 26/8/17

SKULL CRITICS

Your correspondent Colin Edwards (Advocate. August 22), is yet another critic of historian Noel Hilliam's disclosure of pre Maori features of ancient skulls.

I can understand Hilliam's right to non-disclosure of experts' names at their request.

How would names alter the evidence? If the skulls were Polynesian, the features would be quite different.

After all, the current reconstruction technology is so precise, that such forensics are reliably used world-wide, for identification purposes.

Perhaps Hilliam's critics should refer to an article in the Christchurch Press March 30, 2010, about a similar reconstruction of a skull named Aunty. This was one of 44 ancient skulls from the Wairau Bar site.

This critic could also talk to his name-sake Bill Edwards of Heritage New Zealand, who also lives in Northland and recently interviewed Hilliam. More accurate insight wouldn't go astray.

B JONES Hamilton

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 25/8/17

WATER WORRIES

From all the candidates I've seen,

the red, the blue, the black, the green;

they send their flyers round the land

and hope the voters understand.

We duly read what's written there

and then the policies compare.

Who said that they'll tweak GST?

Who wants our schooling to be free?

Who wants more doctors everywhere

to show that Health Boards really care?

So many promises they make

but here's one tax that takes the cake.

If water levies have to rise

up goes the price of what one buys.

All food from farm or factory floor

will spiral upward more and more.

I do not buy real butter now,

I'm too ashamed to face a cow!

From market garden, orchard too,

the produce that's so good for you –

when prices rise at local gate

means even less upon each plate.

The future's looking rather grim;

we'll starve to death, but we'll die slim!

J MARKS, Greerton.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result! I raise this as we prepare for another general election which will have, I believe, a usual bad result.

For example, across NZ, political parties will put up mediocre candidates who they can control.

Those elected will go to our parliament thinking they can make decisions without asking us.

However, once in the parliament, their party whip will tell them where to sit, how and when to vote. The wishes and interests of you and I will be ignored.

‘Democracy' means ‘rule by the people' but we will get dictatorship by the party system.

In this new communication age, I believe the system of ‘direct democracy' is what we should have.

K EVANS, Tauranga.

Taranaki Daily News 25/8/17

IWI SHOULD PAY

Minister Chris Finlayson is offering a lot of our money to the few surviving part-Morori because " the Crown failed to take appropriate action to stop the treatment of the Moriori".

He does not seem aware that this brutal mistreatment was perpetrated by other New Zealand citizens, namely members of Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga. If it is valid today to compensate Morori' then it is equally valid to call the perpetrators of crimes against them to account.

In "Treaty settlements", Ngati Tama have received $143 million in cash plus interest and Ngati Mutunga $14.9 million plus interest plus other benefits in each case.

Appropriate fines should be imposed upon them to meet the full cost of compensating Moriori. It is iniquitous that today's taxpayers, innocent of these tribes' crimes, should be expected to do so.

BRUCE MOON Nelson

Waikato Times 24/8/17

DEMOCRACY THREATENED

A quiet, bloodless revolution has been developing in New Zealand and people are too busy getting through the day to be aware of its insidious nature.

Radicals now control the bureaucracy at all levels of government including education and health.

They’ve connived to ensure that likeminded followers have been appointed to the judiciary, governor-generals, human rights and race relations commissioners, local authority representatives and, most obviously of all, as editors and journalists in the news media. History and reality are being rewritten to suit a cult-type of mania and, as a result of this racial divisiveness, NZ is imploding.

The facilitation of this state by morally corrupt and double-dealing politicians has undermined democracy for the appeasement of regressive, tribal control. As tribal control doesn't function anywhere else in the world, why would they believe that it would work in New Zealand?

The associated generous remuneration, expenses. grants. settlements and taxes are all paid by us as the taxpayer without due consultation or consent.

What prospect do patriotic Kiwis have these days? Their daily experience& commonsense and understanding of the human psyche counts for naught. Which illustrates that evil prospers when good people are too complacent and do nothing.

J.D WRIGHT Otumoetai

Northland Age 24/8/17

BIZARRE

Natouri's Whinlayson has just paid out $18 million of New Zealanders' tax money for a claim that 'we' didn't do enough to stop Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama enslaving Moriori.

How bizarre!

Wouldn't you think Moriori would be suing these two iwi for the treatment dished out by them? No, Whinlayson even settled a claim by Ngati Mutunga that includes parts of the Chatham Islands, where they murdered, ate and enslaved Moriori.

Time for a change before 'we' are held responsible for everything Maori did or are doing to each other. A vote for National, Labour or the Greens is a vote for Maori or the Maori Party.

REX ANDERSON, Lower Hutt

DISTURBING THOUGHT

If Peter Kerr (letters , August 22) knew any history, he would know that the well-meaning Busby's 1834 flag-choosing ceremony was "little short of a farce," according to an independent eye-witness, and that, to quote Michael King, by a "second and equally contrived ceremony... in October 1835 ... [and] in exchange for a second cauldron of ponidge, Busby persuaded the same chiefs and some additional ones to sign 'A Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand' ... [which] had no constitutional status, and an official in the Foreign Office in London referred to it as 'silly and unauthorised'.

It also had no reality." To Governor Gipps of New South Wales it was "a paper pellet". So much for its being "officially recognised".

As for the flag, flown a few times and forgotten, Busby would certainly have mentioned it to Hobson had it not died limply on the flagpole. It was resurrected by the now extinct Shaw Savill and Albion Line for its house flag.

The chiefs, having ceded sovereignty completely and forever when they signed the Treaty, Hobson very properly flew the Union Jack. It is "ignorant temerity" for Mr Kerr to suggest otherwise.

Yes indeed, officialdom has now, at a cost of $7.2 million to taxpayers, installed Busby's paper tiger, the 'Declaration', in an exhibition at Te Papa, ignoring the significant documents in our constitutional history by which New Zealand became a separate British colony, as described in the earlier letter of Kevan Marks.

Since the Te Papa "exhibition [was] created with young people in mind", according to the Education Gazette, it is clear that for some secret agenda, its intention is to give them grossly perverted beliefs about our history. If that is not a disturbing thought, well it ought to be.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

Rotorua Daily Post 24/8/17

MAORI OPTION

Language is not important; it matters very little whether we all speak one or two or many languages, what matters is the words we use.

I love and speak Welsh, Latin, a little German, French, and Spanish — were I a younger man I would learn Maori be-cause it is a beautiful tongue, but I would hesitate at enforcing the learning of this or any language.

There is too much else that should be taught in schools —the proper use of English for a start! Children should be taught how to behave, how to communicate other than by cellphone, and how to fix things that are broken; they should also be taught fundamental survival skills.

By all means, make Maori optional, but never compulsory, that would be a grave error, many school students are struggling to learn English — those from overseas. To add Maori would be very silly.

JIM ADAMS Rotorua

Northland Age 22/8/17

LISTEN!

An open question to all political parties: Why are you not listening to the people? Maybe it's because you are all terrified of one thing in particular — binding referenda that reflect the true wishes of the majority of citizens. Have you all forgotten the meaning of democracy the principle that ensures the survival of any group or nation? Or has democracy now become twisted into a dirty word?

We have grown tired of empty promises, tired of individual parties trying to force their own agenda upon us, and tired of attempts to make us feel guilty for injustices that may or may not have occurred 200 years ago.

The rest of the world is awakening. France has sent their two long-term major parties into oblivion, the US rejected years of smooth talking while their economy foundered, and the UK has thrown off the shackles of foreign interests controlling their country.

And why has all this happened'? It has happened because citizens have awoken to the political lies and false promises that have spiralled their nations into poverty and unmanageable debt.

The people speak, only to find that it doesn't matter how loud they may scream — it is all falling upon the deaf ears of sycophantic politicians desperately seeking approval from their peers or noisy minority groups.

New Zealanders want to live as a united people, yet today we have academics (and others who know what is best for us) currently engaged upon composing a 'constitution' that would revolve around an ancient document that has been grossly mistranslated, thus cementing into law a permanent state of apartheid.

I don't want to live under an apartheid system, and nobody I have spoken to wants it either, so just how many people are you appeasing? Certainly not the majority. So to all politicians I have this to say —stop listening to your ambitions and start listening to the people who elected you.

MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

NOW OR NEVER

Under the National-led government, racist laws and policies have been implemented to an extent never seen before in this country.

The results include over 580 taxpayer-funded tribal claims for our entire coastline, secretive talks between Cabinet ministers and Maori elite on ways in which New Zealanders can be robbed of their freshwater rights, teachers being forced to increasingly use to reo and to demonstrate respect for Maori beliefs, protocols and world view (although there's no definition provided), co-governance of our busy commercial

harbours, the destruction of democracy with unelected, unaccountable tribal appointees sitting on local government; the passing of resource consenting controls from councils to private Maori groups, and creating new revenue-gathering opportunities for the benefit of a few tribal elite — many of which cannot be challenged by anyone, in any way, and are in perpetuity.

Many Kiwis are unaware of all this happening in government departments and institutions. So now is the opportune time to put political party candidates on the spot while they are vying for votes. Ask them some hard questions while you have the ear of these hopefuls. The website http://tinyurl.com/ybmjtbsn has an excellent questionnaire to help get readers started.

GEOFF PARKER Kamo

IT'S OUR WATER

Our govermnent has quite correctly always stated that no individual owns the water. In reality the New Zealand government administers water (including freshwater) for everyone, its use and allocation, in a fiduciary capacity as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis. So the water is in effect owned by all New Zealand citizens collectively.

Beware, however National's surreptitious double dealing with iwi leadership and vested Maori interests behind the scenes.

Clearly any pure aquifer/springs water (our pristine drinking water) shipped offshore must be levied, yielding say $2 million per annum, which must be ploughed back into essential infrastructure and water storage facilities in drought-stricken areas like Northland, North Otago and Hawkes' Bay, plus assisting with keeping all our waterways clean and healthy.

If our springs water is more precious to us as a nation if it is not sold off and if no royalties can be levied, then leave it in the ground.

Total annual New Zealand water usage is around 2000 million cubic metres (two trillion litres), and commerce takes 50 percent. The Labour Party is currently mouthing off about charging all commercial water users, potentially thereby targeting one trillion litres per annum.

Taken to its ridiculous conclusion, a one-cent levy per litre would return $10 billion per annum, and you don't have to be Einstein to realise that our living costs will go through the roof. Every ordinary Kiwi will pay through the nose for this dumb idea. Mathematicians and economists can calculate and assess the fiscal absurdity of the inevitable financial carnage.

Labour's manifesto and race-based utterances indicate they could give 50 per cent of all gross water revenue to vested Maori interests, and that's scary, unacceptable, race-based preferential treatment. Maori interests will of course no doubt be exempt from any water levy, and a white elephant expensive water bureaucracy will emerge.

Labour has no legal right to charge anyone for water in common law. Even the Romans, with their Justinian Code 535 AD Book of Things, stated 'by the laws of nature these things are common to mankind the air, running water, the sea and ... the shores of the sea'. All living creatures, including animals, also have rights to water.

Note our freshwater results from the hydrologic cycle, and thence rainfall from the skies, and is not man-made . The New Zealand First freshwater policy is laudable.

R0B PATERSON Mt Maunganui

Taranaki Daily News 22/8/17

NOT ALLAYED A BIT

No Mr O'Brien I am not a bit allayed by your claim in your opinion that Labour will only tax the Fonterra Whareroa plant $200/day in their new water tax. You state this as a minimum ("no more than 1 or 2c/1000L) . The fact is Whareroa does use more water and at 2c/10001 it would be more like $700/day. But we are only speculating as Labour won't tell us about any tax changes "until later".

All we do know is that David Parker stated publicly he wanted to raise $500m/year in this way. He has subsequently talked about $110m/year from irrigators and the rest from commercial uses of any kind.

One sheep farmer will pay $22,000/year and the average irrigated sheep farm $8000/year. Are we saying that vegetable growers and sheep farmers are polluting rivers? Its a complete mismatch...those who don't pollute are taxed, those big plants that use town supply aren't. The tax is unevenly distributed around New Zealand not based on anything to do with river pollution but only water usage.

And dare I say it takes no account of Treaty issues. How long is it before you will be additionally paying to turn on your garden hose? Surely, surely if you are serious about such an important matter you would really seek to understand what your doing?

NEIL WALKER Hawera

Waikato Times 21/8/17 (Also in the Nothern Advocate 21/9/17)

LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE

An open question to all political parties: ‘‘Why are you not listening to the people?’’

Maybe it’s because you are all terrified of one thing in particular – binding referendums that reflect the true wishes of the majority of citizens.

Have you all forgotten the meaning of ‘‘democracy’’; the principle that ensures the survival of any group or nation?

We have grown tired of empty promises, tired of individual parties trying to force their own agenda upon us, and tired of attempts to make us feel guilty for injustices that may or may not have occurred 200 years ago.

The rest of the world is awakening. France has sent their two long-term major parties into oblivion, the US rejected years of smooth talking while their economy foundered, and the UK has thrown off the shackles of foreign interests controlling their country.

Citizens have awoken to the political lies and false promises that have spiralled their nations into poverty and unmanageable debt.

New Zealanders want to live as a united people, yet today we have academics engaged upon composing a ‘constitution’ that would revolve around an ancient document that has been grossly mistranslated, thus cementing into law a permanent state of apartheid.

So politicians – ‘‘Stop listening to your ambitions and start listening to the people who elected you.’’

MITCH MORGAN, Kaipara

Rotorua Daily Post 21/9/17

A VIOLENT HISTORY

I must take issue with the statement Rosemary McLeod made (Opinion, Thursday, August 17) suggesting the reason for so many issues affecting Maori youth may be the "violence of colonisation, attempted destruction of a culture and language, and its lasting effects".

I would suggest that Rose-mary reads A Wild Wind from the North — Hongi Hika's 1823 Invasion of Rotorua by the local, well-respected author the late Don Stafford. This well-referenced book indicates to me that Maori were well versed in fighting and warfare long before New Zealand became colonised.

SYLVIA PHILLIPS Rotorua

Dominion Post 21/9/17

MORIORI AND MAORI

We are now told of an agreement in principle between the Crown and the Moriori people whereby the Crown will pay $18,000,000 and transfer land to the Moriori for not protecting them during the 1840s against the ravages of warlike Maori tribes who travelled to the Chatham Islands and enslaved the ones they did not eat.

Minister Christopher Finlayson acknowledged that this was all the Crown's fault for not protecting these poor people all those years ago.

In later Land Court hearings, the Maori tribes were granted nearly all of the Chatham Islands by right of conquest.

Many Treaty claims already settled and in the process of settling contain abject apologies by the Crown for forcibly taking Maori land.

I see no apology or offer of compensation in the Moriori agreement from the Maori tribes involved in the enslavement of the Moriori people and the confiscation of their land. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

R R MCLEAN Taupo

Otago Daily Times 19/8/17

SUSAN DEVOY

WHAT is Dame Susan Devoy thinking when she turns to Pakistan. Turkey, China and Russia for advice on how best to implement blasphemy laws in New Zealand?

