Round the bays: a quick tour of key Treaty locations

Thought I’d try and narrate the story of the drafting of the Treaty while panning around the four relevant locations:

• Russell (then Kororareka), to which Hobson escaped from HMS Herald’s cantankerous Captain Nias to spend the night of February 3rd
• Okiato, the point just around from Russell where Hobson and Busby composed the final English draft at the 8-room home of US Consul James Reddy Clendon on February 4th.
• Paihia, to which Hobson and Busby were rowed in the afternoon of the 4th, in time for Hobson to deliver his final draft to translator Rev Henry Williams at the Church Missionary Society’s mission station, now a church.
• Waitangi, to which the Maori Tiriti was taken on the morning of February 5th, along with the final English draft from which it had been translated overnight by Henry and his son Edward Williams, and read to a large crowd of Maori and Europeans in a marquee constructed by Royal Navy sailmakers. After much discussion on the night of the 5th, 40 chiefs decided to sign the Tiriti on the 6th, surprising Hobson and forcing him to come ashore in his suit — and not the full naval regalia depicted in paintings.

Waitangi speech on You Tube

I went to Waitangi to challenge John Key to run New Zealand as a democracy.

I did so in person as the PM entered Te Tii Marae, and again on the Treaty House lawn by way of this video, now up on our Treatygate You Tube channel.

My professional cameraman had to pull out for work reasons, so Mike Butler stepped into the breach at the last minute.

Unfortunately neither of us realised how much of a factor the wind was going to be — hence the two options for you here.

Above is a re-recorded audio track over a still shot from the video.

Below is the windblown original.

Thanks to Mike and Mr News, Vinny Eastwood of Guerilla Media.

Over the weekend, Vinny and I will flesh out the video with cutaways to supporting evidence.

Then I hope you’ll send the link to as many people as possible. Tell them the pushback has started!

Who will join me at Waitangi on Tuesday?

Will you stand with me at Waitangi?

If we want the same rights for ”all the people of New Zealand” (a promise contained in the words of both the Maori Tiriti and Hobson’s recently-discovered but state-suppressed final English draft), the proper place to demand those rights is the place where those words were signed.

In the cradle of our democracy, Waitangi.

And the right day to make that demand must surely be the day of the Treaty commemoration.

And so, next Tuesday the 5th of February (the day when all the political events happen), I plan to exercise my right as a citizen of a supposedly free and democratic New Zealand to assert my rights on the Treaty House lawn.

Will anyone be there to listen? I don’t know.

But for my own peace of mind, I need to know that I made the effort to stand up for the nation that my forefathers built.

I intend to spell out precisely how the Treaty has been twisted by the forces of self-interest over the past 40 years.

And I will assert my right to be treated equally — a democratic right confirmed by the Treaty.

Whether my government will ever give me that right, I don’t know.

Whether John Key will ever agree to run New Zealand as a democracy, I don’t know.

But over the next two years, I’m going to give him every encouragement.

Hobson and friend at Okiato, where he and Busby
wrote the final English Treaty draft, lost for 149
years, found in 1989, then hushed up by the state.

Last year, I visited Russell, Okiato, Paihia and Waitangi to see for myself where the events of 1840 happened.

Events like the writing of Hobson’s draft at the home of US Consul James Reddy Clendon at Okiato.

At the church in Russell, pointing to evidence that at
least one chief understood Maori were ceding sovereignty.

And places like the memorial in the Russell churchyard to the great Ngapuhi chief Tamati Waka Nene, ”the first to welcome the Queen’s sovereignty in New Zealand.”

(Contrast that with the claim of today’s Ngapuhi that Nene and his fellow chiefs did not surrender their sovereignty.)

This year, knowing a bit more than I did then, I’m going back to shoot a video in those places, record what really happened (not the official state fantasy), and put it on You Tube.

So: who wants to come with me?

(Time on Tuesday to be advised.)

British reply to 1831 Maori petition for protection

A few months back I visited St Paul’s Church in Paihia, the site of the original Anglican Church Mission.

This plaque at the gate talks about the petition by which 13 Ngapuhi chiefs asked King William IV for protection.

They had three main fears:

• further revenge by the French for the massacre of Marion du Fresne and his crew in 1772
• revenge by tribes (now well-armed) for the rampages of Ngapuhi when only they had muskets
• troublesome British escaped convicts and the like in lawless Kororareka.

The King’s response was to send James Busby to the Bay of Islands to live among the Maori as British Resident.

