Dear Editor (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 29/12/16)

....With regard to Moana Jackson's and Margaret Mutu's reply to my letter concerning their racially motivated attempts to hijack our nation's Constitution ( O.D.T 17/12 ), I would like to say that I am one of those weirdos who believes in the unity - the oneness of all humanity and that what that we share in common outshines our racial / cultural differences as the sun outshines a candle.

I further hold that only ignorance can believe otherwise.

However, ignorance is not entirely unheard-of in human affairs and too many New Zealanders are completely hood-winked by wall-to-wall anti-European / anti-colonial propaganda and "revisionist history".

Sadly and unnecessarily, some of these spell-bound folk make themselves enemies of those who would otherwise have no enemies.

Fake news and misinformation has long history and it did not start with the recent American election.

In the specific case of N.Z there is little to choose between the international Left's ongoing campaign to smear everything truly European and Christian, and N.Z's "politically correct" / radical Maori version, which does exactly the same. Between the two of them it is costing us our domestic civil society and the world its civilisation.

Thank God that many sensible Maori do not agree with this rubbish. If only they would publicly speak out ( like the brave ..... does ) then "wicked white men" like myself would be spared the task.

The "great injustices" allegedly inflicted upon Maori by the British colonials and settlers are malicious inventions. They never happened.

Even minor injustices were few and far between. All real historians know this, but to openly say so is not conducive to success in their ( and many other ) professions.

If I thought for a moment that Mr Jackson and Mrs Mutu have the slightest interest in truth, justice, and real N.Z history, or that our differing opinions were simply "misunderstandings", then I would leap at the chance to meet them. But as things are it would be a waste of time.

Here's a crazy thought - all those afflicted with the Jackson / Mutu syndrome could instantly alleviate their envy, hostility, and paranoia by simply owning their European genetic and spiritual / cultural heritage instead of ignoring it. Then they could delight in it..... even skite about it ....whatever ...... I won't hold my breath.

These days, university echo chambers are the natural habitat of anti-western "intellectuals" of every stripe, and the evidence suggests that what is "decided" therein bears little resemblance to reality.

It seems all too obvious that the part Maori extremists don't realise that it is only the politically correct, hard Left "Pakehas" who have lost their minds.

The rest of us ( wrongly side-lined as we admittedly are) know exactly what's going on.

C R

Dunedin

Dear Editor (Sent to the Rotorua Daily Post 27/12/16)

DEMEANING DEMOCRACY

John Pake (16 December) sees fit to take a pot shot at Dr.Reynold Mcpherson and hence Rotorua Democracy Group for daring to suggest they want the restoration to true democracy.

Now that's cute, isn't it particularly as Mr Pake then proceeds to illustrate his view of elasticity by lauding the Te Arawa/Rotorua Lakes District Council deal as demonstrating real democracy. Well the only reason for this dodgy deal was that when it became obvious to Council hierarchy it could not get racially based Maori Ward seats approved without facing a citizens referendum that would probably reject this try on by 80% (representing democratic voting) the pro-Maori Ward clan then surreptiously worked their way around what they saw as 'the public nuisance' and came up with the Arawa stratagem to avoid what they regarded as the irrelevant majority. Subsequently 2839 Arawa uri (descendants) being only 25% of eligible voters elected 14 tribal representatives!!!!

So that then is the background to Mr Pake’s shining example of democracy at work. Well he is living in fantasyland if he supports that scam and it reflects very poorly on his ability to recognise the real problem which is race based preferences.

R P

Matapihi

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 20/12/16)

I note in recent weeks that the Motiti Island residents have applied to the High Court to claim customary rights over the fishing area around the island. As the Astrolabe Reef is included in the claim, and the group making the claim have signed up with the owners and insurers of the Rena, there appears to be a monetary motivation behind the claim with a potentially substantial payout in the near future.

Now I see that a Maketu tribe have made an application under the Marine and Coastal Area for customary rights and marine title for an area around Maketu.

The sea is massive, surely there is enough space for all to fish without having special areas set aside for tribal activities? What will happen to the ordinary fisherman who also feeds his family from the sea?

Will there be a card-carrying tribal Pooh-bah patrolling the beaches to say "Sorry mate - you cannot fish here - it all belongs to me!"

It is sad that we cannot all simply all live as one people and all of us enjoy the benefits of living in a paradise surrounded by seas filled with abundant fishing for all!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 17/12/16)

In responding to Colin Rawle (ODT,17/12/16) Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu make the absurd claim “that the Treaty of Waitangi was not properly acknowledged in the current constitutional system”. Here’s why.

The Treaty was an agreement between the Queen and 500+ Maori chiefs by which they ceded sovereignty to her completely and for ever. Their recorded words leave no genuine doubt about that, whatever the Waitangi Tribunal may say. By Article third, all Maoris, slaves included, became fully-entitled British subjects – a magnificent and unprecedented privilege. Article second in guaranteeing the property rights of all, repeat all, the people of New Zealand, was redundant as British subjects had them anyway. Excepting a soon-redundant provision for land sales, that was all.

With this backing, in May 1840, Hobson proceeded reasonably to declare British sovereignty over all of New Zealand. The Treaty had then served its purpose and its proper place thenceforth was in our history.

The whole of the current “treaty industry” is a monstrous cancer upon our society and sadly Jackson and Mutu by their continual false claims are major contributors. In a single interview with the “Guardian Weekly” in 2007, Mutu stated eighteen perversions of the truth. That is these people’s kind of activity.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)

Nick Pak, (Times,15/12/16) is grossly wrong in claiming that Maoris are “indigenous”. There is plenty of evidence that there were people here when they arrived, as Ranginui Walker for one acknowledged, and the new arrivals exterminated most of them.

The so-called “Treaty in English” is a bogus document accidentally used for an overflow of signatures at Waikato Heads and nothing more. The real Treaty – in the Ngapuhi dialect – accurately expresses the meaning of Hobson’s final draft in English of 4th February that officialdom does not want us to know about. The chiefs ceded sovereignty absolutely and for ever as their recorded words at Waitangi and elsewhere make totally clear. The so-called ”partnership” is modern rubbish with no foundation in fact or the treaty and a constitutional impossibility, whatever Moana Jackson and our new Governor-General may imagine.

Nick Pak has a lot of revision to do before he understands what was agreed in the Treaty of Waitangi.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 15/12/16)

Nick Pak raises three thorny issues in letters 15/12/16, indigeneity, sovereignty and partnership.

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

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

I guess the criterion for people seeking special race-based privileges is 'having ancestors who arrived here first', therefore Sir Ed Hillary owned the top of Everest, the Americans own the moon, and the descendants of our early pioneers have more rights than recent fellow immigrants.

The Treaty of Waitangi was actually a cessation agreement in which the meaning in Article One of both the Maori and English texts is the same. The undeniable fact that the chiefs knew they were ceding full sovereignty is evidenced in their speeches prior to signing the Treaty.

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

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 13/12/16)

Your correspondent Lynlee Aitcheson-Johnson writes about the Maori Party and I respond by asking the question - what is a Maori?

I don't accept the old adage that if you feel Maori then you are Maori - that is hyperbolic nonsense!

Marama Fox, Leader of the Maori Party, has a European father and a part-Maori mother.

Likewise Peter Russell Sharples aka Pita Sharples, whose father is an Englishman.

Margaret Mutu from Northland, has a Scottish mother and a part-Maori father and the Irishman Stephen Gerard O'Regan who now prefers to be known as Tipene.

With these blood-quantum ratios, all these people must be about 75% European. In Hawaii, you must prove you have 50% of Hawaiian blood to qualify as Hawaiian, not so here in Godzone it seems!

Why does the Maori Party even exist with its separatist and divisive policies?

The definition of democracy is that we should all be treated exactly the same under the law regarding race, gender and religion.

Certainly keep and be proud of the Maori culture, but the very existence of the racial Maori Party is undemocratic in itself.

Surely we should all come under the same umbrella of law simply as New Zealanders!

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 31/10/16)

Our Governments have been hiding the truth of the great New Zealand Genocide that archeologists have bulldozed, smashed and destroyed precious historical artefacts, buildings and burial sights to wipe out all rememberance of the Celts, Patupairehe, Waitaha and other ancient peoples. Reports on such remains have been locked away.

One demographist was ordered to rewrite a report to tell lies about the alleged 19th century decline in Maori population.

All this was done to wrongly validate both the crown’s own seizure of large swathes of New Zealand and the bloody land grabs of the big chiefs who murdered their smaller tribal counterparts, exterminated all but a handful of the ancient’s and blame European settlers for the carnage they carried out themselves.

If you don’t believe that the government hid the truth from the public on this matter, distort the facts and bend scientific reports to say the opposite of what really happened, then read John Robinson’s book, ‘The corruption of New Zealand Democracy” This book exposes how the state will lie to deceive the public into believing the Maori grievance gravy train is justified.

Dr Robinson has confessed that, to his shame, he gave in to his state agency clients to doctor his findings on the cause of Maori 19th century depopulation to fit the Government ‘s politically-correct pro-Maori, anti-Pakeha, Brit bashing myth’

Dr Robinson has Master of Science degrees in mathematics and physics and is an interdisciplinary research scientist who has written reports for the DSIR, OECD, UNESCO, UNEP and UNU. When he worked for the New Zealand Government he was asked to lie about his findings.

And we talk about American’s government been corrupt.

Ian Brougham

Wanganui

Dear Editor (Sent to the Nelson Mail 21/11/16)

For nonsense read Gary Clover’s claims, (Mail, 19/11/16): ”In 1840, protectorate-like, British rule and law were to apply only to enclaves of European settlements” and “the Treaty's ‘partnership’ arises from verbal guarantees Hobson gave chiefs during their Treaty discussions, and the Maori text's first two Articles”.

The Treaty itself, accurately translated by the Williams from Hobson’s final draft of 4th February, says “The chiefs ... cede to the Queen of England for ever the entire Sovreignty of their country.” Hobson’s words were “[as] the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions, her efforts to do you good will be futile unless you consent”. It was to be all or nothing and it is clear from the recorded words of the chiefs on 5th February 1840 that they understood this.

Simon Powers’ claim of "a revolutionary seizure of power" is more nonsense. Colonial office instructions to Hobson stated clearly that negotiations were to be open and fair. Clover’s claim that they “shafted” the chiefs? Yet more nonsense.

Don Brash and Bruce Moon have summed up accurately the essence of the Treaty. The Chiefs ceded sovereignty completely and for ever and all Maoris (including, we add, slaves held under brutal conditions by other Maoris) became fully-entitled British subjects. As Rev. John Warren summed it up: "the chiefs ”justly thought they had done a pretty good stroke of business”.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Nelson Mail 20/11/16)

Opportunity lost by RMA bill’s iwi clauses

Environment Minister Nick Smith’s energetic defence in his response on Friday of proposed iwi participation clauses shows his sensitivity about a grubby little deal between the National Party and the Maori Party over Resource Management Act reforms.

Six of the 11 “benefits” he cited in his defence of his bungled attempt to improve the Act were to do with the iwi clauses.

He did not say that detailed submissions presented at the select committee stage are being ignored.

He did not say that iwi clauses were included as part of a deal with the separatist Maori Party to get his “reforms” through Parliament.

He did not say that the non-separatist NZ First party had repeatedly offered 12 votes to get significant reforms passed without the special deal for iwi.

The John Key led Government stubbornly rejected NZ First offers, chose iwi over Kiwi, and continued to push through changes that add another tier of consultation, bureaucracy, and cost which reforms tried to reduce.

Nick Smith has delivered a packaged in which red tape, cost, and delay would increase.

Pig-headed politics has triumphed over common sense and an opportunity to bring benefits to everyone has been lost.

MIKE BUTLER

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Nelson Mail 19/11/16)

Nick Smith has stated (Mail,18/11/16): ”Our majority rule Parliament was used in the nineteenth century to unfairly confiscate Maori land.” Somebody must have brainwashed him.

With unrest amongst some tribes in the early colonial period, fair warning was given that rebellion would lead to land confiscation. This accorded with well-understood ‘tikanga’ or Maori custom. Some did rebel and when their rebellions were subdued, land was duly confiscated, to pay a cash-strapped government in part for the considerable cost of doing so.

Of New Zealand’s 26.8 million hectares, only 1.2 million were confiscated, about half being returned not long afterwards. Today about 1.5 million hectares remain under traditional native title while Ngati Tuwharetoa gave Tongariro National Park to the nation – though the corrupt Waitangi Tribunal twisted the meaning of words to deny this.

The balance, about 24 million hectares or 90%, was bought fairly by successive governments, in some cases the same land two or three times from different claimants to ownership, particularly in Taranaki. Nevertheless, Nick’s ill-informed Government has just made large payments to former rebel Taranaki tribal interests with an official apology and foisted upon us a false story of “Land Wars” which now we are expected to commemorate.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (An older letter sent to the North & South)

They just keep coming ~ the challenges, the provocations, the moral / ethical tests .

Nor will they ever cease until New Zealanders of all races rise up to meet them.

The latest display of theatrical brinkmanship from part-Maori supremacists is their pretended belief, ( fully supported by their "liberal" white comrades ), that they own our country's God-given water ~ and presumably the very sky, the clouds, and the blessed rain which gifts it.

It's long past time that these self-serving tribal theatrics were treated as such, i.e. given a little polite applause and dismissed.

In a sane society this nonsense would have been nipped in the bud years ago, for it's no longer merely about greed and money ; nowadays it's about political power. "Maori Sovereignty" means exactly what it says.

New Zealanders, including sensible Maori, need to drag their eyes away from the rugby field and other distractions and attend to real matters.

This is especially true of the descendants of the dauntless European settlers who civilised this country, otherwise their future, their children's future, and their country ( i.e. their real Treaty of Waitangi rights ), are likely to be taken from them.