Obviously, she is part of a group of people who think all countries and cultures are equal.

Nations such as Turkey that jail journalists and judges just for having another opinion are not equal to Western democracies.

Dame Susan would do better to stay in New Zealand and consult Kiwi mums and dads on this matter rather than heading off to the nearest despot for advice.

The laws of this fine land and the people who make our laws are streets ahead of the nations she is in consultation with. And when you look around the world today New Zealand is almost heaven on earth.

HANS ROSLOOT Dunedin

Northern Advocate 19/8/17

TREATY STATUS

Arthur Schopenhaum, a German philosopher, stated: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third. it is accepted as self evident". Hitler and his cohorts used this to good effect.

And so, too, do all the parties which stand up to be elected into Government this year, (with two exceptions, New Zealand First and the Conservative Party, the media ghouls having all but annihilated the latter.

The Treaty of Waitangi is, seemingly, to become a part of a new constitution which involves a treaty partnership, thanks to Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

What partnership? Nowhere in the Treaty is a partnership mentioned, nor is duality (we are now one people). Maybe they are handing out knighthoods now with packets of tea!

The Court of Appeal ruled in the 1980s that the Treaty of Waitangi is to be regarded by Government agencies and must consult with its Treaty partner before making major decisions

At least 22 laws are now on the statute books that require Government agencies to have regard to "the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi"!

Why should I bother to vote if the Court of Appeal will overrule any law that the Government passes? But rest assured, I will vote!

If we must have a new constitution, let us start with Queen Victoria's Royal Charter of November 16, IMO, and, if necessary, update it! Shakespeare would have had a field day.

KEVAN G. MARKS Kaipara

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 18/8/17

ONE PEOPLE

We certainly have an interesting situation on the political scene. Don Brash has a very good point in that he wonders how long New Zealand will have ‘The People, and ‘Our People'. He does raise an important point, very skillfully avoided by most candidates for parliament who might just lose a couple of votes along the way. Is this a system that will go on for another hundred years because many chose to look the other way; perhaps the head-in-the-sand trick? Some political parties use the above to score a point and a seat in parliament. The Metiria Turei saga is an example of the many who find it too easy to work the system. Let's have ‘One People' with equal rights for all, then we all win. It will happen, the question is when Jacinda? (Abridged)

R CHAMBERLAIN, Otumoetai.

LABOUR WATER WOES

Our government has correctly always stated that no individual owns the water. In reality the NZ government administers water for everyone, including fresh water and its use and allocation, in a fiduciary capacity as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis.

Total NZ water use is around 2 million cubic metres (2 trillion litres) per annum.

The Labour Party is currently mouthing off about charging commercial water users, potentially targeting one trillion litres per annum, and has taken to its ridiculous conclusion a one cent levy per litre would return $10 billion per annum. You don't have to be Einstein to realise that living costs will go through the roof and every ordinary Kiwi will pay through the nose for this aberration.

Labour's manifesto and race-based utterances indicate they would give 50 per cent of all water revenue to vested Maori interests and that's scary, unacceptable race-based preferential treatment. Maori interests will, of course, be exempt from any water levy and a white elephant water bureaucracy will emerge.

Labour has no legal right to charge anyone for water at common law and even the Romans with their Justinian Code 535AD Book of Things stated “by the laws of nature these things are common to mankind, the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea”.

New Zealand First's freshwater policy is spot on. (Abridged)

R PATERSON, Mount Maunganui.

BE CAREFUL HOW YOU VOTE

Great to have an early election while all National's excesses are imprinted on our minds. Billions have been paid in treaty settlements and apologies while government infrastructures – health, welfare, education, transport – suffer.

Claims are underway for title and control of the whole NZ coastline, and thanks to Nick Smith, iwi control of the RMA will cost the country dearly.

The National government is almost solely responsible for the housing crisis since it abrogated its responsibilities, sold off state houses and passed onus to district councils whose only responsibility is to provide the infrastructure. Housing is part of the mandate for which all parliaments are responsible.

We can remember when nature's gifts were held in trust by the Crown for all New Zealanders before National traded rights and ownership to a few. Numerous people are paying extravagant rentals and ordinary New Zealanders are paying to go on beaches, around lakes and up mountains and down rivers. Cultural expression seems to go hand in hand with economic development.

The Greens will rubber stamp all Maori claims when huge settlements have not filtered down to improving poverty, employment and korero and they also appear to condone benefit and electoral fraud.

A recent hikoi where Maori protested against Maori for Tauranga district control will be nothing to the one when NZers wake up to being tenants in their own land.

Be careful how you vote this year.

R STEPHENS, Mount Maunganui.

NZ Herald 18/8/17

WATER CLAIMS

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson is right to point out Labour’s proposed water taxes could well trigger another round of Treaty settlements, which would go against the fundamental principle that the settlements are full and final.

However, the National party has already unleashed a Pandora’s box of its own with the introduction of the Marine and Coastal Area Act. This legislation has now resulted in over 570 claims for customary rights and title to the foreshore and seabed. Together they cover the entire coastline of New Zealand, many out to the 12 nautical mile territorial limit.

Wading through these claims will be a hugely expensive and time consuming task, likely to take a number of years.

SUSAN SHORT, Meadowbank.

Northland Age 17/8/17

MYTHS AND OTHER GEMS

George Washington couldn't tell a lie, Pinocchio couldn't tell the truth - and then there is the Waitangi Tribunal (and associated sycophants), which apparently can't tell the difference.

Purakau, or tales, always start off with a smidgen of truth, then get embellished via oral history (influenced by selective memory), which is invariably self-serving, suspect and unreliable; things like taniwha, spiritual and social codes are mostly stuff of myths and fantasy.

New Zealand is supposedly a secular country, but the double standards are unbelievable. At most meetings, councils, government, education outfits and other wannabes will permit and embrace Maori prayers or incantations, usually cobbled together from Christianity and tohungatanga in the form of impromptu waiata, powhiri, karakia (while also recognising tapu, rahui and mataitai), but they will not allow Christian hymns, beliefs and prayers.

Most people in New Zealand, including all 'Maori,' have mixed ancestry, so we need to stop this insidious cultural takeover. By all means hold these displays on marae, at private functions or at relevant public events, but there is no justification for these paid gigs at all official/formal public functions. And while we are at it, stop the obscene level of taxpayer funding for life support for the manufactured 'Maori' language.

Justinian Institutes 535AD Book II of things states "by the laws of nature, these things are common to mankind —the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea," yet our government is busy giving tribes ownership or control of it all. The current marine and coastal area (foreshore and seabed) claims are government-sponsored rorts, benefiting lawyers at taxpayers' expense. Freshwater is well and truly next on the agenda.

We must call a halt to the extremism of Maori idolatry shown by politicians, local authorities, education institutions and government departments. This ongoing race-based nonsense can be stopped at the 2017 elections by not voting Labour, Greens or National.

ROB PATERSON, Mt Maunganui

COASTAL TRADE

The Marine and Coastal Area ACT 2011, passed by national as part of its horse trading with the Maori Party, took the beaches and seabed of new zealand out of crown (public) ownership so as to make them available for small groups and coastal tribes to claim effective ownership in the form of customary marine title.

The Minister who drove this Bill through parliament was Christopher Finlayson, who was formerly the lawyer for Ngai Tahu in their dodgy treaty settlement of 1998. And it just so happens that Ngai Tahu stand to gain potentially more of the coastline than any other tribe.

In passing this thieving and racist Act, robbing us all for the benefit of the favoured few, the National Party was in violation of its founding policy of representing all New Zealanders equally without giving special rights to any particular group.

The Marine and Coastal Area Act has given coastal tribes, for the first time in their history, the ability to have ownership over the foreshore and seabed. From 1840 until Finlayson's Act of 2011 tribes did not own the foreshore and seabed because the Crown, did, in accordance with our law. Before 1840 they also did not own the foreshore and seabed. 'Ownership' of anything can only be as of legal right, but before 1840 the tribes owned nothing, since whatever they currently held could be taken off them in a raid by a stronger tribe with better weapons. That is not ownership.

So as a result of Finlayson's Act, Maori of the 21st Century have been given the ability to get ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed that had never been enjoyed by their ancestors.

Once a tribe gets customary title over a part of the coast the 2011 Act gives then the right to exclude others from fishing spots and surf breaks simply by declaring them wahi tapu. Any member of the public who then steps on to that part of such a formerly publicly-owned beach can be fined up to $5000 by tribal wardens under section 81 (2) of this notorious act. Yes, a fine of $5000 for walking, fishing or surfing in an area that used to be publicly-owned before national stole the beaches off you for no other reason than to buy the temporary support of the Maori Party in parliament.

IAN BROUGHAM, Wanganui

MARK INDEPENDENCE

Waitangi Day has been celebrated on February 6 for 77 years as we are `now one people'. Since when? Wouldn't it be wonderful to celebrate this for a change?

We are now to "celebrate" the so-called Land Wars on October 26 this year, thanks to a $4 million handout by the government, and the blessing of MP Te Ururoa Flavell, for the next four years. Did the government of the day write down the reasons for these wars, and are these letters still in existence? If not, why not?

Let us celebrate the ceasing of cannibalism, daughter slaughter, slavery and warfare (the Musket Wars) which killed some 2000 Maori, 1000 peacekeeping soldiers and friendly Maori, and 40,000 Maori, wiped out by (wait for it) Maori!

Anna Broad (Northern Advocate, July 17. among much else), states that the government needs to honour the peacekeeping of the soldiers. They won't, because that is what has kept the National government in power for the past nine years.

Leo Leitch (Northern Advocate) states that we should change Waitangi Day back to New Zealand Day.

I have challenged our historians, archaeologists, Members of Parliament and the Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy, to delve into our true history. So far, I have had no takers.

I move that we scrap Waitangi Day and the Land Wars Day, and celebrate New Zealand Independence Day on November 16, the day Queen Victoria's Royal Charter gave us our independence from the New South Wales government in 1840. Do I have a seconder?

KEVAN G MARKS Kaipara

Taranaki Daily News 17/8/17

WATER CHALLENGE

Water, water everywhere but no political party other than NZ First is being straight up and honest.

Labour's policy says "A change should apply but will make sure businesses are still profitable." Yeah right.

National says that they are supplying millions to clean up rivers and lakes in certain areas.

Now let's see if National can tell the real truth of their intention with our rivers/lakes. Come clean and release all the details in the "Memorandum of Understanding" created with the iwi leaders' group and what promises they have given to them.

I challenge you, Jonathan Young to release these details before the election and prove to the citizens of New Zealand that National have not made promises of control, rights and remunerations based on race of the public water resource.

KEVIN MORATTI Bell Block

NZ Herald 15/8/17 (Short & Sweet section)

ON WATER

Chris Finlayson says "no-one owns the water", so anyone can help themselves. How about "New Zealand owns the water".

ANDREW DUNCAN, Whitford.

Has Treaty Minister Finlayson not noticed "full and final" settlements have always been open for renegotiation.

GRAHAM STEENSON, Whakatane.

Rotorua Daily Press 14/8/17

SIGNS WON’T MAKE CITY BILINGUAL

If someone thinks Rotorua will become a bilingual city by simply making the street signs bilingual, they are dreaming.

When I go into town, I only hear English and a few foreign languages, but seldom te reo Maori.

Because I wanted to know the meaning of many Maori names, I went to Maori classes for a year. If Maori want to preserve their language, and why not, they should put the time in and learn to speak it.

By making the street signs bilingual and spending a million dollars on the job, they are fooling themselves and everybody else by claiming Rotorua is bilingual. It is not that simple!

DOUWE VISSER, Rotorua

Dominion Post 14/8/17

TOYS PROMOTE RACIAL HARMONY

Poor ‘‘golliwogs’’ are under attack again, I see (Off-colour quips lead to anti-racism stand, Aug 10). Do people not understand that these are among the most loved of children’s toys? This must surely promote racial harmony.

If Enid Blyton’s ‘‘golliwogs’’ had been white and bad no-one would blink an eye.

Let ‘‘golliwogs’’ move on and become good, upright citizens. Racist morons who continue to state all golliwogs are bad need to realise that everyone is entitled to a second chance. By their ranting they imply that all people of colour are bad and just reinforce these stereotypes. There are good and bad people of all colours.

In the same article Barbie dolls dressed as native American Indians also attract complaints – what on earth is wrong with dolls wearing their national costume?

American Indian children have as much right to see dolls wearing their clothing as any other person. European children see their clothing on Barbies all the time – perhaps we should complain about that.

HELEN McKENZIE Masterton

The article that the letter above relates to > https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/95584415/porirua-mayor-mike-tana-called-a-man-of-tint-in-racial-slur

NZ Herald 14/8/17 (Short & Sweet section)

ON WATER TAX

Labour’s spur of the moment decision to tax water is bound to cause problems with iwi currently using water for business redress as part of their Treaty settlements. If not, then we may face the unpalatable situation of a two-tier tax regime.

LANCE GRAVATT, Wellsford.

Nelson Mail 14/8/17

WATER SHOCK

You can't object to local or central Government controlling the allocation of fresh water to ensure fair and prudent use.

However, Jacinda Ardern's announcement Labour intend charging bottlers, farmers and presumably industry for water, to raise revenue for river clean up is shocking.

Their plan presumes ownership of fresh water which is a continual gift from the sun and gravity to every individual Kiwi, not the Government.

Iwi elite, must be salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on a share of the money by virtue of the 12 fairy tale indices raised by a (take your pick) corrupt or nepotist Waitangi Tribunal which claims Maori ownership of fresh water.

Realistic political observers will know this morally bankrupt plan is the thin end of the wedge.

There are better ways of raising money for river health than by disregarding centuries of rightful convention, creating further bloated bureaucracy, raising food costs to a suffering public, adding another layer of producer compliance and audit and probably putting some local employing exporters out of business.

Millions of tons of fresh water flow out to sea every hour, if Labour assume ownership will they take responsibility when it occasionally runs amok?

KEN MILLWARD Upper Moutere.

Gisborne Herald 12/8/17

RIGHT TO VOTE HARD-WON BY ANCESTORS

I have recently heard several people asking, “Why should I vote?” It prompted me to think about why I feel voting is such an important part of my life, and why I try to encourage everyone who is eligible to cast their vote.

On September 19, 1893 New Zealand women won the right to vote in elections. In November of that year, women first voted in an election. As a result, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to extend this right to all women.

Women’s Suffrage Day (September 19) celebrates the aims of the movement for gender equality and is a reminder of the ongoing issue of equality for women.

However, it was not just women who had to fight for the right to vote. Miners, Maori men and women and a minority of European men were also refused voting rights.

Miners usually didn’t qualify to vote as the property they lived in wasn’t worth enough. To avoid unrest, like the rebellions that had occurred on Australian goldfields, the New Zealand government passed a law in 1860 so men who had a miner’s right (a licence, which cost £1 a year) were eligible to vote.

Maori voting was restricted. At first only a few Maori could vote, as most Maori land was owned collectively.

In 1867 the government created four Maori electorates which covered the whole country. All Maori men aged 21 or over became eligible to vote for these Maori seats. Separate Maori seats still exist and, since 1974 Maori have had to choose whether to be on either the Maori roll or the general roll.

