Twisting the Treaty: order your advance copy here
by John Ansell
Just printed and not yet in the shops: 414 pages of Treatygate dynamite by six of New Zealand’s best Treaty truth-tellers.
Twisting the Treaty — A Tribal Grab for Wealth and Power will tell you all you need to know about the history-twisting of the last forty years, and who’s been conning you.
Click on the above image and read the back cover for a full summary.
The Appendix includes a full list of all assets passed over to tribes under the Waitangi Tribunal process.
Price: $40 (including postage).
Secure your advance copy now by emailing books@treatygate.org.nz.
Just write Twisting the Treaty in the subject line and your address details in the body, and the publisher will get back to you ASAP.
John Ansell
I just listened to your 2 hours with Willie and JT.
Sadly, I didn’t hear what I most wanted to hear.
It doesn’t actually matter why I should vote for Treatygate, fact is I want to have the option of voting against Maori privilege, doesn’t matter why. The history doesn’t matter. The lies don’t matter. The racism doesn’t matter. The views of Willie and JT don’t matter. Why I want to vote for a particular cause, is irrelevant. I just want to be able to vote for this particular cause.
JA, you didn’t actually tell me that I’m going to have this option.
You need to be calling Willie and JT back when they are live, and telling them that as a result of today’s on-air meeting, you have made the firm decision to go ahead with forming a political party to stand in the next election. You have to do this in the next couple of days, to capitalise on today’s discussion with them, and you need to be thanking them for the role they played in helping you to firm up on this decision. Next week will be too late.
And as regards a polling of the public. Have the balls to do it yourself.
I challenge you. Onus probandi. (And if anyone doesn’t know what “onus probandi” means, then google it.) But I challenge you, John Ansell.
Post a public poll on this website, one that prevents multiple voting from the same computer.
Good luck. Do you accept my challenge or don’t you?
[My pick is that you will not have taken up this challenge to post a public poll here, by the end of next week.]
Your so-called “challenge” is completely disingenuous. You know that this blog is not a practical forum for polling all NZers. How could it be – blogs by their nature have limited circulation. Such a poll – and I agree that one is needed – should be run by the government, and funded by it as well.
So much for you argumentative response, John Phillips. John Ansell has said that he will put up a poll – “just needs to find out how”. Thanks JA, good one.
Now stop your arguing for arguments sake.
Just to help with the situation here.
John Ansell says that 80 percent of the people of New Zealand want an end to Treaty privilege.
If JA is the one making this claim, then (as is always the case) the person making the claim, has the onus of proving it to be true. JA keeps on transferring this onus to the people who have a right not to accept what he is putting up.
JA, Onus Probandi, old boy. The onus of proof is on you – no-one else – to prove your case.
People naturally know this principle, and even if they don’t know why. And your repeatedly challenging others to have to prove you wrong, comes across as silly, and immature.
Onus Probandi, John Ansell. Prove to the rest of us that your claim of having 80 percent of New Zealand in support of the concept of putting an end to Maori privilege. And btw, borrowing from other polls which asked a related, but dissimilar question, are not the proof of what you claim.
Post a poll here for starters. If you dare.
Tropicana, I’d happily accept your challenge if I thought a poll on this site would be credible.
But most people who come here are partisan in my favour.
It’d be like the polls on NZCPR which often get 99% support.
Or the poll I took at my Nelson meeting where 90%+ said they’d vote for a single-issue Together New Zealand Party.
How could we use it?
In answer to why I don’t pay for my own poll, would you like to fund it?
I have other priorities, though a poll is certainly on the wish list.
(So is a poll of Maori, which I’ve had costed at $7,000. If such a poll revealed that 50.1% of Maori wanted a racially neutral state, the mana of the Mana Party and the Maori Party would instantly evaporate.)
At the moment I’m content to use the many similar polls which all point to the same number.
I think most people will see that, and agree that it’s an 80/20 split. I think the media know that.
But since they do not support racial equality, the last thing they want to do is run another poll that embarrasses them like the Close Up one in 2011 did – or like the one taken after Don Brash’s Orewa speech did.
I may run a poll here anyway, but I don’t want to send the message that I’m as biased as, say, Te Papa with their Treaty debates.
I think a better poll might be whether people would actually vote for a single-issue Together New Zealand Party.
Yes, I’ll do that – just need to find out how.
Literally, yes I would like to fund a public opinion poll. But your question was facetious, and so is this answer (ask a silly ..). Sorry, neither can I afford it.
Yep, the idea of a poll asking would you vote for a single-issue ToNZ Party is a good one. I’ll vote for it immediately. But I’d rather be joining such a party, not ticking a box on a website.
What better poll is there than asking people to join such a party? Starting right now. Anyone can tick a box on a website. Who is ready to fill in a membership form, and pay over ten bucks (or whatever). I am. And I want to do it right now.
If it goes nowhere, I will not be asking for my ten dollars back. But if we don’t do it now, we never will. (I actually know why you are resisting this, but it would be counter-productive for me to say why here)
Tropicana,
The problem with your proposal is that it automatically assumes that anyone agreeing to any degree at all on a single issue would be prepaired to join a polical party (a totaly new one at that) based on that single issue alone.
