Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

A man who says the law should not apply to him because he is tangata whenua has had his bail application rejected.

Jay Maui Wallace was sentenced in June to four years and three months in prison on charges of injuring with intent to injure over an incident in which he hit a woman with a sawn-off shotgun.

Wallace applied to the High Court in July seeking to be released from prison through a habeas corpus writ, which is used in cases of unlawful detention.

Representing himself, he argued New Zealand laws could not be applied to him because he was tangata whenua and he did not recognise the court’s jurisdiction over him.

Sounds a nasty piece of work – hitting a woman with a shotgun. His attempt to play what I call the “tangata whenua” card angered me, mainly because it inflames race relations. Nothing pisses people off more by some criminal claiming the law doesn’t apply to him because of his race.

I’m a but more sanguine about it now. The argument never works, and you can’t stop people making pathetic and stupid claims. So maybe one should just fight their claims with humour.

Mr Wallace has both Maori and non-Maori ancestors. So maybe the Judge should tell him that the jail sentence only applies to his Pakeha cells

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the full results from the Marae Digipoll. There’s heaps to read there. The electorate numbers are quite small per electorate, so rather than just look at who is in the lead, I’ve analysed the probability that they actually lead. I make it:

• Waiariki – Maori Party ahead with 100% probability
• Tainui – Labour ahead with 100% probability
• Tamaki Makaurau – Maori Party ahead with 96% probability
• Ikaroa Rawhiti – Labour ahead with 85% probability
• Te Tai Hauauru – Maori Party ahead with 80% probability
• Te Tai Tonga – Labour ahead with 78% probability
• Te Tai Tokerau – Labour ahead with 58% probability

Personally I’d still regard Harawira as ahead in Te Tai Tokerau. I also think Tariana Turia will bolt in Te Tai Hauauru. Flavell is looking unbeatable in Waiariki, even with Sykes having just confirmed, as he has over 50% support. And at this stage Sharples looking pretty safe in Tamaki Makaurau.

Party Vote – Maori roll Maori voters (2008 result in brackets)

• Labour 35.7% (50.1%)
• Maori 27.7% (28.9%)
• National 13.2% (7.4%)
• Mana 12.0%
• Green 5.6% (3.9%)
• NZ First 4.1% (6.1%)
• ACT 0.0% (0.5%)

This is interesting, as you can compare to the last election. Labour are down 14% from their 2008 result. Maori Party down 1%, National up 5% and Mana Party has sucked up 12%. I do note more people on the Maori roll say they will vote National than Mana on the party vote.

Also of interest is that amongst Maori on the general roll, ACT had 3% support.

Overall the poll has some good news for everyone. Labour looks to pick up Te Tai Tonga, Maori Party elsewhere is looking okay. Mana is off to an okay start, but at this stage can’t guarantee they will get a second seat – list or electorate. National will like the answers to the questions on Marine & Coastal Area law (only 28% say Maori Party should not have supported).

The Maori Community Development Act 1962:

31 Prevention of drunkenness

A Maori Warden may at any reasonable time enter any licensed premises in any area where he is authorised to carry out his duties and warn the licensee or any servant of the licensee to abstain from selling or supplying liquor to any Maori who in the opinion of the Warden is in a state of intoxication, or is violent, quarrelsome, or disorderly, or is likely to become so, whether intoxicated or not, and if the licensee or any servant of the licensee thereafter on the same day supplies liquor to that Maori, the licensee and, if the servant had been warned by the Warden, the servant, commits an offence against this Act.

H/T: Dim-Post

This comes from a TV3 story last night:

Wellington bar owners say drunk Maori will be specifically targeted during the World Cup, by a 50-year-old law that has been pulled from the archives by police and the city council.

The law allows Maori wardens to enter bars and remove drunk or violent Maori. …

Elizabeth Binning at NZ Herald reports:

More than 200 tertiary providers will meet in Auckland today to find ways of getting more Maori students into tertiary education.

That’s an interesting goal. Here are the latest tertiary education participation rates (2009) for four ethnic groups, alphabetically – Asians, Europeans, Maori and Pasifika.

In order of best to worst, here are the four participation rates – 17%, 13%, 12%, 11%.

Your challenge is to match them up.

MaoriRadicals

So what do people think of the advertisement? I would have thought ACT would be focusing more on Labour’s proposed capital gains tax, but eaach to their own.

National have announced that they have selected Joanne Hayes as their candidate for Dunedin South. Congrats to Joanne. Joanne is the Chief Executive of Ngai Tai O Te Awa Trust.

Last weekend Georgina te Heuheu announced her retirement. Georgie became a National MP in 1996, and off memory was the only National MP who was of Maori descent.

Today National has eight MPs of Maori descent. On top of that National’s candidates in Northland, Wellington Central and Dunedin South are of Maori descent. And on current polling they could all well become MPs via the party list if they do not win their seats.

This has all happened with no quotas.

What is remarkable isn’t so much that National is selecting so many Maori candidates, but that so many Maori are making themselves available to stand for National. 20 years ago it was near unthinkable.