Below is Busby’s address to the hospitable crowd of 600 Maori who welcomed him to New Zealand.

I particularly draw your attention to the second half of the address, beginning “At one time Great Britain differed but little from what New Zealand is now.”

As usual, I’ve done my best to break up the continuous paragraph to make it easier on your eyes — but clearly plain English was not yet in vogue.

______________________________

MY FRIENDS –You will perceive by the letter which I have been honoured with the commands of the King of Great Britain to deliver to you, that it is His Majesty’s most anxious wish that the most friendly feeling should subsist between his subjects and yourselves, and how much he regrets that you should have cause to complain of the conduct of any of his subjects.

To foster and maintain this friendly feeling, to prevent as much as possible the recurrence of those misunderstandings and quarrels which have unfortunately taken place, and to give a greater assurance of safety and just dealing both to his own subjects and the people of New Zealand in their commercial transactions with each other, these are the purposes for which His Majesty has sent me to reside amongst you, and I hope and trust that when any opportunities of doing a service to the people of this country shall arise I shall be able to prove to you how much it is my own desire to be the friend of those amongst whom I am come to reside.

It is the custom of His Majesty the King of Great Britain to send one or more of his servants to reside as his representatives in all those countries in Europe and America with which he is on terms of friendship, and in sending one of his servants to reside amongst the chiefs of New Zealand, they ought to be sensible not only of the advantages which will result to the people of New Zealand by extending their commercial intercourse with the people of England, but of the honour the King of a great and powerful nation like Great Britain has done their country in adopting it into the number of those countries with which he is in friendship and alliance.

I am, however, commanded to inform you that in every country to which His Majesty sends his servants to reside as his representatives, their persons and their families, and all that belongs to them are considered sacred.

Their duty is the cultivation of peace and friendship and goodwill, and not only the King of Great Britain, but the whole civilised world would resent any violence which his representative might suffer in any of the countries to which they are sent to reside in his name.

I have heard that the chiefs and people of New Zealand have proved the faithful friends of those who have come among them to do them good, and I therefore trust myself to their protection and friendship with confidence.

All good Englishmen are desirous that the New Zealanders should be a rich and happy people, and it is my wish when I shall have erected my house that all the chiefs will come and visit me and be my friends.

We will then consult together by what means they can make their country a flourishing country, and their people a rich and wise people like the people of Great Britain.

At one time Great Britain differed but little from what New Zealand is now.

The people had no large houses nor good clothing nor good food.

They painted their bodies and clothed themselves with the skins of wild beasts; every chief went to war with his neighbour, and the people perished in the wars of their chiefs even as the people of New Zealand do now.

But after God sent His Son into the world to teach mankind that all the tribes of the earth are brethren, and that they ought not to hate and destroy, but to love and do good to one another, and when the people of England learned His words of wisdom, they ceased to go to war against each other, and all the tribes became one people.

The peaceful inhabitants of the country began to build large houses because there was no enemy to pull them down.

They cultivated their land and had abundance of bread, because no hostile tribe entered into their fields to destroy the fruit of their labours.

They increased the numbers of their cattle because no one came to drive them away.

They also became industrious and rich, and had all good things they desired.

Do you then, O chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, desire to become like the people of England ?

Listen first to the Word of God which He has put into the hearts of His servants the missionaries to come here and teach you.

Learn that it is the will of God that you should all love each other as brethren, and when wars shall cease among you then shall your country flourish.

Instead of the roots of the fern you shall eat bread, because the land shall be tilled without fear, and its fruits shall be eaten in peace.

When there is an abundance of bread we shall labour to preserve flax and timber and provisions for the ships which come to trade, and the ships that come to trade will bring clothing and all other things which you desire.

Thus you become rich, for there are no riches without labour, and men will not labour unless there is peace, that they may enjoy the fruits of their labour.

______________________________

Thanks to my wonderful volunteer researcher Trina for alerting me to this excerpt from T.L. Buick’s 1914 book The Treaty of Waitangi.

You can download the whole book here.

The Treaty, beautifully explained by a wise and honest Maori leader

Sir Apirana Ngata, MA, LLB, D. Lit — the man on our $50 note. (Put there by Reserve Bank Governor, one Donald T. Brash.) If only today’s Maori leaders shared Ngata’s high regard for truth. 

 

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI

AN EXPLANATION

by The Hon. Sir Apirana Ngata
M.A., LL.B., Lit.D.

