The new Labour leader’s threat of yet-to-be-specified widespread taxes has turned the general election into a close race with voters prioritising financial survival over disgust at years of race-based policy.

A Hobson’s Pledge researcher found in New Zealand’s vast body of legislation an interconnected set of laws, judicial rulings and institutions that has created the race-based administration that we labour under today.

A burst of frantic activity by Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson during the last week of the Fifth National Government gives the appearance that he may think that the days of National rule are numbered.

The policies of Labour’s new leader Jacinda Ardern on Maori seats and a water tax should send a chill through Hobson’s Pledge supporters.

Labour has yet another leader and the Green Party is overrun with a leader’s past indiscretions, what is the National Party about to do? One thing they could do would be to match the promise made by Winston Peters to hold a binding referendum of all voters on the future of the Maori seats.

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson acting as the Crown on Thursday offered northern Hawke's Bay tribe Ngati Pahauwera a deal on a sizeable part of Hawke Bay under his Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011.

A total 91.1 percent of us support the idea that the Government should treat all of us equally at law irrespective of ethnicity, a poll commissioned by Hobson’s Pledge released today revealed.

Hugh Barr, who is secretary of the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand, and who has fought against the National Government’s marine and coastal area policy since 2010, details the threat posed by the current outpouring of claims for the coastal area that the Government said would never happen.

Hobson’s Pledge spokespersons Don Brash and Casey Costello will discuss the Palmerston North City Council’s Maori ward proposal at a meeting tonight at the Palmerston North Library.

A number of the 1.6 million flyers we delivered nationwide last week prompted complaints to the Human Rights Commission alleging racism. See http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/333677/complaints-made-to-hrc-over-leaflets

A video by actor-director Taika Waititi leads a new promotion launched last week by Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy titled “Give Nothing To Racism”. See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11875975

An advertisement featuring Prime Minister Bill English waving the white flag of surrender with text attacking the National Party on a single standard of citizenship appeared in the Sunday Star Times today.

A $4 million fund to help young Maori get their driver licences to get them into work and keep them out of jail, launched this week, makes good sense, but why base the programme around ethnicity?

This year’s New Zealand Budget shows that over $8 million, or 17 percent of the total allocation for Vote Treaty Negotiations, has been earmarked for determining customary interests in the marine and coastal area over the next year.

Separatist indoctrination in schools will become law on July 1 after a revision by the Education Council in a 44-page Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession.

Many readers live near, walk on, or take the dog for a run on a beach, go surfing, surfcasting, or fishing from a boat, or swim in the sea. This is evidence that you have enjoyed uninterrupted access to the marine and coastal area.

Notification of 150 claims for ownership of thousands of kilometres of our coastline filed in the High Court were advertised over the past week with 20 days for anyone to object.

A horn wailed and men dressed as warriors danced at 2.45am in Wellington yesterday as the James Busby draft of the Treaty of Waitangi was quietly removed from public display.

It was former Prime Minister John Key who pushed National to stick with the Maori Party over the controversial iwi participation clauses in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, according to commentator Richard Harman.

Our newsletter last week ruffled a few feathers, with Maori Television having two cracks against Hobson’s Pledge comments and a New Zealand Herald columnist one.

Hostility to the inclusion of mana whakahono a rohe/iwi participation clauses in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill has prompted Environment Minister Nick Smith to issue a memo to advise caucus how to respond to criticism.

Don Brash and Casey Costello delivered the Hobson’s Pledge message to 200 people at the Havelock North Function Centre on Tuesday night.

John Key’s unexpected resignation from the position of Prime Minister, and the subsequent jostling within the National Party caucus over the past week, offered a glimpse of attitudes of National Party MPs to Hobson’s Pledge issues.

Those who signed the Treaty of Waitangi would struggle to understand why an undefined and divisive term “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” came to be inserted in our legislation, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said at Waitangi.

A fracas between Mr Peters and Te Tii marae members on February 5 eclipsed a detailed speech he gave at the stone church in Paihia on February 3 in which he slammed legal chaos with activist judges, bureaucratic meddlers, treaty lawyers and a “Treaty Industry”.

Models for the allocation of fresh water were under discussion at a meeting between Prime Minister Bill English and the Iwi Chairs Forum on Friday at Waitangi.

Iwi leaders want allocation of a proportion of water in each catchment to iwi as well as direct involvement in decision making.  See http://www.maniapoto.iwi.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FINAL-Regional-Iwi-Hui-Presentation-July-2016.pdf

The Government wants to deal with this demand by shuffling the responsibility to local government.