In 1969 the voting age for everyone was lowered from 21 to 20. It was lowered again in 1974 to 18.

Our voting rights were hard-won by our ancestors and it is an insult to our forerunners, those farsighted pioneers, if we don’t exercise our right to vote.

So this is why I vote. I hope you will too.

DIANNE SAUNDERS

The Daily Post Rotorua 12/8/17

IMMERSION IN ENGLISH OPENS PATH TO COLLEGE

In the article “Passion drives bilingual move” ( Rotorua Daily Post, August 8) the author states: “Te reo Maori speakers were forced to use English in schools.”

This seems to imply that the Maori language was deliberately suppressed but this was not so.

Young men of the Maori Battalion who survived the horrors of World War II were very clear on what the future should hold for their families. They regarded higher education for their children a priority and educators in “Native”, later named “Maori”, schools determined on a course that would meet the English language requirement for entry into the Maori colleges.

For many years after the war shortages of materials and skilled personnel affected the rebuilding of New Zealand society.

In Maori schools overloaded classes were common and educators realised that individual children would have limited time to practise spoken English.

The idea of immersion learning was then adopted. Only English to be spoken in the playground.

Most Maori parents agreed with school policy and used the strategy in their homes.

Strict discipline prevailed and children at the dinner table quickly learned to express their feelings only in English.

In the schools, periods of Maori culture that included singing and speaking in the language were part of the curriculum.

HUGH WILSON, Rotorua

Waikato Times 12/8/17

FOXING FACTS

Marama Fox claims that ‘‘racist policies’’ of governments have failed to help Maori but then states that, in the past seven years, millions of dollars of funding have gone to Maori projects where they are making a difference because ‘‘we know how to make changes’’.

If not from the government, through the taxpayer, where did the money come from? Certainly not from Ngai Tahu's ample untaxed coffers.

Ms Fox, statistics will show that in that period, not one area of major Maori concern, in health, education, welfare dependency, unemployment, child abuse, teenage pregnancies, smoking and prison populations has shown improvement.

Speaking in te reo, among Maori, in spite of an annual budget exceeding $40m, has declined. Yet the average Maori has not benefited financially or socially a jot.

A part-Maori clique of top kaumatua, Treaty revisionists, politicians, academics and lawyers has done very well. Large sums of settlement money given to the tribes have diminished or become unaccounted for but the avaricious claims, by 15% of the population, for a still larger share of the nation's wealth go on.

These, Ms Fox are verifiable facts.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

Bay of Plenty Times 10/8/17

VOTE CAREFULLY

Great to have an early election while all National’s excesses are imprinted on our minds. Billions have been paid in Treaty settlements and apologies while government infrastructures — health, welfare, education, transport suffer.

Claims are under way for title and control of the whole NZ coastline and thanks to Nick Smith and the Marine and Coastal legislation iwi control of the RMA will cost the country dearly.

The National Government is almost solely responsible for the housing crisis since it abrogated its responsibilities.

We can remember when nature’s gifts were held in trust by the Crown for all New Zealanders before National traded rights and ownership to a few.

The Greens will rubber stamp all Maori claims when huge settlements have not filtered down to improving poverty, employment and korero and they also appear to condone benefit and electoral fraud.

A recent hikoi where Maori protested against Maori for Tauranga District control will be nothing to the one when Kiwis wake up to being tenants in their own land.

Be careful how you vote this year. (Abridged)

RE STEPHENS, Mount Maunganui

Northland Age 10/8/17

WHAT'S CHANGED?

Ms Marama Fox claims that racist policies of governments have failed to help Maori, but then states that in the past seven years millions of dollars of funding have gone to Maori projects where they are making a difference, because "we know how to make changes".

If not from the government, through the taxpayer, where did the money come from? Certainly not from Ngai Tahu's ample, untaxed coffers.

Ms Fox, statistics will show that in that period not one area of major Maori concern, in health, education, welfare dependency, unemployment, child abuse, teenage pregnancies, smoking and prison populations has shown improvement.

Speaking of to reo among Maori, in spite of an annual budget exceeding $40 million, has declined. Yet the average Maori has not benefited financially or socially a jot.

A part-Maori clique of top kaumatua, treaty revisionists, politicians, academics and lawyers has done very welL

Large sums of settlement money given to the tribes have diminished or become unaccounted for, but the avaricious claims, by 15 per cent of the population, for a still larger share of the nation's wealth go on.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

The Northern Advocate 9/8/17

WE’RE ALL KIWIS

Come on you Kiwis out there, Winston Peters has got it right — the Maori seats have to go.

Enough is enough. The start of the Maori getting their own way was Bastion Pt. Muldoon said “give them nothing. What can they do about it”. But oh no, the softies give in and that’s what’s happened ever since.

Slowly they have increased their seats to seven. Where does it end?

It’s gone far enough — we are all Kiwis.

Maori took the land off the residents before them. They didn’t pay them or trade, they got rid of the evidence.

You’ve got a rapid increase in the number of Islanders, Indians and Asians resident, who are rapidly increasing in numbers and well established in business.

You think they are not already debating amongst themselves “we want seats in parliament”.

Now that will be the downfall of New Zealand’s democracy. NZ is changing, let’s get it right and get the number of overall seats reduced.

We pay too much in salaries for little return. Get behind Peters. Whangarei could do with a change.

Get off your behinds and vote. Kiwis. ( Abridged)

J HANSARD, Kamo

Bay of Plenty Times 8/8/17

MAORI PROJECTS

The Maori Party’s Marama Fox claims that racist policies of governments have failed to help Maori but then states that in the past seven years millions of dollars of funding have gone to Maori projects where they are making a difference because “we know how to make changes”.

If not from the government, through the taxpayer, where did the money come from?

Ms Fox, statistics will show that in that period not one area of major Maori concern, in health, education, welfare dependency, unemployment, child abuse, teenage pregnancies, smoking and prison populations has shown improvement.

Speaking of te reo, among Maori, in spite of an annual budget exceeding $40 million has declined.

Yet the average Maori has not benefited financially or socially a jot.

A clique of top kamatua, Treaty revisionists, politicians, academics and lawyers has done very well.

Large sums of settlement money given to the tribes have diminished or become unaccounted for but the avaricious claims, by 15 per cent of the population, for a still larger share of the nation’s wealth go on.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

Northland Age 8/8/17

ASK YOURSELF

I have been pondering a question for a while now, and would invite readers to ask themselves the same concerning separate Maori seats in Parliament.

Is there any political party, school, club of any type, franchise/business ownership, area of New Zealand, or simply speaking anywhere, where any person of Maori ancestry is disallowed or excluded in participating, owning, voting or speaking, to name a few activities?

I am well aware of numerous instances where I as a non-Maori am unable to join, enrol or take part in activities on the very land I was born.

Another, though little-thought-of imbalance of race-based policy is that I do not qualify for any remission/ postponement of district council rates even if my position is the same of that as Maori freehold land owners, simply because I am not of Maori lineage.

The result of my self-questionnaire provides the answer as to where the inequality actually is, and it is time for New Zealand to be classed as one people.

It has been asked in the recent past by the Mana leader why the Maori seats have not been called to be abolished in the last century.

That argument (and others being bandied about) is so defunct and illogical in this century that it shows a last gasp attempt to feel important among their own little band of merry men/women.

Time alters many things, and never before in the history of New Zealand have there been so many different races and cultures living on this land, let alone the very long-standing position of discrimination in the above.

If nepotism is to remain, along with Maori seats in Parliament (to name only one privilege) should seats be formed for Asian and Pacific Island people?

K HORAN Kaitala

Otago Daily Times 5/8/17

QUESTIONS OVER TAX STATUS FOR CHARITIES

REGARDING iwi corporations using charitable status to avoid massive tax payments. I was absolutely stunned to read (ODT, 25.7.17) that the tribal authority Te Whakakitenga o Waikato (Tainui) announced a $137.8 million profit, has assets of over $1 billion and only paid $12,000 tax because it is registered as a charitable organisation.

The New Zealand Taxpayers Union responded by saying only profits actually distributed to charity should be taxfree. What is even more astounding is that our revenue minister Judith Collins says that this issue is not a top priority.

Is this the tip of the iceberg? We know there are multinationals which shift huge profits offshore, thereby negating tax liability, but how many iwi are using Waitangi tribunal payouts in this way and how much more tax revenue is being avoided in this manner?

When does a charity stop being a charity and become a business making huge profits? Do these registered charities get additional funding in the form of grants to add to their huge profits? Are these huge taxfree profits being used according to the Charities Act 2005 for the benefit of ‘‘all New Zealanders’’ or have these organisations taken the ‘‘charitable purpose’’ option of providing benefit to only ‘‘a sufficient section of the general public’’?

Considering this tax avoidance is subsidised by all New Zealanders, I think it is time Judith Collins increased her priority for investigation of this massive source of lost revenue such that it can be channelled to areas such as health, education and policing, thus benefiting all New Zealanders in need. [Abridged]

B. BISHOP, Dunedin

[Revenue Minister Judith Collins replies: ‘‘The notforprofit sector plays an important role in New Zealand society and our economy and the sector is growing. I am aware that many charities raise funds through trading activities, ranging from stalls to largescale businesses.

The income earned from these activities is taxexempt on the basis that the profits from the activities will be ultimately used for charitable purposes.

‘‘Inland Revenue works closely with the Charities Services team at the Department of Internal Affairs to ensure charitable funds are used in this way. I would expect that Inland Review will continue to monitor this.’’]

Bay of Plenty Times 5/8/17 (Also in the Weekend Sun/Sunlive 4/8/17)

IWI FAVOURED

Chris Finlayson. Minister of Treaty Settlements. is about to grant the first customary marine title to Hawke's Bay iwi Ngati Pahauwera.

The first of many applications just for Hawke's Bay alone that he has invited and has given many thousands of dollars of public funds to iwi to put forward their claims. Any objectors to these claims had to pay a fee to lodge them.

The minister has stressed that no one loses any rights. He must be some kind of magician, in my view, that can create new rights out of thin air without taking any away from someone else. The someone else, of course, being the general citizens of New Zealand.

Mr Finlayson has stated that "We've now got a whole lot of cases. In my view, there will be a couple of big ones." Anyone remember last year the statement from him and John Key that these claims will be minimal?

These marine titles include resources and allow iwi to create policies for management of these resources. This is just another attack on equality of citizenship.

The minister in charge here, along with many other decision makers in this country such as the current Prime Minister, the finance minister, the Chief Justice of the High Court, the Governor-General and many others who presumably support these decisions, is not elected by the people as you would expect but appointed.

We may ask who appoints them and the answer to that is they, for the most part, appoint each other. Certainly not us the citizens. Vote wisely in September.

G. FAULKNER Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 5/8/17

The Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011, passed by National as part of its horse trading with the Maori Party, took the beaches and seabed of New Zealand out of Crown (public) ownership so as to make them available for small groups and coastal tribes to claim effective ownership in the form of customary title.

The minister who drove this bill through Parliament was Christopher Finlayson, formerly the lawyer for Ngai Tahu in their Treaty settlement of 1998. And it just so happens that Ngai Tahu stand to gain potentially more of the coastline than any other tribe.

In passing this act, the National Party was violating its founding policy of representing all New Zealanders equally without giving special rights to any particular group.

From 1840 until Finlayson's Act of 2011 tribes did not own foreshore and seabed. The Crown did, in accordance with our law. As a result of Finlayson’s Act, Maori have been given the ability to get ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed that were never been enjoyed by ancestors. (Edited)

IAN BROUGHAM Tawhero

Weekend Sun / Sunlive 28/7/17

MAORI SEAT WARMING

At the time of the Maori Representation Act (1867), the right to vote rested on property qualification being restricted to males who owned property. Maori males owning ‘freehold' estates even jointly could vote on the General Roll – the problem was disputed, customary land ownership issues. The four Maori seats were a temporary measure for only five years then extended for another five years and ultimately the Maori Representation Continuance Act (1876) set Maori seats in concrete "until expressly repealed by …the General Assembly (Parliament)".

Interestingly enough Maori men (1867) got the vote 12 years before landless European men (1879). Universal suffrage in 1893 for all Kiwis removed any legitimate reason for separate Maori seats.

The Maori seats came about to give Maori parliamentary representation because many could not meet the property criteria – it benefited Maori, not disenfranchised them. Anyone who claims otherwise is spouting unmitigated claptrap.

One would have thought Kelvin Davis, Labour's Maori Affairs spokesperson, MP for Te Tai Tokerau (Maori seat), an ex-Kaitaia school principal would have had the nous to work all this out for himself rather than vigorously opposing Winston Peters' referendum proposal. To be fair, Mr Davis probably doesn't want concrete facts to demolish self-serving myths.

Winston Peters' stance on the Maori seats is correct and pandering to the Maori Party, separatists, vested part-Maori interests, Maori activists and other pseudo toadies has no place in New Zealand because it's race-based nonsense.

R PATERSON, Mount Maunganui.

Bay of Plenty Times 4/8/17

NO MAORI SEATS

I’m tickled pink reading that Kelvin Davis has become the deputy leader of the Labour Party.

This achievement by a gentleman of Maori descent shows we have no need for special Maori seats in Parliament, nor for non-elected “Maori” positions anywhere else.

JOY Z. MARKS, Greerton

Northern Advocate 4/8/17

DIVIDING LINES

Correspondent Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn appears to be obsessed with the idea that the abolition of the Maori seats in Parliament is a racist attempt at “forced assimilation” of Maori with all of the other races that constitute New Zealand’s population.

Maori were originally a distinct race (if one ignores the minority Patupaiarehe, Moriori and Waitaha survivors) and, had they so wished, could have remained separate - but, after the initial turmoil, chose to intermarry with the newcomers, interbreed and adopt a new social structure that they could see as being preferable to the old ways of endless tribal warfare, cannibalism and slavery.

Maori elders wanted their children to learn how to read and write as they could see where their future lay.

So it was never a matter of "forced assimilation" as some would like us to think; just two cultures inevitably merging into one by adopting a common set of laws to ensure their survival.

Sadly, today there is an actual attempt at forced assimilation - activists demanding compulsory to reo in schools; confusing the personal development of non-aggressive children with belligerent haka; inundating youngsters' minds with a make-believe history of a placid Maori society corrupted by evil colonials; and concealing the inconvenient reality of the decimation of the pre-Maori tangata whenua.

It was Maori themselves who chose to assimilate for the benefit of both races.

Lifestyle then (as it is now) was a matter of choice, but tempered by mutually agreed restraints.

Now disruptive elements are emerging - those who wish to dwell in the past by dividing society with a "them and us" philosophy - those who blindly deny their own mixed heritage.

There is no longer a dividing line between Maori and Pakeha. We are now one people. MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

New Zealand Listener 4/8/17

HISTORY OF MAORI SEATS

Barbara Menzies (Letters, August 5) provides interesting details about the original establishment of Maori seats in Parliament, when motives were undoubtedly mixed.