The mentality of those driving these vexatious treaty claims and those who take then seriously, goes far beyond ordinary human avarice and ignorance. It is plain madness and can have no good ending.

However, a glimmer of hope lies in the old proverb : "Give 'em enough rope.....etc."

"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad".

Greek proverb.

C R.

Dunedin

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 13/11/16)

The so-called “English version” in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 is basically the discarded draft penned by Busby 3rd Feb 1840. On the 8th this discarded draft was rejuvenated by James Freeman in what he saw as suitably elegant language and despatched to Governor Gipps in Sydney. Freeman made several similar but not identical copies which he sent overseas. One with Hobson’s feeble post-stroke signature was rejected and somehow found it’s way to Port Waikato where it was used as an overflow for 39 Chiefs' signatures and appended to a printed copy of the Treaty in Maori with the signatures of the first five chiefs.

This miserable piece of paper is now officially on an equal footing with the only true Treaty which Hobson himself made clear – that actually signed at Waitangi on 6th February 1840.

Claudia Orange, regarded by many as an authority, had simply no idea about all this, speculating wildly about the signed printed sheet. A couple of examples from her highly controversial book “The Treaty of Waitangi” disqualify it as a “valid reference”.

Page 7 reads that Maoris were "a complex people who had lived in New Zealand for more than a thousand years" , when modern scholarship puts the first arrival of the "fleet Maoris" at 1350 – maybe 660 years ago, not much more than half of Orange's wild claim. Page 9 refers to the "1772 massacre of 250 northern Maori when the French retaliated for the slaying of Marion du Fresne". A couple of hundred Frenchmen defending themselves and their hospital against 1500 warriors bent on their slaughter is evidently a "massacre" in Orange's eyes. The killing and eating of du Fresne and his unarmed boat's crew would be more like a massacre to most people.

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 13/11/16)

Chiefs sold what they owned

If Peter Dey wants to argue treaty issues he should be accurate, and in his letter on Saturday he only quotes the first half of article 2, the part that confirms that chiefs and tribes own what they own.

He does not quote the second part of that sentence which says “but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the individual Chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective Proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf”.

In fact, chiefs and tribes were happy to sell most of what they owned, as agreed in Article 2.

New Zealand has 26.8-million hectares of land. Around 1.2-million hectares were confiscated during the 1860s wars, much of which was returned at the time.

Currently, approximately 1.47 million hectares remain as Maori land, which includes customary land. Therefore, successive governments bought 24.13-million hectares.

Peter Dey should know that once property is sold, the property right is transferred to the new owner.

The “race-based property right” which “still applies”, as Peter Dey writes, was actually transferred to the new owners at the time of sale.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 12/11/16)

Peter Dey is wrong to claim that "Governor Hobson authorised both the English and Maori versions of the Treaty as official documents."

He ignores the facts of the final English draft now known as The Littlewood Treaty, missing since 1840, but discovered in 1989 in the home of solicitor Henry Littlewood.

Claudia Orange referred to this as "this could be the one that was never located".

NZ's leading handwriting expert Dr. Parkinson of the National Archives proved the handwriting was that of James Busby and the paper was proven to be from Police Magistrate James Clendon's private stock of paper.

Ngapuhi elder, Graham Rankin said "the official English text on the treaty being used today is radically different from the Maori version in both wording and meaning, but the Littlewood treaty wording is exactly the same as the Maori version.

Hobson's secretary James Freeman sent one of his bogus versions, with no chief's signatures to Sydney, by the ship Samuel Winter a few days later, which informed the Governor of the general terms of the content of the Treaty of Waitangi - but it had no official status whatever!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Nelson Mail 9/11/16)

I am aware that many of our waterways are polluted, but there must be something really toxic in the Richmond water because correspondent Gary Clover seems demented (8/11/16).

Firstly, taxation (read rates) does give people like him representation.... as New Zealand citizens, not as some breakaway ethnic group.

Secondly, there is nothing in the wording of the Maori language treaty, that was signed by Hobson and approx 500 chiefs, that guarantees tribes any special representation in either local or central governance, neither is there even a hint of a Crown – Maori partnership in the same treaty.

Special race-based representation (appointments or Maori wards) not only undermines our tested democratic system, it is also racial separatism, which Gary obviously supports.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Whangarei

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 5/11/16)

Your correspondent M. Leabourn comments that Maori need race-based policies because current policies do not work for them and blames colonisation for their problems.

Colonisation gave Maori a future! It gave them better housing, food, medicine, clothing, hygiene and transport. Would he prefer to return to the bad old days of lawless tribal infighting where his people were in danger of becoming extinct.

Maori author Alan Duff countered the absurd claims of a recent comment on the supposed evils of colonisation by saying - "In 1823, Hongi Hika came down from the Far North and smashed my Te Arawa people, who had fled to Mokoia Island. Hongi and his warriors feasted on my ancestors' cooked bodies for six days; they took back an estimated thousand captives as slaves. Sounds like worse "cultural devastation" than being colonised."

Perhaps the sobering fact that education is the key to a successful life and that recent statistics show that up to 60% of Maori children are denied this opportunity as many do not attend school regularly, thus minimising their chances of future employment.

Could it be that Maori have selective hearing in that they have the answer to their own problems but fail to heed the obvious - a successful life begins with a successful education and that is freely available to all of us in New Zealand!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 26/10/16)

"Re- “Hapu eye service station property” (BOP Times Wednesday 26th).

Hapu are not offering to put up any money for the Mobil site but rather want it for nothing. They want $150,000pa of ratepayer income gifted to them.

Council land is private land and is not part of Treaty settlements. Treaty settlements include compensation for private land that cannot be part of the settlement process to so give Tangata Whenua the ability to buy private land they may desire in the marketplace.

Ratepayers also need to be aware that there is another offer on the Mobil site for considerably more than the Hapu's suggested value, in fact, for more than the Assessed Value. It is cash upfront and subject only to approval of title and town planning requirements, and with the purchaser paying their own legal costs.

It is not the role of Council to short-change ratepayers to appease Tangata Whenua demands. Clearly with competitive interest in this property, if Council do wish to sell it, then it should be put up for public auction, and may the best buyer win.

R P

Welcome Bay

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 25/10/16)

Betty Knight (25/10/16) appreciated your editorial about a tribal rebellion, wrongly called a “civil war” by you, but has picked up false ideas about Parihaka. It was the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands who chose non-violent resistance to invading Taranaki tribes and were butchered and eaten in response. With Te Whiti learning the story from returning tribesmen, he chose pacifism as a facade for his cult. There was no resistance at Parihaka in 1881 because sufficient Government forces were marshalled to render it obviously futile. That this influenced Gandhi is speculation.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Taranaki Daily News 25/10/16)

Dennis Ngawhare (24/10/16) bemoans 800 words to get his pro-Maori propaganda out, unfortunately this privilege is not available to those that wish to counter.

That Taranaki was almost deserted is verified online "Further Papers Relative to the Native Insurrection, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1861 Session, " by Charles Heaphy. “Taranaki that before the regular settlement of the country by the British, it had for several years been almost deserted by the Natives. ... “The Waikato conquered it in 1830 ... “A miserable remnant of about 30 or 40 Natives of the Ngatiawa lived at Ngamotu point in 1839. Futhermore Hobson’s emissaries were unable to find a chief of sufficient rank to sign the Treaty in Taranaki.

Ngwhare resorts to a moral equivalence argument by comparing outside conflicts with tribal maori wars. This bogus tactic is often used by marxists to suggest that two unrelated wrongs make a "right," or at least cancel one another out. Pukerangiora was just one example of Maori savagery, the Taranaki tribes slaughter in the Chatham Islands was even worse, as was the massacre and cannibalism at Auckland and Waikato by Ngapuhi.

That Taranaki tribal peace has stood unbroken since 1834 is credit to the British law system not tribal goodwill.

If Ngawhare’s flippant quote "At the end of the day history is only a viewpoint" is accepted then history becomes rumour, gossip and hearsay and ceases to be a worthwhile subject of study. NZ taxpayers will be chuffed to know that they have handed elite maori $millions in settlements based on someone’s viewpoint.

​GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

Dear Sir, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 19/10/16

In his non-reply to my letter ( O.D.T, 13/10 ) the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Mr Christopher Finlayson clearly couldn't be bothered addressing the serious concerns of a mere "man in the street" so instead went to the default position of political side-stepping.

I had simply pointed out ( to anyone who cares ), that appointing part-Maori to positions of social power and influence purely on the basis of their race and without public voting is racial discrimination, undemocratic, and illegal. Anyone not spell-bound by political correctness knows this. The minister's smoke-and-mirrors "explanation" may be acceptable in political circles, but not in real life.

He then tries to justify the unjustifiable by saying that unelected and racially discriminatory tribal appointments to committees of the Taranaki Regional Council ( now rapidly becoming common practice everywhere in New Zealand ), was provided for in the Taranaki treaty settlement. He states this as if he and his "advisors" had nothing to do with the said provisions of the settlement. ( "settlement", now there's a misused word ! ).

Are we to assume that the origin of these socially lethal "provisions" are to be found in some overlooked clause in the Ten Commandments?

He continues digging by saying that : "Iwi [he means "tribes"] will be able to contribute to decisions about their region through these arrangements".

Here he completely ignores the fact that by means of democracy, Maori, just like everyone else, have always been able, and always have done precisely this ; ( to an excess, some might say ).

The minister concludes his anti democratic / pro tribal smoke screen by asserting that Maori are "key stakeholders" ( more "key" than non Maori apparently ), and that their unelected appointment to positions of political power is "not a new concept". With this he abandons all logic because to appoint individuals on the basis of their race in a ( supposed ) modern democracy, is an extremely new concept !

To compare this with the perfectly legitimate practice of political bodies to appoint people not upon the basis their race but upon the basis of their specific individual qualifications and skills as advisors or consultants, is to draw a parallel where there is none.

Notwithstanding Left-wing political correctness, being born Maori is not a skill.

C R

Dunedin

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Taranaki Daily News 15/10/16)

Tracy Milham’s message of peace (Daily News, 12/10/16) may do good but should not be based on a false story about Parihaka which was not a haven of peace, but the centre of a nasty cult.

Te Whiti when young attended the Lutheran mission. Later he was “ordained” a priest of Pai Marire, the Hau Hau religion and took part in the Hau Hau attack on Sentry Hill.

In 1835, Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga invaded the Chatham Islands. From Wikipedia: "the tribes took part in a slaughter of about 300 Moriori, raping many women, enslaving the survivors, and destroying the Moriori economy and way of life. Some returned home to Taranaki." The Moriori were deeply committed pacifists, the men wearing symbolic tufts of albatross down.

Te W'iti and Tohu, lads when tribesmen returned, would have heard their tales of conquest. Later they adopted albatross feather symbols and a facade of pacifism. Co-incidence?

Occupants of Parihaka, illegally built on government land, disrupted road-building and surveying, amassed firearms and cash, sheltered Hiroki, wanted for murder and treated government officials with contempt. As a son-in-law of Tohu said later, Te Whiti and Tohu “were master word-painters who succeeded well in deceiving their listeners”.

When Government forces occupied Parihaka, Bryce’s presentation of overwhelming force made resistance futile so he succeeded with no loss of life. He, not the alleged pacifists, deserves the credit for that.

PRESENT activities at Parihaka may be pacifist but they rest on a flawed base.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 16/10/16)

In reply to your correspondent Tehuia Bill Hamilton and his assertion that 92% of land was stolen from Maori - perhaps he is not aware of the true facts of the situation?

Our country has approximately 66 million acres and land confiscated from Maori was about 3 million acres - but by 1873 almost a third had been given back to them.

Since then much more has been returned and the small amount confiscated has been more than paid for in multi-million dollar treaty settlements.

The truth is that land-owner Maori sold their land, with great gusto, often several times over, and these are recorded in Turton's Deeds, posted for anyone to access, on the Victoria University website.

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Sunday Star Times 11/10/16)

I thought the photo of Moana Maniapoto as The Face in your Sunday edition was stunning. On reading the article about her I was disappointed to note that she only lists her tribal affiliations.

A few years ago I was doing some online family history and came across her name on a website of descendents of William the Conqueror. Being curious I followed it back through her British ancestry and was very impressed by the extremely aristocratic line from which she is descended, which includes viscounts, earls, barons, and early English royalty.

She is a product of the best of Maori and European heritage and I hope she will in future acknowledge exactly who she is.

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Listener 9/10/16)

Shame on Bill Ralston for equating Don Brash and "Hobson's Pledge"with the Ku Klux Klan.

Brash wants equal rights for all races. The Ku Klux Klan do not - just like the Maori Party.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 4/10/16)

Your correspondent Glenys Daley Bop Times 4/10/16 does not need the words of Don Brash The Treaty of Waitangi or Hobson who drafted it to understand what it was about

She just needs to read the words of the Maori chiefs who signed it to know that they fully understood the concept of the Queens sovereignty over them

The Maori of the time became British subjects hence Hobsons statement " He iwi tahi tatou" A massive gift to them

This understanding was repeated by the Chiefs at the 1860 Kohimarama conference 20 years later as evidenced by their statements then

All this was of course before the revisionist history that she believes in and so beloved of separatists

G F

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 3/10/16)

The letters to the editor today were genuinely warm and sincere with both Bonnie Leonard and Isabel Ashmore in unison on the efforts of Don Brash to combat the rising separatism and to hopefully make us all the one people we should be. However on the opposite page was Tommy Wilson throwing cold water on any attempt at unity. Tommy, there are so many separate agencies set up especially for Maori and I do wonder why we are not all under the same umbrella as simply New Zealanders. The housing shortage should not be race-specific, neither should health, education, council and government seats, sports teams, statutory boards, advisory committees, and a host of others. Don Brash's team includes several high profile Maori, and I applaud their efforts to unite us all as simply New Zealanders.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Sir, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 2/10/16)

Exactly when the programme to undermine democracy in N.Z was first spawned is unclear. However, in recent years, the Attorney General and Minister of Treaty Of Waitangi Negotiations, Mr. Christopher Finlayson M.P. has, ( wittingly or unwittingly ) been an important instrument in its spectacular progress.