Published for the Maori Purposes Fund Board

 First published in 1922

Translated into English by M. R. Jones

Spaced out a bit for easy reading by J. L. Ansell

The words that follow are those of history’s greatest Maori statesman… 

Non-iwi Kiwis: don't count on Coddington

I was concerned about the implications of the racist stacking of the Constitutional Advisory Panel.

 So I emailed the one panellist I thought I could count on to stand up for the 85% of New Zealanders who are not Maori.

(And also, I hope, a large number of those who are.)

That panellist was Deborah Coddington.

I now realise I was wrong.

I now realise that Deborah, like most, if not all, of the others, has been chosen for her pro-Maori bias.

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TREATY, BUT WERE TOO TERRIFIED OF BEING LABELLED A RACIST TO ASK — Part 1: Maori Ask British for Protection From Maori

This is the first of a series of posts designed to bust the myths created by the Treaty of Waitangi grievance industry — myths shamelessly presented as truths by your government. 

If you think it rude of me to expose these facts, tough. If conmen are going to tell lies about my forefathers, I’m going to tell the truth about theirs.

Much of what you see below is distilled from New Zealand in Crisis by Ross Baker of the One New Zealand Foundation. 

In the plainest English I could muster, here is the boiled-down background to the drafting and signing of the Treaty:

c.1350 — Maori meet the tangata whenua

• Maori history tells of seven canoes arriving from Hawaiki in around 1350AD.

• They find New Zealand already inhabited by people they call the tangata whenua.

• Maori historian Dr Ranginui Walker confirms: “The traditions are quite clear: wherever crew disembarked there were already tangata whenua (prior inhabitants).”

• These first inhabitants are either driven into extinction or merge with the tangata Maori (just as the tangata Maori have merged with the Pakeha). 

• Ranginui Walker: “The canoe ancestors of the 14^th century merged with these tangata whenua tribes.”

• Thus Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand. 

• Nor are they the tangata whenua — the first people here. 

• Indigenous means here from the start — like the aborigines who’ve been in Australia for 40,000 years.

• Maori have been here only about 650 years – only 300 years longer than Europeans.

• Maori have never been a united people, with a long history of inter-tribal bloodletting.

• Ranginui Walker: “From this time on [the 14^th century] , the traditions abound with accounts of tribal wars over the land and its resources”.

1771 — fighting with Frenchmen

• In 1771 in the Bay of Islands, Maori kill Marion du Fresne and 24 of his party for ignoring wahi tapu when fishing.

• In retaliation, du Fresne’s crew kill 250 Maori and torch their village.

• Ever since, the Maori are afraid of the French.

1820-30 — Maori slaughter 20-60,000 fellow Maori

• By 1820, the Maori v Maori Musket Wars have been raging for around 15 years. They will go on for about another 25 years.

• There are around 500 battles in all.

• In 1820, Ngapuhi chief Hongi Hika sails to England.

• He asks the King for muskets. The King declines, but presents him with other gifts.

• In Sydney on the way home, he trades all the King’s gifts for 300 muskets and gunpowder.

• He then leads his tribe on a rampage south. They slaughter 20-60,000 of their defenceless countrymen, out of a total Maori population of 100-120,000. With up to half the population wiped out, it has been called the world’s worst holocaust.

• In one attack on the Tamaki pa, Ngapuhi kill more men, women and children than are killed in the whole 27 years of the 1845-72 Land Wars.

• By 1830 the southern tribes have armed themselves with muskets and are planning to head north for revenge.

1831 — Waikato annihilate Taranaki, who slaughter the Moriori

• The Waikato travel south and attack the Taranaki tribes.

• They kill one-third and enslave another third. The remaining third flees south to the Wellington area.

1831 – Northern chiefs ask King for protection 

• In 1831, it’s rumoured that the French naval vessel La Favourite intends to annex New Zealand to France.

• The French would have two reasons for doing this: as further payback for the killing of du Fresne and his crew; and to protect the French now living in Hokianga.

• The natives decide to place a British flag on the mission flagstaff. They reason that if the French tear it down, the missionaries will appeal to Britain for protection.

• Thirteen northern chiefs write to the King of England, asking him to protect them.

• They tell the King they only trust the British: “It is only thy land which is liberal towards us”.

• They reveal their fear of the French: “We have heard that the tribe of Marian [the French] is at hand, coming to take away our land”.

• They ask the King to guard their lands from other tribes and nations: “Therefore we pray thee to become our friend and the guardian of these islands, lest the teasing of other tribes should come near us, and lest strangers should come and take away our land”.

