For a fascinating insight into the thinking of a Pakeha Appeaser of Griever Maori, I commend to you this email exchange between Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty and author Dr John Robinson.
I urge you to read it all, particularly Delahunty’s second email, and Robinson’s reply.
As you read, and perhaps weep, remind yourself that Catherine Delahunty is a member of our Parliament, to whom we are paying over $140,000 a year.
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From: John Robinson
Sent: Thursday, 16 August 2012 3:00 p.m.
To: Catherine Delahunty
Subject: When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience
Hi Catherine,
I was forwarded your comments on the Treaty, which I believe are mistaken.
The promise was kept and it was some Maori tribes who broke the compact by revolt against the government and many peaceful tribes.
I hope that you will read this historical account.
With best wishes,
John
[Dr Robinson pointed Ms Delahunty to his new book, When Two Cultures Meet — The New Zealand Experience, and the back cover blurb, which includes:
“The account, based on a wealth of information from many scholars and participants, shows how Maori played an active part in the colonisation by Britain, and benefited from the end of bloody war and social destruction, with the end of slavery, tribal attacks and cannibalism, together with improvements in lifestyle, health, food and tools.
This direct attack on revisionist historical accounts exposes the immense damage done to New Zealand society by the recent move away from the promise of 1840 – “now we are one people”.”]
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From: Catherine Delahunty
Sent: Thursday, 16 August 2012 3:49 p.m.
To: ‘John Robinson’
Subject: RE: When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience
Sorry John, I could quote you many historians who totally disagree.
Colonisation is a divide and rule strategy and there is interesting literature on how the English Crown recorded strategies that worked on the Irish and then consciously applied them in this country.
If you are interested in historical accounts from a tangata whenua perspective I hope you are reading the Waitangi Tribunal summaries, they have brief but clear accounts of how land was alienated and people disenfranchised in a myriad of ways.
They are a source of inconvenient truths from the people who lost everything except their will to survive and to uphold a Treaty which shared this country.
But I suspect we will not agree and I respect your right to this view even though cannot agree.
The colonisation process did not bring health and well-being to these people and a quick study of statistics shows this to be true.
They are at the bottom of our heap and it’s too convenient to claim we are the civilised people, we are at least as war like and in many ways barbaric.
I love the quote from Gandhi when asked what he thought of western civilisation he said it would be a nice idea.
There are many views in this world but when we speak for others and define their culture and how much our culture has supposedly done for them , I get quite concerned.
Best wishes
Catherine
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From: John Robinson
Sent: Thursday, 16 August 2012 4:13 p.m.
To: Catherine Delahunty
Subject: RE: When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience
God almighty! How on earth can you be so definite about what I say when you have not read the book?
I certainly disagree with many revisionist historians, and I comment directly on such issues.
The point is not to be made in a one-liner and there is much therein, with careful references.
Why not read and see whether there is any sense there? Then debate, knowing what has been presented.
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From: Catherine Delahunty
Sent: Thursday, 16 August 2012 4:39 p.m.
To: ‘John Robinson’
Subject: RE: When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience
Hi John,
I am not rejecting the idea of reading your book but when you talk about “tribes revolting against the Government” it is clear message that your world view of colonisation and indigenous rights is one I was brought up with and taught me little about the perspective of indigenous people.
I read when I can and I prioritise learning from indigenous historians and then Pakeha views which I was brought up with.
[The bolding is mine. While I like to correct people’s obvious errors, I can’t do much to tidy up the first para, because I can’t understand it — JA.]
Thanks
Catherine
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From: John Robinson
Sent: Friday 14 September 2012 7:55 a.m..
To: Catherine Delahunty
Subject: an indigenous account
Dear Ms Delahunty,
I recall that you sent me an offensive and racist email saying that you read and consider the writings of ‘indigenous’ historians first, that being your criterion for the truth.
I wonder then if you have read and thought about Life and times of Te Rauparaha, written by his son, Tamihana Te Rauparaha?
It described features of Maori culture. Like:
“The Ngati Tama cut up the bodies of the slain and carried them to their pa to be cooked, as was the Maori custom.” (page 19).