But she is wrong in saying they were "designed to lock Maori into a permanently powerless minority of four", as actually they were intended to remain for five years only. Much of her argument fails thereby.

BRUCE MOON (Nelson)

3/8/17

Northland Age 3/8/17

TWO BECOME ONE

Correspondents Catherine Murupaenga-lkenn and Wally Hicks both appear to be obsessed with the idea that the abolition of the Maori seats in parliament is a racist attempt at 'forced assimilation' of Maori with all of the other races that constitute New Zealand's population.

Maori were originally a distinct race (if one ignores the minority Patuparaiehe, Moriori and Waitaha survivors), and had they so wished could have remained separate — but, after the initial turmoil, chose to inter-marry with the newcomers, inter-breed and adopt a new social structure that they could see as being preferable to the old ways of endless tribal warfare, cannibalism and slavery.

Maori elders wanted their children to learn how to read and write, as they could see where their future lay.

There were a few tribes opposed to such change, but most sided with the idea of amalgamation, and saw the wisdom of accepting the Queen as the chief above all other chiefs. Thus those Maori who fought alongside the British were fighting to bring peace to Maori and settlers alike, and bring an end to the constant threat of the more powerful tribes slaughtering lesser tribes and settlers, who merely wished to be able to live without fear of attack.

So it was never a matter of 'forced assimilation,' as some would like us to think; just two cultures inevitably merging into one by adopting a common set of laws to ensure their survival.

Sadly, today there is an actual attempt at forced assimilation —activists demanding compulsory to reo in schools, confusing the personal development of non-aggressive children with belligerent haka, inundating youngsters' minds with a make believe history of a placid Maori society corrupted by evil colonials, and concealing the inconvenient reality of the decimation of the pre-Maori tangata whenua.

It was Maori themselves who chose to assimilate for the benefit of both races. Lifestyle then (as it is now) was a matter of choice, but tempered by mutually agreed restraints.

Now disruptive elements are emerging — those who wish to dwell in the past by dividing society and families with a "them and us" philosophy, those who blindly deny their own mixed heritage. There is no longer a dividing line between Maori and Pakeha. We are now one people.

MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

2/8/17

NZ Herald 2/8/17

HOUSING FOR MAORI

The Labour Party says, if elected, it will get more than 20,000 Maori into home ownership with a $20 million boost for support services. A special Maori Housing Unit would also be created within the party’s proposed Affordable Housing Authority. The party’s Maori development spokesperson, Kelvin Davis, made the announcement at its Maori campaign launch in Auckland. He said Maori home ownership rates had fallen from half to a quarter in the last 30 years.

This decline is certainly ironic given that the Maori asset base has increased into the billions over the same period, yet the elite among their leadership still fails to perceive the poverty amongst their tribal base, allowing the effects of poor housing to decimate their mokopuna.

PAUL EVAN-MCLEOD, Te Rapa.

Bay of Plenty Times 2/8/17

TRIBE SHOULD HEED ITS HISTORY

The long-awaited Treaty of Waitangi settlement of $300 million to Ngapuhi will bring to a close all settlements.

All New Zealanders will breathe a sigh of relief, “One country, one people”.

Unfortunately, regarding this process, Ngapuhi have procrastinated for years finalising their claim. They seem, in my view, to believe they have some moral high ground relative to all other tribes. Interesting that all other tribes have successfully negotiated and settled, reinvested, and are reaping the benefits for their whanau. Are Ngapuhi somewhat out of touch with reality? Maybe so. In 1821 Hongi Hika, renowned Maori chief, was invited to England by King George IV.

Treated lavishly, returning to New Zealand via Sydney, he showed eternal gratitude, swapping gifts for 500 muskets, gunpowder, ammunition, swords and daggers.

Armed with superior weaponry, over the next 10 years Ngapuhi took tribal vengeance over old enemies.

Many were driven from tribal lands, never to return.

Rather than expect any special right to delay their final settlement, Ngapuhi should reflect on their history, respect the fact that all their fellow tribes have successfully settled, and make sure they apportion a generous slice of their final settlement to the tribes they treated so cruelly. (Abridged)

JOHN JORDAN, Otumoetai

Northland Age 1/8/17

MODERN DAY BONDAGE WONDERFUL

So the Maori Party (1.3 per cent MMP party vote) is promoting a scheme to send immigrants into the regions, armed with their self-serving indoctrination course on Te Tiriti-o-Waitangi, to gain New Zealand Citizenship, targeting economic hot spots for two years' unpaid work, with the local community providing all accommodation and meals etc., no doubt in the end all to be paid for by the unwilling Kiwi taxpayer me thinks.

The more immigrants the merrier it seems, with flowery words used to hide the scheme's true meaning and intent. Maori development opportunities indeed, and so immigrants love Maori culture — yeah right! Probably too damn scared to say otherwise until they have New Zealand passports.

This innovative and retrograde stratagem is nothing but modern day bondage for two years' unpaid work to cover up for our local non-contributors, so in reality they will be the drones working for queen bees (guess who?) with a carrot of citizenship in the end, along with the lure of bringing families here.

Servitude, aka slavery, was effectively abolished in New Zealand in 1840 and the UK in 1807, with the Abolition of Slave Trade Act. Transported to another country, fed and watered, working for nothing and told what to think- if this is not servitude what is it then?

Well sorry, most of us we don't want 72,000 immigrants each year and we don't want Maori interests freeloading off unpaid imported immigrant labour and getting unlimited handouts to do it.

ROB PATERSON Mt Maunganui

ANOTHER ATTACK

Chris Finlayson Minister of Treaty Settlements, is about to grant the first customary marine title to Hawke's Bay Iwi Ngati Pahauwera, the first of many applications just for Hawke's Bay alone that he has invited and given many thousands of dollars of public funds for iwi to put forward their claims. Any objectors to these claims had to pay a fee to lodge them.

The Minister has stressed that no one loses any rights. He must be some kind of magician that can create new rights out of thin air without taking any away from someone else, the someone else being the citizens of New Zealand.

Mr Finlayson has stated that "We've now got a whole lot of cases. In my view there will be a couple of big ones." Anyone remember last year the statement from him and John Key that these claims will be minimal?

These marine titles include resources, and allow iwi to create policies for management of these resources. This is just another attack on equality of citizenship.

The Minister in charge here, along with many other decision-makers in this country such as the current Prime Minister, the Finance Minister, the Chief Justice of the High Court, the Governor General and many others who presumably support these decisions, are not elected by the people, as you would expect, but are appointed. We may well ask, but who appoints them then? The answer to that is they for the most part appoint each other. Certainly not us the citizens. Vote wisely this September.

G FAULKNER Tauranga

RELIC OF THE PAST

Barbara Menzies (NZ Listener, July 28) provides some interesting details about the original establishment of Maori seats in Parliament, when motives were undoubtedly mixed, but there is more to the story.

She is wrong in saying that they were "designed to lock Maori into a permanently powerless minority of four," as actually they were intended to remain for five years only. Much of her argument fails thereby.

With just three seats, North Island Maori may have had less than a fair share, but one seat was also established for the tiny number in the South. In the 1887 election only 418 voted; in the 1885 by-election a mere 345. Even in 1943, Ed Tregerthen won in a poll of barely 1000. So the Southerners were grossly over-represented.

By then, however, the numbers voting elsewhere were similar to those in general electorates, with Jack Ormond defeating veteran Apirana Ngata, the last ever National Party Maori electorate MP, by just 240 votes in a poll of around 10,000.

In 2014, however, it was an old story again — just 20,220 votes in Te Tai Tonga but 38,232 in Wellington Central.

Very clearly, Maori electorate voters are grossly over-represented in Parliament. It is high time to eliminate such relics of the past.

BRUCE MOON Nelson

Northern Advocate 31/7/17

MORGAN IS WRONG

Some of the policies of The Opportunities Party (TOP) do not seem unreasonable, but where the party of Gareth Morgan and I fall out is with a new constitution based on the Treaty of Waitangi.

He states that there are two parties that sign a treaty. So far, so good, but where we part company, the two parties at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi became one — "we are now one people", nothing more, nothing less. That's it, game, set and match.

It did not promise a partnership or privileges, and if it did, why is it that the Maori elite have had to wait until around 1970 to start receiving generous handouts at the expense of the taxpayer?

How can we base a constitution on that?

For their troubles and woes (mostly Maori by Maori), they have been paid approximately $2.6 billion, and counting. Some of it has disappeared out of sight and much has been invested in business from which they receive generous tax free benefits, while the rest of us add to the $2.6 billion — by paying tax.

Why not pay out to the Patupairarehe, Waitaha and Turehu people whose populations were decimated by Maori and were the first people here Mr Morgan? Their descendants are still with us, and have received nothing, except almost complete annihilation.

KAWENA HORI MAAKA (Kevan George Marks), Kaipara

Dominion Post 31/7/17

PAYING THEIR SHARE

Lots of righteous indignation that large multinationals such as Google and Amazon are not paying us enough (if anything) in tax, but hardly a whimper that the large profitable Maori trusts such as Tainui, with billions in assets, are not required to pay their share either.

This must mean that agreed Treaty settlements are not really ‘‘settlements’’ at all, as by not paying their share of tax, Maori tribes continue to receive a subsidy/settlement courtesy of the taxpayers in perpetuity.

I doubt this is taken into account during negotiations.

PETE JENKINS, Whitby

The Northern Advocate 28/7/17

TRIBAL ELITE

In her letter (24/7/17) Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn seems to be confusing the right of part-Maori New Zealanders to embrace Maori culture in their personal lives with the way the country is best run.

World history has demonstrated that the most peaceful and prosperous countries are ordered under democratic governments, equality of citizenship, and good law and order. Because of this, English has become the universal language of commerce and travel. I would have thought most Kiwis would want to enjoy our advantages in this regard.

Throwing these away to appease a few (for whatever reason) will create resentment, unrest and ultimately, a third world economy. This is a truth, nothing to do with anyone’s ethnicity or personal world view. If you don’t believe me, look around the world and tell me which country is succeeding under a system of race-based rules and entitlements. What people (other than the elite and powerful) are thriving under such systems?

What’s concerning in New Zealand these days is how we are putting all our strengths at risk. The rate of special privileges for the tribal elite is escalating. The tribalising of the foreshore, the seabed, sealife and natural resources, including freshwater, plus the blatant disregard for the democratic principle of one person:one vote, are very real evidence of rampant race-based elitism and short-term thinking.

I have no problem with people enjoying their own, personal cultural mores, provided they do it in their own time, on their own dime and within the law. They should have no financial claim on others, our public resources or taxes. They should not be putting our country at risk.

GEOFF PARKER, Kamo

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 24/7/17

FEEDING FRENZY OF CLAIMS

There have been over 200 contemporary claims filed with the Waitangi Tribunal.

Ngapuhi claimants are even talking about lodging a claim for the commercial use of wind.

Customary rights to water is another example, there are many more to come.

Some will fail, others will succeed like the water claim.

All of these claims concern the actions of successive governments since 1992 showing that the Treaty of Waitangi ‘industry' will always have a fresh ‘crop' of claims to feed on.

The treaty claims so far will never match what is to come, contemporary claims, even talking about so-called social injustices – smoking, overweight, can't get a job – it's your fellas' fault.

Each successive government has ensured the door is opened just a few inches more, and when it is ripped open completely we will see a feeding frenzy that will awaken even the most lethargic Kiwi. But will it be too late?

R ANDERSON, Lower Hutt.

CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE DAY

On July 4 America celebrates their Independence Day as founding their nation, and yet in New Zealand our Independence Day is never celebrated.

Queen Victoria's Royal Charter dated November 16, 1840 was our true founding document. This important document has been ignored for more than 173 years.

The day we should all celebrate as our Independence Day is May 13, 1841 when New Zealand became a British colony under one flag and one law.

It allowed New Zealand to break away from New South Wales and, with the consent of the British Parliament, to form its own British colony with its own governor and government to make its own laws based on English law under the watchful eye of the British Parliament.

The Charter is completely ignored by the government and Te Papa and the Ministry of Justice does not even have a copy of our true founding document and first constitution.

I BROUGHAM, Wanganui.

CLEAR ANSWERS NEEDED

Our local parliamentary representatives have shown that they have influenced important government investments in health etc. They do not inform us, however, that they are dealing with the numerous other most unsatisfactory developments in our clearly eroding democracy.

Voters must request clear answers from Messrs Bridges and Muller to the following:Why have we not been given information following the MMP referendum and what steps are proposed to deliver in accordance with voters' directive?

* What steps do our representatives believe should be taken to end the promotion of Maori influence by un-elected appointees to councils and commissions? Co-governance is unacceptable.

* We have not seen any audit of the huge tribal settlement funds. We still see many signs that the chiefs are doing very well and at the same time health, housing and English education are continuing to be a major problem.

* It is time that voters were assured that the numerous charities are operating fully within the law and complying with a comprehensive taxation test.

* The Waitangi Tribunal performance continues to irritate voters and does not serve our 2017 democracy. How can their appointments and deliberations be justified?

* When can voters expect official government advice that the move to rewrite our constitution has been abandoned?

* Crown ownership of the total coastline must be very clearly established by law.

J GODDARD, Bethlehem.

Northland Age 27/7/17

MAORI SEAT WARMING

At the time of Maori Representation Act (1867), the right to vote rested on property qualification being restricted to males who owned property.

Maori males owning 'freehold' estates even jointly could vote on the general roll. The problem was disputed customary land ownership issues.

The four Maori seats were a temporary measure for only five years then extended for another five years and ultimately the Maori Representation Continuance Act (1876) set Maori seats in concrete "until expressly repealed by Parliament".

Interestingly Maori men (1867) got the vote 12 years before landless European men (1879). Universal suffrage (1893) for all Kiwis removed any legitimate reason for separate Maori seats.

The Maori seats came about to give Maori parliamentary representation because many could not meet the property criteria.

It benefited Maori not disenfranchised them.

Anyone who claims otherwise is spouting unmitigated claptrap.

One would have thought Kelvin Davis, Labour's Maori Affairs spokesperson, MP for Te Tai Tokerau, an ex-Kaitaia school principal would have had the nous to work all this out for himself rather than vigorously opposing Winston Peters' referendum proposal.

To be fair, Mr Davis probably doesn't want concrete facts to demolish self-serving myths.

Winston Peters' stance on the Maori Seats is correct and pandering to the Maori Party, separatists, vested part-Maori interests, Maori activists and others has no place in New Zealand because it's race based nonsense.

ROB PATERSON, Mt Maunganui

CONFUSION REIGNS

In her letter (24/7/17) Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn seems to be confusing the right of part-Maori New Zealanders to embrace Maori culture in their personal lives with the way the country is best run.

World history has demonstrated that the most peaceful and prosperous countries are ordered under democratic governments, equality of citizenship, and good law and order. Because of this, English has become the universal language of commerce and travel. I would have thought most Kiwis would want to enjoy our advantages in this regard.

Throwing these away to appease a few (for whatever reason) will create resentment, unrest and ultimately, a third world economy. This is a truth, nothing to do with anyone’s ethnicity or personal world view. If you don’t believe me, look around the world and tell me which country is succeeding under a system of race-based rules and entitlements. What people (other than the elite and powerful) are thriving under such systems?

