General Debate 30 August 2026

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Yvette

Tikanga in itself is a religion or quasi-religion. There is no doubt about this. The tikanga experts who advised the Supreme Court in the statement of tikanga in the Ellis case, told the Court that tikanga, and I quote, “grew from and is very much embedded in our whenua.” They went on, “in some traditions, tikanga merged with that already present” when the ancestors of today’s Māori arrived in New Zealand.

The statement of tikanga says that knowledge of tikanga is passed down through sources such as institutions of learning, oratory, call, waiata, traditional chants or laments, whakapapa recitations, proverbial sayings and stories. It is also learnt through exposure to practice in everyday life. Some tikanga cannot be known to the ordinary person because it is tapu and kept confined to certain expert people.

The New Zealand Law Society is at the forefront of this movement. Lawyers are being forced to fund a body which wishes to enslave lawyers’ minds. NZLS is just one of the institutions captured by idealogues with these aims.

The institutions which act in this way exhibit the mindset of the Mullahs of Iran. They force their beliefs on members not by machine guns and public hangings, but by the ability to prevent members carrying on the profession of their choice if they do not become a member of the cult or bow to its demands. In the advancement of the cult’s objectives the leaders of these institutions are the Mullahs of mumbo-jumbo.

The cult’s objectives are alien to our values and way of life. It is almost unbelievable that the profession I was once proud to be a member of should be spawning within its own ranks and the judiciary drawn from those ranks persons who demand obedience to a creed of racist superiority.
https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/gary-judd-kc-mumbo-jumbo-and-all-that

The Ellis case, where no-one involved was Maori, rather than boost itself with tikanga should have recognised the corollary that common law failed to preserve a reputation destroyed by a vast miscarriage of justice.To prove itself worthy the Law should have put right what it had ruined.

The other tikanga case was the te Papa Museum Treaty panel vandalism which was apparently dismissed (can never be trailed again) because the perpetrator would likely have been exonerated as Not Guilty under tikanga considerations, which would not have been “in public interests” – raising the Question: Would ‘tikanga’ itself and the ‘Treaty’ have required court examination to establish the validity of such a verdict.

Lawyers are being forced to fund a body which wishes to enslave lawyers’ minds.
Rather that ‘enslave,’ is a more appropriate word in fact ‘colonise’?
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August 30, 2026 8:01am
- Tomtoddy
  
  There are a number of issues that make tikanga problematic. One is that it varies from tribe to tribe and even iwi to iwi. Two it cannot be codified and therefore be clearly understood before during and after any event. If I get caught speeding I know anything over 100kph is trouble. 99 is OK 101 is not. Indistinct concepts make for trouble.
  
  The acceptance of any position in a caught is largely determined by an elder who makes a submission to the judge. There is no fixed yardstick to determine whether the elder is misusing his/her position, adding elements, withholding some aspects or a dozen other possibilities. Uncertainty is always the enemy of jurisprudence.
  
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  August 30, 2026 8:52am
  - David Garrett
    
    Tom: “it varies from tribe to tribe and even iwi to iwi”
    As far as I know, an iwi IS a tribe. I think you might have meant hapu (sub-tribe) in there somewhere?
    
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    August 30, 2026 9:27am
artemisia

Damien Grant takes a look at proposed tax policies, painting fences and surfing: Higher taxes can leave jobs undone, firms without work and investment on the sidelines.

Who is asking the proposers if they have attached numbers to those three possibilities. Or if they have just decided to ignore them because, for example, voters will love 3 free GP visits a year more than jobs undone, firms without work and capital flight. Until ….

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361026062/tax-lesson-starts-surf-trip-and-ends-warning-labour
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August 30, 2026 8:08am
- peterwn
  
  The proposers think that things will just stay the same with more taxes rather than the significant changes to the economy the extra taxes will cause. One party indicated it would impose restrictions on capital leaving the country in a desperate effort to protect the tax base. As much as socialists find it galling the wealthy (and Maori thanks to the Treaty) have options to minimise their tax obligations and no amount of regulation would counteract this.
  
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  August 30, 2026 8:18am
artemisia

Union calls for continuity of care, as 1200 support workers face losing their jobs

There was at least one ‘challenge’ from a provider. Health NZ did an internal review and concluded the procurement process was valid. That is Health NZ’s accountability. Proposals had been assessed against a range of criteria to ensure services were sustainable, of high quality and able to meet the needs of people in need of support to continue living independently in their homes.

Providers could do their own review to figure out why they were not considered best options to meet those pretty basic criteria. Because losing huge contracts based on those criteria has to be seen as a very hard lesson, and one it seems they did not see coming.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/health/1171197/union-calls-for-continuity-of-care-as-1200-support-workers-face-losing-their-jobs
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August 30, 2026 8:11am
tknorriss

Surely polsters could make more sense of the “undecided” group when they report poll results.

I am not sure whether I am going to vote ACT or National. So, I guess I would be “undecided”. But no way would I vote for any of the left leaning parties. So, my “undecided” position isn’t politically neutral, but rather supporting the right.