Mr Finlayson's hand in the Taranaki Tribes Settlement Bill is obvious. It's right there in the clause which hands political power over to the tribes by giving them six decision making roles on the local authority, purely on the basis of their race ~ and without public voting.

If Mr Finlayson thinks that it is democratically acceptable to arbitrarily impose racially selected appointments then he believes in racial discrimination ( which is both undemocratic and illegal ) and furthermore he either misunderstands democracy or disagrees with it.

Any of these cases disqualifies him from any kind of political position in a ( supposed ) democracy.

He should resign immediately and seek some other line of work. MacDonald's springs to mind.

C R.

Dunedin

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 28/9/16)

Alex Smith, (Dominion Post, 28/9/16) is a very deluded man. Talk of a “Treaty partner” is nonsense. There is no such thing. Neither is there a ”role of Te Tiriti in Aotearoa” to hold close to his heart nor any “Treaty relationship” and its “mana” is a modern invention. The Treaty of Waitangi did not mention ”Aotearoa” nor fisheries – that idea is more modern pretence.

By the treaty, the chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Queen, all Maoris became British subjects with the same rights as others and the property rights of all New Zealanders were affirmed. That is all. It was a done deal in 1840, soon superseded by other constitutional developments and it is high time to put it back there to stay. Smith’s claim that “we need a framework for creating marine protected areas that places Maori and Te Tiriti at its heart” is yet another delusion. We need a hole in the head rather more.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 26/9/16)

The local body elections are the event of the moment and the important issue for me on the BOP Regional Council is the freshwater issue.

Two years ago, Maori demanded that the government give control of the country's freshwater to them - within a year.

The government have handed over the decision to regional councils and unitary authorities.

The tribes want, amongst other demands, a guaranteed free allocation and infrastructure of freshwater to all marae and marae housing, and a $1 billion fund of public money to allow their capacity to implement management and control.

I have asked each candidate standing for the Regional Council for their stance on this issue and have now chosen my candidates from those who will stand against this race-based hi-jack.

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

We should all simply be Kiwis with the same rights and the subject of water allocation should not even see the light of day.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 19/9/16)

Maori academic Moana Jackson would like the truth to be presented when commemorating the 19th century wars.

I agree with him - but who will check that those who present this history, do so truthfully?

The Battle of Rangiowhia in 1864 is just one incident of re-written history featured in a recent blog for a Waikato tribe.

It mischievously states that "a massacre of innocents took place when Maori took refuge from the fighting in St Paul's Church. This was surrounded by British troops who set the church alight and 144 people, mostly women and children, were burned alive."

The church is still standing and it is very possible that the blogger has also been misled by this deliberately wilful propaganda.

Maori, loyal to the government, should also be honoured for their assistance in defeating the Kingitanga rebels, being pivotal in bringing a swifter end to the war in the Waikato.

Also the many thousands of Maori who perished in the inter-tribal slaughter of the Musket Wars.

There are multiple layers to the proposed commemoration to acknowledge the uprisings that took place in the shaping of our country.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 12/9/16)

Whoever said : "Assets offer opportunities - Beginning with the allocation of fisheries quotas in 1992-93, the Waitangi Tribunal treaty-settlement process has started to redress some of the harm caused by the confiscation of Maori land by the Crown."

In the first place the facts about land are that around 90% was sold by eager Maori sellers, sometimes twice over or more by different claimants.

Second, around a mere 3% was confiscated from rebel tribes to compensate for the harm cause by their rebellions. They had been warned in advance about this, an old Maori custom (tikanga) which all would have understood. Much was returned to them to ensure that they had sufficient to live on. So claims about loss of land are entirely spurious.

Third, there is nothing, simply nothing, in the Treaty of Waitangi entitling any Maori to more fishing rights than anybody else. The whole thing, including alleged rights in the Kermadecs is a gigantic scam based on the wording in Freeman's bogus treaty in English which he wrote in pompous prose to send overseas. By a freak of fate, one copy which found its way to Waikato Heads was employed as the second sheet of the agreement signed there whose terms were stated in Maori on the first sheet. This gave it no validity whatever.

Fourth, Waitangi Tribunal pronouncements are invariably in favour of claimants whose claims are frequently false. Our weak governments comply. The huge Ngai Tahu claim is one glaring example. The current claim by Ngapuhi that they never ceded sovereignty is yet another.

If the rest of us go along meekly with all this and do not wake up to these successive swindles then what great fools we are.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Herald 9/9/16)

The article by Tuku Morgan this morning begins by stating that at the time of Captain Cook's arrival, Maori controlled all 66 million acres of our country and now they own just three million acres.

Yes Mr. Morgan, there were confiscations to punish tribal rebellions and to compensate settlers for property which was destroyed - but these were only 4.5% of the land mass, and much was returned to the tribes by the 1870's.

What he does not add is that land-owner Maori sold their land, with much gusto, to the coloniser - often several times over.

These sales are recorded in Turton's Deeds kept at Victoria University and are easily googled at the New Zealand Electronic Centre of the university's website.

That is the true reason that Maori now own just three million acres - minimal land was taken in compensation, much of it was returned, and the rest of it was sold!

In spite of these facts, millions of dollars of taxpayers money are still being given to tribes in treaty settlements.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Nelson Mail 5/9/16

The “shared sovereignty” called for by the Maori ‘king’, Tuheitia, (Nelson Mail, August 22) was a central policy of the kingite movement in their rebellion against the Crown. They lost a great deal by that claim; after they were defeated, many generous Government offers were turned down with a refusal to recognise that the Queen’s sovereignty extended over everyone.

It was only in 1953 that Koroki recognised that this was one country when he wrote to Queen Elizabeth II, with the following clear words. “In handing over this Address of Fealty, I also tender words of Faith, Hope and Love. And in appending my name to it I also subscribe an Oath of True Allegiance in peace to the Crown.”

Tuheitia now refutes the words of Koroki. The return to the claims of the past foolishly threatens to rekindle the conflict of that time.

John Robinson

Wellington

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 1/9/16)

The proposed commemoration of the New Zealand wars will lead to more awareness of our history - and therein could possibly lie a problem.

Who will check that those who present this history, do so truthfully?

The Battle of Rangiowhia in 1864 is just one incident of re-written history featured in a recent blog for a Waikato tribe.

It mischievously states that "a massacre of innocents took place when Maori took refuge from the fighting in St Paul's Church. This was surrounded by British troops who set the church alight and 144 people, mostly women and children, were burned alive."

The church is still standing and it is very possible that the blogger has been misled by this deliberately wilful propaganda.

Maori, loyal to the goverment, should also be honoured for their assistance in defeating the Kingitanga rebels, being pivotal in bringing a swifter end to the Waikato war.

Also the many thousands of Maori who perished in the inter-tribal slaughter of the Musket Wars.

There are multiple layers to the proposed commemoration to acknowledge the many wars that took place in the shaping of our country.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 31/8/16)

The proposed commemoration of the New Zealand wars will lead to more awareness of our history - and therein could possibly lie a problem.

Who will check that those who present this history, do so truthfully?

The Battle of Rangiowhia in 1864 is just one incident of re-written history featured in a recent blog for a Waikato tribe.

It mischievously states that "a massacre of innocents took place when Maori took refuge from the fighting in St Paul's Church. This was surrounded by British troops who set the church alight and 144 people, mostly women and children, were burned alive."

The church is still standing and it is very possible that the blogger has been misled by this deliberately wilful propaganda.

Maori, loyal to the goverment, should also be honoured for their assistance in defeating the Kingitanga rebels, being pivotal in bringing a swifter end to the Waikato war.

Also the many thousands of Maori who perished in the inter-tribal slaughter of the Musket Wars.

There are multiple layers to the proposed commemoration to acknowledge the many wars that took place in the shaping of our country.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to Bay of Plenty Times & NZ Herald 23/8/16

So a National day commemorating the New Zealand Wars is being proposed. What I find absolutely unbelievable is that the Government is consulting only with Iwi. Roughly one third of the casualties in these Wars were British troops or constabulary. Are their descendants not to be consulted, are their views not be considered.

Who is going to write the history? Maori? If so, are we going to have to accept some of the outrageous claims by so called Maori historians such as, a massacre at the Battle of Rangiaowhia that never happened, and that the warmongering chief Rawiri Puhirake was defending his land rather than just wanting to pick a fight.

The unease is this will be a re-write of history and used to create new grievances which will need to be assuaged with more taxpayer money. This is evidenced by Maori wanting to call them the Land Wars rather than the New Zealand Wars.

I am not totally against the idea but without buy-in from the Pakeha population it will be seen, like Waitangi Day, as little more than a day of ugliness and division.

R P

Welcome Bay

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 23/8/16)

The recently appointed Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft says he will not use the English name of the newly announced "Ministry for Vulnerable Children" ( B O P Times 19th Aug) but will use only the Maori name Oranga Tamariki. Judge Becroft says "Oranga Tamariki" it is a much better version than that of the English name. He unfortunately claims us New Zealanders fail to recognize that we have three official languages in New Zealand.

Our learned judge should know better and that New Zealand has only two official languages Maori and Sign language and English is not official but used by ninety six percent of the people.

His intention not to follow the name “Ministry For Vulnerable Children” as decided by the government makes himself also vulnerable. His energies should be directed and focused on our children at risk within our society. The public has been led to believe that the New Zealand’s Government track record looking after our vulnerable children leaves a lot to be desired.

Again the desire of the government wants to get it right with the children and Judge Becroft focus more on name change indicates he may not be the right person for the position.

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 22/10/16)

Daniel Harding, in his 'forthright' reply to Ian Brougham, (Chronicle, 18/8/16) suffers many delusions.

Pre-European Maoris had no written language so that the 'correct spelling' of anything was meaningless.

Second, Europeans spelled words as they heard them, the missionaries taking particular care. Thus we have 'wenua' for 'land' in the Treaty of Waitangi not 'whenua', and 'February' transliterated as 'Pepueri". One only has to look at the treaty to see that. Clearly there was no 'wh' as in 'when' nor 'f' as in February in the Ngapuhi dialect.

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

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

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

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZ Herald 22/8/16)

"For a suitable date for the commemoration of the New Zealand Wars, may I suggest, using the Treaty of Waitangi spelling of the month, the date of 30th Pepueri"

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Herald 19/8/16)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Therefore to correct this oversight I am running a petition to legislate the English language into law - as it should be! Anyone wanting to sign this petition can contact me on petition@inbox.com

I am surprised that a person of the Commissioner/Judge's standing and credentials did not know this fact.

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Herald 16/8/16)

Nowhere does the Treaty of Waitangi mention "tangata whenua" and in 1840, "taonga" meant blankets and cooking pots, not our beautful kereru. So a claim that anybody is entitled to "harvest" them (Herald, 16/8/16) is a blatant falsehood. I weep for these beautiful and innocent birds.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 16/6/16)

I see our government is going to pay the desendants of the Chatham Islands Moriori over the massacre (holocaust) by the Taranaki. Maoris, Why are we going to pay for it, that should be paid out to the Moriori by the Taranakis who did the slaughtering.

The Maori regarded the Moriori dialect as a debased form of their own language spoken by idiots and they forbade its use.

The Moriori offered Maori peace and friendship and an opportunity to share the resources in partnership.

While the Moriori were having a meeting the Maoris held a council of their own. They were expecting the Moriori to return from their meeting preparing to fight when the Moriori returned from their meeting before they were able to deliver their proposals for peace and partnership the Maoris attack them and the Morioris were taken as prisoners, the women and children were bound and many of them together with the men were killed and eaten.

A lot of men, women, and children were laid out on the beach in length over a quarter of a mile touching one another. Some of the women with stakes thrust into them and were left to die in their misery. Morioris heads were removed and thrown to the dogs, the virile membrane (penis) having been cut off, was thrown to the women to eat, this happened about 1836.

This is why the Taranaki Maoris should pay for it and give the Moriori a public apology for the (holocaust) they caused on a peaceful loving people who were against fighting.

I B

Wanganui

The Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 31/7/16)

I read Leone Pihama's litany of excuses and vindictive accusations ( Waikato Times, date ? ) with the old familiar feeling of deep anger and even deeper despair.

I know how fruitless it would be to counter her nonsense with a whole world of truths and historical facts. They would bounce straight off the hide-bound prejudices which were first instilled into her with her mothers milk.

However there is one thing that she and all of her ilk should seriously consider, and it is this : ~ Every person who habitually blames others for their self-inflicted problems takes the resolution of those problems completely out of their own hands.

Frankly, I believe that this is precisely their intention - so that the may live perpetually in a helpless state of finger-pointing resentment.

C R.

Dunedin

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 26/7/16)

The ‘real war’ Rod Rattenbury refers to (Letters15/7/16) was in fact a series of skirmishes where between 1843 and 1869 approx 2,900 lives were lost, 2,154 rebelling Maoris and 745 government troops, colonists and loyal Maori. This could hardly be labelled ‘war’?

Compare this with the musket wars 1807 – 1845 (Maori against Maori) where approx 50,000 Maori lost their lives. In Auckland alone in just one battle approx 2,000 were slaughtered.

Rod is correct in saying “most of us do not know what happened in the 1860s”, could this be because a twisted and sanitised version of history is being taught in our schools with pakeha ‘baddies’, Maori ‘goodies’?