What’s concerning in New Zealand these days is how we are putting all our strengths at risk. The rate of special privileges for the tribal elite is escalating. The tribalising of the foreshore, the seabed, sealife and natural resources, including freshwater, plus the blatant disregard for the democratic principle of one person:one vote, are very real evidence of rampant race-based elitism and short-term thinking.

I have no problem with people enjoying their own, personal cultural mores, provided they do it in their own time, on their own dime and within the law. They should have no financial claim on others, our public resources or taxes. They should not be putting our country at risk.

GEOFF PARKER Kamo

DIVIDED RACE

Anahera Herbert-Graves (Inside an iwi, July 25) has provided a very clear description of the six ideas for a constitution that have been "distilled from more than 300 iwi".

Now we can all be aware of what is being suggested.

In all we are divided into race, and the ideal of equality, including equal voting powers, is thrown out.

After some 177 years of steady integration, living and mixing, the proposal is that New Zealanders should divide into two groups, with separate meetings before a few representatives meet to hammer out the sort of compromise that is always necessary in political affairs.

Those deciding to take the Maori option will go off separately while I may join a political party with only non-Maori.

The two groups would have no socialising, no shared understanding or common humanity.

All this with the aim of giving the around 15 per cent who have some Maori ancestry an equal power in government to the 85 per cent per cent rest of us.

JOHN ROBINSON Waikanae

Nelson Mail 25/7/17

WRITING ON THE WALL?

I and many others agree with Bruce Moon’s comments (July 22) in regard to your arguments (July 20) for retaining the ‘‘Maori ‘‘seats in Parliament.

Any New Zealand Kiwi that has a trickle of Polynesian Blood and claims to be a ‘‘Maori’’ is definitely not oppressed but on the contrary.

The inclusion of ethnic rights and privileges over other citizens has indicated that this group need help in so many ways.

Just to list a few, there are Maori-only schools, housing projects, health prioritisation, welfare initiatives, prisoner programmes, positions on government agencies, consultation rights under the RMA, seats on local council and health boards. And of course the seats in our Democratically elected Parliament.

We only hope that Bill English can see the writing on the before it is too late!

JOHN HARTE, Nelson

The Northern Advocate 25/7/17 (Also in the Northland Age 25/7/17)

MAORI SEATS

In support of New Zealand First’s intention to abolish Maori parliamentary seats I would like to proffer the following quote:

“Ethnic-based tribal politics has to stop.

“It is rooted in the bankrupt idea that the goal of politics or business is to funnel as much of the pie as possible to one’s family, tribe, or circle with little regard for the public good.

“It stifles innovation and fractures the fabric of society.

“Instead of opening businesses and engaging in commerce, people come to rely on patronage and payback as a means of advancing.

“Instead of unifying the country to move forward on solving problems, it divides neighbour from neighbour.”

A typical outburst from a redneck white racist, is it not? Well, not exactly.

This statement was made in 2006 by a gentleman of mixed race, bearing the title of President Barack Obama. I rest my case.

MITCH MORGAN, Kaipara

* Editor’s note: NZ First is promising a referendum on the future of Maori seats if it comes into power in September.

Dominion Post 24/7/17

MINORITY RIGHTS

Re Beware of the populist (Editorial, July 19), you warn against a referendum that would pit one democratic principle – majority rule – against another, ‘‘which is the need to safeguard the rights of minorities’’.

What minority rights would be weakened or lost? Nobody now eligible to vote would be disenfranchised if the Maori seats were abolished. Nor would anyone be barred from forming political parties or becoming candidates for political office.

If you believe special electoral arrangements should be made for significant ethnic minorities, on the other hand, then Asians (12 per cent of the population) and Pacific peoples (7 per cent) should enjoy this privilege too.

NELSON BRUCE Lower Hutt

MAORI SEATS

Winston Peters is right. It’s time to forget the Maori seats; the reason for them no longer exists.

They were brought in at a time when voting was restricted to landowners.

Since most Maori land was then held in common by iwi, the simple answer was to have Maori seats of Parliament based on the then proportion of Maori to Europeans.

In the intervening century and a half, intermarriage has diluted the Maori bloodline to the stage where the overwhelming majority of people regarding themselves as Maori have only an eighth or less of Maori blood.

For voting purposes, being Maori is a matter of choice. Effectively, we are now one nation, and Parliament should reflect that.

We would do better to concentrate on preserving, where practicable, the Maori language, together with Maori traditions and customs we can all share as New Zealanders. BILL LAMBERT Paraparaumu

Wanganui Chronicle 24/7/17

WHO’S TO BLAME?

I found the “life in pictures” on the opinion page, of the “river hazard”, raised the same question for me: Who is responsible?

Then it became obvious. The river is now a person, and Maori are the guardians.

I think Maori should talk to the river and come to some agreement and shift this piece of flotsam, and without dipping into the ratepayers’ pockets for compensation.

A. BARRON Aramoho

Nelson Mail 22/7/17

NO TYRANNY

Your arguments (Nelson Mail, July 20) for retaining Maori seats in Parliament are very thin.

Maori are not an oppressed minority like Tamils in Sri Lanka or Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. Unlike such countries there is no ‘‘tyranny of the majority’’ in New Zealand.

There is much social legislation in New Zealand specifically to favour them in addition to their undemocratic presence on various statutory boards. Pasifika, Chinese and other racial minorities might well ask why. Arguments such as that they are ‘‘tangata whenua’’ are spurious recent inventions.

There were people here when the Maori canoes arrived but this has nothing to do with fair representation in Parliament today.

As correctly foreseen by the Royal Commission, MMP did not prejudice Maori political interests and with Maori MPs in all but one member parties, these are as diverse as any others.

Special Maori seats are a relic of the past like the wings of the kiwi with no substantive reason for keeping them and leaving undue power in Maori hands.

That Winston Peters senses the general discontent with this anomaly and seeks to win votes by proposing a referendum about them is just as reasonable as any other tactic on the path to a general election.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

Northern Advocate 22/7/17

WAITANGI DAY

Give that woman a glass of champagne. Anna Broad makes a most sensible commentary (Letters. July 17) upon the abhorrent political idea to impose a Maori Wars commemoration day upon the exasperated people of this once-blessed country.

As she notes, Waitangi Day has become just another opportunity to promote racial discord. We don't need another one, unless the part-Maori population might like to have a special day commemorating the 1835 massacre and enslavement of the pacifist Moriori.

Anna recommends changing Waitangi Day back to New Zealand day.

Anzac Day quite adequately fulfils, or could do, the obligation and the wish to commemorate those of Maori and non-Maori ethnicity who have died for our wellbeing. Scrap Waitangi Day.

LEO LEITCH Houhora

NZ Herald 21/7/17 (Short & Sweet section)

ON PETERS

Winston for PM. He is absolutely correct in his assessment of the current situation. Get rid of the Maori seats and get rid of the Waitangi Industry. We will be voting for you.

JOHN ROY-WOJCIECHOWSKI, Howick

Kapiti News 19/7/17

CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS

When Andy Oakley (July 12) pointed out that we have two standards of citizenship in Kapiti, Mayor K Gurunathan first agreed that this is an important matter but then dodged the issue. He has just followed orders. "requirements framed by parliamentary legislation".

We should all be concerned with what is happening to our country.

Different privileges in local government, additional to those held by the rest of us, are given to Maori. explicitly defined as a separate race. In that legislation. to qualify for those distinct rights you must be "a person of the Maori race of New Zealand; and includes any descendent of such a person".

Two points stand out in this short phrase.

Firstly, rights given explicitly to members of one race are, by definition, racist.

Secondly the definition is absurd. In Iogtc you cannot define anything with reference to itself. To say a Maori is a Maori lacks meaning.

As an elected representative of us all, the mayor should be prepared to speak out, to argue against such race-based legislation.

His position is unfortunately all too common. Years ago when I spoke to the Regional Council in opposition to separate effective powers to a Maori committee, the only response was that we are told to do this". I disagree. Spokesmen for the community must think for themselves about fundamental issues and refuse to treat our unicameral Parliament as an elected dictatorship.

JOHN ROBINSON WAIKANAE

RACE BASED SYSTEMS

In his response to my letter last week Mayor Guru has at least awakened the ratepayers to the fact that in his and KCDC's eyes we now have two standards of citizenship in Kapiti, one for Maori and one for everyone else.

John Auburn's (letter same edition) awakened the ratepayers to the costs of such race based dual systems of co-governance. We can now see how much 'separate development' costs and why our rates are skyrocketing.

The mayor told me and so all ratepayers that he is forced to be a separatist by Parliament and that if I don't like it. I best take it up with them. Thanks for the advice, however he couldn't be more wrong.

The 'purpose' of both LGA 2002 section 8 I and the RMA amendments are "to provide for democratic and effective local government that recognises the diversity of New Zealand communities".

Section 81 of the LGA does indeed state that the council must provide opportunities for Maori to contribute to decisions, foster development and have relevant information provided to them, but it does not say that they must do it exclusive or separate from other ratepayers.

Section 82 is a separate section and is directed at everyone including Maori. The KCDC should provide opportunities for all ratepayers to contribute to decisions, foster development and provide relevant information. Because Maori are part of the community and not separate from it KCDC will have fulfilled their obligations of WA 2002 sections 81 and 82. There is no need for race based policies.

Similarly, the RMA amendments which require agreements known as Mana Whakahono a Rohe may be targeted at Maori who are not currently engaged well with councils, but this is the case for most ratepayers. Why then set up separate development systems for just one race.

If councils were effective and democratic they would have to set up inclusive systems that satisfies the requirements of the RMA, not exclusive ones.

The mayor is hopelessly lost in the detail and forgotten about the purpose of the legislation.

If KCDC ignore most Maori in the community, who are not marae based, and focuses on the local iwi's kamatua who already have millions stashed away from Treaty settlements, they will have effectively narrowed any positive effect they will have across all Maori in the community. Particularly those who need it most, the poor.

This strategy of giving cash and extra rights to tribal elite, as can be seen by Treaty settlements, is precisely why Maori are badly represented in most social statistics. The leaders often squander it, steal it or create billion-dollar corporations registered as charities that pay little tax.

Our mayor's failure to understand the legislation means that councillors can be elected with a mandate by the people, only to be vetoed by an unelected Maori expert in traditional basket making. What sort effective democracy is this that?

It's not democracy at all, it is separate development. which is also known as apartheid and I am one ratepayer who is against apartheid.

ANDY OAKLEY RAUMATI BEACH

Northland Age 20/7/17

HISTORY OR BUNK?

So Maori want their history added to the curriculum in our schools.

Do they mean a true record of tribal culture and inter-tribal intercourse before the Treaty or a nostalgic and sanitised version of their oral history, where we recall what we choose to remember, omitting such practices as: cannibalism, ritual killing, infanticide, slavery, the oppression of women and the slaughter of all those, including women and children, defeated in tribal battles?

Will it include the depredations Hongi Hika, Te Rauparaha, Hone Heke, Te Kooti and also include the 40,000 or more deaths resulting from inter-tribal conflict during the Musket Wars?

Will it include everyday life in the pa, the constant struggle against hunger, the elements and fear of inter-tribal attacks or will they choose to ignore these distressing practices as our noted historians, Orange, Salmon and Bellch have done?

The media remain reluctant to publish such obvious queries as mine, for fear of the wrath of the Human Rights Commission descending upon them for implied anti-Maori comments or some such nonsense So 'freedom of speech' is compromised. Perhaps that's what the "white supremacist, neo-Nazis" are on about.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

Dominion Post 19/7/17

A GREAT LEADER

Winston Peters has shown great leadership by calling for a referendum on Maori seats.

Winston knows, as any thinking New Zealander should know, the time of racial segregation is over. For a country to prosper, it must be united and for that to happen , we must all be equal, in law and in fact.

Maori seats are the politics of yesterday. They divide us, foster a them and us mentality and are not need anymore.

The commission on electoral reform said they should go, once MMP was introduced.

Peters will go down in history not only as a great leader, but as one of the greatest leaders this country has ever produced. Thank you Winston.

BRENT PIERSON, Kingston

The Press 19/7/17

HISTORY AGAINST MAORI SEATS

There have been recent statements that the abolition of the Maori Parliamentary seats would be contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi. This is nonsense for the following historical reasons:

In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi preceded the Maori seats which could not then have been envisaged in the Treaty. In 1854, the NZ Parliament was established with only males who possessed property being eligible to vote. In 1867, the Maori seats were established because while not holding clear title to property, many Maori held property in common. In 1879, universal male suffrage (including Maori) was instituted. In 1893, women (including Maori) were given the vote.

Now all Maori had voting rights and there was no reason to retain the Maori seats. In 1986, a Royal Commission recommended MMP and the abolition of the Maori seats. The latter did not occur.

The seats’ retention gives Maori superior rights to other New Zealanders.

HB THOMAS, Halswell

Bay of Plenty Times 19/7/17

TRUE HISTORY

So Maori want their history added to the curriculum in our schools.

Do they mean a true record of tribal culture and inter-tribal intercourse before the Treaty or a nostalgic and sanitised version of their oral history, where we recall what we choose to remember, omitting such practices as cannibalism, ritual killing, infanticide, slavery, the oppression of women and the slaughter of all those, including women and children, defeated in tribal battles?

Will it include the depredations of Hongi Hika, Te Rauparaha, Hone Heke, Te Kooti and also include the 40,000 or more deaths resulting from inter-tribal conflict during the Musket Wars?

Will it include everyday life in the Pa, the constant struggle against hunger, the elements and fear of inter-tribal attacks or will they choose to ignore these distressing practices? (Abridged)

BRYAN JOHNSON, Omokoroa

Northern Advocate 19/7/17

OTHER VIEWS

Re the editor's note following Bruce Moon's letter 15/7/17. Do any journalists know of the Press Council's requirement that articles always include an alternative, balancing view to that being expressed? (Principle 1).

These days, most main-stream newspapers read more like propaganda sheets than fact-finding, investigative, balanced publications. So congratulations to the Northern Advocate if it is striving for more professional journalism standards. I hope the word spreads.

GEOFF PARKER Kamo

* Editor's note on the editor's note: All journalists should be aware of Principle 1. The Northern Advocate has been re-minded of it because we wrote a story that fell short of the standards the Press Council upkeeps.

The Northern Advocate 18/7/17

EVEN-HANDED

Re Noel Hilliam Press Council decision.

I am struggling to understand the argument that every story must have balancing or opposing arguments?

So if I write a story arguing suicide is devastating on families involved do I need to balance with someone who will argue it is a good thing for the families.

The balance can be by inviting the opposing view to present their arguments in a separate article. In this case the balance is already out there in spades by those arguing that the Kupe landing was the first appearance of any human race on this country.

Carrying this balance argument to the extreme only ties the hands of any reporter/commentator that may bring a different view. I know there is a difference between opinion pieces and news articles but in my mind the original article was the “balance”.