If that were the case then we might also automatically assume that anyone that would be in favour of banning smoking would be a member of Hone Harawira’s te tai tokerau party.
I’m not sure how that is a “problem” with my proposal. Either of them – I made two separate ones, Gavin.
And I hate analogous arguments. Hone Harawira has nothing to do with anything I said, nor has smoking, nor has the link between the two. And I simply don’t agree that my proposal is in any way whatsoever, analogous to your preposterous hypothesis.
Ok then Tropicana, its your right not to like “analogous arguments”. Just as it is my right not to like condescending self inflated spell nazi gits. So let me put it more simply for you then – Your idea of running a “poll” in a way that effectively requires people to join a particular political party in order to make their opinion known on a single issue is almost completely stupid as such a poll would tend to only register the very passionate and hardcore supporters.
Ok then Tropicana, its your right not to like “analogous arguments”. Just as its my right not to like condescending self inflated spell nazi gits. So let me put it more simply then seeing as you evidently fail to see the obvious – your idea of running a “poll” in a way that effectively requires people to join a particular political party in order to make their opinion known on a single issue is almost completely stupid as such a poll would tend to only register the very passionate hardcore supporters.
Then I’m sure that you will be on no use to Together NZ. All parties exist only through its membership. That’s all parties Gavin. The Maori Party is struggling now, but at its peak, it had 22,000 members.
Gavin, if you don’t understand this, by all means you can still vote for the party should it get off the ground and stand candidates. And of course well meant comments will be useful here.
But without members, Gavin, correct spelling or not, none of it will happen. For starters, no party can even stand in an election till it can claim 500 financial members. I guess you don’t know this basic stuff, Gavin. So I’ll forgive you wielding your scary big stick at me.
So if you must lace your comments with calling me “stupid” to make a point, I guess you will accept that every party that ever existed in the world is also stupid.
Personally, I find that calling potential fellow members of the same political cause, to be lousy political strategy. Now, pull your head in.
Btw, Gavin, as regards what you call “spell nazi gits”, in the rare case of my spelling something wrong, and someone pointing it out to me, my instant response every time is to say “thank you”. But that’s me. I’m old fashioned.
I never said that forming a party in itself was a bad idea. I think that most would be able see that this is either just a deliberate straw man argument or another erroneous assumption on your behalf.
I also did not call you stupid, I called one of your ideas stupid. If you want to extend that to me implying you are stupid in order to make some weak attempt at sidelining me on the grounds that I am engaging in “lousy political strategy” by calling you things, then so be it. But of course taking such an angle would seem extremely hypocritical of you in light of the many condescending posts where you have effectively done exactly the same to others throughout this blog.
Mind you, I suppose its no more hypocritical than attempting to correct Kasbar in a very condescending way over an alternate spelling of “Willie” when many of your own posts seem to suggest that you struggle with both basic spelling, and the forming of proper coherent sentences.
Childish. Move on.
Hi John,
Unfortunately I only caught the last few minutes of your time on Radio live, which is a shame as I would have loved to hear more. But even in that short time I noticed Willies usual tactics of dishonestly dealing with questions and attempted bullying.
When you asked him “who do you represent?” it was clear from the context of the preceding conversation that you were asking him if his own views on the topics having just been discussed would be representative of any large group, or the majority of people. Willie though of course (while realizing this) cleverly side stepped your desired line of questioning by proceeding to list any and all groups that either himself or JT have had any association with. This of course was not an honest answer to what you were actually wanting to ask. Unless of course it could be automatically assumed that everyone associated with any of these groups must automatically by default have exactly the same opinions as Willie, which of course many would not.
Willie then took you further away from any relevance to your intended question by going on to state that he had even been elected by some of these groups, and then asking who had elected you.
So at this point not only had Willie successfully evaded giving an honest answer to the intended question, but has also successfully created a strawman type argument that effectively allowed him to turn the tables and bully you on the behalf of an imaginary majority.
The sad thing is though that the general public in NZ have been so spoon feed and dumbed down thru not being encouraged to think or research for themselves that many people listening to that would have just had the perception that Willie had somehow “won the argument”. When in reality all we really saw was the same old dishonesty and bullying approach we typically see from these grievance ingrained racists.
Please keep up the good work!
Gavin
I have reserved my copy of “Twisting the Treaty” ( hopefully it won’t turn out to be a 60′s record by Chubby Checker :-/ ) – and have also placed shares & likes to the link on my Facebook page; I urge everyone else to do the same.
@ Tropicana. A poll should be done on national TV via either the news or 7Sharp. Then it would show a wider audience and be a much more accurate vote. Unfortunately unlike maoridom who can pull vast fortunes from the government at anytime of the day, JA hasn’t that privilege.
You are obviously of a different opinion to JA to talk like you are talking and you seem quite antagonistic with your choice of words.
The treaty is a con and most of the country knows it, but for some reason to afraid to say it. Maoridom via weak and lilly livered governments have sought and successfully stifled most people with the same opinion as us on this site by labelling us racists, much like the half wit Willy Jackson likes to say in near every sentence.
In goverment departments now they have spies everywhere looking for desenters of the treaty. I ask you is that right? Does it seem a little Stalinistic or Chairman Maoist? It’s exactly the same thing and that’s why the vast majority of people hide behind closed doors and only talk about these issues with like minded people they know, hence the over 80% we’ve seen over the past few years, as it’s anonymous and retribution from employers cannot be sought.