It is today’s indigenous pretenders that should be feeling shame, their ancestors committed atrocities against innocents, we do not hear to much about these?: The killing of twelve helpless captives at Wairau in 1843. Six members of the Gilfillan family were tomahawked to death 1847. Maori magistrate Rawiri Waiaka, his brother Paora and three family members were murdered in 1854. The killing at Te Ahuahu, Taranaki of Captain Lloyd and seven others by Hau Hau 1864. Völkner was hanged near his church, Te Whakatōhea in 1865. Three Government agents sent to investigate Volkner's murder were also murdered in 1865 by the hauhaus. The Matawhero massacre of about 70 sleeping settler and Maori families (men, wives and children) in 1868. The bayonetting of the Lavin children and slaughter of their parents and two other Europeans at Mohaka by Hau Hau in 1869, about 40 Maori were also slaughtered in the same raid. A Ngati Maniopoto gang murdered the Rev. John Whiteley at Pukearuhe in northern Taranaki February 1869, they also murdered Bamber Gascoygne, his wife and children and two unarmed men.

Parihaka incident was about reclaiming of government land from a Maori cult that had squatted on it for 14 years. They were repeatedly asked to move and warned of the consequences if they stayed. No lives were lost in the reclaiming, only one small boys foot got accidentally trod on by a horse. Later 250 arms and a variety of ammunition were found in this republic of peace, which had harboured known criminals. During their occupation these pillars of society ploughed up settlers fields, stole horses, pulled down stockyards, and harassed shopkeepers. Enough said.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

The Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 16/7/16)

It is disturbing to see so many well-meaning but deluded people advocating the compulsory learning of Maori language in our schools. If there were any real wisdom remaining in outer society it would be known that " for all things there is a season", and that no power on earth can stop the Maori culture and language from eventually passing away. We call it evolution.

Maori culture, in the real pre-colonial sense, has indeed already long since passed into history. Human cultures and societies are at every moment in a natural process of dynamic metamorphosis, even without the influence of more advanced colonising civilisations.

If we had an education system worthy of the name, it would be general knowledge that scores, perhaps hundreds of cultures and languages in the course of history have become extinct, or have changed beyond recognition by blending with other cultures, the both becoming the richer for it.

Let us not forget that even the mighty Roman empire, the dominant and leading culture of the then known world, has, together with its language (Latin), passed away. How many past civilisations, races, and languages have synthesised and evolved to become the modern language and culture we know as English? And this too shall pass, " in its season". Ideally, the demise of ancient cultures should be neither be hastened nor prolonged, but be allowed to pass in dignity and gratitude and not be kept artificially alive as humiliating caricatures of their former reality.

If the part Maori supremists and their very silly white patrons possessed any remnant of common sense they would know that it is the fruits of the past which we carry forward with us into the future, not the trappings. Such agitators have no wish to arrive at the truth since they subconsciously know that this will not be to their advantage. They only wish to

win the argument.

All that was true and beautiful in past civilisations and cultures, including that of the Maori, we carry on with us as qualities of soul. Nothing of true worth is ever irretrievably lost, thus mankind progresses.

C R

Dunedin

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 30/5/16)

A police man from Dargaville District Constable Corbett had a passion for early history of the region as it just happened the original journals covering policing activites for the late 1800’s were housed at the Ruawai police station. During quiet times Constable Corbett loved to dip into these journals which he called ‘day books’ and read extracts penned by earlier constables.

One historical detail that he told friends about a lands department survey in 1860’s of a Hugh cavern system on the Southern end of Poutu Peninsula where there were many thousands of skeletons. When Governor Bowen came to the northern Wairoa in the late 1860’s he met with 600 Maoris assembled from all over Northland at Te Kopuru. He put it to those assembled the question of ‘who did these skeletons belong to’ Maori replied they did not know who these peoples were and to ‘do with them what you wish, they are not our people” This is recorded in Bowen’s paper and journals of the time which can be read in the Alexander Turnbull library.

Around 60,000 of these skeletons were taken to Robertson bone mill in Onehunga to be ground up as ‘dust fertiliser’over a three year period. There are still many more in sites around, they did not get them all.

A visiting forensic Pathologist from England with over 50 years experience who examined some of the remains that still existed and a DNA was done by the Pathologist and his results were that they came from a race of people living in Wales over 3500 years ago.

I B

Wanganui

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Sunday Star Times 19/6/16)

I read with interest your article on laws surrounding charities exempt from tax.

In 2001, Michael Cullen released a document "Tax and Charities" - "to make trading operations owned by charities subject to income tax in the same way as other businesses”.

Until then, an entity wishing consideration to be charitable for tax purposes had to meet the common-law requirements of a charity – a "public benefit test" to ensure a charity had been set up to provide a genuine benefit to the wider community, and not a private benefit to individuals.

It included details of their personal relationships to ensure there were no blood ties, nor contractual arrangements.

Since Maori tribal organisations are based on blood ties they were unable to register for charitable status. However, the Labour government lobbied intensively to change the law enabling them to gain charitable status.

Several tribes are amongst the country’s wealthiest corporations and pay no tax at all on any of their New Zealand businesses, simply because they are registered as charities.

Perhaps its time we started calling for the taxing of the trading operations of these large corporations – as proposed fifteen years ago by Michael Cullen!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 20/5/16)

Re Chester Borrows article may 20, “Bandwagons gain momentum”. It’s time for Chester to go, He says the catchcry is that the government is about to sign away to Maori the ownership of water in New Zealand. The cunning thing the government is doing is to allow Councils to give the water control to Maori. So Chester your government is still allowing this to happen.

You say that the Treaty of Waitangi has assured rights over natural resources for over 150 years, this is absolute rubbish it doesn’t say that in the treaty at all.

By Don Brash saying that you’ll put race relations back about 40 years is right because 40 years ago we never had government forced racism put upon us.

You talk about Maori wards, for what reason? You don’t have wards for Moriori, Waitaha, Orientals, and Celtic wards for these people who were here well before any Maori arrival. You are suppose to run the country for “all the people of New Zealand” as it says in the treaty. If you our unable to do this then it is about time you stood down as been an MP.

I B

Wanganui

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Taranaki Daily News 18/6/16)

Dean Peter Beck's long article ("News',13/6/16) is a prize example of the innocence of the unworldly. Parihaka was the home of a cult which should be anathema to his church. I have already provided Catholic Bishop, Charles Drennan - whom I happen to know personally - with much information to substantiate this assertion and he has totally ignored it. The true pacifists to whom the albatross feathers were symbolic were the Chatham Islanders, murderously slaughtered by tribes from Taranaki whom they had received in peace. There can be little real doubt that stories of their pacifism and symbolism were taken back to Taranaki by returning tribesmen and duly seized upon by Te W'iti and Tohu.

Parihaka historian Te Miringa Hohaia, discounts any commitment by Te Whiti to Christianity. At his funeral, Homi,son-in-law of Tohu said "These men were past masters in word-painting; that is all! You have been deceived". Many men, including Dean Beck, have been deceived since.

As for Mayor Judd, he said not a word of his racist ambitions in campaigning for office - New Zealanders don't like that sort of thing. Democracy is too precious to be tampered with as he aimed to do.

By contrast, Chris Makonga, sets out his ideas very clearly. I congratulate him for that and wish him well.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Northern Advocate 14/6/16)

It is a gross waste of taxpayer money to earmark $4 million in the current budget to commemorate the so-called "Land Wars".

Hostilities in the early colonial period were not 'land wars' but tribal rebellions, duly quelled by Government and loyal Maori forces.

In the Waikato rebellion, the tribes threatened to kill all the white people in Auckland and told lies about an alleged church-burning in Rangiaowhia. The Hau Hau in Taranaki and on the East Coast used the heads of their victims in religious rites. At the Wairau, Ngatitoa butchered bound and helpless prisoners. Is this the sort of thing New Zealanders should commemorate?

That it is sponsored by the leader of the Maori Party suggests a racist political motive.

Outside Auckland, the money could house a considerable number of homeless Maori families – a much better way to spend it.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The Editor, (Sent to the Otago Daily Times 13/6/16)

As the mid-winter solstice approaches and the constellation of Pleiades ( the seven sisters ) begin to appear in the night sky, the news media, together with schools and kindergartens again remind us that this is "Matariki" which, among other things, heralds the beginning of the the Maori new year.

There is nothing wrong with European New Zealanders celebrating Maori seasonal festivals if they wish to, but there's something very wrong in ignoring their own ancient Christian festival of Saint John ~ the birth of John the Baptist.

In the northern hemisphere, of course, St John's day is in mid- summer. It's message then refers to the inner Christ / Sun which must increase as the outer sun of nature decreases ~ "He must increase and I must decrease". ( John, 3-30 ). These are profound thoughts which have been increasingly denied to recent generations of the very Western peoples who carried them over the blood and ashes of human error for so many centuries.

C R

Dunedin

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 11/6/16

Maori Party calling for Maori wards, The same party who wants the treaty honoured which gives us all the same rights want to break the agreement and want special rights for Tangata Maori. What I can’t understand why Mr Flavell can’t get his facts right as Maori are not tangata Whenua they never have been.

The tangata Whenua were the fair-skinned people who were here before Maori as history tells us. The word means “the ancient ones or the people before us”.

On the 25th November 1947 New Zealand adopted the statute of Westminster passed by the British government in 1931. The statute granted complete autonomy to New Zealand in foreign as well as domestic affairs, after 1947, all the people of New Zealand became citizens under one flag, and one law irrespective of race, colour, or creed, but since this time, part Maori through the 1975 Treaty 0f Waitangi Act have gained advantages and privileges over their fellow New Zealand citizens never intended by those that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.

I say to Mr Flavell get your people to put their nomination to stand for council just like the rest of us as we don’t expect special treatment.

I B

Wanganui

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZ Herald 8/614)

Your correspondent Professor Dame Anne Salmond writes that most Kiwis are happy to let rest any prejudices about the savagery of pre-colonisation Maori.

Certainly, but all history should be truthfully taught, and it is well-acknowledged that early European life was barbaric - no-one is pretending otherwise!

However, here in Godzone, the truth has been conveniently sanitised in an educational booklet called "Network Waitangi" in which pre-colonisation Maori are described as "a highly developed sustainable civilisation, autonomous tribes operated their own systems of health, education, justice, welfare and spiritually" - all warm and fuzzy, but not one whisper of their short, harsh, brutal lives due to centuries of tribal warfare.

Nor any mention of the devastating Musket Wars in which tens of thousands of Maori died at the hands of their own people. In comparison, about 3000 Maori died in the Land Wars.

Chief Taipari of Tauranga referred to the slaughter of the Musket Wars: "If we continue fighting our race will become extinct."

It was the arrival of the missionaries and subsequent colonisation which saved the Maori race from extinction.

Does the Distinguished Professor agree with me, that through omission, our young people are being lied to?

R B

Tauranga

Dear Sir (Sent to the NZ Herald 8/6/14)

Re Dame Anne Salmond's letter "Prejudice Lives On”.

The opinion article by Alan Duff sought, I believe, to make the point that parts of pre European Maori culture were never good and are not appropriate in the 21st century. As Dame Anne points out, similar charges can be levelled at European culture of or around that time and we would all, I hope, agree that they are likewise abhorred.

Unfortunately, in leaping to the defence of all aspects of Maori cultural renaissance, Dame Anne is making comments which seriously damage her credibility. Contrary to what she asserts, it is not necessary to “look elsewhere” for other descriptions of Maori life. Books by the European writers she quoted can be searched online at the Auckland University web site "Early New Zealand Books”. Readers can then decide for themselves regarding evidence or lack thereof.

While perusing these early accounts readers might also like to consider the point made in the first of episode of "Why Am I”, the documentary series concerning the world famous Dunedin University Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. Their finding was that the best indicator for “health, wealth, and happiness” is the early learning of self control.

C L

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZ Herald 8/6/16)

Dame Anne Salmond in latest letter appears to justify the claimed savage and barbaric life of early Maori by claiming life in Europe at the time was also barbaric. She should know that the endemic argument is never a justification.

Her claim that a "Once Were Warriors" culture did not exist in early Maori life may be debatable but what isn't debatable is that, that culture certainly exists today. A Maori child is 7 times more likely to be abused or killed than a Pakeha child. Instead of looking in the rear vision mirror and trying to burnish the the past Dame Anne Salmond should be putting her efforts into finding solutions for today's disproportionate problems of child abuse in Maori society.

R P

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 4/6/16)

$4 million is earmarked in the budget for "Land Wars Commemorations". (.Dominion Post., 4/6/16) Why? There were no such things as land wars but tribal rebellions which were quelled by Government forces and loyal Maoris. That the leader of the Maori Party is spearheading this activity strongly suggests that it is part of a racist agenda.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZ Herald 2/6/16)

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

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

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

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

Here’s how it’s achieved:

1) Get academics to rewrite our history where Maori were goodies and Pakeha baddies. And that anyone with a drop of Maori blood is kinder to children, old people, ancestors (only Maori ones count) and nature.

2) Brainwash students with this fake history.

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

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

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

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

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

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

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Kamo

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wairarapa Times-Age 28/5/16)

The problem with the treaty principles that Vince Cholewa (27/5/16) cites is that they are capable of justifying any tribal demand, no matter how exorbitant.

The principles that Mr Cholewa cherrypicked appear to be mostly Justice Cooke's six principles in the 1987 Court of Appeal case New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General.

Mr Cholewa may not be aware that numerous other lists of treaty principles exist. They include:

NZ Maori Council to Court of Appeal 1987- 10 principles

Crown to Court of Appeal 1987- 5 principles

Waitangi Tribunal 1983-1988- 12 principles

Royal Commission on Social Policy 1988—3 principles

Hiwi Tauroa (former race relations conciliator) 1989- 4 principles

Office of Treaty Settlements 1999- 4 principles

Douglas Graham (in his book Trick or treaty) –11 principles

Centre for Maori Studies Lincoln University 1994 –4 principles

New Zealand Law Commission 1999-13 principles

NZ Attorney General 2000 – 6 principles

Minister of Health/Privy Council (undated) – 3 principles

The government published its own set of treaty “principles of Crown action” on July 4, 1989.