• At the time there are no property rights. To the Maori, might is right — they hold their land only as long as they can defend it.

• The King acknowledges the chiefs’ request by sending a British Resident, James Busby, to New Zealand in 1833.

1835 – Declaration of Independence

• New Zealand-built ships are sailing to Sydney.

• These ships are not registered, so have no flag to sail under.

• So James Busby introduces to the northern tribes a Declaration of Independence.

• This gives them a form of identity, and a flag under which New Zealand ships can be registered.

• In 1835, thirty-four Ngapuhi chiefs sign the Declaration of Independence.

• This declares their territories independent states. It states they will meet in Congress each year.

• The annual Congress is meant to make laws to dispense justice, preserve peace and good order, and regulate trade.

• But, as always, inter-tribal fighting takes precedence over political co-operation.

• The Declaration is abandoned without one Congress meeting being held.

• The Declaration can’t give full sovereignty, as the chiefs can’t form a united working government.

• Tribes only have power over their territories as long as they can defend them.

• No united political structure exists in New Zealand at this time.

What historians say about the Declaration of Independence

Claudia Orange:

“Even though the declaration asserted sovereignty, Maori, who saw themselves as tribal rather than as members of a nation, would have been unable to exercise full rights as an independent state, there was no indigenous political structure upon which to base a united congress.

“However, it did introduce Maori to the idea of a legal relationship with Britain and therefore, five years later, to the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Michael King: 

“The Declaration had no reality, since there was in fact no national indigenous power structure within New Zealand”.

King also pointed out that some of the United Tribes were at war with one another within a year of signing the Declaration.

Paul Moon:

“The Declaration represented a regional goodwill agreement rather than a national document of truly constitutional significance”.

1835 — Maori massacre Moriori in Chathams.

• In 1835, 900 of the Taranaki (Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama) who flee to Wellington, want to avoid being harassed further.

• They commandeer the brig Rodney and sail in two trips to the Chatham Islands.

• Many are sick when they arrive, and are nursed back to health by the peace-loving Moriori.

• When they recover, and for the next seven years, the Maori slaughter or farm the Moriori to near-extinction.

• Historian Michael King: “They were laid out touching one another, the parent and the child. Some women had stakes thrust into them; they were left to die in misery. The rest farmed like sheep over the next few years into virtual extinction”.

1837 – Call for better government 

• In 1837, inter-tribal fighting worsens in many parts of New Zealand.

• Busby can do little to stop it, as he has no forces.

• The settlers, traders and 192 chiefs want more official commitment. They appeal to Britain for a better type of Government.

• As inter-tribal fighting worsens, the Maori population plummets.

• Musket- and goods-hungry Maori are selling vast tracts of their land to land-hungry Europeans.

• Britain is twice asked (in 1831 and 1835), and twice promises, to protect the people and their property.

• To bring law and order to both Maori and non-Maori, Britain is obliged to take more control.

• To do this legally, they need to make New Zealand a British Colony.

• To make New Zealand a colony, Britain has to get the chiefs’ consent to sovereignty over the whole land.

• For two years, the Colonial Office debates the best way to become involved in New Zealand. The British don’t really want another colony.

• With extreme reluctance, the Colonial Office sends out William Hobson, a highly ranked Officer in the British Navy.

• Hobson’s job is to negotiate a treaty with the chiefs that will give Britain sovereignty over the whole land.

• That treaty will give Britain the legal right to set up a government.

• A government will bring law, order and protection. It may investigate and settle land sales, titles and disputes.

• The government will act for all the people of New Zealand, settler and Maori alike.

Next: the drafting and signing of the Treaty.

UPDATE: It’s taking me longer than expected to gather my evidence for Part 2. (There’s just so much of it, and I’m also contending with a family illness.)

For now, I urge you to click on the Comments thread below. It has attracted some experts in the field who have spent decades studying this subject. I’m finding their contributions enlightening.

Appeaser-General to compensate cannibal's tribe for loss of South Island dining rights

Appeaser-General Chris Finlayson wants to pay the descendants of Te Rauparaha $10 million of your money for the loss of their right to capture, kill and cannibalise the Maori of the South Island.

In the words of Dr John Robinson in his book The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy — A Treaty Overview:

Mr Finlayson has made an offer for a Treaty settlement to Ngati Toa, which includes a payment of $40 million, plus $10 million in recognition of Ngati Toa’s former marine empire, $6.31 million for capacity building and an additional amount of $100,000 as claimant funding (the Government also promised to support applications for resourcing from the Crown Forestry Rental Trust).