UPDATE: And to further make my point, Claudette Hauiti has just been selected as the Mangere candidate. 11 out of 63 candidates in general seats are Maori.

Te Karere have released part 2 of their poll of 1,000 Maori voters.

They have asked “The new legislation replacing the Foreshore and Seabed Act is the Marine and Coastal Area Bill and is currently before Parliament. Do you support the new Bill?“. 24% said yes, 39% no and 38% don’t know.  so neither yes or no is the majority, but more are saying they don’t support it.

However when they are asked “Do you think the Maori Party should support the new Bill to become law?” it is almost a dead heat – 31% yes, 32% no and 37% don’t know. I think this sums up the challenge for the Maori Party – that there is a 50/50 split amongst those who have an opinion in terms of whether they vote for it.

There is a small difference by roll type. Those on the Maori roll are a net 3% against and those on the general roll a net 3% in favour.

Final question to Maori Party voters only was “Do you think the National and Maori Party coalition has worked in favour of your best interests? and 48% said yes and 46% no. Those on Maori roll were 4% net yes and those on geeral roll 8% net no.

TVNZ’s Te Karere programme has just released a poll done of 1,002 Maori voters (367 from general and 635 from Maori rolls), taken from 6 to 28 January. I blogged their 2010 poll here. Key findings so far are below. :

Party Vote:

• Labour 36.9% (-1.0% from Jan 10)
• Maori Party 36.2% (-2.1%)
• National 16.8% (-0.15)
• Greens 4.5% (+1.2%)
• NZ First 4.3%
• ACT 0.8% (+0.6%)

Not a lot of change from last year I have to say. The breakdown by roll is interesting. On the Maori roll it is Maori Party 46% (-5%), Labour 35% (+3%) and National 12% (+15). On the general roll it is Labour 42% (-9%), National 30% (+2%), Maori 11% (nc).

One can compare the Maori roll results to the 2008 election. Labour got 50% of the party vote in the 2008 election, so are down 15% from the election. The Maori Party got 29% of the maori roll party vote in the 2008 election, so are up 17% from the election. So in 2008 Labour was 21% higher than the Maori Party, and today they are 11% behind the Maori Party – a net 16% swing from Labour.

Preferred PM:

1. John Key 26.4% (-4.1%)
2. Pita Sharples 7.8% (-4.0%)
3. Tariana Turia 7.8% (+2.9%)
4. Winston Peters 7.0% (nc)
5. Phil Goff 6.4% (+1.8%)
6. Hone Harawira 2.7% (-0.3%)
7. Helen Clark 2.6% (-1.2%)
8. Shane Jones 2.1% (-0.1%)

A small improvement for Goff, but still very low considering how strong Maori support for Labour has been in the past.

Key is Preferred PM for 33% of Maori on the general roll and 24% of Maori on the Maori roll.

Phil Goff

• Only 25.2% (-10.8%) of Labour voters think he is the best person to lead Labour
• 24.1% (+5.9%) say Goff provides good leadership on Maori issues

Shane Jones will be pleased with these results.

Amelia Wade at the Herald reports:

A clash of cultures over a rule forbidding pregnant or menstruating women to attend a Te Papa exhibit has been criticised by feminists.

An invitation for regional museums to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa’s collections included the condition that “wahine who are either hapu [pregnant] or mate wahine [menstruating]” were unable to attend.

Jane Keig, Te Papa spokeswoman, said the policy was in place because of Maori beliefs surrounding the Taonga Maori collection included in the tour.

She said the rule was one of the terms Te Papa agreed to when they took the collection.

“If a woman is pregnant or menstruating, they are tapu. Some of these taonga have been used in battle and to kill people.

“Pregnant women are sacred and the policy is in place to protect women from these objects.”

What? Are Te Papa concerned that one of these ancient weapons is going to levitate itself over to any pregnant women, and bludgeon her to death unassisted?

And how does Te Papa intend to check if women are menstruating? Will there be compulsory checks? I mean you can’t rely on trust – the ghosts may get offended.

Deborah Russel, prominent feminist blogger on The Hand Mirror blog, does not think the policy should be enforced in modern society.

“I don’t understand why a secular institution, funded by public money in a secular state, is imposing religious and cultural values on people.

“It’s fair enough for people to engage in their own cultural practices where those practices don’t harm others, but the state shouldn’t be imposing those practices on other people.”

Absolutely. If they are the terms under which a collection will only be granted, then they should be refused.

Would one accept a collection with a condition that no blacks are d

lowed to view the collection?

Would Te Papa kowtow to the Roman Catholic Church if it insisted that a collection of church art work only be viewable by men?

However, Margaret Mutu, head of Maori Studies at Auckland University, said the policy was common in Maori culture.

Women cannot go into the garden, on to the beach or in the kitchen when they are menstruating.

“It’s a very serious violation of tapu for women to do those things while menstruating. Women cannot have anything to do with the preparation of food while they are menstruating.”

I would be very interested in any research that measures how prevalent this “policy” is amongst Maori women. It may have been common in the past, but how many modern Maori families ban women from going into the garden or the beach while they are menstruating?