Like I’ve said before, I believe maori have surreptitiously sewn up near all the media in this country very successfully. I also believe (like JA said on the radio) that all universities and academics have been coerced via government departments to twist the truth of the treaty in favour of maori or loose their funding or whatever that was dear to them.
It’s all lies Tropicana, and BIG GIANT MONEY GRABBING LIES at that.
Wake up man!
Your description of me as being antagonistic is of itself antagonising to me. I like to think of my language as challenging.
For example:
Why should TVNZ conduct a poll that TVNZ doesn’t want to do? Are the public screaming out for it? No. How many are screaming out for it? Maybe what, five people if that? Marvin, have you emailed TVNZ suggesting they run such a poll? I bet you haven’t. Truth now, Marvin. Have you asked TVNZ to run such a poll? (and don’t do what pubic servants do, rush off an email, then say “yes, I have”).
Marvin. I know what it takes to get people into Parliament. I have been successful in getting people into Parliament both here in NZ and in one of Australia’s larger states.
At the rate being proposed here, this will not happen for Together NZ for the 2014 election. It will not even come close at the rate it is being done.
Marvin, don’t be a New Zealander who is always talking about what “they” should be doing. There is no “they”. Your suggestion re TVNZ is another variation on what “They” should be doing.
Tropicana
It doesn’t matter whether or not the public are “screaming out for it” – television polls are never conducted because the viewers are “screaming out for it” and if you think that’s the basis on which television polls are conducted, well….
If this single issue party does take flight then I’m sure we’ll be thrilled to know you’ll vote for it although to be honest, the tone of your comments makes me wonder if you’re genuine.
Kasbar, and the tone of your comments above is worse by a very long way, than anything I have said anywhere, anytime.
My comments challenge the sloth I see in Together NZ. I have been instrumental in getting people elected to NZ Parliaments, and to the Western Australian State Parliament (as well as to local councils). Politics is my life.
Cite any of my comments which might demonstrate your opinion of me that I am not genuine.
Otherwise, behave yourself. And be prepared to listen and learn.
Oh, Kasbar, you challenged my comment:
It doesn’t matter whether or not the public are “screaming out for it” – television polls are never conducted because the viewers are “screaming out for it” and if you think that’s the basis on which television polls are conducted, well….
Since you are so quick to criticise my opinion, then propose an alternative basis that betters my proposed basis for TVNZ to be using to determine what polls it should conduct.
If you can’t come up with a better basis that I proposed then don’t question mine, solely for the purposes of being argumentative.
Tropicana. I’m not going to get into a match of words with you, I’m not argumentative.
I’ve agreed with some of your previous comments but I think your “challenging language”, as you put it, will get in the way of you being heard because you sound incredibly arrogant.
As for your suggestion that I behave myself, you can stick that comment up your arse.
And I’ve told you once already, it’s Willie, not Willy, Jackson.
And what is this bullshit conspiracy theory stuff, that “every government department having spies looking for dissenters” of te tiriti. What a load of f..king crap.
And don’t tell me to “wake up man” with or without an exclamation mark. It is very rude for someone who has to be told twice how to spell Willie, to be telling me to wake up.
I’ve just finished listening to your stint with Willie and John T. I don’t usually listen to Radio Live – all those failed politicians!
John, I was really impressed with your performance, I thought you did incredibly well.
JT came across like a greasy politician, no surpirses there and nor was it a surprise to hear that he wasn’t impressed with Ian Wishart and why would he be when it was his interview with Wishart that ended his political career.
Willie was the most disappointing. I expected him to be more prepared but he didn’t have anything of substance to offer except to proclaim, over and over, that you told a pack of lies, although he didn’t/couldn’t actually name the so-called lies.
Overall Willie seemed out of his depth and didn’t make any convincing counter-argument.
Well done JA.
A TVNZ poll was as JA has stated done May 2011
Q asked “Do maori have a special place in nz”
# of votes received =39670
Results 81% NO =32133
19% YES = 7554
another poll today would have similar results
Willie said in the close up interview, If you asked them– Should we get rid of the treaty you would get the same result.Shows we’ got a to get an education in place.There’s a lot of ignorance out there.Thats how Willie explained the results 32133 ignorant Kiwis.that need re educating.
Keep it up Willie name calling, put downs,you are doing JA cause a heap of good.long may it continue.
Yes agree totally. One small observation though (for which I will no doubt have my balls severed – I usually do).
If we tailor our claims to the actual wording of the actual polls that have already been polled, then the Willies and JTs of the world can’t criticise one iota.
However if we continue to play with the wording of the polls, preferring wording that is not identical to the actual poll, then we leave the door open for criticism. Neither Willie nor JT require much of an opening. So don’t give them a millimetre.
In other words. The question “Do Maori have a special place in New Zealand?” is a powerful poll result in its own right. Not perfect, but in makes a valuable and strong point.
Don’t try to turn this into a more powerful point than it is already is, and the argument becomes unanswerable.
Why hand Willie or JT the victory that is opened to them, by changing as few as one word in the poll question?