Ah yes, the CFRT — the agency that refused to pay Robinson for his research on Maori depopulation until he’d reversed his conclusion to echo their politically-correct view of history. 

But how intriguing that Ngati Toa possessed a ‘marine empire’ — presumably patrolled by a blue-water navy. And not exactly for peacekeeping purposes, as we shall discover in a future post.

And how intriguing that the supposedly Honourable Chris Finlayson intends to give $10 million of your money to Ngati Toa for the loss of this marine empire?

I know Chris Finlayson. We were on good terms until I realised that he, along with John Key, were traitors intent upon giving my country back to its former owners, with no payment for improvements.

He is also a master lawyer and self-styled champion of plain English. He has the skills to say exactly what he means with deadly precision. When he wants to.

But this time — as with so many of his pronouncements on matters Maori — he doesn’t want to. So I’ll say it for him.

By ‘loss of Ngati Toa’s marine empire’, Finlayson means the loss of the right of these Taranaki invaders (who wiped out the tribe that had been here for centuries) to paddle across Cook Strait and slaughter, enslave and feast upon the South Island Maori.

Compensating the descendants of their chief cannibal, Te Rauparaha (whose depraved devourings earns him a separate post), for the loss of that right is going to cost you and me $10 million.

And that’s just the appetiser for a much larger Ngati Toa claim.

As part of the package developed to recognise Ngati Toa’s maritime empire, the Crown offers to explore the development of a redress instrument that recognises Ngati Toa’s role as Kaitiaki of Cook Strait and the coastal marine area in Port Underwood and Pelorus Sound… and supports Ngati Toa in developing a statutory plan articulating Ngati Toa’s values in relation to these areas.

While most of us cast our vote and make submissions, the Ngati Toa extended family will have the right to prepare management and planning documents — all because of the warfare of ancestors 190 years ago.

And not just warfare. Also the cruellest imaginable slavery and cannibalism — including the eating of women and children.

And for these despicable acts, plus wrongs done to them by the evil white man that Finlayson has yet to reveal (or should that be invent?) the tribe is to be rewarded. By you.

It is strange and indeed corrupt to make such a generous offer of taxpayers’ money without settling the grounds for the complaint.

As I wrote at the time to the Minister, “The situation as I understand it is in contradiction to common sense and logic. Surely there would be no consideration of a settlement in the absence of a clearly specified wrong.”

Surely not? Yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Finlayson wants to pay $10 million of your money to a tribe for no reason he is prepared to divulge.

Here the truth of what happened in a past century is not to be determined by historians in an open and public debate, but written by the aggrieved party, about to profit from a settlement based on a biased interpretation, behind closed doors and after the settlement is agreed.

Again in the words of Minister Finlayson, “The Ngati Toa historical account is being negotiated concurrently with the rest of the Ngati Toa settlement and will be agreed before the deed of settlement is signed… All settlement redress, including the historical account, is confidential while under negotiation.”

You read correctly. Your head lawyer is rewriting the tribe’s history with the tribe, behind closed doors, in order to concoct a reason to pay the tribe with your money for something your forefathers almost certainly did not do to their forefathers.

What kind of an idiot is Chris Finlayson? Answer: a ‘useful idiot’. 

But look at this next bit:

Even the very little information available shows that the basis of the settlement is wrong. The claimed maritime empire never existed. This was made clear by the Waitangi Tribunal:

“We consider the idea of a sustained ’overlordship’ to have little basis in Maori customary thinking. … the idea of an overlordship is now seen as the legacy of an imperial rhetoric.”

So even the ridiculously pro-Maori Waitangi Tribunal does not agree with the Appeaser-General that Ngati Toa possessed a blue water navy.

The Maori had the great luck that the colonial power was 19th century Great Britain.

Damn right they did. Imagine if they’d run into the Spaniards. Or the Belgians.

Or, worse, if the tables had been turned and the Maoris had colonised Britain. Imagine that. Would they have treated with the inhabitants — or on them?

(Remember the Taranaki tribes’ discourteous response to being welcomed ashore by the peace-loving Moriori in the Chathams – to capture, enslave or exterminate all but a few of their hosts.)

The concept of citizenship developed through the Cromwell revolution, the Glorious Revolution, the French and American revolutions, and the calls to end slavery (which succeeded across the British Empire in 1833) had become accepted.

The British, like all races, had a bloodthirsty history. But by 1840, they’d put their piracy and slavery behind them.