Mr Cholewa appears unaware that the so-called treaty principles are somewhat of a moveable feast and are used to push a Maori supremacist agenda.

GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Herald 19/5/16

I was gobsmacked when I read Terry Dunleavy's letter (19/5/16), it is absolutely clear in both the Maori-language version of the Treaty and in the English drafts that the chiefs ceded full sovereignty. Acknowledgement of this is evidenced in their speeches prior to signing the treaty, so there is no inference of a 'partnership' in the treaty.

The Court of Appeal used the word 'partners' interchangeably with the word 'parties', and spoke also of a relationship ‘akin to’ a 'partnership', how does that establish a partnership? Further one cannot be a partner and subject of the Queen.

Retaining of lands, dwellings and property (taonga) were guaranteed to ALL the people of New Zealand, not just Maori. Land that Dunleavy claims was taken by force was legally confiscated, after warnings, to quell the rebel Maori uprising against the Queen and newly formed government. These confiscations were only 4.5% of New Zealands total land mass, and nearly half was given back shortly after.

Mr Dunleavy and the 20% of New Zealanders that support his views would do well to remember that it was only a small number of tribes that took up arms against the Queen. He seems unaware of the many loyal chiefs that attended the Kohimarama conference in 1860 and pledged their allegiance to the Queen

​GEOFFREY T PARKER

Whangarei

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 18/5/16).

Re Robert Ashe's letter (18/5/16) There is no commitment to co-governance in the Treaty of Waitangi, it was a simple cessation agreement whereby the chiefs ceded FULL individual chieftainship to the Queen forever. There is absolutely nothing in the Treaty that remotely suggests co-governance at any level.

The “Encouraging Maori participation in local government” site page clearly states: “Taken as a whole, they are an obligation to consider what steps the council can reasonably take to encourage and assist Maori to participate in local affairs. These provisions do not confer special rights and privileges on maori that are not accorded to other tauiwi (other members of the public).”

Robert also infers, those who oppose appointed positions or race-based seats are a minority? Yet these polls show an 80% majority.

70% — NO to Maori seats in Parliament (Sunday Star-Times poll 2013)

80% — NO to Maori wards: Waikato District Council, April 2012.

80% — NO to Maori wards: Hauraki District Council, May, 2013

79% — NO to Maori wards: Nelson District Council, May 2012.

83% — NO to Maori wards: New Plymouth District Council May 2015

The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it ~ George Orwell

GEOFF PARKER

Wnangarei

Dear Sir (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 13/5/16)

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

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

By the way, Don Brash is one of eight authors who have contributed to the book which contains a brief biography for each author and comes complete with an index and references for each chapter.

May I recommend people start by reading chapters 1 and 2 by Bruce Moon and then read the preceding section entitled "Some of the myths on which the treaty industry is based”.

C L

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Times 13/5/16)

CAREFUL WITH THOSE CLAIMS OF UNCONSCIOUS RACISM

Bruce Bissett wrote that the presumptions of too many pakeha are racist. Bissett looks like a pakeha so is he being unconsciously racist?

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

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

Is that true, false, racist, or fair comment?

Our Hastings council shows that there is no impediment to Maori and everyone else to get voted in should they choose to. Look at the website and count up the numbers.

If Hosking’s comment is deemed racist then it is clear that:

(1) our democratic system of one person one vote is on the way out, and

(2) there is no longer freedom of speech in NZ.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 13/5/16)

As an author of "One Treaty, One Nation" I reply to H Norton. Some of us have higher degrees in science. We are trained to look at evidence objectively unlike so many historians who write with an agenda and distort the truth when it suits them. For examples of the false claims of those he lauds see the following.

In "Twisting the Treaty", Orange: pages 45, 295-310. Salmond: 45 & 48, Kawharu: 11,46,159 & 257

Belich in "When two cultures meet" by Robinson: pp 8,39-40,51,77-83,116-117 and more

Keenan: nearly everything he writes in the "Wanganui Chronicle" and "Taranaki Daily News"

Olsen: who was grossly wrong in writing about my own grandfather

King had a spotty record - good in writing about Maori genocide of Chatham Islanders, deeply flawed in his account of the writing of the Treaty of Waitangi

None of us is a racist nor do we write "repetitive, ill-based anti-Maori rants." We stand for the truth which is under attack at every level in the education system, the Waitangi Tribunal and frequently in the courts. There is a profound sickness growing in New Zealand society and we are doing our very best to arrest its dangerous and insidious advance.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor,

(Sent to the Waikato Times 7/5/16)

I reply to the letter by M and G Anderson about the shocking murder of young Moko and outrage that his killers are pleading guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Reading of the horrific injuries suffered over days by the poor wee boy, how can this be anything other than murder?

I agree with your correspondents that nothing ever changes - Maori statistics remain constantly woeful despite billions being spent annually to effect some change. To blame ‘‘colonial oppressors’' totally rejects their own history of centuries of violence. Infanticide - the killing of baby girls because they would never become warriors, the brutality of the Musket Wars in which whole tribes slaughtered and ate each other.

Almost a quarter of their population was murdered in the tribal warring. It was the arrival of the missionaries who persuaded Maori that they needed to put an end to the savagery and cannabilism. Hence today Maori do not have to live in a barricaded pa as they did 200 years ago! How is that the fault of colonisation?

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 7/5/16)

Peter Dey says tolerance is required over the re-naming of Cambridge Park and the BOP Polytechnic. He completely misses the point - the sole reason for the furore is that these places already have perfectly acceptable names. Up pops a tribe with the "gift" of a new name which is simply a clever ploy to force a name-change.

Does Mr Dey really imagine that the locals are about to call this park anything other than its current name - ditto the polytechnic, and the recently re-named Devonport Library to Te Pataka Korero o Te Hau Kapua.

While on the subject, I am incensed every time I hear our country referred to as Aotearoa New Zealand. Maori never had a name for the country as a whole and it is not mentioned in the Treaty of Waitangi. In Article 2 of the treaty is the phrase ‘‘tangata katoa o Nu Tirani’’ translated as ‘‘all the people of New Zealand’’. Perhaps the tribes could concentrate on the very real issues facing Maori today and forget the window-dressing!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Nelson Mail 4/5/16)

Yesterday afternoon, (3rd May) Nick Smith said on Radio New Zealand: "How do we ensure that iwi are involved in the decision-making process around freshwater?" The only legitimate answer is: "We don't". There is nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi or anywhere else which gives any Maori tribe any right to be involved. The position of Maori interest groups is the same as that of any other - Federated Farmers, The Council of Trade Unions or the Business Round Table. To give them now any involvement in the decision-making process which is not granted to others would be blatant racism.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Weekend Sun 2/5/16 and Rotorua Daily Post 2/5/16)

Much is happening on the subject of local place-name changes, the latest being the simple and elegant name of Cambridge Park, which is being changed to Te Waha O Te Marangai, which translates to "the mouth of the storm".

This is being done without the consent of the local residents who use the park and they are understandably furious.

While the European place-names are being challenged by Maori, no-one is attempting the reverse.

There has never been any suggestion that a Maori name become anything other than what it is.

However it does make me think of a new European moniker for our city and I have a suggestion.

Our city could be re-named Brownton in honour of Archdeacon Alfred Nesbit Brown.

Perhaps one of our churches could also take on a name-change - Brownton Abbey has a nice ring to it!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Sir, (Sent to the Dominion Post 29/4/16)

Final proof ( if more were needed ), that Maori are indeed a uniquely privileged race, is provided when we begin to see articles denying it, such as the one by Peter Meihana, Dom' Post, ( 6/4/16 ) in which he simply denies demonstrable facts. However, in the current "Alice in Wonderland" world of moral relativism, denial of facts has long since been a definite strategy.

Presumably Mr Meihana is "Maori" ( i.e. part Maori ) or feels that he is, and no doubt he adheres to the politically correct and racist practice of completely disavowing the manifold influences that his non-Maori ancestry has upon his person.

Like so many others, I find it impossible to believe that it's just pure coincidence that the misled and malcontent element of Maoridom unwaveringly believe anything that is to their advantage - and nothing that isn't.

Fair minded objectivity ? - what's that ?

It would come as no surprise to many N.Zer's if it turned out that Maori were not only the most privileged race in N.Z but in the entire world.

If a disproportionate number of Maori really are "failing" then the reasons must be sought not in any imagined racism but in forbidden areas which are ruled "out-of-bounds" by the anti-Western, Left-wing,

P.C tyranny ; namely, in all those circumstances arising out of the fact that at the time of colonisation / civilisation of N.Z, Maori consciousness and therefore culture was thousands of years behind that of Western civilisation.

And let's be very clear, whatever the reason was for the backwardness of Maori society at that time, it had nothing to do with anyone but themselves.

The "wicked white man" could only help them to bridge this vast gap, and much has been achieved. Ultimately however, this task is one that Maori must shoulder themselves.

This county's treaty/ grievance industry goes from bad to worse with every passing day, and it is all based upon an "Orchestrated litany of lies", ( to borrow Judge Mahon's magnificent phrase ).

C R

Dunedin

Dear Sir/Madam (Sent to the NZ Herald 18/4/16)

BREAKING THE WATERS

Ms Marvelly (Herald16 April) a privileged part Arawa maori launches into her freshwater diatribe. It’s unmitigated claptrap but what else would you expect?

Legal position with water is crystal clear-no one owns the water and the Government administers freshwater as a fiduciary for all Kiwis. No customary rights exist, the native title ‘red herring’ is ludicrous and it’s Ms Marvelly who is raving, not those she wrongly demeans as ex-politicians who incidentally have a lot more nous than this lightweight .They are better qualified, have real world experience and their assessments are factually correct. What are Ms Marvelly’s qualifications to pontificate on freshwater which as with most other maori claims looks like race-based separatist spin.

To laud part maori as guardians, environmentalists and conservationists or suggest they know more about freshwater than other Kiwis is a joke. Maori were never Treaty partners, no Treaty Partnership and other than what’s spelt out in Tiriti-o-Waitangi no Treaty obligations exist. Treaty itself now an historical relic.

Ms Marvelly’s comments are so skewed and flawed it’s pointless addressing them rationally. She and her researchers need to read the 12-point Freshwater Iwi Leadership Group list illustrating the intent and stealth associated with the insane demands being made.

L M

Tauranga

The Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 18/4/16)

RACIAL RORTING

Mr Flavell continues wasting public time and money petitioning the Government to make part-Maori race-based seats on all NZ Councils/ Local Authorities compulsory. He thinks the 5% threshold to demand a poll is too low but that’s not his problem it’s the resultant referendum where 80% of electors (as in New Plymouth) vote against separatism and race-based anti-democratic initiatives. Hopefully Rotorua Lakes and New Plymouth mayoral aberrations won’t be around come October2016 so this nonsense won’t be an issue after that.

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

So Mr Flavell go and wallow in your self-interest, self-pitying race based philosophies with your bolshie co-leader. Another bleating local mouthpiece, Awanui Black as usual sticks in his oar supporting racial privilege because his paltry 604 out of 1821 votes gave him a Bay Regiona lCouncil (Mauao Maori) race-based seat.

R P

Matapihi

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZ Herald 16/4/16)

Lizzie Marvelly article in the NZ Herald (Sat 16/04/16) is a article which itself is slanted towards separatism which is intended to promote one ethnic group over the others.She mentions the Waitangi

Tribunal its self, recognized by most of us in New Zealand as a separatist and racialist organisation which has little interest in things base on fact. Do I need to say any more. The water issues by Iwi is a grab for power and wealth and nothing less.

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor, (Sent to the New Zealand Herald 16/4/16)

Lizzie Marvelly ("Herald".16/4/16) herself is guilty of racist rhetoric starting with the false name "Aotearoa" for New Zealand.

It is clear for all to see that some Maori pressure groups are making a powerful grab for lucrative rights over our water.

I see no sign of Maori guardianship over our natural resources. It is no better than anybody else's.

And talk of them as "Treaty partners" of the Government is a gross fabrication which dishonours the Treaty of Waitangi.

Shame on Lizzie Marvelly for her racist outburst.

BRUCE MOON,

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 11/4/16)

Maori Party calling for Maori wards, The same party who wants the treaty honoured which gives us all the same rights want to break the agreement and want special rights for Tangata Maori. What I can’t understand why Mr Flavell can’t get his facts right as Maori are not tangata Whenua they never have been.

The tangata Whenua were the fair-skinned people who were here before Maori as history tells us. The word means “the ancient ones or the people before us”.

On the 25th November 1947 New Zealand adopted the statute of Westminster passed by the British government in 1931. The statute granted complete autonomy to New Zealand in foreign as well as domestic affairs, after 1947, all the people of New Zealand became citizens under one flag, and one law irrespective of race, colour, or creed, but since this time, part Maori through the 1975 Treaty 0f Waitangi Act have gained advantages and privileges over their fellow New Zealand citizens never intended by those that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.

I say to Mr Flavell get your people to put their nomination to stand for council just like the rest of us as we don’t expect special treatment.

IB

Wanganui

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Today 10/4/16)

I find your correspondent Horiana Robin`s admiration for the Maori Party - and in particular Whanau Ora, very hard to accept in view of the fact that 60% of children and other young people in care, are Maori! Yet, Maori are only 15% of New Zealand`a population. Whanau Ora receive millions of taxpayers` money and it appears they are not doing a very good job of looking after young Maori,

The big question is, why are there so many young Maori in care? It is not the Government`s duty to look after young Maori but their parents. The figures show an abysmal lack of parental care and this must be addressed. Perhaps parental responsibilities should be taught in schools. It is far too easy for teenage girls to drop out of school, have a baby and go on a benefit. The benefit should only be paid to unmarried mothers over the age of twenty - and a real search for the father made. To avoid benefits being spent on drugs or alcohol instead of food for children, food and/or clothing stamps should be given instead, which are not transferable.