GEOFF MINCHIN Kawakawa

* Editor’s note: If it is a news story the Press Council’s Principle 1 states:

Accuracy, Fairness and Balance Publications should be bound at all times by accuracy, fairness and balance, and should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers by commission or omission. In articles of controversy or disagreement, a fair voice must be given to the opposition view.

Exceptions may apply for long-running issues where every side of an issue or argument cannot reasonably be repeated on every occasion and in reportage of proceedings where balance is to be judged on a number of stories, rather than a single report.

Taranaki Daily News 18/7/17

QUESTIONS WANTING ANSWERS

A resounding "NO" was sounded by the citizens of New Plymouth to the proposal by former mayor, Mr Andrew Judd, for a separate Maori Ward. The resulting binding referendum showed 83 per cent of votes were against it. Mr Judd petitioned Parliament for a law change. That was two years ago.

Fast forward to the present and our mayor Neil Holdom has circumvented this democratic decision by creating a new committee consisting of five unelected iwi leaders and five councillors including himself and council spokesperson, Gordon Brown. (A Maori Policy Advisor "a new, exciting position" salary $75,300-$82,000 is to be appointed).

Council authority was then delegated to this iwi led committee to make decisions such as naming and renaming roads and council reserves etc, also authority to grant applications greater than $10,000 for marae development.

This handing over of council responsibility of decision making suggests Mayor Holdom either lacks confidence in his own and council's ability, in which case he should step aside, or he feels pressured to go down this path.

This $10,000 + is ratepayers' money so questions need answering.

How much over $10,000 can be handed out at any one time? How often? No doubt the name of the New Plymouth airport will be first to be targeted for change with the names of our city, suburbs and streets next. The existing English/European names are part of our history and should stay.

On 28 May, 2017, the bill initiated by Mr Judd and presented by a Green Party member calling for a change of Electoral Law was voted down by the National Party, Act and NZFirst.

ISOBEL RUSSELL, New Plymouth

Northland Age 18/7/17

REFRAMING USE OF DRUGS

According to a recent Waitangi Tribunal claim, Maori make up just 15.8 per cent of the national population, yet the percentage of those in prison who are Maori is 50.8 per cent, and the percentage of Maori women in prison is 63 per cent.

Some 65 per cent of youth (under 20 years) in prison are Maori, up from 56 per cent a decade ago.

Recent estimates of the total prison population indicate that approximately 5000 Maori men and women will be imprisoned in 2017.

Current rates for Maori reconvicted after release from prison after two years is 63.2 per cent (49.5 per cent non-Maori), while the proportion of sentenced Maori prisoners reconvicted after five years is 80.9 per cent (67.7 per cent for non-Maori).

At the Parliamentary Drug Policy Symposium in Wellington last week, it was highlighted that 40 per cent of all Maori in prison were there for drug convictions as their main offence.

There was widespread agreement amongst the guest presenters, politicians and delegates that current drug laws have an inequitable effect on Maori, and that the current approach of treating drug use as a criminal matter was not working.

The effect of convictions and imprisonment has a profound effect not only on the individual sentenced, but also on the children, partners and rest of the whanau.

Last week, the NZ Drug Foundation released a new proposal for drug laws in New Zealand, reframing drug use as a health issue and one requiring a totally different approach.

On personal reflection, for much of last week's discussion, very little focused on the social determinants of health and how improving these will lead to greater social, health and economic equity for Maori and other marginalised groups.

Evidence shows that only by focusing on improving these determinants will society truly reduce the inequities faced by these groups.

DAVE HOOKWAY health Promotion Adviser Kerikeri

COMPENSATION FOR MORIORI?

I notice that your indefatigable writer, Wally Hicks, mentions quora.com in his letter published on July 13.

I saw auora.com entry last month which claimed Maori were the most barbaric colonisers in the history of the world (www.quora.com/Who-were-the-most-barbaric-colonizers-in-the-history/answer/Stephen-Tempest).

The claimant referred specifically to the absolutely appalling 1835 massacre and enslavement of the pacifist Moriori. One struggles to disagree. And one is brought to wonder why Wally Hicks et al are not clamouring for compensation for Moriori.

GRAEME SMITH Hamilton

The Northern Advocate 17/7/17

MAORI WARS DAY

I am concerned at separatism and apartheid in this country and would certainly not want to be associated with either, which is why I find the proposal for a Maori Wars day to be abhorrent.

We already have Waitangi Day, which is a day that is supposed to unite the country, but a Maori Wars day would seem to perpetuate the guilt factor.

Newcomers to New Zealand don’t know the truth, and many compare our colonisation to the colonisation of their own countries.

To honour the Treaty, Queen Victoria sent British soldiers to keep the peace, because some tribes were decimating the peaceful tribes. British soldiers and peaceful Maori warriors alike fought side by side, were injured and died, endeavouring to maintain and secure peace in New Zealand.

Those peacekeeping soldiers and Maori need to be honoured by our Government. They were peacekeepers in the true sense of the word.

Participating as peacekeepers in other countries is completely different from peacekeeping in New Zealand.

We should have a Memorial Day honouring those brave warriors — both British and Maori.

If it were not for them, New Zealand would not be the peaceloving country it is today.

For 130 years, colonists and Maori integrated and married, until the division of our races became legally entrenched by a succession of vote-seeking parliamentarians. It is time for Governments to stop their divisiveness — a divide-andconquer strategy that has divided the nation and families — resulting in a minority of citizens demanding racial privilege and the majority wanting a unified New Zealand with one rule for all.

Our families, both of British descent and Maori descent (and maybe both) need our brave and courageous men, who gave their lives for a united country, to be remembered. Perhaps Waitangi Day should once again become New Zealand Day — an inclusive memorial honouring all.

ANNA BROAD Kaipara

Northern Advocate 15/7/17

COASTAL CONTROL

Recent articles by the NZCPR "Next Steps in Coastal Claims" and by CORANZ "New Assault On Access to Coastal Areas" should set New Zealander's alarm bells ringing.

Just by registering a claim to the coastline, opportunist tribal groups pick up Important rights —to be notified of any developments in their claimed area — and can get paid mining royalties (backdated to the lodgement date) if their claim Is approved.

Further, some tribal claim applications with the High Court seek the right to "take" dolphins and whales, penguins and seals, mine the area for minerals and extract sand — in other words free rein to exploit our coasts.

Control of 100,000 square kilo-metres of foreshore and seabed Is at stake here — everything from the high tide mark out to 22km, all the airspace above that, the sea and all the minerals below.

Our Iron sands alone are worth $1 trillion. Then there's all future aquaculture. So it's many billions that may be siphoned into tribal coffers instead of contributing to the nation's health, education, Infra-structure.

Our coast is not only our playground but New Zealand's border to the outside world.

GEOFF PARKER, Kamo

FREE SPEECH

I write to support you in your publication of the fascinating and important article by Noel Hilliam on non Polynesian pre-Maori inhabitants of New Zealand. I consider the objections to it accepted by the Press Council to be spurious and harmful to free speech and debate in New Zealand. I question its objectivity.

BRUCE MOON Nelson

* Editor's note: The Press Council decision was correct in that it noted — and we had acknowledged this — that we failed to provide an alternative view to the one expressed in the article. Our failing had nothing to do with the notion of pre Maori occupation, it was the absence of a balancing view that as journalists, we should have provided.

Wanganui Chronicle 15/7/17

CODE BIASED

I am outraged at the latest "Code for the Teaching Profession".

This document, indicates a disturbing obsession with everything Maori within the Education Council, and expecting teachers to comply with such a racially-biased code is a recipe for disaster.

The Treaty of Waitangi, which is now Just an historical relic, made us one people. There was no reference in its terms to any partnership, and New Zealand is now a multicultural nation comprising many peoples and races.

The code is an inauspicious document and needs to be purged of the indoctrination, racial bias and prejudices.

J D WRIGHT, Tauranga

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 14/7/17

BACKLASH EGALITARIAN, NOT RACIST

Racism is giving one racial group different rights and privileges to others. It is differential treatment on the basis of race. That is what Maori are ‘continually' looking for. I do not believe there should be rights over ‘our' fresh water or seats on councils and local authorities based on ancestry, and I think most Kiwis would agree.

We want to live in an egalitarian country, not one where your rights are determined by who your parents are. That's what the old-style British class system was based on. It's also what Nazi Germany was based on. If Maori keep pushing they will certainly see a backlash. But the backlash will be egalitarian, not racist; it is the Maori position which is racist.

R ANDERSON, Lower Hutt.

SAYING SO DOESN’T MAKE IT CORRECT

Re ‘Fact, not fancy' (July 7). I commend R Prince of Welcome Bay for bringing to my attention the facts regarding Te Ranga commemorations. For far too long we seem to accept that ‘saying so' makes it correct. A perfect example of this is that on University Challenge, first year of new series, the question was asked ‘Who invented the telephone?'

The answer given and accepted as correct was Alexander Graham Bell. This is incorrect and when I phoned the producer, they said they couldn't correct this as the show was recorded five months ago. The correct answer is Antonio Meucci. Bell, in fact, patented the telephone but did not invent it.

D THOMAS, Katikati.

EDUCATION OUTRAGE

I am outraged at the latest Code for the teaching profession. This document indicates an obvious predilection and disturbing obsession with everything Maori within the Education Council.

Expecting teachers to comply with such a racially-biased Code is a recipe for disaster.

The Treaty of Waitangi, which is now just a historical relic, made us one people. There was no reference in its terms to any partnership; there were no principles in the Treaty and it was certainly never our founding constitutional document.

Therefore, references to a fabricated and misinterpreted Treaty of Waitangi, biculturalism, partnerships, separatism and with an overwhelming emphasis of special treatment for all part-Maori throughout the Code is a racist aberration.

Currently the major initiatives are directed to part-Maori interests while simply ignoring the apathetic 85 per cent of New Zealanders.

NZ is now a multicultural nation comprising many peoples and races.

The Code is an inauspicious document and in its present form needs to be purged of the indoctrination, racial bias and prejudices.

It is a formula for serious racial disharmony which will inevitably promote conflict between teachers, children and parents.

The authors of this Code should hang their heads in shame for producing such a potentially divisive and race-based document.

J WRIGHT, Otumoetai.

CO-GOVERNANCE DEALS (Letter to the Editor Paper unknown (Kapiti Coast) 13.07.17)

In responding to my letter last week the Mayor has at least awakened the ratepayers to the fact that we now have two standards of citizenship in Kapiti. And John Auburn (letter same edition) awakened the ratepayers to the costs of such race based dual systems of co-governance. We can now see how much political correctness costs and why our rates are skyrocketing.

How quickly did Mayor Guru change from using “Treaty based rights” as the excuse for offering race based extra rights, to now using the LGA 2002 as the excuse and hiding behind Parliament? I can help Guru with the LGA 2002 Act as well, from the Act: “The purpose of this Act is to provide for democratic and effective local government that recognises the diversity of New Zealand communities;”

By providing an opportunity for unelected members of a separate race to have separate (extra) rights from the general public in decision making processes, our Council is being as far from “democratic” as I can imagine. Does Guru not care about the ‘purpose’ of the Act, “democracy and effectiveness”? Does he not care about Article the Third of our Treaty which forbids anyone having extra rights based on race?

If the council pay any more than lip service to these unelected special people, it could make a mockery of the local body elections. Councilors can be elected with a mandate by the people only to be vetoed by unelected expert in traditional basket making. What sort democracy is this?

Guru also points me to the recent changes in the RMA. Again the purposes of the changes were to “facilitate improved working relationships between iwi and councils, and enhance Māori participation in resource management processes.”

The way around this racial, PC mess including any of the associated astronomical costs to ratepayers is to include Maori in the same processes of governance as every other person and to listen to their gripes, like any other ratepayer. Despite what you are led to believe most Maori want and deserve the same as all ratepayers, an efficiently run council that listens to all of the people. It is time we citizens vote for politicians who have the moral courage to reverse the dangerous trend towards separatism and race based rights. Guru is clearly not one of them, he is hopelessly lost in the detail of legislation and forgotten its purpose.

It is worth noting that in Te Tiriti o Waitangi “tangata maori” merely meant “ordinary people” and it is the ordinary people, including most Maori struggling with poverty who have been forgotten in all this. I guarantee it will not be an ordinary person sitting at the council table drawing a salary, rubber stamping our building consents, it will be iwi elite. The same people who manage treaty settlement money.

How well has that worked out for ordinary people?

ANDY OAKLEY

Bay of Plenty Times 14/7/17

REAL STORY

In reference, to Dr Tony Farrell and many other correspondents who permeate the pages of your paper may I respectfully suggest that in order to get an accurate perspective of who gets sent to prison in New Zealand that they spend a bit of time in the court to see what the real story is.

To keep banging on how Maori are more likely to be sent to prison than the rest of the population because they are Maori couldn’t be further from the truth.

The reality, in my view, is the courts and police bend over backwards trying to keep Maori out of prison because of the very fact that they do proportionally fill the place up due to the shear weight of their numbers actually committing the crimes.

The big advantage that Maori have in our courts is that they can pull the race card and accuse the court of being racist, most other cultures don’t have that luxury. (Abridged)

BRIAN W BROWN Tauranga

Wanganui Chronicle 14/7/17

CIVILISATION

Potonga Neilson, (letters, June 30), says Maori were just as civilised as the Europeans who came here.

Civilisation is the work of civilians, not soldiers, by way of inventions, buildings and literature. That’s how we know of the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome. We see and read what they produced.

The one mention Potonga makes of Maori building something is a flour mill in 1852. And it was abandoned in favour of making war.

What “lofty mountain” is more lofty than having a God who rules the whole universe?

But I am not criticising Maori for being the people they were in old times. The Pygmies in equatorial Africa were noted for their hunting and forest culture, so they were given the forest area to be their permanent home.

Could any iwi settle for having a reservation where they could live in the old ways “enjoying the sky and land and the results of their enlightenment”?

TOM PITTAMS Whanganui

New Zealand Listener 14/7/17

ADMAN BITES BACK

How deftly Richard Harman ("Race is on", July 8) models the left's five-point Maorification strategy.

First, denigrate. Mock anyone who champions the 80% of Kiwis who reject racial favouritism in poll after poll. Cast Don Brash as "an ageing rock star", Waikanae as "Wellington's retirement town" and his audience as "grey-haired baby boomers". Smugly assume most readers share the leftist's distaste for my factual observation that whingeing Maori radicals "have gone from the Stone Age to the Space Age in 150 years and haven't said thanks".

Second, intimidate. Harman didn't tell you he spent Brash's meeting furtively photographing every audience member's face like a Stasi informant.

Third, invalidate. Frame Brash's Orewa speech as "notorious". Forget that 93% of Dominion Post readers applauded it. Frame my Iwi/ Kiwi billboard as "controversial" despite floating voters rating it their favourite of 13 billboards that won two campaign-of-the-year awards.

Fourth, exaggerate. Harman cites one dissenter as evidence that the billboards were unpopular with National MPs. (Not evident to me when a clapping caucus confirmed after the election that many wouldn't be in Parliament without them.)

