New Zealand First voted against three Taranaki treaty settlement bills, last Wednesday, because they will force the Taranaki Regional Council to appoint six iwi members, three on the policy and planning committee, and three on the regulatory functions committee.
Parliament sat through extended sitting hours to pass the Ngaruahine, Te Atiawa and Taranaki Iwi Claims Settlement Bills through their third readings.
The three settlements include financial and commercial redress totalling $224.5 million and the vesting of cultural sites including Sugar Loaf Islands.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said that the iwi appointees “will not be elected, but nominated by iwi, need not be subject to an iwi vote, and they will be paid for by the ratepayers. This is electoral apartheid.”
The vote against the Taranaki Bills by a party in Parliament shows that support for the style of Treaty settlement being done by the National-led government is not unanimous and possibly not widespread.
Opposition to these bills from a party with a Maori leader and a number of Maori MPs also shows that there is not unanimous support for this style of settlement from Maori.
Mike Hosking’s reaction
NewsTalk ZB host Mike Hosking said “These aren't the biggest treaty settlements but they are important ones. The government needs to grow a pair and settle the treaty once and for all.” See https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/mikesminute?source=feed_text&story_id=1348954328482586
Submissions called on Judd petition
Parliament is considering changing the law around any proposal to establish Maori seats in local government, by ending the right of those affected by such a proposal to ask for a ratepayer poll.
Former New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd, who describes himself as a recovering racist, urged Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell to present a petition to Parliament to enable setting up Maori wards on any district council in New Zealand without the opportunity to have a public vote.
Judd had energetically supported a proposal for Maori wards in New Plymouth and was bitterly disappointed when ratepayers who voted, in April 2015, were 83 percent opposed.
Judd lodged a complaint with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues against the New Zealand government for permitting such a poll.
Submissions are being called on Judd’s Petition 2014/0060, which is part of an inquiry into the 2016 local authority elections. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2017.
Tribal tax exemption missing from business top 200
Friday’s New Zealand Herald report on the Deloitte Top 200 businesses in New Zealand also graded the top 10 Maori entities.
Those top 10 businesses are: Ngai Tahu, Waikato-Tainui, Ngati Whatua ki Orakei, Moana NZ (recently Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd), Tauhara North No 2 Trust (a Ngai Tahu entity), Parininihi ki Waitotara, Ngati Porou, Pukeroa Oruawhata, Te Wananga o Aotearoa, and Atihau-Whanganui.
The Herald report noted that for non-Maori businesses it was a year of consolidation, and that one area of increase was in the Government's tax take from the companies that comprise the Top 200.
The report did not note that the Maori businesses traded as tax-exempt charitable entities.
Neither did it note that many of the Maori businesses listed had the benefit of a substantial Treaty settlement to provide seed capital.
See “A year of consolidation”, NZ Herald, December 2, 2016. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11755848
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