If we stick to the beautiful but exact wording of this beautiful poll result, then Willie cannot argue, and JT cannot argue. Full stop. The cannot refute it. They can’t argue.
My dear critics today, am I wrong? It isn’t often that I am wrong.
Am I wrong about this?
The scariest caller I heard during the talk today was the wide eyed woman who had recently gone back to university and had read up on works by the Treatyists.
‘But I had no idea Maori had been so badly treated until I read their works’ she said.
When it was suggested she was reading extremely slanted opinions espoused by the network of prejudiced falsifiers that passes as our acadamia, she gasped ‘But it has all been peer reviewed’.
I lost count of the number of times she used the term ‘Peer reviewed’.
She seemed to have no ability to think for herself and undertake any type of personal investigation and scrutiny into the issue ;because for her it has already been ‘peer reviewed’.
History is littered with people like her, head in sand, eyes screwed shut, fingers in ears, dumbly chanting the fashionable mantra.
Had it been suggested to her that the emperor actually had no clothes, she would have utterly refused to accept this possibility because so many of the emperor’s subjects had said his clothes looked great and she was sure these people would have been ‘peer reviewed’.
Totally agree, Mkvl.
But if I may offer an observation which is related to this, but not detracting from what you say.
If we focus in the past, this is going to happen often. But I dare to suggest that most people who want to be supportive alongside us, most are not as focussed in the past as most of us are.
I cannot presume to speak for everyone who might vote for us, but I think I might represent a good few.
So I will speak only for me (while hoping I might not be alone). So please don’t sever my balls for offering my opinion.
I prefer my politicians to be focused in the now. I am sick of what is happening now, regardless of what has happened in the past. I know better than most what te tiriti says, and I know better than most, that te tiriti does not mention radio waves or Astrolab reef or the bottom of Lake Taupo, or the wind, or the rain or the sun or taniwha, or well-you-know-what-I-mean. None of this relies on whatever bullshit happened in the past. I killed no-one. I stole from no-one. I confiscated nothing.
Maori gave up little. Maori gained civilisation. Maori got an end to slavery. Maori got an end to law of the spear. Maori got an end to enforced marriages. Maori got an end to mass murders. Maori got an end to cannibalism. Maori got written language. Maori got shoes. Maori got the internet. Maori got cars and petrol. Maori got peace, and an end to tribal warfare in a regular basis.
Speaking for myself, I don’t care about the sordid past. I’m tired of the Maori grieving. I don’t believe it any more. And to vote the way I want to vote, I don’t have to believe it any more. I go into the voting booth alone and with no explanations needed.
I want to say the last one again. To vote the way I want to vote, I don’t have to explain. In the voting booth, I don’t have to explain that I don’t believe the bullshit any more. I just want the opportunity to vote in a voting booth that requires no explanation. When I’m in the voting booth the bullshit ends. There are no Maori in the voting booth with me asking me to listen to their bullshit and lies.
I don’t care about who wrote what in the first 40 years as compared with the bullshit written in the most recent 40 years. I just know what I know. And I want to vote for it. I know there are thousands like me who want a chance to do the same in the voting booth.
John Ansell gives me the first chance ever in my life to do what is my right: to vote in the privacy of the voting booth, for what I truly believe.
Now criticise that, all you pedants who want to rip my balls from my ball sack.
Now having spilled my guts in that, my most serious concern in this.
On the basis of my own personal experience, in many electoral campaigns over a couple of decades in a couple of different countries, I don’t believe that we are no track to get all that is needed to happen before the next election.
I have been there and done it, including intimate involvement in the successful formation of a brand new party (which party I’m referring to most of you already know, so I don’t need to mention it repeatedly).
The task however, was never a greater ask than this one (for example we are not starting with – like them or not – an amazing Roger Douglas or an extraordinary Richard Prebble or a remarkable Ken Shirley).
But as well, I have never been involved in an electoral task which on the basis of what is apparent to me at least, and I don’t know what might be happening behind the scenes, but I have never been involved in a campaign which is behinder schedule than this one is (and for the cynics who don’t recognise poetic licence when they see it, I invented the word “behinder” deliberately for effect).
Tropicana I agree with what you say about the past.
However I think there is an issue if, as a movement, we ignore it (is this what you are suggesting?) and only focus on the future.
The problem is that we have been conditioned to believe that Maori were lied to, cheated, suppressed, blah, blah, blah. Now this may not matter to people who don’t care and/or believe that the past is the past and we need to be concerned about the here and now and the future.
But there are many in the country who do care. They believe that the only way forward is to make reparations for the past. Again, the country has been conditioned to accept this. If we do not address these people they will ignore what we are saying and believe that as we are not addressing the past we cannot be considered as being genuine.
So I believe that an important part of the movement is to educate people that the current view of the past is not accurate at all, that many of the claimed issues did not happen, that Maori made numerous and serious breaches of the treaty and that compensation has already been paid many times over.
Then the future can be looked at.
I, too, say forget the past. Just dump all laws and policies that are special to something said to be “maoris”. Dump the “treaty” too. The sick excuse for a government that we have at present should treat us all the same. That’s how simple it is. A real prime minister would do it in five minutes.
Agree Mike I thought the same. Unfortunately it is quite likely that if she had formulated a counter view she would not have passed her courses. This is a sad indictment of the NZ education system.