No Right Turn alerted me to this private members bill drawn from the ballot. He supports the intent, but not the details of the bill. I have problems with both.

The bill basically forces every city council, district council and regional council to have one or more Maori wards – reserved for voters of Maori descent.

I think such a move would be appalling, and push us towards a Fiji style country, and set back race relations massively.

I also think it shows how dangerous it can be when the debate keeps shifting down this path.

At a national level, we have had the Maori seats since 1867. They were well intentioned, allowing Maori who owned property communally to vote – a right limited then to property owners.

In an ideal world the seats would have been abolished in 1879 when the property requirement was abolished. It is somewhat shameful that up until 1976, Maori were not even allowed to vote on the general roll.

I regard it as a shame that the Royal Commission’s recommendation to abolish the Maori seats (and in exchange have a lower threshold for Maori parties) was not implemented. Have race based seats is just not something that long-term I think is likely to create a more harmonious New Zealand.

However I do generally accept the proposition that regardless of the lack of a principled rationale for race based seats, that trying to unilaterally abolish them would be an act that would in itself be disharmonious and create a huge backlash. There is a huge difference between not creating something, and taking something away. Hence I don’t think it is wise to try and abolish the Maori parliamentary seats, unless one could get widespread agreement from Maori to it.

But having said that, I think it is important that the Maori parliamentary seats be seen as a historic exception, and not the rule. However we are in some danger of ending up there.

In 1998 Tuariki Delamere sponsored a bill to allow the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to create a Maori ward or wards.The argument was that it was only for that one Council which had special needs, and the parliamentary seats was a precedent. And people thought well, why not allow it.

It was not supported by National, but in 2001 Labour passed it as the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act 2001.

The exception then became an option for all, and Labour passed the Local Electoral Amendment Act 2002 which allowed any Council to establish Maori wards either on their own initiative or by referendum, which can be  upon petition by 5% of electors.

So a historical anomaly became a one off example in one Council, and then became an option for all Councils.

And it didn’t stop there. The Royal Commission on Auckland recommended that the new Auckland Council have three Maori seats, regardless of whether or not the people of Auckland wanted them. Labour demanded that the Government create Maori seats for Auckland, rather than even leave it to Auckland to decide. So again, the debate shifted from should they even be allowed, to should it be created without consultation.

And then finally we have the Local Electoral (Māori Representation) Amendment Bill by Te Uroroa Flavell, which would impose Maori wards on every council in New Zealand, dividing every single authority up into Maori and non Maori.

Now it is all well intentioned, and supporters will claim the means justify the ends. But again I don’t think we want to end up like Fiji with race dividing voters electorally.

So I fully expect Flavell’s bill to be voted down. No doubt the Greens will vote for it. I suspect Labour would love to vote for it, but they may vote against it on the basis of its flaws (beyond the principled opposition to it). NRT describes these:

Currently councils can establish Māori wards, and if they do, their number is determined by the number of people on the Māori roll in that district. Flavell’s bill would change this to being determined by the number of people of Māori descent. However, voting in those wards would still be limited to the 60% of Māori on the Māori roll. Which means that those wards will be systematically undersized, and those Māori systematically over-represented.

This would be a huge gerrymander. Basically voters in the Maori wards would have twice as much power as those in other wards. NRT also fisks the justification from Flavell:

Flavell’s justification for this change is that

This change is made because 40% of the Māori population is under 18 years and is therefore excluded under the current formula.

But this is simply incorrect. The current formula uses the definitions from the Electoral Act 1993, which specifically includes people under 18. So those people would already be represented (though unable to vote)

Incidentally I believe electorate populations should be based on the adult population, not the total population – but that is a debate for another day.

NRT concludes:

I don’t think this is an attempt at a stitch-up; rather its likely a mistake born of not reading the law closely enough. But the result is a deeply flawed bill. Fortunately, those flaws can be resolved at select committee.

The mistake can be easily resolved. But I don’t think the bill should proceed. Generally I support most bills going to a select committee, but this bill seeks to move in a direction which I so strongly disagree with, that I don’t think it should even get past first reading.

Incidentally under this proposed law, four local authorities would be forced to have the majority of their seats elected from Maori wards. Think about the level of resentment that would cause amongst non-Maori? I don’t mean the resentment would come from having a majority of Maori on a local authority. I, for one, would not care a damn if the majority of Wellington City Council was Maori. I would object though if the majority had been elected from wards which I am banned from being eligible to enrol in, because of my lack of the right genes.

It is a pity that the debate on this bill will now be whether or not Maori seats on Council should be compulsory or voluntary. In fact the debate should be about whether Labour should have ever created them at all in 2001.

Three editorials on the UN Declaration. First the Herald:

When the previous Labour Government was confronted with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, it quailed.

The potential political backlash, rather than the practical outcome of signing a non-binding document, was uppermost in its mind.

At its behest, New Zealand joined a group of only four UN members opposed to the declaration. It was a nonsensical state of affairs for a country whose record on indigenous rights is far superior to the vast majority of those who had signed up. …

If New Zealand does certain things differently to the ideal scenario alluded to by the declaration, that is of no great practical consequence. The focus should be on its record on indigenous relations, which places it in the international vanguard.