“About 500 were killed in the battle, four pas were captured and a thousand women and children were slain.” (pages 30, 32)
“Three pas were captured and 200 men and 800 women and children were killed, while others were brought to Kapiti for slaves.” (page 33)
Yours sincerely,
Dr Robinson
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Tamihana Te Rauparaha, to whom John Robinson refers above, was, by all accounts, a fine man — the polar opposite of his monstrous father.
He proposed the motion to endorse the Governor and the benefits of British colonisation at the Kohimarama Conference of chiefs in 1860.
He also travelled round the South Island apologising for the depraved deeds of his dad.
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COMING SOON: An email exchange between Delahunty and essayist Colin Rawle, which shows the Green MP to be even more one-eyed.
treatygate.wordpress.com 
I recently read the book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” by Dinesh D’Souza. It is clear that Obama is anti-colonialism and more than likely pro-communism.
His warped ideology is no different to what is taking place before our eyes here in NZ. One wonders who is the real driving force behind the Treaty claims.
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/books/the-roots-of-obamas-rage/
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/10/14/obamas-surrogate-anti-colonial
I suggest that Catherine Delahunty check our more of our history showing that Maori were given a very fair deal in the context of the period and that they clearly broke the Treaty in a number of instances.
There is a very well priced book on Trademe right now titled ‘Climates of War 1859-1869’ by Edmund Bohan published a few years ago. The copies are brand new and priced at only $15 and must be end of print run. I thoroughly recommend this publication to people interested in our history.
For God’s sake didn’t anyone tell Catherine Delahunty that when the Waitangi Tribunal came to being in 1975 our blundering politicians have bent over backwards covering up all pre – Maori history by removing historical evidence. Why?
Moreover, it’s an absolute disgrace to think that all pre-Maori records and artifacts about the early New Zealand settlers have gradually removed from our national museums, libraries, and schools starting with Auckland 1998 and as far south to the Otargo Museum in the South Island. Why?
It is interesting to note that the statistics of bloodlines between Maori and Pakeha (European) also stopped in 1975. Why?
Researchers arguably state the original treaty agreement has once again been deliberately tampered with since 1997. Why?
In fact since the early 1970s there has been a deliberate attempt to rewrite history to promote the view that Maori are the true indigenous people, also such things as ramant cannibalism or practice of slavery among Maori are being combed out of history books and at times substituted with mystical and euphoric fairy-tale themes that down play violence and promote an idyllic quality of existence. Why?
Due to the Waitangi Tribunal many pre-Maori artifacts found by Europeans or Maori in Northland have been handed over to the local Iwi called the ‘Te Roroa Hapu, Waipoua Advisory Commiittee authority’ as pre-Maori bones and other archaeological finds as evidence are removed from the site then either kept, buried or deliberately destroyed. Why? http://www.createspace.com/3832110
Thank you, John, for exposing Catherine Delahunty’s biased views. Like all too many who spout this anti European and how hardly done by the Maori were, it just goes to prove how very selective she is with her reading/research.
If she is relying on information from the Waitangi Tribunal then she has no chance of apprising herself of our true history.
It horrifies me to think we are paying her this very generous salary. The damage politicians like her do is vast.
It is also shocking how our true history is being suppressed – actually I find it staggering that this is happening. It’s like a conspiracy and it seems it is being aided and abetted by people who are supposed to be running our country.
Helen: I couldn’t agree more except for one comment. You say it’s “like” a conspiracy but I am certain that it is just that. I would never underestimate these people, they are very clever, have vast resources and (sadly) many New Zealanders believe what they say. The re-writing of NZ history has been going on for around forty years, it won’t be put right overnight and we need someone on the ‘inside’ to assist. Are there any MP’s who have even a shred of honesty about them and who could be persuaded to punblicly condemn this ‘shafting’ of a nation? At this time I can’t think of one.
[JA: Peters huffs and puffs, but what counts is not words, but actions. When he was in a position to do something, I think the record will show he did nothing.]
You are right about the conspiracy, Peter. If is a definite, not a ‘like’. I was being too lenient there.
As for an MP who might have a shred of honesty about them, I’m watching Richard Prosser of NZ First. He’s in the middle of drafting a private member’s bill about binding referenda. We badly need this. He writes for the Investigate magazine and I like what he says. However NZ First doesn’t have much in the way of power. Yet!!??
