In the 1 NEWS Kantar Public Poll released on 8th August 2022 The bad news got worse for Labour with Jacinda Ardern’s ranking as preferred Prime Minister down 3 points to 30 percent.
ACT had a jump of 4 points to 11 percent and New Zealand First increased 2 points to 3 percent.
The Roy Morgan poll from last week showed the Maori Party had increased 2.5 points to 4 percent – its highest support since April 2010. This jump in support seems to have come on the back of Jacinda Ardern’s agenda to empower the iwi elite through Co-Governance arrangements which look to have ended up building support for the Maori Party, instead of Labour.
In my opinion it would be a fitting end if her sacrificing of our democracy ended up harming Labour.
Opposition parties have confronted the issue of Labour’s attack on democracy through co-governance amongst other issues, and as a result ACT rose 4 percent and New Zealand First 2 percent in the 1 News poll.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has been scathing about the self-interest of Labour’s Maori Caucus in promoting the elitist co-governance agenda, saying: “The push is coming from the increasingly out of touch Labour Maori Caucus and only serves their own self-interest, trying to compete with the Maori Party in a race to see who can produce the most separatist policies to appease a certain Maori elite. They do not represent the views of Maoridom – the majority of who are not even on the Maori roll, and for good reason.”
ACT leader David Seymour is also opposed to the idea of co-governance, stating that it is incompatible with democracy. No society where people have different political rights based on birth has ever succeeded.
Labour’s latest attack on democracy came in the form of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu) Representation Bill, which allows Ngai Tahu to appoint an additional two members with full voting rights onto a council that already has two existing Ngai Tahu advisors.
Rotorua Labour MP, Tamati Coffey has said that this law change could open the floodgates for other tribal groups around the country: “Ngai Tahu have opened the door… all of those iwi out there that are struggling with how representation works for them, I hope that they’re understanding that this is a potential pathway.”
Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene, claimed the Treaty entitled Ngai Tahu to the seats: “This bill is about the evolution of our Treaty partnership and representation of iwi at the local government level. Ngai Tahu is entitled to this representation because that is the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and this is a modern-day expression of that promise.”
But that claim is absolutely wrong and talk of a Treaty ‘partnership’ that underpins the whole co-governance agenda, is deliberately misconstruing a Court of Appeal decision taken from a 1987 Lands case where the Court was forced to determine what was meant by ‘principles of the Treaty’, and drew on principles of partnership law to hold that Treaty principles required the Crown and Maori to act toward each other with good faith, fairly, reasonably and honourably when dealing with known or foreseeable Treaty claims.
The idea of a constitutional partnership or co-governance never featured in the original Treaty documents, nor could they, for the Treaty is perfectly clear, in both the Maori and English texts. Governance was given to the Crown alone, and in exchange, the tribal leaders and the ordinary people of New Zealand were assured continuing ownership of their property and were guaranteed protection and equal status with the British settlers under British law.
“The Court of Appeal would not suggest an absurd departure from the words of the Treaty, and did not do so.”
Retired Judge and Canterbury University law lecturer Anthony Willy concurs: In no legal sense does this ‘lands’ case decide that that there is a partnership between Maori and non-Maori.
Maori and the Crown are not partners in any sense of the word. It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into a partnership with any of its subjects. The true position is that the Crown is sovereign but owes duties of justice and good faith to the Maori descendants of those who signed the Treaty.
Labour, through its use of race based decision making, is attacking our democracy and supporting that agenda using a well-orchestrated public propaganda campaign in the guise of the Public Interest Journalism Fund paid for with $55million of taxpayer’s money.
One of the key criteria for those receiving funding from her $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund is that recipients; Actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner
The point is that a mythical treaty ‘partnership’ is being used to justify the transfer of control of major public resources and services from the Crown to private sector multi-million-dollar business development corporations run by iwi.
Labour has, through the Public Interest Journalism Fund, effectively gagged the mainstream media from scrutinising and reporting on, its co-governance deception even though it is a matter of crucial public importance to our country’s democratic future.
No one has yet ruled out iwi being able to charge royalties for the use of water. That would result in untold millions of dollars pouring into tribal coffers on an on-going basis.
The Auditor General in his Submission on the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill pointed out the glaring lack of financial accountability in the model proposed for the Maori Health Authority, and in his submission on the water services entities bill he has reported that financial accountability for the proposed new Three Waters structures is virtually non-existent.
In 2000, former Labour Prime Minister David Lange was dismissive of partnership claims and warned the government that where the Treaty industry was taking the county; “The result will be a fractured society in which political power will be contested in ways beyond the limits of our democratic experience.”
Sadly, this is exactly the situation New Zealand is now facing.
The reality is that Jacinda Ardern and her Labour government has been dismantling our democracy with each legislative change, using co-governance and the mythical partnership from the Treaty, without any mandate from New Zealand voters.
All parties must support the basic principle of democratic representation – one person, one vote or the future for New Zealand will be very bleak.
After all, government is supposed to be governance by the elected members on behalf of the whole electorate irrespective of colour or creed.
The Government’s role is to set policy and rules around those policies that allow the population to live in harmony and security with others and the environment.
Unfortunately under the current labour government and its race based policies, New Zealand is far away from living in harmony and security and in fact we are pushing ever closer to racial disharmony and social unrest.