Fifth, fabricate. (Remember when "history revision" meant studying, not muddying?) Trot out the party line that the chiefs retained sovereignty post-Waitangi, cunningly entitling their distant descendants to "specific representation in an increasing number of pieces of legislation and regulation".

The Treaty specified nothing of the kind, of course — cultural Marxist revisionist historians, journalists and Maori-vote-grubbing politicians did.

But Harman is right that National is "looking more like an urban liberal party" that's "working hard to align itself with Maori". Clearly any MPs who still represent the party's members and principles "have effectively been silenced" as National and the rest of the left "test the line between [non-] partnership and [anti-] democracy".

JOHN ANSELL, (Martinborough)

Otago Daily Times 13/7/17

WATER CHARGES

YOUR report (ODT, 10.7.17) of the Green Party’s election campaign launch confirms that the export of water will be a major campaign issue, with both the Greens and New Zealand First proposing that a charge be levied on waterexporting companies. The Greens’ policy, however, contains a dangerous sting in its tail.

Before a charge can be levied for use of water, ownership of the water must first be established. Current policy is that noone owns the nation’s water, but users pay the cost of storage and reticulation. The Green Party’s plan to split the proceeds of a levy on exported water equally between local councils and iwi is based on an assertion of 50% tribal ownership rights over the nation’s water.

Given that the nation’s entire coastline is currently subject to tribal claims before the High Court, there is nothing more certain than claims for at least 50% ownership of all other natural resources will follow. The Greens’ policy appears to have turned the forthcoming election into a referendum on who owns the nation’s natural resources. Thanks goodness for the option of voting for New Zealand First.

JOHN BELL, Forbury

NZ Herald 13/7/17

PAYING FOR WATER

Where does James Shaw get off telling anyone to pay for using our water? He says there are consents for bottling 2.3 billion litres a year, yet only 27 million litres were exported in 2016.

Why should I pay anything to the local council, let alone half to local Maori?

Nobody owns the water. As far as I recall it rains down naturally so anyone that has access to it for private or commercial use can have at it. Bringing in the Havelock North debacle is just weird. That was the local council's screw up. Go away Jimmy.

MARK NOBLE, Whitianga.

NZ Herald 13/7/17 (Short & Sweet section)

ON HISTORY

The Maori-only history was pre-1769. Anything after is New Zealand history and should be taught warts and all, not sanitised, revised or racially slanted.

GEOFF PARKER, Kamo.

I can see why politicians keep away from another public holiday commemorating New Zealand’s wars, as it would be just be another selective “history” rant from the anti-English pc brigade here.

MARK BRUNTON, Green Bay.

Bay of Plenty Times 13/7/17

NEW APPROACH

I’d like to support Dr Tony Farrell in his plea (Letters, July 11) for a different approach to dealing with drug offences.

He is right in saying “Maori are not implicitly criminal” but, if you look at the statistics dispassionately, what you see is that Maori “are disproportionately let down by our education and justice systems”.

Any society that uses sanctions that discriminate against any part of itself in the way our drug laws do runs the distinct risk of ensuring social disjunction on a major scale, to say nothing about what damage gets done to family/whanau and children.

There are alternatives to lock-em-up, it’s high time we started using them.

LAURIE LOPER Pyes Pa

Northland Age 13/7/17

FRESHWATER FANTASIES

As everyone knows, freshwater is an extremely valuable resource. The government has quite lightly always stated that no one owns the water. In reality however, the New Zealand government, in a fiduciary role, controls the water for all its citizens, and in effect administers freshwater, its use and allocation as guardian and trustee for all Kiwis.

That hasn't however stopped National having secret, clandestine, squirrel talks with Iwi Chairs forum representatives about management and control of freshwater, which is an absolute farce. Kiwis should be outraged about this race-based possibility.

Turning to bottled water, I seriously question whether many of those involved don't have their own little agendas for freshwater. Clearly any pure aquifer/springs water taken and shipped offshore from New Zealand should be levied, in my view at least 20 cents per litre, and if there are only 10 million litres exported annually (some suggest that figure is billions) this equates to $2 million per annum in levies, which could be ploughed back into essential infrastructure like water storage facilities in drought areas such as Northland, North Otago and Hawke's Bay.

The first consideration, however, must always be, can New Zealand permit anyone to take freshwater without first addressing whether or not it is more precious to us as a nation if it is not hocked off, and certainly if no payment's being received, then leave it in the ground.

Finally, would other countries allow anyone to take their natural resources free of charge? Not.... likely. The Greens currently rabbit on about charging 10 cents per litre for exported bottled water, but eventually seemingly want that levy to apply to all other water users, potentially accessing trillions of litres per annum. Taken to its ridiculous conclusion, the full levy, or even a one cent levy, would return millions pa to each and every Kiwi citizen. I leave this absurdity to the mathematicians to calculate.

Check out the Greens' manifesto and race-based utterances, whereby they would look to give 50 per cent of all water revenue to vested Maori interests. That is scary, unacceptable, race-based preference stuff.

New Zealand First freshwater policy, on the other hand, is right on the money.

ROB PATERSON Mount Maunganui

RACIST SPLIT

The mind boggles. Anahera Herbert-Graves (July 11) splits herself into two, each with separate rights to govern the country.

This is racism at its most extreme, its most absurd. Her mother is English, sharing in "the power that Pakeha have," with "the whole parliamentary thing part of her background". Her father is Maori and will want its overthrow, bringing "the continuation of the Maori constitutional order that existed before 1840".

Never mind the reality of murderous intertribal warfare and social collapse in those years.

Herbert-Graves has dumped on her mother and pitched in with Maori separatism. This makes sense in today's world, where a person with any, no matter how small, degree of Maori ancestry can claim, in law, rights that are refused to all others.

If we could return to the equality promised in the Treaty, Herbert-Graves can be true to both of her parents without that false distinction.

JOHN ROBINSON Waikanae

Ms Herbert-Graves was not referring to herself; but was quoting from He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu mo Aotearoa, the report on constitutional transformation. Editor.

Northern Advocate 12/7/17

VALID QUESTIONS

Where has freedom of speech gone? Without getting into the argument over the rights and wrongs over the "Pre-Europeans in Northland" I am appalled at the heavy handedness of the Press Council ruling.

If there is anybody in New Zealand that should be upholding the right not just of free speech but the right to question the entrenched views on our early history.

It is not just Noel Hilliam but a growing group of historians, including names like David Bellamy and even the late Sir Peter Buck, who have asked questions about a presence pre-dating the Kupe landings.

But this has become a taboo subject and anyone daring to go down this path is subject to the wrath of Maori backed by a system not wanting to rock the Tangata Whenua" claim.

The fate of the unfortunate Moriori is also not to be talked about, along with cannibalism or Hone Heke killing more Maoris than the land wars combined.

It is unfortunate that claims of people living here before the popular Kupe 7 canoe theory of 950AD has become politicised and has attracted extremists from both sides.

To say no-one landed here, whether by accident or discovery, prior to AD950 is as unlikely as claiming we are the only living things in the universe. Even Sir Peter Buck acknowledged that it was unlikely New Zealand was unoccupied prior to Kupe.

It might have been earlier Polynesian landings in places like Nelson and Taranaki. It might have been some race mixtures including ship-wrecked, Spanish, Portuguese and middle eastern sailors.

So why is there a determination to close our minds to anything but one scenario. It is not about Treaty issues because clearly the Maori were the main population here prior to English settlement.

Throwing threats of grave robbing and $60,000 fines around frightens off anyone trying to find legitimate answers to these questions. Congratulations to Chris Darlow, the only council member to hold true to the rights of free speech.

GEOFF MINCHIN Kawakawa

The Northern Advocate 11/7/17

GOING TOO FAR

Regarding the Press Council complaint about the May 13 article “Pre-Maori Europeans?”, the article may well have gone too far regarding the possible races that were here before.

There are undisputed indications that there were people here pre-Maori as found particularly in the Waipoua Forest and elsewhere.

One should look up website www.celticnz.co.nz/embargo_ saga.html to see the document that in 1988 prohibited the information regarding pre-Maori information being made available for 75 years, ie until 2063. This is rather like saying yesterday didn’t happen.

I cannot see what effect this pre Maori “civilisation” can have on Maori: they know they weren’t the first here, so what?

They were here when the Western world arrived, so they are the people we deal with, hopefully to a satisfactory conclusion.

PJ PLAISTOWE Whangarei

Northland Age 11/7/17

HARDLY MINUSCULE

Just a few points re Wally Hicks' letter (`Refreshed,' July 6).

One only has to Google the polls results page on the site Kiwi Frontline (that Hicks mentions) to see that people who oppose race-based special rights and separatism are not `numerically minuscule,' as he suggests. Results from various polls and referendums show around 80 per cent oppose Maorification.

A piece of Hicks' argument in the letter is based on the credibility of the likes of James Belich, who credited northern Maori with inventing trench warfare. The fact is trench warfare was already a developed art by the 17th Century. 'I'he master of this form of warfare was the French marshal Vauban (1633-1707).

Further, Belich estimated the number killed in the intertribal wars at 20,000, and yet James Rutherford's careful 'count' reveals a figure of around 42,000. Need I say more on this 'highly respected academic historian'?

Opposition to tribalism, sanitised/revised history, special race-based privileges, entitlements and policies is not `race hatred,' as Hicks infers, it is simply opposition to those listed here.

The 'dangerous' people in New Zealand today are the ones who peddle racial separatism, seek tribal control of our freshwater resources, claim rights akin to ownership of our foreshore and seabed, and the undermining of our democracy system by pushing for racist Maori wards and corruptible race-based appointments. Does Wally see himself here?

GEOFF PARKER, Kamo

WILD RHETORIC

So Wally Hicks has decided to attempt emulating the late and possibly lamented Bruce Gregory with pathetic attempts to be clever at the expense of my name. Well, well, I wonder what it is like now in Hicksville. There will be too in adjacent muddy backwaters a wally or two waiting for their next handout from taxpayers, and wondering why the supply of rum and baccy is not what it used to be.

Well now, to serious matters. No, Maori were never "tangata whenua" (whatever that means) of "Aotearoa," because there never was such a country, being only dreamt up by a couple of romantic Englishmen as the local equivalent of Bali Hai. Try looking for it in the Treaty, or for "tangata whenua" either for that matter.

As for the people who were here before the Polynesian cannibal invasion, they left plenty of tangible evidence, and some indeed have survived miraculously to this day. I recommend to serious readers 'DNA to rock the nation', available for $24.95 or in digital form from elocal - telephone (09) 239-1699 - or order online at store,elocal.co.nz/collections/minibooks That should settie the matter once and for all.

As for the 30,000- plus slaughtered and mostly eaten in the Musket Wars, this was entirely a tribal affair, by far the biggest importer of muskets being Hongi Hika, who swapped presents generously given him in England for several hundred. As John Robinson's careful demographic study has established, it was this, not Hick's "Pakeha diseases", which caused the population decline in the early colonial decades. Such disease deaths as did occur were offset by those who survived with better housing, food, clothing and medical care.

Most of Hicks' wild rhetoric that follows can be ignored, but much of the "history" of his "highly respected historians" is grossly wrong. Orange, for one, grossly misrepresents the significance of Hobson's final draft of the treaty of February 4, and writes her fantasy as if it did not even exist.

For the flaws in Belich's work see John Robinson's 'When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience,' ISBN 1 87297031 12012.

For more false "history" see 'He Tohu,' the exhibition of three documents recently mounted at Te Papa for $7 million of taxpayer cash, presumably written by such "highly respected historians". Michael King is good and bad in parts. Refer to his `Moriori,' ISBN 0 670 82655 3, pp 65ff, for the gruesome details of the 'tikanga' by which Maori tribes committed genocide in the Chatham Islands, eating most of their victims, though his 'Penguin History' does not even mention cannibalism. See Paul Moon, 'This Horrid Practice', 1SBN978 014 3006718 for that.

The 'Penguin History' does however relate the ceremony "little short of a farce" by which Busby induced some northern chiefs to choose a flag and a "second and equally contrived ceremony" by which "Busby persuaded the same chiefs and some additional ones to sign A Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand, albeit the "declaration of independence had no constitutional significance ... [and] also no reality" (Penguin History, pp.153ff.).

This worthless document is one of the quasi-sacred three now featured in 'He Tohu', chosen no doubt by our "highly respected historians" with "young people in mind" (the words of the editor of the 'Education Gazette'). Thus will our young people be swindled by being fed perverted accounts of the history of our country to create in them a false identity. Are you happy with this, Mr Hicks? I'm not.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

INDEPENDENCE DAY

America celebrates their Independence Day, July 4, as the founding of their the nation, and yet in New Zealand our independence day is never celebrated.

Queen Victoria's Royal Charter, dated November 16, 1840, was our true founding document. This important document has been ignored for over 173 years.

The day we should all celebrate as our independence day is May 13, 1841, when New Zealand became a British colony under one flag and one law. It allowed New Zealand to break away from New South Wales, and with the consent of the British Parliament, to form its own British colony with its own Governor and government to make its own laws based on English law, under the watchful eye of the British Parliament.

The Charter is completely ignored by the government, Te Papa and the Ministry of Justice do not even have a copy of our true founding document and first constitution.

IAN BROUGHAM, Wanganui

SAME MESSAGE

Most television viewers seem unaware that the current presentation of the Maori chant Tutira Mai," Stand together" flooding their screens and involving a multitude of groups nationwide, supporting the All Blacks in the tests, is almost identical in translation and certainly in sentiment to Hobson's Pledge, He iwi tahi tatou, We are one people, yet this proposal is vilified in the media while the other is celebrated.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

Bay of Plenty Times 11/7/17

IMPRISONMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER

Unacceptably, 40 per cent of Maori in prison are there for drug offences, which means that a significant proportion of children in those whanau grow up without one parent, making them in turn 20 times more likely to be imprisoned.

Maori are not implicitly criminal, but these statistics show they are disproportionately let down by our education and justice systems. A recent correspondent intimated that those families who use drugs don't deserve financial support. How about a drug policy that doesn't take away a family's income in the first place?

Treating drug use as a criminal issue has not had any impact on drug use per se.

Overseas evidence from Portugal, Uruguay and the United States indicates that drug intake, especially in teenagers, does not increase with decriminalisation of all drugs.

A public health approach could use money wasted on prisons for treatment and job creation, which would protect the children and family of those dispossessed people who are more likely to suffer medical complications of alcohol and other drugs.

Let's have proportional consequences for this health issue, rather than depriving children for generations to come. (Abridged)

DR TONY FARRELL, MBChB FRNZCGP FAChAM Mount Maunganui

The New Zealand Herald 10/7/17

ON AMERICA’S CUP CHALLENGE

There may be complications ahead for Team New Zealand.

Back in 2011 when National passed its foreshore and seabed legislation, Prime Minister Key assured us that there’d only ever be a handful of claims.

But in recent months, approximately 580 claims have been lodged with either the courts or the Crown.

They cover every centimetre of New Zealand’s coastline, including the very busy Waitemata and Manukau Harbours and the Hauraki Gulf. Many overlap each other.