Having said that, politicians disappoint me enormously so there are no guarantees. We do need someone to come along though and campaign strongly on what we are trying to achieve. This is coming back to us forming a Party I know and I’m not meaning to suggest that.
Cripes lol conspiracy and why and who benefits 15% of the country. Is it one of those secret socities with secret handshakes lol
Where do you get 15%? As many of that 15% are more Anglo Saxon than Maori, I would say the percentage is much much less. Which goes to make the current rort all that more despicable.
Actually Helen that figure comes from John. The number of people who identify as Maori. I think the number is closer to 18%.
So we have a percentage of people who identify as Maori. Anorher percentage married to rhose who identify as Maori. A percenrage of pakeha who clearly share our stand so what numbers are we looking at in a civil war Helen?
What happens if you dont get the numbers or you do and the govt ignores you. Where do you go from there?
No secret handshakes anakereiti Secret eyepatches I think
BTY Did I miss your evidence for your claim that all cinemas in the 50s
had policies of segregation ? You could maybe step back from the “all ” bit and give us the name of a few Well, one even ?
Please delete me from your mailing list. (signed) A.W Gregor. 15 Sept 2012
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Actually you did Graham full links provided. Check the other posts
I think one real concern is your (bulk of people on this post) labelling others as one eyed. Its obvious from many a post that you in fact should be wearing the same label. Im constantly told, oh thats from the Waitangi Tribunal, that has no value or weight.” Maybe the decision doesnt but the amount of reference material provided by them is incredible. Letters from politicians, land agents, army personnel, Maori – all from that period and you choose to disdain it. thats one eyed. You may not agree with the decision but to ignore the rafts of information provided is proof of your “one eye” attitude.
Anakereiti: New Zealanders, especially Griever Maori, have been brainwashed with a one-eyed account of our history for the last forty years.
The people who have done that brainwashing are chronic liars who deserve to be exposed to public contempt.
More importantly, they need to swept from public office, so they can never again do damage to their country.
Before they can be swept from public office, people need to know who they are, and what they’ve done, and why they must never be trusted.
And so, Anakereiti, I intend to keep labelling these liars as one-eyed in the most visible way I can.
I have both eyes open searching for the truth. I am unashamedly biased in favour of the truth.
If anyone can show at any time that something I have said is not true, I will recant and apologise immediately.
I have already done that over a couple of small details that I got wrong (like the Maori tax rate being sinister, which I’m advised it isn’t).
People who think the Waitangi Tribunal is some sort of Supreme Court, when it has the equivalent status as the Small Claims Court, are part of the problem.
The Waitangi Tribunal is a kangaroo court that only considers one side of the story. The state furnishes the claimants with the best lawyers it can find, while the people of New Zealand are represented with junior lawyers, who offer little, if any, push-back.
The whole process is a farce and a disgrace, and I’m pleased to have Brian Priestly’s account as evidence of that. I hope other honest participants to the sham will speak out now that he has.
And of course the Supreme Court is little better, since it was set up by Labour so they could sidestep the Privy Council, whose fine legal minds would stuff up their agenda.
Quick query John, where to from here? If you dont get the numbers? Or if you get the numbers and govt still ignores you – whats the plan ? 🙂
Somewhat late on the scene here, but what the Hell 🙂 Yes, there IS a conspiracy, but not a home-grown one per se (details below). And yes, the Waitangi Tribunal and its bogus determinations are a key part of that (see below).
THE NATURE AND ORIGINS OF RACIAL SUBVERSION
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalise, ignore, and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.” – Frantz Fanon
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (“the UN Declaration”) is now cited in tandem with the misconstrued Treaty of Waitangi to support the endless expansion of group rights to New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent.
New Zealand’s adoption of the UN Declaration is not binding and lacks an enforcement mechanism. Nonetheless, this document is far from harmless. The Declaration’s lofty phrases on the rights of indigenous people to self-determination, to maintain their own languages and cultures, to protect their natural and cultural heritage, and manage their own affairs, has further emboldened the Maori Sovereignty movement.
In endorsing this edict of the Mother of World Socialism, the United Nations, the current National Government has buckled to its coalition partner, the Maori Party; thus advancing the Maori Party’s race-separatist agenda, and opening the door to Maori claims to New Zealand’s once publicly-owned foreshore and seabed. In fact, pretty much everything is now up for racial grabs.