British politicians and the Colonial Office wanted to work with other peoples and respect their rights. Article Three of the Treaty of Waitangi promises that equality.

That promise of equal rights by the then-greatest civilisation on earth to a population of Stone Age tribesmen was evidence that the British, far from being the bully boys of modern myth, were in fact the most compassionate of colonisers. 

But equality is nowhere near good enough for the Maori leaders of today. They quite sensibly prefer the reverse takeover model — especially as our leaders seem dumb enough to give it to them.

This should be the clear basis for constitutional reform if the country is to move forward together, 170 years later.

Instead there are continuing claims, and settlements, based on bloodthirsty conquest. The example of the fate of the Chatham Islanders is not unique.

The Moriori paid a high price for appeasing the Maori. As will we if the relentless Maorification of our institutions continues.

In the case that has interested me particularly here, concerning the south Wellington coast, we find that Ngati Toa showed no respect for Ngati Ira’s love of the land, customary title or wahi tapu.

They killed them, enslaved them, and drove them out.

Now their descendants demand the rights that were denied the former inhabitants of this land.

Words change their meaning. Culture, tikanga, changes with time as well as differing between tribes. Wahi tapu is said to refer to a few artefacts but is then called upon to justify control of the whole Kaipara Harbour.

And of course Kaipara Maori are using wahi tapu as an excuse to block the installation of power turbines on the harbour floor. No doubt greasing the iwi’s palm with the appropriate bribe will quiet the upset spirits.

Tangata whenua once was established by living in a place so that after just ten years in Wellington Te Atiawa could claim ownership and the right to sell that land.

Ngati Toa and Te Atiawa only arrived in Wellington two decades and one decade, respectively, before the settlers. And yet they demand compensation of many millions of dollars.

Now those who have lived their whole lives in a place, even for several generations, both Maori and non-Maori, are refused that status, which is claimed by descendants of the temporary residents of 1840, no matter where they now live.

Dr Robinson gets to the heart of the matter here:

The focus is no longer on a search for the truth. History is reinterpreted and reinvented to suit political aims. Historical accounts may even be omitted when making settlements, or written by the complainant behind closed doors, out of view of the public whose money and land are being handed over.

It’s time to expose the Maorification scammers, starting with the Appeaser-General who has made it all so very possible.

I’ll be blogging on this and more in due course.

You will read of the astonishing lengths to which Finlayson went to avoid saying the word ‘free’ when pressed by ACT’s David Garrett about public access to beaches during the Marine and Coastal Areas debate.

You will read gory evidence of what a depraved beast was Te Rauparaha,  for whose crimes against humanity you will soon be asked to compensate his great-great grandchildren. (That’s right, you will be paying them.)

You will read about the true history of the Treaty of Waitangi, including its fraudulent reinvention in the 1980s that kick-started the Maorification scam.

By the time I’ve finished, the Treaty conmen will be thoroughly exposed, with no big words to hide behind.

For now, I suggest you get a copy of The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy – A Treaty Overview by John Robinson.

Maorification of Constitution begins as Sharples stacks advisory panel

This really stinks.

If you thought the Marine and Coastal Areas Act was a hijack of democracy, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming.

Next on the Maori-National government’s Maorification agenda is an all-out assault on the New Zealand Constitution itself.

Once they’ve had their way with that, New Zealand as we know it will be gone.

The Maorification of the Constitution began on Thursday with the naming of a wildly disproportionate Constitutional Advisory Panel.

In a country where 68% of the people are European and 15% are Maori, the committee is stacked 50-50.

A 50-50 split may be even. But it’s hardly fair.

The only New Zealand population it remotely resembles is our prison population. 

Pakeha capture

What is the smiling tiger Pita-Peter Sharples up to? No doubt he’s planted a tame Pakeha or two in the panel to give him the crucial majority?

Well, looking down the list above, I see two interesting names.

First, Michael Cullen — my ’Wastemaster-General’ in the Taxathon TV ad of 2005.

This is the former finance minister  who so loved his country that he quite deliberately booby-trapped the economy with a decade of deficits — just to make life harder for the incoming government.

And how does the not-so-Honourable Michael make his living these days?

Why, partly as Principal Treaty Claims Negotiator for Tuwharetoa.

(The tribe to which,  as Treaty Negotiations Minister, he awarded over $100 million of your money in the 2008 ‘Treelords’ settlement.)

Doesn’t that smell a bit fishy to you?

If Cullen is not tame enough, one of the other Pakeha members is former National minister John Luxton.