The work of the Waitangi Tribunal, which since 1975 has served as an effective sounding board for iwi to relate their stories of land loss, has been an integral part of that.

New Zealand has always spoken from a position of strength on matters of indigenous rights because it comes closer than most to meeting the aspirations espoused in the UN declaration.

Signing that document was, as Dr Sharples suggests, a small step but one that has symbolic value domestically and internationally.

There may, indeed, be no practical impact. That does not mean, however, that grasping this nettle was not worthwhile.

So Herald very supportive.

The Press:

The Maori Party chalked up another victory this week with the announcement that the Government will support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Although this decision is largely symbolic, support for the declaration had been a long-standing goal of the party and a source of friction between it and the previous Labour-led administration.

From a political perspective, support for the declaration makes sense for both the Maori Party and National. The Maori Party can add this to a growing list of policy concessions by National, including retaining the Maori seats and flying the Maori flag on Waitangi Day. In addition, the hated foreshore and seabed law will be repealed and the Maori Party’s flagship Whanau Ora policy will be introduced.

For National, these concessions have the effect of tying the Maori Party closer to it and creating the prospect that a support relationship between the two could endure past this term. In particular, it creates a point of difference with Labour, which justified its position as one of just four nations to oppose the declaration in 2007 by saying that it was at odds with New Zealand’s constitutional and legal framework. …

There is a risk that the declaration could be the basis of future attacks on this nation’s human rights record. But New Zealand governments have shown themselves capable of shrugging off previous criticism from bodies such as the UN Commission on Human Rights.

It might be argued, as Labour has done, that there was little point in endorsing the declaration if it would have no practical effect. It is, however, a symbol of New Zealand’s support for indigenous peoples across the globe.

And it was always incongruous that the vast majority of nations, many of which have appalling human rights records compared with New Zealand, voted for the bill, and that this nation did not.

Two in favour.

The Dom Post:

Recognising blah blah blah, affirming waffle waffle waffle. As a contribution to the human rights canon, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples leaves something to be desired.

It reads like a 48-page wish list assembled by a committee, which is exactly what it is – a committee which debated the merits of additional clauses, full stops and commas for 22 years. Drafting began in 1985, but the final wording was not approved by the United Nations General Assembly until 2007.

Heh sounds typical.

However, its drawn-out conception is not a reason to oppose it. Nor is its verbosity. The declaration is a flawed document – an assemblage of truisms and platitudes that imposes no obligations on signatories but contains fishhooks for nations that try to honour it.

It is actually to the last government’s credit that it declined to endorse a document it knew it could not implement. Amid the verbiage are a handful of articles that confer rights on indigenous peoples that are denied to other citizens. They include the right to veto government decisions and reclaim ownership of traditional lands – a right that, in New Zealand’s case, could be interpreted as covering the entire country.

New Zealand does not need to pay lip service to unworkable statements to demonstrate its good intent. …

However, there is value in restating the special status of Maori as New Zealand’s indigenous people, acknowledging the importance of Maori culture, affirming the Treaty of Waitangi’s place as New Zealand’s founding document and acknowledging the historic injustices suffered by Maori.

The negotiations between the Maori Party and National have enabled the Government to do so in a way which does not expose it to accusations of bad faith.

New Zealand’s declaration of support explicitly reaffirms the legal and constitutional frameworks that underpin the legal system and notes that those frameworks define the bounds of New Zealand’s engagement with the UN declaration. In other words, New Zealand law takes precedence over the declaration.

A momentous occasion as the Maori Party has suggested? Perhaps not, but a welcome opportunity to remove a source of friction between Maori and the Government and to put New Zealand back in the international mainstream. Of the four countries that initially opposed the declaration – New Zealand, the United States, Australia and Canada – only the US now stands outside the declaration. Australia changed its position last year and Canada has said it will do so.

Luke warm, but broadly supportive.

The ODT focuses on volcanic fallout:

If there is a lesson to be learned – again – from the billowing clouds of volcanic ash in the skies over Europe, it is the latent power of nature.

In 1783, the eruption of the volcano Laki in Iceland lasted for about eight months.

The effects of the layers of dust it threw into the atmosphere have been linked, among other things, to the failure of crops in France, and subsequent famine.

The fallout, Dr Stephen Edwards of the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London told the London Observer at the weekend, may have been one of a number of factors that led to the French Revolution. …

The interruption to normal service is costing the airline industry alone almost $NZ500 million a day, according to a conservative estimate by the International Air Transport Association.

The knock-on effects to a world economy just beginning to witness the signs of a fragile recovery from the recent recession, could be considerably amplified beyond the immediate consequences of cancelled flights.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key will use his Waitangi Day address this morning to tackle extremists on both sides of the race relations divide, saying they cynically damage the goodwill needed to put an end to grievance in New Zealand. …

His comments will target both sides – including Pakeha who believe the Treaty settlement process is a “gravy train” and that the price is too high, so past injustice should be ignored.