All ideas have a pedigree, and if our universities and media were doing their job, the matters set out below would be far more widely known.
The ideological underpinning of both the UN Declaration and the Maori Sovereignty movement traces back to the early 20th Century writings of Communist revolutionaries Lenin and Stalin on a topic they called “The National Question.”
Around 1905, Lenin and Stalin noted that Tsarist Russia consisted not just of ethnic Russians, but upwards of 80 formerly tribal subject peoples, conquered by the Tsars over the preceding 500 years and forcibly Russified.
To expand the Bolshevik support base these peoples were promised: “the right to self-determination,” “the right to manage their own affairs,” and “the right to speak, read, write, use, and be taught in their own language.” It is this more than 100 year-old Communist cant that resurfaces in the UN Declaration and in the demands of “indigenous peoples” movements all over the world.
After World War I the multi-ethnic empires of Austro-Hungary and Tsarist Russia to which the National Question was first applied to stir up revolution were no more. Lenin and Stalin then directed the National Question towards undermining the hold of European nations over their colonial possessions.
Starting in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Communists all over the world were instructed to promote the independence aspirations of minority groups and indigenous peoples so as to bring them into conflict with the status quo.
The underlying Communist agenda in promoting decolonisation was to weaken Capitalism economically by depriving the colonial powers of sources of cheap labour, raw materials, and markets for finished goods. Post-colonial power would go to the politically organised, meaning Communist-led and supported puppet governments would drag most newly independent states firmly into the Soviet orbit.
Following the creation of the UN in 1945, Communists on its various committees and workgroups began to drip-feed National Question ideology into the fabric of that organisation. By 1960, the UN General Assembly had adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. This stated that all peoples have “a right to self-determination” and proclaimed that “colonialism should be brought to a speedy and unconditional end.”
Locally, the Communist Party of New Zealand (“CPNZ”) soon identified a minority strand of Maori opinion centred on the Tainui, Tuwharetoa and Tuhoe tribes that had never signed the Treaty of Waitangi. These groups had gone to war against the Crown in the mid-19th Century and been appropriately brought to heel. They’d been punished with land confiscations and nursed a sense of grievance because of this. Their impetus was towards reversion to tribalism, not engagement with the modern world.
The CPNZ ran in the 1935 General Election on a platform that included “self-determination for the Maoris [sic] to the point of complete separation.” In the 1930s, the CPNZ had little success with this line. Maori were a predominately rural people and had little contact with Communists, mostly found in urban areas with universities and a substantial manufacturing base. This was soon to change.
Between 1945 – 1975, Maori underwent one of the most rapid urbanisations of any group of people, anywhere. This brought Maori flooding into the universities and trade unions, the CPNZ’s main recruiting grounds. Many who’d moved away from traditional tribal connections lost them. And if they didn’t, these were often loosened by distance.
Communist “entrepreneurs of ethnicity” could now peddle a message of collective “Maori” disadvantage to members of a target group whose primary socio-cultural affiliation before moving to town had been to a tribal kin group. They could also make a race issue out of the problems many Maori experienced in adjusting to urban life.
The Communists who’d begun colonising our universities in the 1930s to use them as political indoctrination factories had by the 1970s achieved critical mass in many departments, especially those specialising in the study of society. Their growing dominance on faculty hiring committees allowed them to systematically exclude anyone holding alternative views. It was now possible in many disciplines to go all the way from Undergraduate to PhD. level without having been lectured by a single Conservative or Libertarian professor.
Controlling the universities was based on the writings of Antonio Gramsci. One of the many disreputable Communists held up as intellectual icons by the academic Left, Gramsci was the theoretician of Italian Communism. Imprisoned by Mussolini in the 1920s, he’d used his jail time to think long and hard about why violent Communist revolutions hadn’t occurred in the advanced capitalist countries where Marx had predicted they would first occur.
Gramsci’s answer was that the capitalist ruling class controlled the social discourse. Its stranglehold on intellectual life made it impossible for the “subordinate classes” (workers, women, ethnic minorities, and alternative sexualities) to discover the truth about their class oppressions at the hands of capitalist society. Unless this situation could somehow be changed, these groups would never develop a revolutionary class consciousness.