For reference, the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (the forerunner of ACT) was formed in 1993, a full 3 years before the 1996 election.
ACT was registered as a political party in mid-1994, for the 1996 election. The membership included 4 former MPs: Douglas, Prebble, Shirley and Derek Quigley.
Fwiw, ACT secured 8 list seats with 126,000 votes, or 6.1 percent of the party vote.
In 2014, the 5 percent threshold will need about 115,000 votes.
In my estimation if an election were held today, we might get 115 votes, not 115,000.
We have an awful lot to do to get 114,885 votes, no matter how good the cause is.
We must form a party now, and seek memberships now.
Hi Tropicana, i just wanted to say that i am thoroughly enjoying your straight forward & honest input to these discussions. I also appreciate your knowledge of politics, i am learning a lot from you. It is also nice to break from the bickering over history.
If John Ansell was serious about starting a politcal party (i am not convinced he is) then he would be foolish if he did not use you as a sounding board at the very least. Keep up the good work!
Yes well I’m sure that Tropicana would agree with this post.
In fact it even sounds like something tropicana could have easily written about her/himself.
Go f..k yourself Gavin.
And John Ansell, if it not okay for Ngamoko Nikora to accuse you John Ansell of posing under multiple ids, then I would think you would protect your commenters from similar accusations.
It is not helpful for commenters to be making these unanswerable childish inflammatory accusations. Glenn’s comment above was of course welcomed by me. But neither Glenn nor I deserved Gavin’s rancour in reply.
I would recommend that you remove this stupid rancour from this unhelpful commenter, Gavin, a commenter who appears to be here for only one reason. (I will not suggest who Gavin reminds me of from the past.)
lol, looking past Tropicana’s childish abuse (and further hypocrisy), what I said was that what Glen had written sounds like something Tropicana could easily have written about her/himself. I never said or suggested it was Tropicana who had actually written it.
So basically yet another completely erroneous assumption and failure to process basic data on Tropicana’s behalf.
I have to say this is all quite hilarious. Especially comming from someone who is according to their own words is hardly ever wrong.
Childish both in words and in thought processes.
Innuendo is innuendo. When you pretend that innuendo is not literal, you insult everyone’s intelligence, and expose your own lack of it.
Move on. You are a Together NZ enemy with the rancour you have decided to make the sole content of your comments here.
And Glenn is a guest here. As a guest he is entitled not to be called “Glen”.
Almost as bad as the person above who posted in one post
“I’m not argumentative. …
… you can stick that comment up your arse.”
Gavin, please move on. I wish to comment on topic here. I invite you to do the same. Stop the counter-productive rancour.
So basically Tropicana you expect to have the right to throw out into a public domain all sorts of smarmy comments, insults, and totally incorrect accusations. But then would prefer I just “move on” (or was moved on) rather than afforded the right of reply?
To be honest you are starting to sound more like someone from the other camp.
Gavin, please move on.
And I already have a slogan for the new party :
” BENDING FORWARD IS NOT MOVING FORWARD ! “
Classic.
I for one agree entirely with Tropicana’s argument, without numbers, at least 115,000 if his arithmetic is correct, then whether we are right or not we will be just taking party votes away from other like minded parties. If a party is not formed very soon then the campaigning to put our views forward must be directed to the party that most nearly supports these views.
It is just a numbers game, without numbers we are just a small group gum bashing.and will change nothing.
Yes I agree Owen.
Need to form a party asap, get the internal processes right as far as what it will/won’t stand for and will/won’t do and then start campaigning.
If it starts to make waves and by that I mean generating some significant support (I would say needs to be at least 5% – 10% we will see all sorts of things happen.
Until this time we are just whistling in the wind.
But I hasten to add, the party must have all its ducks in line from the start. By this I mean all its processes and procedures as far as what I wrote above.
It would be extremely damaging if the party was formed in an ad hoc basis and started campaigning without sufficiently defining what it will and won’t do in parliament.
Should the support be there in even reasonable numbers the existing parties and media will descend like a ton of bricks and tear it apart. Should they find any weakness, vague or undecided policy and conflicting statements it will be all over rover as far as gaining and maintaining the confidence of the general public.
John has always been clear:
1) Travel the country gauging support
2) If that support is there, look at turning that into a political movement
I would suggest part 1 has not yet finished and part 2 has only just begun.
Yes we need to move. Yes we need to move fast. But not so fast that the wheels come off.
We will only get one real chance.
Don’t agree. The worst enemy of a political party is procrastination. Shall I re-post the timetable ACT followed successfully, a timetable it followed with 4 former MPs in its front line-up including a former Finance Minister, and a former State Services Minister, who brought with them literally tens of thousands of votes. In summary, it took them 3 years. We have half that, and we have 115 votes. There is NO time for procrastination.
All good points Mike!
Worst enemy of any politician is procrastination.
You can keep on lining up your ducks forever, and call it a premise for not actually doing the things that need doing. Or you can call it what it really is. Stalling.
Is there to be a Treatygate Party (by whatever name) for me to vote for in 2013, or isn’t there?
Don’t you mean 2014 ?
Nowhere in Mikes post do I see any suggestion of him wanting to be “lining up ducks forever”, or stalling. That seems to once again just be another condescending and erroneous extrapolation on your behalf.