He will also tackle Maori extremists, describing them as those who promote a culture of entitlement and separatism, who believe colonisation entitles Maori to special treatment and whose sole objective is division.

I think the speech is necessary and overdue. However that does not mean it will automatically be effective.

In his speech at the marae yesterday, Mr Key discussed progress on Treaty settlements and said 2010 could be the year for a breakthrough on the foreshore and seabed. However, he said he needed to voice a note of caution that both sides had to compromise.

He also raised the 15 per cent Maori unemployment rate, saying improving education outcomes for Maori children would help address that.

I think improving education outcomes for Maori children is the most important thing that the Government can do. Except of course there is a limit to how much the Government can do by itself.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the full results of a poll of 1,002 Maori respondents. There are 685 from the Maori roll and 317 from the General Roll.

The most news worthy aspect is that that majority of Maori who are voting Labour do not believe Phil Goff is the best person to lead the Labour Party. Only 36% of Maori Labour voters say he is the best person to lead Labour and 48% say he is not. Now again – that is from Labour voters only, not all Maori, so is a pretty damning result.

We see this again, with the poll of all Maori voters on whether or not they think Phil Goff provides good leadership on Maori issues – only 18% (less than one in five) agree and 59% disagree.

Preferred PM is also pretty dismal. Goff is in 5th place at 4.6% (and remember this is amongst a constituency who used to be the strongest Labour had) and amongst Maori on the Maori roll he is even below Hone Harawira as Preferred PM!

Finally in terms of the party vote, there is bad and good news for Labour. Amongst the 68% of Maori on the Maori roll, Labour has fallen from 50% at the last election to 32%. Labour are at 51% amongst Maori on the general roll, which is up from a November Marae Digipoll.

Overall the Maori Party lead Labour by 0.4% on the party vote. On the Maori Roll, they lead by 20%, which compares to the 2008 election when Labour beat the Maori Party by 21% on the party vote.

If the electorate vote follows the party vote (and historically the Maori Party do far better on the electorate vote than the party vote) then Labour is at serious risk of losing their two remaining seats, rather than winning all seven seats as Shane Jones claims he will do.

Trevor Mallard blogged:

Back in 2000 I was acting Minister of Communication while Paul Swain was sick. I made it very clear at the time that the Crown did not accept that the radio spectrum was an asset that attracted rights for Maori from the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Frankly I thought, and still think, that that concept is nonsense.

Yet back in 2000 Hansard records:

The Government has decided that preferential bidding access to one of the four 15 megahertz blocks of third generation spectrum will be given only to those parties able to demonstrate some commitment to involve Maori in the development of this spectrum. This is likely to be telecommunications working in partnership with Maori. The third generation spectrum will provide significant opportunities for new investment and technological advancement in New Zealand’s telecommunications sector. The Government considers that it is very important to ensure that Maori can take part in this process.

Now to be clear, Trevor did not say that the telecommunications spectrum was a “right” under the Treaty of Waitangi. But he did advocate policy of preferential access for Maori to it, regardless of treaty claims. That is something he somehow forgot to mention.

Goff”s desperate speech and u-turn may turn out to be a nail in his coffin. The Herald reports:

Labour’s president, Andrew Little, revealed yesterday that he has “personal concerns” about the speech.

It is no small thing for a party president to criticise the leader in public.

Mr Little said the speech had been discussed with Mr Goff at length at Labour’s national council meeting.

The president relayed his concerns, which he said were both his personally and those of people in the party.

“The extent to which I’ve got concerns is an issue for me and Phil, and no doubt the party and Phil and I wouldn’t air those publicly.”

But what is the game plan, that you will publicly air that you have concerns, just not what they are? There is no way this does not weaken Goff’s leadership.

A spokesman for Mr Goff said last night that he “absolutely stands by everything he said in the speech”.

It had raised important issues such as National’s “shabby” deal with the Maori Party to get the Emissions Trading Scheme through. Mr Goff also had grave concerns about National “playing politics” with the foreshore and seabed legislation.

So now the leader responds through the media to his own president.

Mr Little told the party conference in September that Labour had been wrong to deprive Maori of the right to test their claims in court when passing the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The legislation will now be repealed as part of the governing agreement between National and the Maori Party, and Labour offered earlier in the year to work with National to achieve an “enduring consensus”.

But Mr Goff’s speech effectively changed Labour’s position on the law, saying it was working well the way it was now and repeal would make “wounds fester”.

Yep a u-turn in just two months.

I don’t think anyone thinks there is anything wrong with Labour opposing National’s ETS changes and associated deal with the Maori Party.

Likewise there is nothing wrong with Labour saying it supports the retention of the Foreshore & Seabed legislation. Of course they look a bit mickey mouse when they say they back change, that they are sorry for it, and then do a u-turn.

But where Goff went wrong is bringing together those two separate issues, along with Hone Harawira’s comments, into one overall theme of those Maori are getting away with too much.