Revolution must therefore first take place on the level of consciousness. Like throwing a stone into a pool, this would start with the formation of a body of Communist intellectuals who would take over the academy in order to transform it into an indoctrination factory. As their students graduated and moved into opinion-shaping roles in the West’s cultural institutions, the Communist class war narrative would come to increasingly resonate in our public discourse.
Naturally, recruits from the “subordinate classes” were needed as a revolutionary spearhead to spread the good word. But the wider Communist goal was to capture the largest possible cohort from the “dominant classes” who could be induced by propaganda to switch sides. This would be achieved by teaching that Capitalist Society can be divided into groups that oppress and groups that are oppressed. A deliberately destructive criticism of Western Culture deployed to create “cultural pessimism” in the minds of the target audience.
Gramsci’s academic adherents helped their students to understand that the major social sciences, including geography, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology, were not neutral and impartial. They were instead instruments of race, gender and class oppression. And the only moral position for someone born into a Communist-designated oppressor group was that of totally supine and penitent victimiser, desperate to make it up to those whom they’d learned their group had historically victimised.
These views are now considered “mainstream” in both the Western academy and the wider culture. Students were told they were learning “progressive” new ideas about race, gender and class, not Communism. They were programmed with all the principles of Communism without the label then flattered for their cleverness in accepting the programming. If you told them they were Marxists or Communists, they’d respond with a pitying smile, roll their eyes, and accuse you of “seeing Reds under the bed.”
US political columnist Joe Sobran uses the metaphor of a hive of bees, united by a kind of “group mind,” to describe the largely informal body of Leftist opinion to which these people belong. There’s no central direction as such, but the bees can sense an enemy, and know when to attack.
Sobran says: “To become a bee in this hive is to surrender, voluntarily and eagerly, your own personality: to submerge the self in a collectivity; to prefer the buzzing cliché of the group to individual thought and expression; to take satisfaction in belonging and conforming to a powerful mass while punishing others for failure to conform … The similarity to an insect colony – where the individual exists only functionally, being both indistinguishable from and interchangeable with its fellows – is not superficial, it is of the essence. To be an insect is to be relieved of the burden of having a soul of your own.”
Most of the Bees are “Pinks” rather than “Reds.” A small hard core of Communists derives a sense of superiority from knowing that they are manipulating the situation. But the vast mass of the Hive’s inhabitants consists of the Left-leaning approval seekers whom Lenin once referred to as “useful idiots.” These are people who have adopted a value system that originated with Communists after being helped to see that this is their badge of membership to “Club Virtue.”
Though notionally educated, the Bees are little more than a collection of conditioned intellectual reflexes. Their entire sense of self-worth rests on internalised assumption they’ve never really thought about. And as such, they operate largely on instinct. This serves to protect their core values from anything that might open them up to critical review.
Having internalised the readymade system of values upon which their membership of “Club Virtue” depends, most university graduates over the last forty years display a strong emotional resistance to having it questioned. If you disagree with them you are racist, sexist, fascist, misogynist, homophobic or just plain stupid. Since a label is not an argument, rational discourse with Lenin’s useful idiots is impossible.
After finishing their studies, Lenin and Gramsci’s useful idiots slithered forth into the media, education system, trade unions, legal profession, judiciary, central and local government, entertainment industry, churches and other institutions that shape society’s governing ideas. There they embarked, with little conscious awareness, upon their pre-programmed transformational project.
Over the last 40 years or so, these “agents of social change” have completely altered the way our society sees itself. And over time, the views and values of our existing society have been quietly replaced with the views and values of the leftist counterculture.
Our universities thus served as a transmission belt into wider society for a raft of Communist narratives, including that of Maori as an “oppressed” people. As a result, the political centre of gravity has moved steadily leftward over several generations.
Just a few decades ago anyone peddling ethnic nationalism would have been regarded as dangerously deluded. Now, through the Communist tactic of “pressure from above” by the UN and “pressure from below” by ethnic nationalists and their useful idiot enablers within member states, the topic has been successfully mainstreamed.