The panel bio notes that Luxton has expertise in Crown-Maori relations, experience in co-management (as co-chair of the Waikato River Authority) and representing Maori interests.

But at least former ACT MP and investigative journalist Deborah Coddington ought to be a safe bet, right?

I don’t think so. See my UPDATE 3 below.

Hiding the agenda

The consitutional review is  a condition of John Key’s uniquely unnecessary coalition appeasement (sorry, agreement) with the Maori Party.

You know it’s going to be bad when Anthony Hubbard of the Socialist Star-Times tries to snow you that the newly-named panel is  “unlikely to be more than a Mad Hatter’s tea party of unanswerable riddles and pointless in-fighting”.

Yeah right.

The government’s  main agenda is obvious: to elevate the bogus version of the Treaty of Waitangi to the status of official sacred cash cow for their Maori con artist mates to plunder at will.

But look how this lefty journo does his best to keep that news from you.

(Actually you can’t look unless you’ve got the actual paper. His column’s not online.)

First Mr Hubbard diverts your attention to the republican issue.

He pretends that the real reason the committee won’t be looking at ditching the monarchy is that John Key doesn’t want to.

The real reason, of course, is that the Maori Party doesn’t want to. Replacing the Queen could kill the golden Treaty goose. And we can’t have that.

Then he tries to make you believe that the big issues for the panel will be the size of parliament, and the length of the parliamentary term.

And then, and only then – in column six of his six-column column — does he casually gloss over the real hidden agenda:

Some of the other subjects for the committee — the Treaty, Crown-Maori relationships and Maori representation — are contentious in theory but in practice many people find them boring most of the time. New Zealand voters tend to fall asleep when the word “constitution” is mentioned.

Yawn, yawn, nothing to see here, move on.

Boring you to sleep

No doubt the Star-Times, Sharples and Obfuscator-General Finlayson will be pumping out lots of big, boring words to try and keep you comatose for the duration of this constitutional stitch-up. 

But I plan to be doing the exact opposite — stripping their bloated word-carcasses of their fat, and distilling from the layers of putrid gobbledygook their true meaning and hitherto-hidden agenda.

You know where to come for the real truth.

Sharples apparently thinks his Constitutional Advisory Panel is a ‘good mix’.

 Course he does. He’s shamelessly stacked it with a quarter more Maori and a quarter fewer Europeans than their populations warrant.

Ngai Tahu leader Sir Tipene O’Regan and legal scholar John Burrows will lead a government appointed panel which is to lead public discussion on constitutional issues including the status of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Panellists like Sir Tipene (who a friend used to know as Steve “before he became a Maori”. and who told a friend of a friend that he is Tipene “only in certain circles”) will undoubtedly try to lead the public. 

And when he does, I hope by then the public will be savvy enough to push back.

80s Treaty tricks

I hope people like you will ask people like Sir Steve to show you proof that the Treaty is a ’partnership’ that contains ‘principles’.

Because they won’t be able to.

Unless they’re written in invisible ink, there’s nothing whatsoever in the Treaty about partnerships or principles.

Why not? Because they were conjured up in the 1980s out of thin air.

They were the figments of the activist imaginations of a judge, Robin Cooke, and a prime minister, Geoffrey Palmer (who later regretted it, and who some say resigned because of the damage he knew he’d cause).

Once Cooke and Palmer had cooked up this fake Treaty of Waitangi, it became much easier for guys like Tipene-Steve to extort money from you and me.

There is only one place this panel will try to lead you: away from the truth.

Do not go there.

The real deal

The truth is that the Treaty was a simple deal done mainly because the northern Maori had been begging the Brits for ten years to protect them from three very real threats:

• Vengeful Maori — tribes plotting utu for Ngapuhi’s musket massacres of the 1820s.

• Vengeful Froggies – French would-be colonisers bent on avenging the massacre of Marion du Fresne and his crew in 1772.

• Bad Brits — escaped convicts and other disreputables causing trouble in lawless Kororareka.

Without the Treaty, the tribal musketeer-slaver-cannibals would have slaughtered and eaten each other to extinction by 1860.

(I’m not making this up. Between 1825-40, Maori had already blasted, hacked, boiled and gnawed back their numbers from 120,000 to 50-60,000. That, Tariana Turia, was New Zealand’s true holocaust.)

The Treaty deal was that the British got the country, and the Maori got the same rights as the British.

That was pretty much it.

By any measure, it was an excellent deal for the times.  

I’m working on a series of posts that will spell out, point by crystal clear point, what happened before and after the signing of the Treaty — and how  various conmen have been distorting the truth ever since.