Maori tribes haved been given billions in settlement of often dubious Claims. Why are not Maori caring for their children - giving financial support when needed. Children need loving parents in a loving home - parents who make sure they are well fed, decently clothed and support given to their school activities and homework. It is irresponsible to bring children into the world that you do not have the will or means to support. 60% od Maori children in care is a disgrace.

M. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 9/4/16)

I acknowledge your Correction stating that Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi does not contain the words stated by Tommy Wilson in his recent article. Perhaps another simple case of Twisting the Treaty!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZ Herald 6/4/16)

For reputed historian, Jock Phillips, to call the taking of Rangiaowhia "an appalling act of genocide" (quoted in the 'Herald', 6/4/16) is a disgrace. The total number killed was 17, including Colonel Nixon. It would have been only two if a foolish old chief, Hoani, had not shot and killed Sergeant McHale who called on him to surrender.

Odious lies about the burning of a church full of women and children are the work of rebels, furious that General Cameron, in a humane action to minimise casualties, completely outwitted them and captured their bread-basket, causing a rapid collapse of their rebellion. Responsible news media should do all they can to quash these lies for ever.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the ChCh Press 5/4/16)

Green MP, Catherine Delahunty has quite a record of making false statements about the Treaty of Waitangi.

Thus in September 2013, she made the blatantly false statement, amongst others, in "Grey Power Magazine" that the Treaty "promised to respect the existing authority and law of the country while governing the new settlers according to British law".

Now she is reported ("Press", 5/4/16) with respect to the Ashburton water controversy:"There [is] ... a failure of honouring the Treaty of Waitangi by talking to Ngai Tahu." How she possibly imagines this can only be a product of her fevered brain. There is absolutely nothing in the Treaty which gives any Maori tribe any privileges or rights of consultation with respect to water which are not those of all New Zealanders. We may not like the Ashburton deal but we should treat Delahunty's opinions with the contempt they deserve.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 2/4/16)

In the "Waikato Times" for Friday, 1/4/16, one Tom O'Connor gives a highly distorted account of hostilities in the Waikato in the 1860s.

No good is served by such material which serves only to stir up animosities today which we do not need. To give an accurate account, I have written the article attached for which I hope you will find space in your columns. At the least it does provide some balance but I hope you will agree that it achieves much more.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 24/3/16)

Last week Tommy Wilson wrote an impressive column about family responsibilities - this week, he will have angered most of the populace.

HIs lauding of the successes of Tainui and Ngai Tahu is short on facts. Certainly they have made prudent investments from their Treaty settlements, but their money has been stashed into charities. Ngai Tahu Charitable Trust is one of the wealthiest businesses in the country and pays no income tax at all. Four of these multi-million dollar, tax-free enterprises, are Shotover Jet, Glacier Guides, Go Bus and Rainbow Springs.

Waikato-Tainui also have a large portfolio of tax-free properties, including their retail development, The Base, in Hamilton.

In 2001 Michael Cullen, proposed that trading operations of charities be taxed. This didn't happen - and since Maori tribal organisations are based on blood ties, they failed the common law public benefit test. But, as a result of intense lobbying, the Labour government changed the law enabling them to gain charitable status.

Perhaps its time we called for the trading operations of charities to be taxed – as proposed by Michael Cullen!

R B

Tauranga

Kapiti News 16.03.16 (Published)

RACE BASED FUNDING

After reading Mayor Ross Church’s Classic Torque column featured in the Kapiti News on March 9, I became aware the KCDC had invested some of its rate payer’s money into an indigenous film festival called Maoriland.

I quickly checked the KCDC website page “The Role of Council” and I could not find anywhere that it was the role of Council to fund projects which promote phoney claims of indigenousness by people who are slightly deluded.

Now, I would defend the rights of people to define themselves in any way they wish, even to make films about how they think that they are different to other humans who are not indigenous. But the Council have no mandate to invest our rates contributions into race based projects at the expense of other races.

It is widely accepted that there was no collective group of people in New Zealand who could have been described as a single or separate indigenous group of people. New Zealand was colonized many times over, in fact Waitaha and Ngati Hotu tribes use DNA evidence to show they were here hundreds or even thousands of years before the later colonization out of the Pacific by Polynesians who arrived by boat in the 13th century.

Our Council need to stick to the democratic functions of developing our resources, infrastructure, management of the environment and planning and leave the promotion of separatism to others.

Or, they need to come clean and tell us that they intend to promote one race over another. Then we can vote with the knowledge that they are openly racist at the next election.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

Kapiti News 30.03.16 (Published)

NO SUCH THING AS RACE

Last week I was pitied by a flabbergasted Karen Peterson Butterworth for using the word “Race” in my letter regarding the funding for the Maori Film Festival. Actually, I agree 100 % with Karen when she states humans never developed into biological races. Humans are all individuals, no two are the same and the only person that shares the same ancestry as you is your siblings.

Unfortunately for tax payers though the New Zealand Government does not agree with Karen and me. The Waitangi Tribunal who operate within the Ministry of Justice do define people by race. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 clearly defines a Maori person as a person of the “Maori Race” of New Zealand. The act allows for this separate race to make all sorts of claims, effectively suing us for anything and everything.

This apartheid system has for 40 years favored this race and these separate people have been able to amass an economy of about $42 billion dollars. Judging by the half page advertisement that was below my letter in Kapiti News 16/3/16, local tribe Ngati Raukawa are going use this system to sue the country all over again for yet more treaty claims as it appears the nearly $30 million dollars already handed over by New Zealanders to this group as a treaty settlement wasn’t a settlement after all. Now, Ngati Raukawa did not even sign the Treaty of Waitangi.

Hardly a history of relentless deprivation that Karen speaks of, quite the opposite.

Karen suggests I read a book to learn about poverty. I grew up in Cannons Creek and suffered the effects of poverty and its associated social problems, perhaps it is Karen who needs to actually experience poverty rather than read about it in books. Many of my friends are still there struggling in a low wage economy, scratching their heads every time they hear yet another billion dollars awarded to the richest and only race in New Zealand.

Karen has taken it upon herself to be an apologist for her ethnic group who she says, with no evidence cited, stole resources from these special people and is apparently using this as the excuse as to why council should fund the Maoriland Film Festival. This logic means rate payers are now responsible for righting past wrongs and people will be labeled with “ethnic envy” for speaking up about it.

I feel for her as she has fallen for the separatist indoctrination cycle prevalent in New Zealand culture and she must now feel the shame of it for her entire life.

I certainly don’t and admire people of any ethnicity who contribute to society rather than take from it.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

Kapiti News 06.04.16 (Published)

MISSED POINTS

Both Jenny Hare, who accused me of being ignorant, and Jill Abigail, who thinks I am insecure in my identity (March 30), for having the audacity to criticise the Councils funding of the Maoriland Indigenous Film Festival, have missed the point in their haste to attack me personally.

I did not critisise the films or the festival itself. I am sure some of the films may be world class and I defended the rights of the people to make them.

Regardless of how good or interesting the films are, problems arise when we learn the selection process for the films in this festival includes that they are either by or about people based on their (imagined) race. If our Council is prepared to gift $32,000 dollars of rate payers money to a festival that excludes films which are not by or exclude certain races they are treading on very shaky ground.

The second problem is of course that big fat elephant in the room, Maori people are not indigenous to New Zealand, not by any stretch of the imagination. They arrived by boat in the 14th century to find people already living here, their own legends state as much. Our Counsel has effectively entered the race wars by gravely insulting Ngati Hotu and Waitaha people, both of whom claim to be pre Maori and complain that Maori colonization has stolen their identity, Ngati Hotu have made a Treaty Claim to that extent.

Our Counsel is not qualified to enter these race wars and would be well advised to fund less controversial events.

ANDY OAKLEY

Raumati Beach

CULTURAL CRINGE

I write in support of Andy Oakley (letters March 30). I do so because what Mr Oakley writes most New Zealanders agree with, in general terms, but only within their own social or workforce circle. At any public meeting they appear to be struck dumb. This sad state of affairs has come about because we, the public, have allowed ourselves to be brow beaten into cultural cringe. A challenge to anybody who doubts this is, next time you hear an Irish joke and everybody laughs, tell that same joke on another occasion but start it off, "There were these two Maori ...". See the weak smiles and the shuffling of feet with the listeners not wanting to be there.

In my experience Maori are just as likely to laugh at themselves as any other group who becomes the point of a joke (Poms, Italians Scots etc), but it is the non-Maori who create the awkward silence. The whole Maori-non Maori situation is beyond ridiculous. At a guess I would say there are under three million full time workers in our country and they are all paying for a dual system.

The last census to ask a direct question of ethnicity was in 1985- 86. At that time only 8.9 per cent of the population was at least half Maori. With old Maori dying off, inter race marriage becoming the norm and booming immigration I would not be surprised if that 8.9 was now less than 6 per cent. This leads me to suggest that the majority of those making claims as Maori are really double dipping. They have enjoyed the alleged profits of the plundering by seven eights of their ancestors but now claim it all over again on their one eight part Maori heritage.

The Treaty of Waitangi is a major stumbling block to New Zealand becoming an affluent society and the envy of the world. A conservative guess would be at least two billion dollars a year for all treaty related costs. We cannot afford it. When a claim is made under the treaty it is not some remote billionaire Russian oligarch or some vast multi national company being bled but their next door neighbours, the old couple across the road, the young couple with three kids living five doors down, and their own family. Those are the people whom the claim is bleeding. They are the people who pay the tax to supply the wherewithal.

I have worked with part-Maori people, I have, and do, socialise with part-Maori people but, the thing is, I do so as people. The fad that they are part-Maori, Indian, Chinese or anything else doesn't come into it. They are either nice people I want to associate with or they are rat bags with whom I do not. I think most New Zealanders are the same so why, at political level, are we suddenly different people with one group needing special consideration and privilege over the rest?

R F

Waikanae

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 22/3/16)

Selective quoting, as indulged in by Tommy Wilson, ("Times", 21 March) is as bad as lying. If readers care to look at the Treaty of Waitangi they will find just above his "me o ratou taonga katoa" the words "tangata katoa o Nu Tirani", that is "all the people of New Zealand" and that does not mean just Maoris. Note also that the accepted Maori name of our country was "Nu Tirani" - "aotearoa" not worth a mention - and that "taonga" in 1840 meant simply "personal property" or "chattels". Using any latter-day meaning for it distorts the truth of the Treaty.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 21/3/16)

Tommy Wilson in his column (March 21) again returns to his world of make believe. He claims "If we were to look at the second clause of the Treaty.......you will see the words”:

Me o ratau toanga katoa

Yes, so far so good, but his next three lines, well, they just aren't there.

Ka ora te whenua,

Ka ora te moana

Ka ora te tangata

As for his translation "The resources of the land, the rivers and harbours belong to our people to share". Even by a generous translation it does not mean this. Rivers and harbours are not mentioned, never mind the sharing bit in the Tommy's text.

When he shows his grandchildren the critical letters and comments that he thinks he will receive I hope that he mentions that research is the cornerstone of good journalism.

Tommy claims that he wants to see reconciliation but attempts to re-write or add new meanings to the Treaty do little for the reconciliation process.

R P

Welcome Bay

Dear Sir/Madam, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 21/3/16)

Tommy, BOP Times 21st March, your slip is showing. The 2nd Article does say ‘me o ratau toanga katoa’, translating approximately to ‘and of them/they possessions altogether . Nowhere in the 2nd Article, Te Tiriti o Waitangi does it mention ‘ka ora te whenua, moana or tangata’. Those words are taken from the Freeman elaborated ‘royal style’ composite which is the Official English Text.

In 1975 when the Treaty of Waitangi and subsequent Acts were devised and written into law using the now discredited English composite, it was known that Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed by many Rangatira did not match in transcription, the Freeman composite.

In 1988 the subsequent true draft copy of Hobsons English text, known as the Littlewood draft was discovered in papers from a deceased estate. The deceased estate has an impeccable history back to Henry Littlewood, Solicitor in the 1840’s. The Littlewood draft was identified by Dr Phil Parkinson (hand writing expert) and written on paper with an 1833 watermark and confirmed by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Lee, September 1992.

The result of 45 years of ‘institutionalised agendas’, has resulted in New Zealands history being bastardised to mean something other than the truth .

M J A

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Weekend Sun / Sunlive 16/3/16)

At the Freshwater Meeting in Tauranga on 15th March, representatives of Ngati Ranginui and Ngai Te Rangi both claimed that Maoris have rights to water beyond those of other citizens, which have been acknowledged by the courts and that it was not a race issue.

Well, no matter how often they say it, both they and the courts are wrong. By the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maoris became fully entitled British subjects with the same rights to water and other natural resources as other New Zealanders, no more and no less. Their claims to the contrary dishonour the Treaty and their denial that it is a race issue is false . Quite simply, they are racists demanding race-based political privileges.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

MPS' RACISM RANTS NEED CORRECTION (Sent to the Northland Age 15/3/16)

Labour MP Kelvin Davis fails to present any evidence to support his allegation of unfair treatment of Maori by Corrections staff.

The allegation, like the accusation of ‘‘unconscious bias’’ against Maori by police, is largely an untruth from the Maori Party that is treated as a fact after widespread repetition.

Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell raised the issue three years when he told Parliament that “for the 3495 theft apprehensions recorded as Caucasian there were 588 prosecutions; and for Maori, for the 5660 apprehensions recorded, 1173 resulted in prosecution.

The prosecution rates for non-Maori were 16.8 percent versus 20.7 percent for Maori, which did support Flavell’s argument, but only by a slender margin of 3.9 percent.