The presumption that some groups are entitled on the basis of racial and/or cultural identity to separate, different, or superior rights because some of their ancestors happened to have been someplace first, now stand revealed as a long-running Communist subversion strategy designed to substitute divisive group rights for the individual equality in citizenship that guarantees national unity and a free society.
New Zealanders who don’t want their country to degenerate into a civil war one day would do well to stand firm against the Communist-spawned nonsense of state-sponsored identity politics.
THE WAITANGI TRIBUNAL: A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE
“In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. And he that does not know his own history is at the mercy of every lying windbag.” — outgoing Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, in his 1923 farewell address
Waitangi Tribunal Reports are commonly believed to issue after rigorous historical investigation of Treaty claims. In other words, you can take them to the bank.
The Tribunal’s findings then reach the wider public via media reports, make their way onto Government websites, and percolate throughout our education system as authoritative, objective accounts of the events to which they refer.
But what if Tribunal Reports were one-eyed rewrites of New Zealand history and not worth the paper they are printed on?
According to the Waitangi Tribunal’s website:
“The Tribunal consists of a chairperson and up to 20 members that may be appointed at any one time. The chairperson may also appoint a Maori Land Court judge to the position of deputy chairperson. The total membership reflects the partnership [sic!] of the Treaty of Waitangi through an approximately equal representation of Maori and Pakeha.
“Tribunal members are appointed … by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister of Maori Affairs in consultation with the Minister of Justice.
“Members constitute a pool from which tribunals of between three and seven members are drawn to hear claims. The term ‘Waitangi Tribunal’ is used to refer both to the total membership and to the individual Tribunals. Members are appointed to a Tribunal by direction of the chairperson and remain members until the inquiry is completed or they resign.
“Each Tribunal has to have at least one Maori member, although generally around half the members are Maori. Usually, a Tribunal has a kaumatua member and, where it is inquiring into historical matters, at least one historian [sic].”
From this information we can deduce that:
1. The Tribunal’s underlying premise before it even hears a single claim is that the Treaty of Waitangi created an ongoing racial partnership.
2. Tribunal members are appointed on the recommendation of the Minister of Maori Affairs, so we can safely assume that both Maori and non-Maori members will be Treatyists, and likely to come to the table with strong priors rather than being impartial defenders of the public interest.
3. It is theoretically possible for all Tribunal members hearing a particular claim to be Maori [by which I mean New Zealanders of mixed European-Maori descent who have chosen to identify monoculturally as “Maori”]. More commonly, Maori may be a majority of those hearing a particular claim.
4. Many Maori have multiple hapu and iwi affiliations, making it quite possible for a Tribunal member hearing a particular claim to have direct links to the claimant group.
Indeed, three years into the hearing of the East Coast claim, presiding Judge Stephanie Milroy was obliged to disqualify herself, but only after lawyers for competing claimant groups pointed out that through her Ngati Porou connections, she had interests in five landblocks that were subject to the claim. We can only speculate as to how many other instances of this kind never came to light.
This directly contravenes the legal principle that “no man shall be the judge of his own case.”
5. Since 50 percent of Tribunal members are Treatyist Maori and the claims process is in a broader sense between the Crown and Maori, this marginally more indirectly contravenes the legal principle that “no man shall be the judge of his own case.”
Let’s now examine how the Tribunal works:
1. Claims are typically heard on the marae of the claimant tribe, hardly a neutral venue. Deliberations are conducted according to Maori protocol. This is likely to prove highly intimidating to non-Maori interested parties seeking to make a representation.
2. Since the claims process is seen as being between the Crown and Maori, third parties have no automatic right to be heard. They can only be heard with permission, which the Tribunal rarely grants, particularly if opposed by the claimant group.
3. Evidence is often given in Maori, with no requirement to provide a translation. As well as being an act of deliberate cultural arrogance, this makes it difficult for non-Maori speakers to have input into the hearing process.
4. Oral evidence is given the same weight as written evidence and is not subject to cross-examination, since according to Maori protocol this is highly disrespectful to a kaumatua. The Tribunal justifies this by asserting that since it is a Tribunal rather than a Court, rigorous evidential standards need not apply.