My goodness, Phil Goff is desperate. He has actually done a full u-turn on his party’s removal of the right for Maori to test their common law property rights in court.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Phil Goff has re-opened the political warfare over the foreshore and seabed law, saying the Government’s plan to repeal it will divide the country again.

Mr Goff yesterday changed Labour’s position on the law, saying it was working well the way it was now, and repeal would make “wounds fester”.

What an idiot. He doesn’t think there are festering wounds at the moment.

Goff is calculating (probably correctly) that he will get a short-term boost from this in the polls, which will shore up his leadership. However he is making his job of being able to form a Government after the next election harder, as the chances of Labour and the Greens by themselves achieving 62 or more seats is very remote. Maybe he is counting on Winston making it back?

No Right Turn has let loose:

Today in Palmerston North (of course), Labour leader Phil Goff gave a speech to Grey Power (of course) attacking the government for dealing with the Maori Party, “reopening” Treaty settlements, and revisiting the Foreshore and Seabed Act. While carefully caveated (of course), the underlying message was loud and clear: “National is in bed with the bloody Maaris”. …

Well, fuck him. Racism has no place in our society, and a proper left-wing party would be fighting against it, not engendering and exploiting it for political gain. Our defining belief is equality, and that means equality for all, not just Pakeha. If Labour doesn’t understand that, and wants to go down this path, then its just another reason for me to vote Green.

I think it is quite legitimate for Labour to say they have problems with the ETS and associated deals on Treaty settlements. Also legitimate to say they support the Foreshore & Seabed Act. But when Goff starts chucking in stuff about how John Key didn’t condemn Hone Harawira badly enough (which is hilarious when you consider Goff voted against the privileges committee report into Winston Peters), it is a pretty blatant attempt to do you know what.

The recent Marae-Digipoll showed Labour’s support amongst Maori had collapsed massively since the election. I guess they have decided not to try and change that, and hope they pick up enough Grey Power votes in exchange.

Colin Espiner blogs:

Twice in the past week, Goff has played the race card, albeit carefully, by suggesting first that there was one rule for Harawira over his comments about white mo-fos and another rule for other MPs, and then raising the prospect that National’s proposed settlement with iwi over the ETS was based on ethnicity. …

Goff told Parliament he had never indulged “the politics of race” although I think he protested a bit much. He is clearly trying to send a soft dog whistle to Labour supporters who abandoned his party at the last election because they were fed up with precisely the sort of “pandering to Maori” that National could now be accused of.

It will interesting how far Goff is willing to go. I suspect it is considerably more. The irony is it may help them tactically short-term, but it is almost impossible for them to win the next election unless the Maori Party were to support them – they and the Greens would need to win 62, maybe 63 seats.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog, the details of a Marae Digipoll. It has 700 voters from the Maori roll, and 300 from the general roll (but of Maori descent).

There’s several fascinating aspects to it.

1. Party Vote is Maori Party 48%, Labour 26% and National 20%. Now in the 2008 election, in the Maori seats, the party vote was Maori Party 29%, Labour 50% and National 7%. Now this can’t be directly compared due to inclusion of general roll voters (I have asked if there is a breakdown) but regardless that a big boost upwards for the Maori Party and National.
2. Maori Party at 57% on electorate vote. Will this hold up for them to win the sixth and seventh seat off Labour?
3. John Key at seven times the support of Phil Goff as Preferred PM. This is a National Party leader. Goff is in 5th place amongst Maori.
4. Approval of John Key is at 55% amongst Maori.
5. In terms of most effective Maori MP, the top Labour MP (Parekura Horomia)  is at 3%, in 5th place.
6. While 68% of Maori Party supporters back the decision to go into Government with National, most want them to be in Cabinet – not Ministers outside Cabinet.

I’ve said for some time that Labour’s strategy of attacking the Maori Party is a strategic blunder. This poll confirms it, in my opinion.

I am firmly against separate justice systems, but all for making the system more effective and this initiative seems a good one:

The Youth Court will sit at Manurewa Marae from November, and supporters say justice served in a Maori setting won’t be soft. …

Gisborne’s Te Poho o Rawiri Marae spearheaded the initiative last year, but Mr Sharples said Auckland was the logical extension of it because of the population base – one in four Maori live there.

Justice on marae was often far more uncomfortable for offenders than courtrooms, he said.

“Tamaiti [a boy] can stand in front of his family and be accounted for – it’s easy to go to a Pakeha court and go ae, ae, [yeah, yeah] and give the fingers and go out.

“But to stand in a court at your marae with your ancestors and your aunties, uncles and cousins – it’s scary. Some will think it’s soft but this is the hard option.”

I think Dr Sharples is spot on here. The change in venue could well make it more difficult for young offenders to be as disrespectful as they sometimes are in traditional courts.

And it is the same justice system, with the same Judges and same penalties. Just a different venue.

Judge Greg Hikaka will sit at Manurewa once every two weeks.

He said it was too early to say how many would go through the marae but offenders would have to be referred by the court after a family group conference.

That conference would set out a plan to address the young person’s offending which would be monitored by the marae.

But victims would not be left out of the picture as they would have to agree to it, the judge said.

And that is a vital part of it also.