If you really do want to be constructive here as you claim, then you should stop over developing other peoples ideas to the point of stupidity just to try and make your own look credible.
Stop trolling, Gavin
As a non-Maori supporter of the Mana Party, I urge you to proceed with the utmost haste to set up and campaign for the sort of political party you are describing. I can hardly think of a better way to bring about the left of centre coalition I long to see running this country.
Too late Tom, there’s been a left-of-centre coalition running New Zealand since 1999.
It’s called Labour-National-Maori.
Oops. Yes, I do. Thanks John Phillips, kind of you to point it out.
Carolyn H.
Hi John,
Congratulations on your handling of the interview yesterday on radiolive. It was obvious that you ‘held the floor’ with a good representation of the essential facts. I thought that Willie and especially JT would refute some of them with what is the ‘real treaty’ from their position -but nothing, only a deflection here and there.Interesting to note how the Maori fighting and attacks were supported as relevant to those times with no acknowledgement of the confiscation under law.
Keep up the good work. I still find that many people are still ‘waking up’ to the facts, but also there is a growing strong reaction to these continuing handouts. I don’t think many people realise the enormous total of them.
On another note I am finding that there are some really lovely young ‘Maori’ (Maori-pakeha to be more correct) around now, want to get on with life and totally uninterested any of the divisive one-sided grandstanding of these people. They are real candidates for the one law and way for all.
That’s a fantastic post, and I agree whole heartedly!!
I have a lot of admiration for John and being prepared to debate some of these things in what was always going to be a very biased and unfair domain. And from the small segment I heard he conducted himself (and did) very well.
Just touching on the subject of handouts and the people not realizing the grand $ total of them – I had an out of the blue opportunity to talk with a Lawyer currently employed by a law firm specializing in treaty negotiations just a week or two back, and he told me something I certainly didn’t realize and that I found quite incredible and scary.
He said that while the general public have been led to believe that there will be an end to all claims and settlement payouts sometime in the near future because of the so called cut-off dates etc. This is simply not the case at all because the cut-off date is only pertaining to historical treaty claims. Whereas there have been absolutely no time limits or restraints set in place regarding the thousands of contemporary claims that are apparently pouring in faster than ever.
Forgive me if I’m mentioning things everyone else here already knew, but I certainly did not realize this.
Well, Gavin. . . . I knew things were bad but your comment has just validated how bad it is.
It is amazing the extra details that you learn when you talk to the right people who are in the know.
Scary ain’t it?
Yes thanks Trina, well I found this very scary and disheartening.
Although to be honest I’m still trying to work out exactly what is the truth. I just received (to my surprise!) my “Twisting the Treaty” book in the mail this morning, and noticed in the section detailing treaty settlements that it states “The National government had an election promise to settle all treaty claims by 2014……” This seems to suggest there is a cut off time for ALL claims as it makes no distinction between historical or contemporary.
However I notice that the Waitangi Tribunal website on the other hand does seem to make a distinction between the two, and does seem to suggest contemporary claims are to be an ongoing thing with no cut off period in sight. See – http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/news/closingdateforsubmissionofhistoricalclaims/
I’m sure there are plenty of better informed people than myself looking in. Perhaps someone might be able to give some further clarification on this.
I recall in the 1990′s that it was legislated that all claims be finalised by the year 2000.
That date was 13 years years ago.
I would be willing to vote for and donate towards such a party
how do we start?
People who can’t comment without swearing will be banned.
One person is getting very close – especially as I believe he is the same Whangarei former diplomat who has been banned twice before and turned very nasty.
If his posts suddenly disappear, you will know why.
Many of his comments make good sense, but I won’t tolerate nastiness, and he certainly won’t be welcome in any party of mine.
On that subject, I am waiting until I know that my commitment is shared by a significant number of others. I do not want to start something only to be left holding the baby. I need people who are prepared to do things and donate money, not just talk.
At the moment, I don’t know what the likely support is, but I’ve had some good indications that it could be quite big.
I am putting the final touches to a trust deed and will soon be launching that. Another priority is building a website around this blog. One thing at a time. We do have time.
The first step will be an organisation. If that’s working, then a single-issue party may well follow. I think it probably will, provided some big donors are prepared to come on board.
Well I commit to donating, alas it will only be a drop in the bucket for what we need but hopefully there are many like me, may many drops make a flood.
On the subject of resources in general, as a tax payer from age 17, and for much of my life a large taxpayer at that, as I start to contemplate the end of my working life, still some way off but sadly not as far as it once was, I am increasingly concerned about the future welfare of the majority of people in our country.
Assets and resources that were held in universal ownership, to benefit and support citizens according to need have been plundered and stripped by Maori tribalists. Only a portion of them remain, and these must still support Maori also despite them already being made billionaires at our expense.
When tribalists are in need or want and can’t get state support (rare) they simply dip into the settlement money provided by the rest of us and happily cruise on.
There is no fund the rest of us can dip into and the net below for us is increasingly shrinking and tattered. Not so much a case of falling through the gaps but increasingly one of being lucky if you can snag a remaining line on the way down.
Despite my large contribution to the governments coffers for many decades there is no funding available to assist my disabled son now that I need to be able to access a small portion of it back as assistance for him. ‘Sorry, no money’ we are told. Where has it gone? One guess.