How is the Government going to prevent every coastline development from having to pay the local claimants in order to get resource consents — potentially including the base for the next America’s Cup challenge?

FIONA MACKENZIE, Stanmore Bay.

Dominion Post 10/7/17

WAKE-UP CALL

I was encouraged to see Dr Hugh Barr's article ‘New assault on access to coastal areas’ (July 7).

This should be a wake-up call for all New Zealanders.

Just by registering a claim to the coastline, opportunist tribal groups pick up important rights - to be notified of any developments in their claimed area - and can get paid mining royalties (backdated to the lodgement date) if their claim is approved.

Further, some tribal claim applications with the High Court seek the right to "take" dolphins and whales, penguins and seals, mine the area for minerals and extract sand - in other words free rein to exploit our coasts.

Control of 100,000 square kilometres of foreshore and seabed is at stake here - everything from the high tide mark out to 22km, all the airspace above that, the sea and all the minerals below. Our iron sands alone are worth $1 trillion. Then there's all future aquaculture.

So it's many billions that may be siphoned into tribal coffers instead of contributing to the nation's health, education, infrastructure.

Our coast is not only our playground but New Zealand's border to the outside world.

GEOFF PARKER Whangarei

Wanganui Chronicle 8/7/17

LAST STRAW

Danny Keenan's contention that "colonial terms should be put in the bin" (Chronicle, June 29) and Potonga Neilson's assertion that "history is ever-evolving" (Chronicie, June 30) have just broken this camel's back.

In the 1860s, the words "fanaticism" and "barbarism" were appropriately applied to the Moutoa Gardens monument in terms of descriptive word usage at the time. These terms are not specific to past colonial activities and, indeed, can be used today to describe fanatics and those guilty of barbaric acts.

As for Potonga, he is correct to a degree. History is being updated with specific archaeological discoveries, for example. However, the meaning and/or intent of words remains the same regardless of the passage of time.

Unfortunately, some people in this country have earned a very nice living by managing to convince organisations such as the Waitangi Tribunal and successive governments that 19th century wordage can be bent and twisted by assigning 21st century usage to their advantage. I am savvy enough to know that inevitably Maori will have their way regardless of the feelings of non-Maori on almost every issue, but please let's leave Moutoa Gardens historical monument alone.

There is no need for additional information to be applied to the monument to placate a few.

Just as the Whanganui River is being used overseas as an example of how to turn a waterway into a bloke or blokess, explaining or altering descriptive text on monuments could become the next worldwide business phenomenon. (Edited)

D PARTNER Eastown

Bay of Plenty Times 8/7/17 (Also in NZ Herald 8/7/17)

WE ARE ONE PEOPLE

Most television viewers seem unaware that the current presentation of the Maori chant Tutira Mai, "Stand together”, flooding their screens and involving a multitude of groups nationwide, supporting the All Blacks in the tests, is almost identical in translation and certainly in sentiment to Hobson's Pledge, "He Iwi tahi Tatou," "We are one People," yet this proposal is vilified in the media while the other is celebrated.

BRYAN JOHNSON Omokoroa

Sunlive / Weekend Sun 7/7/17

FACT, NOT FANCY

During the recent Te Ranga commemorations Ngai Tamarawaho kaumatua Des Tata spoke about the battle. He said that some “modern” historians claimed that women and children were killed at the battle. Perhaps he could name these historians and provide what evidence they have to substantiate this claim? James Cowan, who wrote the definitive history of the New Zealand Wars, gives no credence to such a claim. Cowan spoke fluent Maori and tramped miles to visit battle sites. He also interviewed both Maori and Pakeha combatants who were present at the battles. No other historian can match his credentials.

Tata also claims that the Maori warriors walked unarmed towards the British line to meet their death. I can find no historian, ancient or modern, that supports this fanciful idea. Is this rewriting of history to portray Maori as heroic victims simply an attempt to improve Maori's ideological and financial position?

I support the teaching of NZ history in schools, but it has to be a history based on fact not on fancy.

R PRINCE, Welcome Bay.

The Northern Advocate 7/7/17

ASK THE PEOPLE

A disturbing threat to our nation ever becoming a true democracy was revealed by one Anahera Herbert-Graves in an article entitled Legitimate Expectation.

Her “legitimate expectation” seems to lie in creating a newly written constitution based around the Treaty of Waitangi, thus legally entrenching a one country/two peoples racially privileged system.

Apparently there is a group called Matike Mai o Aotearoa, which she describes as “the independent working group on constitutional transformation”, whose aim is to infuse the Tiriti into existing legislation.

I would like to know the answers to the following questions: “Do the people of NZ want a new constitution that includes the Treaty of Waitangi?” and secondly, “Is this project being funded by tax-payers?"

The validity of the "official English" treaty wording is itself questionable, with modernist part-Maori translations assigning meanings to words that meant something completely different to the original Maori signatories.

Sir Apirana Ngata's "An explanation of the Treaty" translated the document as it was understood back then and is at wild variance from today's imaginative power-sharing claims.

The goal of any new constitution must be to unify our nation, not to divide.

The Government may well have forgotten that it was elected to carry out the wishes of the majority. We, the New Zealand people, must therefore insist upon any rewritten constitution being subjected to a binding referendum.

MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

Wanganui Chronicle 7/7/17

INDEPENDENCE DAY

On July 4, America celebrates its Independence Day as a founding nation, and yet in New Zealand, our independence day is never celebrated.

Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter dated November 16, 1840, was our true founding document.

This important document has been ignored. The day we should all celebrate as our Independence Day is May 3, when New Zealand became a British colony under one flag and one law.

It allowed New Zealand to break away from New South Wales and with the consent of the British Parliament to form its own British colony with its own governor and government to make its own laws based on English law under the watchful eye of the British Parliament.

The Royal Charter is completely ignored by the Government.

Te Papa and the Ministry of Justice do not even have a copy of our true founding document and first constitution.

IAN BROUGHAM, Tawhero

The Northern Advocate 6/7/17

RACISM CHALLENGE

In a recent challenge, Dame Susan Devoy, the Race Relations Commissioner, asks if I will take up the challenge to “Give nothing to racism”.

Yes, Dame Susan, I will! Here is part of my input:

(1) Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal. It is an anachronism and is purely racist!

(2) Do away with the Maori seats in Parliament. They were given temporarily to the Maori people to see how the system works. They have mastered it well. Of what use are they to the country apart from Maori?

(3) Acknowledge that the Patupaiarehe, Waitaha and Turehu were here long before Maori. The Patupaiarehe leader rose to speak to the Waitangi Tribunal and was told to shut up and sit down as she was extinct. What extreme arrogance! If it is good enough for our racist Government to pay up for the so-called "wrongs" that were committed against Maori ($2.6 billion, and counting!), they can "front up" to these people as well, what is left of them!

(4) Calling this country Aotearoa is racist in my view. It is New Zealand, and I am a New Zealander. If we decide to change the name, let us do it by a national referendum. If it is to be changed, then I will become an Aotearoan!

(5) Ask prospective migrants four questions 1. Do you believe in freedom of religion? 2. Do you believe in freedom from religion? 3. Do you believe in freedom of the individual? And, 4. Do believe in equal rights for women? A "No" to any one would ban their entry!

KEVAN G MARKS Kaipara

Northland Age 6/7/17

ANOTHER FLAG?

A disturbing threat to our nation ever becoming a true democracy was revealed by Anahera Herbert-Graves in her article entitled 'Legitimate expectation', (June 27).

Her 'legitimate expectation' seems to lie in creating a newly-written constitution based around the Treaty of Waitangi, thus legally entrenching a one country/two peoples racially-privileged system.

Apparently there is a group called Mat ike Mai o Aotearoa, which she describes as "the independent working group on constitutional transformation," whose aim is to infuse the Tiriti into existing legislation.

I would like to know the answers to the following questions: Do the people of New Zealand want a new constitution that includes the Treaty of Waitangi? And secondly, is this project being funded by taxpayers?

This could well turn out to be another John Key 'change the flag' manipulation, with millions being spent on a project that the majority do not really want I believe that one panel member's main claim to fame lies in her denial of the existence of reverse racism when she announced, "Maori can't be racist because they are not in a position of power."

Logic such as this hardly inspires hope for future generations when amendments to New Zealand's constitutional laws are at stake.

The validity of the 'official English' treaty wording is itself questionable, with modernist part-Maori translations assigning meanings to words that meant something completely different to the original Maori signatories. Sir Apirana Ngata's 'An explanation of the Treaty' translated the document as it was understood back then, and is at wild variance from today's extortionate power-sharing claims.

Even the name Aotearoa applied solely to the North Island of New Zealand, and the Maori language version that was signed referred to the tangata maori of Nu 'Tirani - not one mention of tangata whenua or Aotearoa.

The goal of any new constitution must be to unify our nation, not to divide.

The government may well have forgotten that it was elected to carry out the wishes of the majority. We, the New Zealand people, must therefore insist upon any rewritten constitution being subjected to a binding referendum.

MITCH MORGAN Kaipara

OUR HOLOCAUST

According to Anahera Herbert-Graves (July 4) life was good for maori before the founding of new zealand. She describes a vibrant political order grounded in whakapapa, which allowed people in every iwi and hapu to make their own decisions. This sounds like a settled and peaceful society.

The reality was the very opposite. Between 1800 and 1840 there were at least 633 battles - more than one every three weeks - with 35,400 killed. Tamihana Te Rauparaha reported that his father killed and ate helpless women and children after battle, and the death toll was certainly horrendous. Defeated survivors were enslaved or lived in fear for their lives, and large areas of the country, including the Auckland peninsula and northern Taranaki, were deserted

Here is the holocaust in our history. It should never be forgotten.

JOHN ROBINSON Waikanae

GENOCIDE

The report by the Waitangi Tribunal that there was a holocaust in Taranaki — it actually took place between 1830/34, when the Waikato came down from the north and completely annihilated the people of Taranaki — one-third were slaughtered, one-third taken to Waikato as slaves, with the remainder fleeing to Wellington.

When the Taranaki Maori fled from the Waikato invaders they inflicted almost indescribable cruelty on the Chatham Islanders, committing genocide on them.

The Moriori were laid out along the beach over a quarter of a mile, touching one another, parent and child, some of the women with stakes thrust into them were left to die in their misery (see Moriori, by Michael King, p64). Of the estimated 1700 Moriori at the time of the invasion only 101 survived the years of slavery and cannibalism that followed (see 1862 New Zealand Gazette, census, pp29-32).

IAN BROUGHAM Wanganui

Rotorua Review 5/7/17

DEMOCRACY STRIPPED

Democracy is – Government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Our present Government in NZ has stripped Democracy from us for presumably their own benefit and we should ask the question:

Are you passing Laws which will aid our Country or merely to enhance your chance of reelection? or Are you going into the history books as The Party who stripped democracy from its Country?

Sincerely, WALTER BATESON.

Wanganui Chronicle 5/7/17

MOUTOA MONUMENT

I can assure you, Dr Keenan (Chronicle Opinion, June 29), that I am not "excited" about the Moutoa Monument wording, nor was my article (June 22) aimed at demeaning Maori, as you imply. In fact, a careful reread would reveal the opposite.

My interest is the accuracy of our history, a very biased version of which was written by our colonial forebears but which under-went a necessary revision over the past generation by scholars such as James Belich. Unfortunately, we now seem to be undergoing a further revision, which could perhaps be termed the "cultural cringe" phase and which seems intent on sanitising the bits we're not comfortable with.

The extreme religious practices and post-battle activities of the Hauhau, which led to the monument's "fanaticism and barbarism" inscription, are well enough documented to not require repeating here.

My contention is that diluting the wording to suit our modern sensitivities is actually demeaning to the Hauhau and a denial of their culture. If they were here today they would, I am confident, insist on sticking to the original.

Personally, I wouldn't care to have come face to face with a Hauhau but should I meet, say, Titokowaru in the flesh today, I'm sure he'd be horrified at the idea of installing an "interpretation panel" on the monument "But Murray," he'd gasp in dismay, twirling his taiaha Te Porohanga (concussion utensil) menacingly. "We once were warriors!" "Sorry, Titoko, old chap," I'd reply. "I did my best, but the 21st century is a foreign country. We do things differently here."

MURRAY CRAWFORD Wanganui

Northern Advocate 3/7/17

VOTE CHANGER

The National Government goes back to the people on Saturday, September 23, to get a mandate to rule for a further three years.

I will vote for the party which will:

1. Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal. It has long since passed its use by date. It is now nothing but a racist sham, and is taking the taxpayers of this country to the cleaners.

2. Abolish the Maori seats in Parliament. Of what use are these bunch of racists to the rest of the people of New Zealand (sometimes called Aotearoa).

3. Teach the true history of New Zealand. If that means dumping the National and Labour parties, so be it! One party is as bad as the other when it comes to falsifying our true history. Let us be one people for a change!

4. Allow archaeologists and historians to explore sites that show interest. There are 105 embargoes and some 4000 other sites from Kaitaia to Bluff that might just reveal interesting information.

5. Make housing financially available for New Zealanders who want to own their own homes. What incentive is there for our young people to work hard for nothing? Let their rents become their future assets.

6. Recognise and pay out to the Patupaiarehe, Waitaha, and Turehu, who were the first peoples to come to this land.

Both Labour and National have passed their use-by dates. It is time for a change. This will do for starters.

KEVAN G. MARKS Kaipara

Northern Advocate 1/7/17

TRUTH REVEALED

I write this in support of Noel Hilliam and the brilliant research work he has achieved uncovering the truth of our ancient Patupaiarehe, Ngati Hotu existence when we have been written off by many as an extinct race genocided by later arrivals, the Maori.

We, the descendants of the first settlers to this land, have the right to decide what we want to see happen to those long gone and welcome the tireless research work done and being done by our scientists uncovering skeletons in the cupboard and bringing to light the truth and honest history of this country New Zealand.

Why should we sit back and take a back seat to these newcomers who call themselves the New Zealand Heritage Trust? I wonder if they would act with the same selfishness if the history was their own? I bet not.

Archaeologists who actually dig and make finds all over the world welcome research such as that conducted by scientists at the behest of Noel Hilliam but here in New Zealand such efforts are being treated with snobbery by the selfish few placing themselves above all others and for what? What has become of freedom speech?

Good luck to Noel and his achievements in bringing to light exactly what my people looked like, the DNA research, putting a face on the John Does of this far off land of ours, Aotearoa we now call New Zealand.

This wonderful gentleman deserves credit for what he has done and should be given all the assistance needed, along with many others who work with him, and, anyway, why are these objectors trying to cover up our true history, especially when so much has been destroyed deliberately.

To me the word "heritage" historically means the preservation of our customary right to let the world know that this country is rich in history of the ancient ones, the Patupaiarehe — the Turehu —the Utukehu of the ancient tribe Ngati Hotu whose migration began during the times of Queen Esther of the Bible. Their journeys, the places they went to and stayed, leaving behind evidence they were there, stretch from the Mediterranean to this beautiful land Aotearoa, New Zealand.

MONICA M. MATAMUA (NEE HAM) Taumaranui