News.com.au has the following headline:

Maori ‘not retarded borderline psychotics’

It would have to be an Australian newspaper of course.

The Herald on Sunday has alerted me to this blog post by Trevor Mallard. I have not been reading other blogs while on holiday so would have missed it. Anyway Trevor says:

I live in Wainuiomata. Like most smaller communities I know the extended Rawiri whanau, but not well.

These five people killed their niece. It happened over an extended period.

I accept that they almost certainly would not reoffend and prison may be an expensive waste of time. And there are too many Maori in prison.

But I am certain that a Pakeha exorcism that resulted in torture and death would result in a prison term – albeit not necessarily a long one.

The fact that they weren’t sent to prison because they are Maori just doesn’t seem right to me.

Almost every blog on the right has said they agree with Trevor. Interestingly I have not yet seen much reaction from left blogs.

I was actually thinking of blogging how surprised I was none of them got jailtime, and I basically agree with Trevor that it is hard to imagine an exorcism by say a church pastor with the same results would not have got a jail sentence.

In fact one of Trevor’s commenters reminds us that Pastor Luke Lee got six years jail for an exorcism manslaughter in 2001. While the cases are somewhat different it is hard to reconcile six years jail with zero years jail.

MacDoctor notes that even defence lawyer Barry Hart has said the sentences are too lenient. MacDoctor says the sentence is absurdly lenient and intensely paternalistic. I agree.

The Dominion Post reports on a speech by Mark Solomon to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce where he signals Iwi wish to be partners for the Crown in Public/Private Partenrships (PPPs) and even possibly minority investors in SOEs.

I was at the breakfast address, and thought it was an excellent speech that had several aspects worth considering. From his speech:

It’s a simple fact, but a vitally important one when thinking about Iwi Maori – WE ARE HERE FOREVER!

We are as much part of the landscape as the mountains and the lakes – our people will always be here, our focus will always be here and our money will remain here.

It seems like an obvious statement, but if you contemplate it for a minute, extrapolate an investment out over generation, after generation, after generation, after generation, after generation… you begin to see the power of the statement and get an insight into the vision of Maori investment.

I had not considered this before, but Solomon is right about the long-term future. Most companies are here for a limited duration and/or get sold, merged etc. Iwi as local investors will be here permanently, and as most of their investment will be in local companies and institutions they will over time be very major economic forces.

According the Te Puni Kokiri – the Ministry of Maori Development – the total commercial assets owned in 2005/2006 by Maori individuals, whanau, hapu and Iwi stood at $16.5billion – a massive increase of $7.5 billion from 2001.

This represented 1.5% of the reported value of the total New Zealand business sector.

And that percentage will grow over time.

The Ngai Tahu Settlement was a platform for the creation of our future, on our own terms.

The quantum we were offered was not fair or just. Treasury acknowledged our land assets alone in 1998 value would have ranged from $12b to $15b.

But, we voted to accept just $170m – cut our losses, move forward and build a future for our people. …

Ngai Tahu Holdings Limited, our commercial entity, is today worth $606m, with equity of $473m and more than 500 employees through our companies.

Growth from $170 millon to $473 million in a decade is a result many would like.

Iwi Maori are diversifying their investments, but for Ngāi Tahu as an intergenerational investor we take a deliberate and conservative approach – for us, like many Iwi, the next wave will be infrastructure.

Iwi investment in infrastructure will be good for Iwi wanting a more conservative investment.

And we have big plans.

We see further public/private/Iwi partnerships.

Perhaps on roads, airports and other strategic infrastructure. It is not impossible to imagine Iwi as cornerstone shareholders in State-Owned Enterprises – making them State-Iwi Owned Enterprises.

While any investment has to stand up on commercial grounds, the political aspect is intriguing, Labour could find it very hard to demonise PPPs and minority investment in SOEs, where the investors are Iwi, not multinational companies.

It just makes sense, if you think about it. Iwi will have the resources, we want our profits to stay in New Zealand – to reinvest for our people, for New Zealand Inc.

We are the perfect partner for Government. And they are well aware of our thoughts on this matter.

This could be a very interesting area to watch.

The Government has announced 72 of 88 recipients of top honours have chosen to go with the titular version. So some of the more well known new knights and dames are:

• Sir Lloyd Geering
• Sir Ralph Ngatata Love
• Sir Russell Coutts
• Sir Ed Durie
• Sir Eion Edgar
• Sir Wira Gardiner
• Sir Douglas Kidd
• Sir Colin Meads
• Sir Ralph Norris
• Sir Peter Snell
• Sir Archie Taiaroa
• Sir Tumu te Heuheu
• Sir Stephen Tindall
• Dame Lynley Dodd
• Dame Lois Muir
• Dame Claudia Orange
• Dame Jennifer Shipley
• Dame Sukhi Turner
• Dame Margaret Clark

As I have blogged previously I am a fan of titles for our top honours. It makes them meaningful, and is in the same traditions as academia where top scholars are titled Doctor if they get a PhD and top acadamics are titled Professor if they are appointed to a Chair.