His crime is in not having any Maori blood – if he did the possibilities would be almost limitless.
Like I have said repeatedly, there is no-one keener than I am to be able to vote in 2014 for a Party which promises an end to Maori privilege.
Your host is clearly wrong about my nickname. He has no idea who I am in real life, and he has pumped to nonsense conclusions.
Your host would do well to end the duplicitousness of turning a blind eye to flamebaiting and trolling of comments as we all witnesses from for example, Gavin, yesterday, 21 February. The host saw it, and ignored it.
Compare this for example with the recent banning of Ngamoko Nikora. Ngamoko was banned for accusing the host of using multiple aliases, claiming in the process to have had proof. Yet when someone accuses me of having multiple aliases (and I don’t have multiple aliases), nor have I been banned from Ansell sites before, the host duplicitously turns a blind eye to the accusations of my doing so, and reinforces them.
I wonder which part of Treatygate, the troll Gavin speaks for when he trolls the sensible comments of others while not adding to the debate?
Listen and learn. There is little time available for all the work that has to be done. And people who make this blog an ugly place to visit (comment trolling) make this place an ugly place to view, and will not stay long.
Again, as I have said repeatedly, there is no-one keener than I am to be able to vote in 2014 for a Party which promises an end to Maori privilege.
I am amazed that people who have so much to offer on this this cause, are apparently so misunderstood and apparently despised on this blog, for doing no more than trying to give the organisers a good hurry along.
= Jumped to nonsense conclusions
Well if asking John Ansell if he is retarded, calling other peoples ideas bullshit, moaning about people jumping to nonsense conclusions when you seem to specialize in that yourself, being foul mouthed and telling people to go F themselves whenever you can’t dispute what they are saying, constantly being condescending, constantly talking yourself up etc etc, are all desirable attributes. Then I agree, you do seem to have plenty to offer.
Stop trolling my comments please Gavin.
There is no-one keener than I am in 2014 to be able to vote for a party which will promise an end to Maori privilege. What about you Gavin?
For goodness sake Tropicana and Gavin you both say you want the same thing, an end to race based legislation. Please try and be constructive and stop sniping at each other.
Thats a fair call Graeme, thanks for that.
I’ll try not to respond from now on.
How is asking someone to stop trolling me “sniping”, Graeme? I want nothing more than for this stupidity to stop.
Tropicana: goodbye.
You have no rights on this blog.
This blog is my private property, which decent people of all opinions are welcome to visit.
But you insist on abusing that privilege, as I believe you have done twice before.
I do not appreciate being called duplicitous on my property, so you are banned.
Well, that’s a relief, John. There was a lot of unnecessary strident talk and the arrogance certainly shone through.
I’ve found the Gavin Tropicana was talking about though. Obviously I was looking on the wrong thread. You make some very good comments Gavin.
Is it possible to post your conversation with Willie and JT on here, John, because I couldn’t get that station down in the Nelson wilderness? It would be good to hear it.
this one?
Thanks silverfox! I didn’t think to ask for this and will enjoy listening.
Many thanks, Silverfox. Brilliant. I will listen to it tomorrow as I see it’s over an hour.
OK I have now listened to this so-called debate. I am left with the overwhelming conclusion that it is counterproductive to engage with those utter weasels. There must be a better way than being endlessly ridiculed and talked over by Willie Jackson to get our message heard. To those two turkeys, JA represents a threat to the comfortable and well remunerated system of rorts currently enjoyed by them and their friends. You could sense Jackson’s finger hovering over the cut-off switch whenever a caller came up with an inconvenient line of reasoning, whereas those like that very foolish woman who had been brainwashed at university were given free rein to go on & on spouting nonsense. It is almost beyond belief that those two part-Maori clowns could assert that all government expenditure that is not specifically for Maori issues is therefore exclusively for the benefit of “Pakeha”. That is the dishonest and deeply ignorant level of rationale you might expect from a 7-year old. But there would be gullible listeners who would take that ridiculous assertion – and many others – as gospel fact. Very depressing – and embarrassing – to realise that is the level of “debate” in NZ.
Sorry to say that while I applaud JA’s courage and persistence in the face of such deeply stupid and hostile opposition, I can’t see that this radio event advanced the Treatygate cause at all.
I tend to agree with a lot of that as it is very frustrating for reasonable people to listen to an unfair and one sided “debate”. And part of that frustration comes from knowing that many others listening in are possibly not well enough informed or analytical enough in their thinking to see what is actually going on.
However I certainly would not say nothing good came out of it. Personally think it will have given a lot of like minded people heart to hear someone finally speaking out about these things on such a public forum. And I suspect it may have drawn a lot of people to this blog (?) who were otherwise unaware of it.
Speaking from myself it was only thru Johns closing remarks that I became aware of this site. And now, only a few days later I have a fantastic book that arms me with lots of the kind of information I have been wanting to obtain.
All fair enough comments Gavin; I just think that as time really is of the essence we need to start thinking a little bigger.
JP I agree with most of your comments. I also find it incredibly embarrassing to know so many of my fellow citizens are so utterly stupid – like the Taupo triathalon organisers and indeed the participants.too. If I was intending to take part in that event I would now withdraw citing racism issues and protest most strongly and publicly that part of my entry fee was going as extortion money to an exclusive racial group because a corrupt government and system ‘gave’ them rights over the lake bed.