So, wouldn’t it be useful if pollsters asked voters who describe themselves as “undecided”, which parties they definitely wouldn’t vote for. This then would give much better idea which way the undecided voters were leaning.
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August 30, 2026 8:16am
- David Garrett
  
  Tk: You raise a very good point.
  
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  August 30, 2026 9:18am
Yvette

Te Pāti Māori weighs no-list strategy that could reshape Parliament
Te Pāti Māori is considering an election tactic that could affect the balance of Parliament even if its nationwide party vote remains very small: not submitting a party list at all.

Daalder said that outcome would actually be “more disproportionate” than an overhang.
The choice could also affect who forms the next government

Editor’s note: In Daalder’s example, the no-list strategy has the effect of reducing Labour, the Greens and Opportunity from 62 seats to 60. With a Te Pāti Māori list, those parties could form a majority without it.

Without a list, they would need Te Pāti Māori’s support. In that scenario, the tactic effectively produces a two-seat swing in the coalition arithmetic, despite Te Pāti Māori still having the same four electorate MPs. The exact effect would depend on the final election results.
https://centrist.nz/te-pti-mori-weighs-no-list-strategy-that-could-reshape-parliament-1787964212802?

In terms of Parliament rules and Election legislation, the Maori Party’s proposed tactics seem legitimate, but under the supposed Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi do they honour partnership: that Māori act toward the Crown with good faith, reasonableness, and mutual respect; participation: non-Māori have the right to be involved in decision-making processes and governance at all levels; and protection: Maori must actively protect non-Māori interests, rights, and taonga (treasures) – like democracy?

“The difference with the Māori seats is that only Māori voters enrolled on the Māori roll can vote in those electorates. Te Pati Māori doesn’t need to care about how the rest of the country feels about this move it’s made” – or that it breaches the Treaty.
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August 30, 2026 8:22am
Steve Todd

Yvette: yesterday afternoon I attempted to answer your question, “So if the Maori Party doesn’t submit a Party List, what does that do to the allocation of seats for other parties?”

As well as not being happy with my answer, my totals added to 114, rather than 120, so I’m going to try again.

Scenario 1: at the 2023 general election, Te Pāti Māori submitted a Party List, but ran an Electorate vote-only campaign. Consequently, their Party vote collapsed to (say) 5,000.

Excluding Port Waikato, that would have produced a 126-seat parliament, with all six of Te Pāti Māori’s seats being overhang seats. The seats would have been allocated, as follows:

National 50 (43 Electorate; 7 List), Labour 36 (17E; 19L). Greens 15 (3E; 12L), ACT NZ 11 (2E; 9L), NZ First 8 (0E; 8L), Te Pāti Māori 6 (6E; 0L).

Scenario 2: Te Pāti Māori did not submit a Party List. Their six seats would have been folded back into the total of 120 seats, with only 114 seats being allocated to the other successful parties.

The seats would have been allocated, as follows:

National 47 (43 Electorate; 4 List), Labour 34 (17E; 17L), Greens 14 (3E; 11L), ACT NZ 11 (2E; 9L), NZ First 8 (0E; 8L), Te Pāti Māori 6 (6E; 0L).

National would have lost three seats, missing out on seat allocation Nos. 115, 117, and 119.

Labour would have lost two seats, missing out on seat allocation Nos. 118 and 120.

The Greens would have lost one seat, missing out on seat allocation No. 116.

With the inclusion of Port Waikato, the current parliament would comprise the governing parties, still with 67 seats, but the opposition parties would be down one, to 54, for a total of 121.

Nomination Day is Thursday, 8 October. Party Lists must be submitted to the Electoral Commission by midday the day before.
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August 30, 2026 8:22am
- Yvette
  
  Had Te Pāti Māori not</b submitted a party list in the 2023 General Election, the electoral rules under the Electoral Act 1993 would dictate the following outcomes:
  
  ⚬ Seats Won by Te Pāti Māori: 6 seats. Electorate seats are awarded directly via local candidate votes under first-past-the-post, which operates independently of party list submissions. Because Te Pāti Māori candidates won six Māori electorates (Te Tai Hauāuru, Waiariki, Hauraki-Waikato, Te Tai Tonga, Tāmaki Makaurau, and Te Tai Tokerau), all six would still have been elected directly as electorate MPs.
  
  ⚬ Seats Available for List Allocation to Other Parties: 114 seats. Under Section 191(8) of the Electoral Act 1993, when electorate seats are won by independent candidates or candidates representing a party that did not submit a party list, the Electoral Commission must deduct those seats from the standard 120-seat base before calculating list seat entitlements for qualifying parties. The pool used for the Sainte-Laguë allocation calculation among all list-submitting parties would therefore be $120 – 6 = 114 seats.
  
  AI searches may be wrong, but can’t anything be wrong. Garbage in, garbage out. Check what’s out.
  
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  August 30, 2026 8:48am
  - Yvette
    
    Oops – sorry about the shouty bold typeface – you can get this sort of crap when you attempt things in the morning before either medication or coffee, or both. And when “Edit” isn’t working.
    
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    August 30, 2026 8:52am
David Garrett

“Before either medication or coffee…”
Brilliant!
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August 30, 2026 9:30am

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