The data came from police statistics for 2011 and looks at prosecution vs total apprehension numbers for 10- to 16-year-olds.

However, with 5660 thefts by Maori recorded, compared with 3495 non-Maori, not only were there more thefts by Maori recorded, but there were proportionally many more since Maori only make up 16 percent of the population.

A question both MPs should answer – if an offender has more non-Maori ancestry than Maori, should he or she be classified as a Maori offender?

If offenders were reclassified on the basis that an offender required at least 51 percent Maori ancestry to be regarded as Maori, offending by Maori would pale into insignificance.

Then we would simply be having a debate about the high rate of youth offending without trying to claim that Police, Courts, and Corrections are picking on Maori.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor, (Sent to Sunlive 9/3/16)

Minister of Maori Affairs, Chris Finlayson, has the effrontery to label as KKK (Klu Klux Klan) those taxpayers who strongly object to his cavalier use of their hard-earned money to satisfy spurious claims of illegal land confiscation by colonists from insatiable tribal leaders. This racist remark comes from a man who is guided by the most racist organisation in New Zealand, the Waitangi Tribunal.

One has to wonder just how much serious study of New Zealand history has been done by Finlayson. Is he not aware that only 4.5% of the entire land mass of New Zealand was confiscated and a large portion given back to Maori? When tribes rebelled and broke the Treaty covenants, Governor Gray warned them that land would be confiscated to pay for the cost of quelling the rebellion, and reimburse settlers for destruction of their property.

The fact that land owned by Maori was sold in hundreds of transactions is painstakingly recorded in the Turton Deeds posted for all to see on the electronic text centre of the Victoria University website. Even more ludicrous are claims based on present day value of lands. What was paid at the time is what it was considered to be worth at the time. Full stop.

Even worse is Finlayson`s statement that there are many more "claims" to be settled. These ought not to be done in secrecy behind closed doors, but openly debated with Finlayson on behalf of tribal leaders and a first-class lawyer debating on behalf of taxpayers.

M B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, Sent to the Wairarapa Times Age 7/3/16

Outing Fox on land claims

Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox should not repeat incorrect information in her defence of the Ture Whenua Maori Bill reforms.

Fox wrote: “95 per cent of our land was lost either by force or stealth”.

However, of New Zealand’s 26.8-million hectares, just 1.4-million hectares were confiscated during the 1860s wars, and much of that was returned at the time.

Approximately 1.47-million hectares remain as Maori land. This includes customary land.

The remaining 23.93-million hectares were sold, not “lost either by force or stealth” as Fox incorrectly claims.

The Ture Whenua Maori Bill reforms are to do with the 1.47-million hectares of Maori land that is often held in suspended animation by long lists of multiple owners,

Complaints about land sales by third parties not directly involved in the transaction never seem to end.

Governments have made numerous attempts, right back to the land commissioners after the treaty was signed, to ensure that any sales were fair and that Maori landowners who wished to sell could do so without such complaints.

But the complaints continue, with the only difference that disputes are heard in court and are no longer settled in battle.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 3/3/16)

It appears John Robinson's irrefutable facts (Letters 24/2/16) clearly spooked Potonga Neilson (2/3/16). He seems to be oblivious to the tough conditions of pre-1840 wherein Maori on Maori tribal warfare was an everyday part of trying to survive on these islands.

Yes, Europeans did bring booze, tobacco, gunpowder and new diseases to this land, but the negatives of exposure to the outside world were balanced by the new sources of food and nutrition, better clothing and housing to ensure warmth and protection from the elements, medicines and hospitals, education, industry and international trade, law and order, democracy and peace. Not a bad exchange.

No doubt Potonga is availing himself of these advances every single day of his life.

GEOFF PARKER

Whangarei

Dear Editor (Sent to NZ Herald, Dompost, Northland Age 1/3/16)

BLACKENING OPPONENTS

Treaty Negotiations Minister, Chris Finlayson, recently smeared those questioning Treaty of Waitangi settlements as “the KKK element.”

Finlayson takes refuge in accusations of racial bigotry because his Treatyist agenda is threatened by hard questions he’s unable to answer.

This “poacher turned gamekeeper” was a Treaty negotiator for Ngai Tahu before entering Parliament as an unelected List MP. No wonder he reflexively lines up with the “poachers.”

There are a number of elephants in the room.

First, the Maori of today are not the Maori of 1840. More than 170 years of racial mixing has given the lie to the existence of a unique race called “Maori.”

There are only New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent, most of whom have more of the blood of the colonisers than of the colonised. Nobody who is less than half-Maori can claim on balance to be disadvantaged by alleged historical events.

Second, why have tribes that already received full and final settlements legislated for in the 1940s by Act of Parliament, (Tainui, Taranaki, Ngai Tahu) been been allowed to double dip?

Third, the Treaty was with tribes, not with a collective Maori. Most signed it, a substantial minority didn’t. Why are non-signatories (Tainui, Tuhoe, Tuwharetoa) now receiving large settlements for “Treaty breaches”?

These are all legitimate concerns.

REUBEN P. CHAPPLE

Auckland

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Northern Advocate / Age / BoP Times 23/2/16)

A few months ago the Wanganui District Council wanted the spelling of Wanganui changed to putting the ‘h’ in it pushed by local iwi, so the residents were asked to put in submissions. The final outcome of the result put out by the geographic board was 350 for the ‘h’ and 299 against the ‘h’

I sent my submission against putting the ‘h’ in the spelling to all Wanganui district councillors, the geographic board and the minister of lands giving some evidence that Wanganui never had the ‘h’ in the spelling in 1840 as the chiefs in Wanganui signed the treaty under “Chiefs of Wanganui” without the ‘h’ in it. My submission was rejected by the three that I have mentioned.

I received a letter from Jill Remnant from the geographic board saying that “The board did not agree with the objections so it was not able to make the final decision”. I replied back and asked why my evidence was rejected I never got a reply back.

The name Wanganui is not a Maori name as it belongs to the Waitaha people who were here over 300 years before the people called Maori arrived. There is a sign erected by D.O.C and NZ Historic Places Trust near an ancient site close to the Wanganui river called “Waitaha Pa”. It says that the pa was occupied by Maori people

Possibly around 200 or more years ago. Well the Waitaha People weren’t Maori.

I went into the geographic board website on the submissions and found all the submissions for putting the ‘h’ in Wanganui, as well as some against the ‘h’ were based on here say and not on facts. So the name of Wanganui with the ‘h’ in the spelling is falsely written.

I B

Wanganui

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 23/2/16)

I am afraid Tommy Wilson is being extremely naive if he thinks the fact that over 50% of prison inmates are Maori is because some cannot read or write! The reasons they are incacerated are because they have shown no respect for law and order and commit crimes such as drug-dealing,. violent assault, robbery etc.

Most Maori lead decent hard-working lives and many achieve high status. However there is a very strong criminal element which has little to do with reading and writing but which the police are continually trying to control and protect the public.

The family background is the main cause of young people turning to lives of crime. Parental abuse, drugs and alcoholism being daily even ts, a total lack of interest in a child`s welfare and education. No home support for homework or encouragement to take books out of the library and read - just having the TV on all day. Young solo mothers unable to cope and parents allowing children to just drop out of school and not complete their education.

A loving, supportive family is the first step towards cutting down on Maori crime.

M B

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 23/2/16)

Peter Dey is mistaken to think that history is changed by government payments and apologies because these payments were made in response to a raft of claims made possible by the offer of financial compensation.

Payments to tribes are calculated on several factors that have little to do with historical events.

Financial redress is calculated based on current claimed tribal membership and the difference between what the tribe claimed to own in 1840 and the area that remains in tribal ownership today.

The biggest tribe claiming the biggest area in 1840 gets the biggest payout.

The financial redress total is often calculated before the "agreed history" is written.

I would like to add that citing the Waitangi Tribunal as an authority on the treaty and claims is the same as citing the tobacco industry as an authority on smoking and health.

The tribunal sells Maori rights just as strenuously as the tobacco industry sells cigarettes.

The tribunal reports contain both history and spin. A Northland Kaumatua is on record as saying “The tribunal makes up history as it goes along.”

GEOFF PARKER

Whangarei

The Editor (Sent to the Northern Advocate 19/2/16)

Juliet Golighty letter to the editor (19/2/2016) Northern Advocate is very misleading. She states the treaty gravy train continues to create wealth for New Zealand.

False most Maori corporations are registered as charitable trusts and pay little or no tax.

She then goes on to say Mr. Parker seems not to care about the fiscal benifts for New Zealand. Like what? Who makes up the biggest portion of our population in the jails and on welfare payments?

The treaty was twisted by the Lange Government with Geoffrey Palmer and with a few others and legislation put in place in 1975 which made smart lawyers, smart white liberals, and smart Maori very wealthy.

Where was the help for those Maori who needed it the most from treaty settlements? None but left for the tax payer of New Zealand to pick up and keep on paying out on the questionable activities and finding of the Waitangi Tribunal and those involved in the treaty gravy train.

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor (Sent to the Hawkes Bay Times 18/2/16)

Kura is by nature exclusive

Horiana Robin’s “inclusivity” letter forgets that an exclusive kura in Havelock North would utilise Education Department land without considering the needs of all children there and while the three primary schools are bursting at the seams.

A decision by a government department on the educational needs of children in Havelock North should be for the benefit of all people living there.

Claimed treaty rights should have nothing to do with it.

British Resident James Busby’s 1835 Declaration of Independence should also have nothing to do with it.

The 3000 residents of Havelock North must be tired of Horiana Robin’s claim that the suburb is “known as a racist place”, as she wrote in her letter.

A school that conducts all classes solely in the Maori language excludes those who want a general education.

A “full immersion” Maori language kura is by nature exclusive, not inclusive as Horiana Robin would have us believe.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 16/2/16)

I suggest to Cushela C Robson that it would be a good idea to give up her load of white guilt. Whatever might have been the situation in Britain, pre-Treaty Maoris were probably the most savage race on earth. In a few decades, about one-third of the Maori population was slaughtered by other Maoris, with cannibalism and slavery on a massive scale and many living in a state of acute fear and dread. British colonization saved them from all this.

If she believes Potonga Neilson, she will believe any fairy tale. I recommend that she read "One Treaty, One Nation", available from PO Box 22143, Khandallah 6441, $40, and then she will be really well-informed.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 16/2/16)

I fully agree with your correspondent P. Burrell who challenges Peter Dey's opinion on treaty matters.

To further complicate Mr. Dey, I wonder if he has read "The Littlewood Treaty" by Martin Doutre?

Every expert on the treaty knows that the final English draft had gone missing in 1840. When this Littlewood treaty was discovered 150 years later in the home of solicitor Henry Littlewood, Claudia Orange referred to the lost final draft as "this could be the one that was never located"

The handwriting is proved by NZ's leading handwriting expert Dr. Phil Parkinson of the National Archives to be that of James Busby and the paper is watermarked W. Tucker 1833 and is known to be from Police Magistrate James Clendon's private stock of paper and no other.

In 2000, the late Ngapuhi chief Graham Rankin said "the official English text on the treaty being used today is radically different from the Maori version in both wording and meaning, but the Littlewood treaty wording is exactly the same as the Maori version.

How embarrassing for the gravy-train advocates this inconvenient truth must be, with no mention at all of forests and fisheries!

R B

Tauranga

To The Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 15/2/16)

Peter Deys article

Peter Dey letter(13/02/2016 is quick to criticise M J Anderson (12/2/2016) and Bryan Johnstone (8/2/2016) letter to the editor but provides no evidence about allegations he makes against these people.

Mr. Dey knows very well the grievance industry is one of the largest businesses in New Zealand and if he is a recipient naturally he would not want it to stop.

Mr. Dey states governments did not honor the treaty but is short on facts to support the argument but again very quick to recognize a twisted version of the treaty as it supports an endless supply of money.

As M J Anderson rightly points out a document perpetrated by unprincipled white liberalists, lawyers, and radical Maori under the Lange government, Geoffrey Palmer, Robin Cooke but to name a few and a Waitangi Tribunal stacked with appointed people sympathetic to the Maori cause,and a continuous cash flow of money paid for by taxpayers.What more could Mr.Dey ask for.

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 12/2/16)

There are many false treaty claims and Peter Dey (BOP Times 12/2/16) is one who makes them. There is one Treaty of Waitangi, in Maori, signed at Waitangi on 6th February 1840. By it the chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Queen and all Maoris, including slaves of other Maoris, became fully-entitled British subjects - a magnificent gift - and that is all. The so-called "Treaty in English" is a bogus document concocted by Hobson's secretary, Freeman, after the event and legislating that it is "official" is like legislating that lead is gold.

Dey's claim that "Twisting the Treaty" has been "totally discredited" is a straight lie. As one of the authors, I challenge him to back up his false claim. If anything in it is actually incorrect we will correct it but there won't be much. In the other hand, what Claudia Orange writes is full of incorrect statements and false assumptions, some of them being stated in "Twisting the Treaty", pages 295-301. New Zealanders who want to be well-informed should read it.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

The Editor (Sent to the Rotorua Daily Post 9/2/16)

Legal Fictions & So Forth

Perhaps Jonathan Temm QC, a past President of the NZ Law Society has a point when he says democracy is elastic and in my view, it is probably a nebulous thing too.

Mr Temm sees fit to take to task the Rotorua Democracy Group for daring to suggest they want a return to democracy. Now that's cute, isn't it! Mr Temm then proceeds to illustrate elasticity by lauding the Te Arawa/Rotorua Lakes District Council deal as demonstrating real democracy.Well the only reason for this dodgy deal was that when it became obvious to Council hierarchy it would not get racially based Maori Ward seats approved without facing a citizens referendum that would probably reject this try on by 80% --which represents democratic voting. The pro-Maori Ward people then surreptiously worked their way around what they saw as 'the public nuisance' and came up with the Arawa stratagem to avoid the irrelevant majority. Subsequently 2839 Arawa uri (descendants) being only 25% of eligible voters elected 14 tribal representatives !!!!