I also agree that WJ & JT do their best to ensure the callers are screened and give the lions share of time to those who agree with them. I also agree that it is difficult in that kind of climate to advance the cause much.
Still I think it is important to engage in publicity whenever and wherever possible. We need to educate people about 1)what they have lost, 2)why they have lost it and 3)what that means for their future. The answers to these are 1)huge amounts of money and resources and the right to live without constant interference and koha to tribalists, 2) Because it was stolen from you by a corrupt and fraudulent system and 3)It is stuffed.
People just don’t realise how bad things are and that the entire mess is coming down on our heads. Look at the huge job and money losses announced over the last 6 – 12 months on an almost daily basis. We no longer have the resources and support behind the populace to cope with this – because they have been given away to tribalists. I believe that soon all kinds of government welfare and support to the general populace will have to be slashed, its simply unsustainable. But the tribalists will be sitting pretty. They now possess all the resources that could have helped the country climb out of the mess and they also have the ability to ensure that nothing happens anywhere else either unless they approve and clip the ticket on the way through.
As the fire sales of enterprises and resources that the tribalists already don’t possess increase, the tribalists and perhaps the Chinese are the only ones rolling in cash with the ability to take over these as well.
We are way, way down the track of being pauper tenants to tribalists and overseas interests in a country that used to be owned by all its citizens.
Anyway, I digress. The point I am trying to make was that people need to be woken up and educated. And in the environment that we have, the only way to do this short of engaging in violent action (which I believe would help no one), is to take every opportunity to expose this truth and try and get people to engage. If that means being on shows with people like WJ & JT at the moment, then so be it.
Excellent posts, John P and Mike. I can see your point, John, but I think Mike is right and we have to take whatever means available to hopefully get through the thick fog so many of our fellow citizens are wallowing in. Many are going to be in for a good solid knocking very soon if things don’t change for the better and they are going to wonder how it all happened.
I say we should do whatever it takes, no matter how small, to publicise what is going on and what needs to be done to change things.
Willie and JT just make themselves look stupid and anyone with any intelligence listening to how they go on can see it.
We posted at the same time, Gavin. It’s good to hear from someone of a like mind. I hope to listen to the programme shortly.
Mike, I agree with everything you say. I guess what I was trying to say is that while the Jackson /Tamihere debate did no harm to our case, it didn’t do it much good either. Wrong show, probably largely wrong audience. Very controlled environment completely slanted in their favour. They are after all primarily propagandists. We must be able to identify much more effective channels by which to get the message out.
John would get a much more sympathetic hearing from Leighton Smith and probably a larger and more targeted audience. He has had Muriel Newman and Ian Wishart on in recent weeks.
Agree, Graeme …
Perhaps one of you could suggest it to him. Apart from hiring him to do a voice over 25 years ago, I’ve never met Leighton – but am an admirer of his work.
Have sent him an email suggesting it.
I agree Graeme. Let’s hope he gets a hearing from Leighton – very soon to counteract biased Willie and JT’s programme.
Another thought is whether it is possible to work with NZCPR. I know this has been raised before but there hasn’t been much discussion around it.
I do too, Graeme, and I think John was willing but not Muriel. I may be wrong though. Perhaps they haven’t talked in depth. It would much better for as many like-minded people to join together as possible, rather than having split groups everywhere. We could achieve so much more.
Helen is correct. I’ve tried, but Muriel is not keen to have her brand associated with mine.
She believes NZCPR is non-political, while I contend that it clearly is.
I believe her wholesaling (stockpiling of detailed arguments) plus my retailing (punchy ads that get through to ordinary people) is the formula for victory.
I have yet to convince her, so I am doing my own wholesaling (website).
I have, however, persuaded Muriel to put David Round’s Declaration of Equality, of which she is the prime sponsor, into paper form so people can sign it.
I suggested that the best place to begin this process would be at Waitangi on Waitangi Day, but she did not want to do that.
John Would she let you contribute content to the site? This would at least get your name out to the 30,000 or so registered to NZCPR.
I really can’t understand this. It would be so much better if she would come on board. We could all help each other and the both of you would be a great combination. I wonder what she hopes to achieve.
So have I Graeme. He will get two emails. Let’s hope he gives them serious consideration.
I have been keenly following both NZCPR and Treatygate blogs since August last year when I found them, and have often wondered why they don’t combine. Have learned a lot from them both. But the most amazing thing I have learned in recent months since August ’12 is how totally ignorant the average Kiwi is of the Treaty itself and the extent to which so-called reparations have been made. Very few even know how the government works, or what the Queen’s role is. Some people even think the term ‘the Crown owns’ means that the Queen personally has ownership of.
Many people think that the so-called Maori Wars and the Musket Wars was something like William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings. I have been asked by my teenaged nieces and nephews as to what the Queens and Governors-General roles are in government.
Many young Maori sincerely believe that child abuse is as a result of colonisation.
It is not by accident that many of John Ansell’s meetings have to begin with a history lesson.
John, I am ready and very willing to sign up and vote for your party now.
Thanks Peter. One step at a time.