5. Claimants are legally aided to the tune of millions of dollars from taxpayers, with no requirement to pay this back if successful in achieving multi-million dollar settlements. This encourages what economists call rent-seeking behaviour, also known as “trying it on because there’s a huge upside if successful and no price paid for being wrong,” not that I can recall a single Tribunal Report finding against the claimants.
6. Claimant groups have forced historians they have employed to go away under threat of non-payment and sanitise reports of facts that undermine their case.
7. Those charged with presenting the Crown’s case are supine to say the least. For example, claimants who didn’t sign the Treaty, such as Tainui, Tuhoe, and Tuwharetoa, should have been immediately shown the door. Groups such as Ngai Tahu, Tainui, and Te Atiawa, who’d already received full and final settlements (some, like Ngai Tahu, several times over) legislated for in Acts of Parliament the preambles of which include the words “full and final settlement” should also have been told to talk to the hand.
The Tribunal’s recent assertion that Ngapuhi never ceded sovereignty when they signed the Treaty is the latest in a long line of egregious tommyrot to exit this body via the fundament. Primary source accounts of what Ngapuhi chiefs said on the lawn at Waitangi when the Treaty was debated certainly suggest otherwise.
And who can forget the Tribunal’s “Holocaust of Taranaki” statement likening the closing down of the Parihaka Commune (in which not a single person lost their life) to the state-sponsored Nazi slaughter of millions of Jews during WWII?
Legendary media critic Brian Priestley MBE, who acted as media adviser for Ngai Tahu when that the tribe’s claim was before the Waitangi Tribunal, had this to say about the Tribunal process:
“Years ago I attended several sessions while advising the Ngai Tahu on public relations for their claims.
“It would be hard to imagine any public body less well-organised to get at the truth.
“There was no cross-examination.
“Witnesses were treating with sympathetic deference.
“The people putting the Crown’s side of things seemed equally anxious not to offend.
“In three months I don’t think I was asked a single intelligent, awkward question.
“I should have been.”
A number of reputable historians, including Keith Sorrenson, Michael Belgrave and Bill Oliver have voiced concerns that the Waitangi Tribunal has become a self-referencing echo chamber for re-writing New Zealand history.
In “The Waitangi Tribunal and New Zealand History,” published in 2004, Victoria University historian Dr Giselle Byrnes lays damning charges against the Tribunal, describing its attempts to rewrite history as a “noble, but ultimately flawed experiment.”
According to Dr Byrnes, the Tribunal is not writing “objective history.” Rather, the reports it produces are deeply political and overwhelmingly focused on the present, in that the Tribunal invariably judges the past by today’s standards rather than those prevailing at the time under scrutiny.
Tribunal history also has a strong Maori bias, Dr Byrnes says. Maori characters and stories are given much more emphasis and weight than Pakeha characters and stories. “The reports increasingly champion or advocate the Maori cause.”
Other academics share this unease, but are reluctant to say anything publicly, Dr Byrnes points out.
“I know that many historians have felt some kind of disquiet about the sort of history the Tribunal has been producing over the past few years. They haven’t spoken out about it because most historians have liberal political leanings and they don’t want to be seen as undermining or criticising the whole process.”
Dr Byrnes also reveals significant concerns about the mass consumption of Tribunal reports by the media and general public. She believes the Tribunal should clearly state its pro-claimant bias, lest lay people reading Tribunal reports be misled by it.
Ngapuhi kaumatua, David Rankin, a direct descendant of Hone Heke, more recently had this to say about the Tribunal as a nursery for the re-writing of New Zealand history:
“The Tribunal makes up history as it goes along. A growing number of New Zealand historians are pointing this out, although most of them are labelled as racist for doing so. Facts are omitted in Tribunal reports, and evidence is shaped in some cases to fit predetermined outcomes. The bias is so obvious, but most historians are too scared for their careers to question the Tribunal’s findings.
“[T]he Tribunal … has turned out to be a body that is bringing in apartheid to New Zealand. This sounds dramatic, until you see how it advocates for race-based access to certain areas, and race-based management policies for Crown land, and now, twin sovereignty, which constitutionally is worse than anything that happened in South Africa during the apartheid era.
“The Tribunal is a bully. Go against it, and you will be labelled a racist or worse.”
Clearly, any thinking New Zealander should have absolutely no confidence in anything that comes out of this body.
ENDS