So that, is the background to Mr Temm’s shining example of democracy at work. He is living in fantasyland if he supports that scam and it reflects very poorly on his ability to cut to the chase.

R P

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Northern Advocate 5/2/16)

Fact checking required on treaty utterances

Media law holds that any individual has the right to express his opinion provided that the opinion is honestly held and the speaker has got his basic facts right.

Tim Howard falls short with his facts in his piece IT’S WE WHO OWE MAORI TRUE RESPECT

Firstly, treaty settlements are not capped at $1-billion. The National Party government of the 1990s promoted a “fiscal envelope” cap of $1-billion but was howled down by claimants and did not proceed.

A check with the Office of Treaty Settlements would confirm that the total amount of financial redress paid to June 30, 2015, was $3.1-billion, and the payments continue.

Secondly, the only evidence that Te Wakaminenga was an annual meeting of chiefs from 1807 to discuss engagement with the world is the 21st century utterances about the 19th century world.

Te Wakaminenga refers to a single meeting on October 28, 1835, when British Resident James Busby gained the signatures of 39 chiefs on a “Declaration of Independence”. That so-called “confederation of chiefs” never subsequently met.

Thirdly, the 21st century claim that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty is contradicted by the text of the treaty signed by 45 chiefs at Waitangi on February 6, 1840, and by the utterances by those and other chiefs on the day before.

“Tangata tiriti” or “non-Maori” like Tim Howard are entitled to their opinions but they should get their basic facts right.

MIKE BUTLER

Hastings

Dear Editor (Sent to the Northern Advocate 5/2/16)

I have never been to the Waitangi Day celebrations and believe it is probably a pleasant day out. For the rest of us, all we see on television are the same old shoving, spitting, violent thugs who sadly get their annual photo-shoot on the 6pm news every year.

I know that the media loves anything controversial, but these louts may just go away if there are no cameras and audience to play up to. Let's face it - no matter how hard the government or the people try, no matter how much effort or money, these chronic whingers have no intention of being appeased!

As for John Key being told that if he makes a speech he must not mention politics - for heaven's sake what was he to talk about - his stamp collection! Or perhaps how to grow a bonsai!

I hope the television media will use their duty of responsibility, and do not in future feature those who intentionally spoil what could be a very meaningful day for all of us!

R. B

Tauranga

Dear editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 1/2/16)

Tommy Wilson [BOP times 29th Jan] is totally insulting to the nation in saying that we of European descendant are culture less and colour free, I would make the comment that he is of european descent himself and that his name itself is English! Where is Susan Devoy now?

This is the arrogance of Maori who are more european than Maori now and the european side would have more history and depth than the Maori side. Also the ignorance is unbelievable, all races have a cultural,spiritual side and affinity to the land and it is tiring all this so called Maori cultural bit all in the bid to extract more money from the 86% of the population and driven by greed.

This bid for the Fresh water and co governance is another greed grab and the desire for sovereignty is a joke, when Mr Wilson speaks like he does we all know it would be the last nail in the coffin for NZ.

C H

Tauranga

Sent to approx 16 different papers

Dear Editor

IS THIS EDUCATION?

Education is the acquisition, selection and utilisation of knowledge in objective, accurate, practical, moral and apolitical conditions which the teacher provides and which is the source for developing literacy, numeracy and awareness of the World. Objectivity is a prime consideration. The personal philosophies and political beliefs of the teacher should not intrude. The pupils should be given all relevant information, objectively and encouraged to make personal decisions. Lack of this objectivity may lead to a misuse of the trust that is essential for a teacher and for a school.

An example of this misguided teaching was shown in the recent petition taken to Parliament by pupils of Otorohanga High School for a Day of Commemoration for those who perished in the Land Wars. From the support given by Maori it is obvious which version of the conflict she accepted and taught. The petition had the support of the Maori King, many of the local Iwi, the Tainui and also supporting documents signed by local residents. The petition was apparently the result of a teacher's personally selective interpretation of the events and provided a thinly disguised opportunity for treaty revisionists and Maori activists to revisit perceived injustices of the period, the confiscation of the land of the rebel iwi. It is doubtful that those pupils were ever told of the Musket Wars and the thousands who were slaughtered or enslaved then or Hongi Hika's and Te Raparaha's murderous rampages.

All forms of the media followed the activities avidly with views of the petitioning pupils in feather cloaks and their accompanying haka party with mokos, tipare, piupiu and the presentation of waiatas and karakias. Although the commemoration was supposed to include both sides in the conflict there was not a single mention of the Crown, the Army or the citizens, no whisper of their existence. Biased history, selective reportage?

Unfortunately this slanted view of our history, the idea of post-Treaty victimisation of Maori, seems to now permeate the agenda of our education system up to the universities and at government levels has led to the alteration of statutes and legal definitions and produced non-existent phrases like 'Principles of the Treaty' and suggestions of 'Maori partnership with the Crown' and similar views endorsed by the Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Chris Finlayson, the Maori Party, the Waitangi Tribunal and the Maori Council.

B.J.

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 30/1/16)

I find Tommy Wilson`s claim that it is the very watered down Maori heritage, cultured language which makes New Zealand what it is, No, Mr Wilson, it is the multi-cultured people who settled here and developed a barren country, inhabited by lawless, cannibalistic tribal- fighting natives, who have brought with them education, science, homes. universities and good health which has made this country what it is today. Missionaries saved the Maori language by phonetically writing it down and teaching Maori to read and write.

As for Wilson`s insulting remarks that Maori "culture" sets it apart from "European cultureless, colour-free countries" what rubbish is that? European culture and languages go back thousands of years to the early Greeks, Romans etc and how can Wilson state that Brazilians are "colourless"?

It is good, despite continual intermarriage with other races over the last 176 years, Maori "culture" and language are still preserved but this country is enriched by the cultures of many other peoples - Dutch, Chinese, French, Jewish, Swiss etc along with Middle Eastern cultures. It makes New Zealand the lovely country it is.

M B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the NZHerald 29/1/16

I note that dozens of Syrian refugees who have fled a brutal war are going to be greeted in Auckland with a powhiri. Who came up with this crazy idea? Wikipedia describes a powhiri as "an aggressive challenge where Maori warriors advance towards the guests with ceremonial weapons, and perform threatening gestures and grimaces, calling out battle screams, and generally giving an impression of being ready to explode into violence against the visitors at any moment." A display of aggressiveness, threatening gestures, and battle screams, is the most appalling way to greet those traumatised people, including children, who have already escaped a brutal war. More common sense and less PC culture would be to find a kinder way to greet these already distressed people.

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 29/1/16)

Re Tommy Wilsons letter Jan 29 gave me cause to smile when he stated European indigenous culture was cultureless and colour free.

Europeans no longer feel the need to daub themselves with woad, wave claymores and spears and make threatening gestures to visitors

They have moved on from that and live their real culture on a daily basis

Millions of tourists visit Europe every year to take in this so called colourless culture

and hundreds of thousands risk their lives to try and enter illegally in order to live the culture and partake of its benefits

Everyone, Tommy Wilson included is living a culture based on the European model here in New Zealand

The alternative does not bear thinking about

G F

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 25/1/16)

I read your article of the TPP controversy at Ratana Pa with great interest and I was delighted to read the comments by Rahui Papa of Tainui who said to John Key - "Closed door negotiations don't work for Maori. I implore you to take the pulse of the people and debate with all those across the country."

This is obviously a man who appreciates transparency and democracy, as he wishes open debate with all New Zealanders across the country. The definition of democracy is that all citizens must be equal with no regard to race, gender or religion.

Therefore I am now quite happily assured that whenever there is to be any discussion or decision at local or regional council level with tribes about the freshwater issue, that it will be held in an open, transparent, and democractic manner at which we will all be welcome to attend. The general consensus is that no-one can own or control water.

Councillors, whether local or regional, are paid by us, to represent us all, we are in effect your employers, and as such you must heed our opinions and act accordingly.

R. B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 23/1/16)

The Otorohanga petition

The letter from Russell Armitage (Weekend, 23.1.16) is only a piece of propaganda.

By the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maoris - including the many slaves of other Maoris - became full British subjects in return for the chiefs' cession of sovereignty. That is all.

It was not the colonists and colonial governments who breached this agreement as he claims but the tribes who rebelled against the Queen's sovereignty. Those tribal rebellions were his so-called "Land Wars". Land was confiscated after the rebellions were quelled, to pay in part for suppressing them, not before, as falsely claimed in the Waitangi Tribunal Tainui report.

I have written three times to the principal of Otorohanga College to give him an accurate account of the taking of Rangiaowhia, dispelling the many false stories about the burning of a church full of women and children, but have not received one word from him in reply. So what has he really told his students? The whole "petition" exercise looks very dubious to me.

Mr Armitage should be told too that our country is not "Aotearoa" as he seems to think. He should look in the Treaty of Waitangi to see if he can find it there.

BRUCE MOON

Nelson

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 18/1/16)

Tommy Wilson in his column (18 January) claims that there is a fourth Article written into the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi. I suggest Tommy and his friend Pa Rawiri, whom Tommy claims told him about this, to read the Maori version of the Treaty and they would then find that no such Article 4 exists. To quote Dr Paul Moon Professor of History at Auckland University of Technology “The exponents of the "fourth article" cite conversations held between Hobson and others at Waitangi as somehow constituting binding parts of the Treaty, but this is based on false reasoning and an impoverished understanding of international law. “ Pompallier's inquiry was purely one of self-interest. His concern being that as a British colony his evangelizing could be curtailed.

If Tommy and Pa Rawiri are truly concerned about religious freedom then they can rest assured that all New Zealanders are guaranteed that right under section 21 of the Human Rights Act and section 13 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

R P

Tauranga

Dear Editor (Sent to the Bay of Plenty Times 12/1/16)

The Western Bay of Plenty of District Council meeting held on the 17th December 2015 Councillors moved to exclude the public which related to the transfer of ownership, a strategic piece of land on Matakana Island, Panepane Point to tribal interests.

The land owned by Western Bay of Plenty District Council some 200 hectares (495acres) is part and parcel of the entrance to Tauranga Harbour which also has navigational aids positioned on it to assist with shipping.

In the interests of transparency why was the discussion not held in open meeting so the ideologies of the mayor and Councillors could be fully understood by us ratepayers.

Council in its wisdom has decided to initiate a process under an Act of Parliament which provides for the transfer of ownership based on “The I Want Philosophy” to tribal interests of Matakana Island and Tauranga.

Can we expect in future that Western Bay Council will start giving ratepayer assets away nilly willy to tribal interests because they want them?

M L

Te Puke

Dear Editor (Sent to the NZHerald 9/1/16)

Waitangi Day is a circus . Year after year our PM has to be escorted by Titiwhai Harawira.

Titewhai Hariwira with her daughter Hinewhare and other members of her family were convicted and jailed for assaulting Charles Matthews, a committed mental health patient, at Carrington Hospital in 1988 . Witnesses told of a beating that included punching, kicking, and twisting of his genitals. Hinewhare hit him so hard, it was said in evidence, she dislocated her shoulder.

Evidence from Dr McGeorge read: the patient had massive injuries to both eyes and to his jaw to the extent that his eyes were virtually closed, his jaw was misshapen and swollen and I felt that he had suffered considerable injuries including a possible skull fracture.

The judge described the assault as “a vicious and violent attack upon this helpless and pathetic man … this merciless beating of a patient by those who were entrusted with his care was inexcusable and reprehensible in the extreme.”

Our PM should not have to be arm-in-arm with anyone who could treat another human being this way. It is both an insult to the PM and demeaning to the Office. If Ngapuhi won't sideline the Harewiras then the PM bodyguard should.

R P

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Weekend Sun 8/1/16)

Freshwater is an issue currently taking centre stage. In desperation, the Government has passed responsibility of freshwater ownership to the unfortunate people at regional councils, which will raise the ire of the general public if they even consider granting water-rights to Maori.

The Waitangi Tribunal's 2012 report on Maori rights in water, No. 8 (of 12) is "The people have identified taniwha as residing in the water resource".

Absolute nonsense! Maori themselves say that a taniwha is a mythical water spirit. It is a legend!

That is one of the reasons knocked out.

No. 6 - "Water is celebrated in waiata" - how about The River, Smoke on the Water, Rain, etc. To sing about something doesn't mean you own it.

Another reason knocked out.

Having been through the total list, as an indigenous New Zealander, I have as much right to freshwater as this tribunal report gives to Maori rights.

The definition of democracy is that all citizens must be equal with no regard to race, gender or religion.

The regional councils must do their democratic duty by us all and shun any race-based legislation such as freshwater being granted to one particular group in society.

To do otherwise would be a failure of their civic duty!

R B

Tauranga

Dear Editor, (Sent to the Sunday Star Times 3/1/16)

Reading Stacey Kirk`s comment concerning the desire of iwi to take over the control of Freshwater, one has to wonder why, 176 years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, iwi should be claiming such a right. The Treaty gave Maori control over the land and their right to sell it through the Crown, which they did with enthusiasm. No mention of their control over Freshwater.

Now, suddenly, radical part-Maori are adding yet another claim to their endless list of fabricated claims to land, sea and shore. John Key has stated : "No one owns the water". Well, John, let us see you put your words into action instead of trying to pass the buck to local Councils to deal with belligerent iwi who, unelected, are now being granted the right to interfere with Council decisions

What has happened to democracy in this country? Racism is rife when a few of the mere 15% part-Maori can dictate to elected Councils, that they, unelected iwi, have the right to control Freshwater? Wake up John Key and the National Party. If this nonsense is not stopped we are up to our ears in apartheid!

M. B

Tauranga