One additional change I would have liked (as does Dean Knight who has blogged extensively on this) the Government to have done, is to allow the recipients to choose to have their title in English or Maori (both being official languages. The Maori versions are Tā and Kahurangi and allowing those as options would make the system uniquely New Zealand combining both our British and Maori heritage.

I stress I do not advocate replacing the English titles with the Maori ones. It is about allowing the recipient to choose their preferred title. I see that as a win-win and am surprised the Government did not go down that track. I know the Maori Party were (not surprisingly) supportive as Dean and I talked to them about the idea.

Such an option would have probably seen quite a few of the 14 who did not move to the titular honour, do so.

The Business Roundtable has published a paper by Lindsay Mitchell on “Maori and Welfare. It isn’t necessarily BRT policy, but published to encourage debate – which is excellent. We need more, not less, policy debates.

Mitchell has found that Maori were not always over-represented in negative statistics:

One of the few areas for which long-term Maori statistics were kept is crime. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Maori (defined as people having half or more Maori ancestry) made up 5 percent of the population. In 1898, 22,752 charges
were heard before magistrates and only 2.3 percent were against people of the “aboriginal native race”.

And this situation continued for many decades. Then:

By 1957, the Maori share of offences tried in the Supreme Court was 18 percent, but in just five years it climbed to 23 percent.5 In 1959, Maori made up 25 percent of the boys admitted to the correctional Owairaka Boys’ Home in Auckland. By 1969, the proportion had risen to 70 percent, and by 1978 it was 80 percent.6 By 1961, the Maori arrest rate for 15 year-olds and older was almost 5 times the non- Maori rate.7 Young Maori migrating from rural to urban settings were no longer
under the control of their elders. Young urban Maori increasingly joined emerging groups such as the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

She quotes James Belich:

People avoid crime, not primarily because it is illegal, but because of the disapproval of those that matter to them – in the traditional, rural Maori case, the kin group.

Lindsay goes on to make a link to welfare policies being responsible for some of the problems, especially the DPB. A not inconsiderable number of Maori have said the same at various times. Now many will disagree with Lindsay, but I suggest you at least read her report – it is only 40 pages.

Mitchell states her view on welfare:

There exists an extreme view that the state has no role at all in welfare provision. It is not one I share. Nevertheless, the state should limit its involvement to that of providing a safety net of last resort. Self and family responsibility must come first. Middle class welfare – the provision of cash or services to those who can afford to meet their own needs – must be avoided. Welfare reforms that deter people from behaving in detrimental ways because there is no perceived risk should be made with those basics in mind.

I broadly agree with that proposition. Welfare should be trgeted at those in genuine need. It should not be dished out so families can buy a nicer ipod.

Lindsay then makes six recommendations:

1. replace the DPB with temporary assistance only (max one year);
2. replace state-funded unemployment benefits with private unemployment insurance;
3. tighten eligibility for sickness and invalid benefits;
4. consider assistance-in-kind and income management as stop-gap measures only;
5. consider privatising income support delivery to improve efficiency and incentives and allow for Maori ownership;
6. consider empowering employment entrepreneurs, and increased use of loans and opting-out as features of a future safety net system.

I do support reforms along the lines of what Clinton did, with a maximum time you can spend on a benefit. They have been a huge success. I think restricting the DPB to one year only though is impractical. Recommendations 4, 5 and 6 are worth exploring. The status quo is not exactly producing great results, and we should be open to looking at can we get better outcomes by doing it differently.

This is where I am a bit disappointed by the Government’s response:

Prime Minister John Key had not read the report yesterday but said it sounded “pretty draconian”.

Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett said none of the ideas were on the agenda for the Government.

It would be nice if the response was that while the proposals were not current policy, we will at least read and consider the report, and respond to it after due consideration. As I said, the status quo is nothing to be proud of.

The foreshore and seabed review panel has reported back. The report is 163 pages.

I blogged in March that I thought the appointment of the panel would lead to a recommendation the law be toasted, and I was right.

They make the point that the Government should have appealed the case to the Privy Council – something I have always said. Clark and Wilson ruled that out and decided to legislate (after just four days!) because they didn’t like the politics of appealing to a court they had said they would abolish.

They recommend the Act be repealed, and offer four options for consideration:

1. Do nothing further – leave the Court of Appeal decision intact and allow claims to be made to the Maori Land Court.  This option is not favoured.
2. Have a staged settlement with negotiations between Hapu/Iwi and the Crown – basically add this to the historic grievances to be settled. They say if this happens, there needs to be provision for public input to safeguard rights of access etc.
3. A national settlement along the lines of the fisheries and aquaculture settlements.
4. A mixed model that combines a number of discrete components: a national settlement, allocation of rights and interests, local co-management, and an ability to gain more specific access and use rights. This is preferred.

I’ve only skimmed the report but they seem to have gone to great lengths to stress that any settlement must guarantee access for all.

There are probably some considerable fish-hooks ahead, but at first glance the panel looks to have come up with a workable way forward. Legislating to remove property rights should be a last resort, not a first resort – as it was for Labour.