But back to this poisonous panel.

Who will speak for non-Maori?

 At least Dr Sharples, unlike Hubbard, is honest enough to admit the panel’s main purpose:

“An important part of the review process will be consultation with Maori, particularly on the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in our constitution,” Dr Sharples said. 

The most important part, I’m sure he meant to say.

“The members of this are well placed to seek out and understand the perspectives of Maori on these important issues.”

Indeed the five Maori members and one Maori employee certainly are.

My question is: who will speak for the 85% of New Zealanders who are not Maori?

And will their views count?

The panel will also consider electoral issues including the size of parliament, the length of the parliamentary term, and number and size of electorates and the status of Maori seats

And with the panel overloaded with Maori, guess what they’ll find?

It will also consider whether New Zealand should have a written constitution and Bill of Rights issues.
Dr Sharples said a Royal Commission was considered to carry out the work, “but just selecting people of mana and a range and setting them up under their own authority and giving a lengthy period would have the same effect”

Course it would. Rigging your own panel is much cleverer than expecting a judge to do your bidding.

(Mind you, our judges are biased enough, as we know from Lord Cooke, and the bench that overturned 160 years of settled law with the Ngati Apa decision on the foreshore and seabed in 2003.)

“These guys don’t actually set the kaupapa, it still comes back to parliament. A Royal Commission usually comes up with some golden recommendations and if you don’t take them people question you.”

Well, we can’t have people questioning us for ignoring expert recommendations (like the 2025 Taskforce), can we?

But with Prime Appeaser John Key and Activist-General/Obfuscator-General/Appeaser-General (you choose) Chris Finlayson driving the Maorification agenda, don’t expect critical  questions to be tolerated.

And if Finlayson’s arrogance over the Marine and Coastal Areas Act is any guide — not to mention chair Tau Henare’s rude put-downs of  submitters to the Maori Affairs Select Committee – don’t expect straight answers. 

UPDATES

UPDATE 1

One of my more abusive commenters has pointed out the difficulty of identifying by race, given that many of us are a mixture of two or more. Certainly, we know that all Maori are.

So here’s an idea: Since we’re such a multicultural lot, why don’t we drop this preoccupation with ethnicity, metaphorically rip off our skins and set up a colour-blind state — with one  law, and one electoral roll,  for us all.

Could work?

UPDATE 2

We now find that Sir Tipene/Steve O’Regan is being sued by the Financial Markets Authority for his role in the Hanover Finance collapse.

Is it OK for a man being sued by one government agency to preside over another government agency – especially one advising on matters at the very core of our national being?

No Prime Minister, it’s not OK.

UPDATE 3

I had puzzled at why the notoriously biased Sharples would include former ACT MP Deborah Coddington on his tame advisory panel.

Was it to give the appearance of balance? Or is Deborah really a wet in dry’s clothing?

(Or just a wet, full stop?)

This Herald article confirms that theory, where she happily parrots the views of tame Treaty industry historian Paul Moon:

“Yes, the English ripped off the Maori, too, when it came to getting them to sign the Treaty of Waitangi.
“Henry Williams deliberately mistranslated from Maori to English to protect his land holdings, and numerous other travesties were perpetrated.”

Then we have this ridiculously saccharine account of Deborah’s dinner with the Turias.

Note the priceless ending: “Leaving is like saying goodnight to kin, such is the warmth of Tariana and George Turia.”

And I’ve no doubt the Turias are very warm, hospitable and genuinely caring people, as are most Maori.

(And, for that matter, most humans.)

But Tariana is the leader of an openly racist political party. And Deborah is an investigative journalist. 

Does this totally uncritical restaurant review suggest to you that Ms Coddington can be trusted to fairly represent your wishes?

COMING SOON: Everything you ever wanted to know about the Treaty but were too terrified of being labelled a racist to ask

I’m getting so much stuff sent to me about the Maorification of Everything scandal that I need a whole office of scribes to sort it.

(I’m just such a slow writer. Slow but sure, I trust.)

One of the things I’ve been sent is a brilliant little book.

It’s going to allow me to boil down the whole early Treaty history into a form that’ll make it crystal clear just how royally the Crown and Maoristocracy have been conning us.

I’m going to need your help to pass on these vital facts to everyone you know. 

I don’t want you to miss this post, which will be coming after I’ve finished exposing the biased membership of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Therefore, why don’t you subscribe to this blog? That’ll save you having to check back all the time.