Now is the time to send an email to the mayor and councillors on the Taupo District Council to ask them to vote against a proposal to introduce a Maori ward at an extraordinary council meeting tomorrow.

Stuff should refund money paid for an advert after the editor of the newspaper in which it appeared publicly criticised it, Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson Don Brash said today.

Ihumatao is perhaps the most visible race-relations shambles that the next government will have to fix. Located near Auckland Airport, Ihumatao is where activists have protested against Fletcher’s plans to build almost 500 homes on land that it bought from a private owner whose family had owned it since it had been confiscated in 1863 as a consequence of tribal rebellions. 

Nelson is generally considered to be one of the more congenial cities in New Zealand and perhaps in the world – the climate mild and the people relaxed.  As is to be expected, there are rather less residents of part-Maori descent than in most North Island towns.

Signature collecting is well under way after the New Plymouth District Council on July 21 voted to establish a Maori ward. A similar campaign is under discussion in Tauranga after the city council there on August 25 also voted for such a ward. Three other councils are being pushed to have separate voting or representation for members of their communities who may have Maori ancestry.

It is the height of arrogance for New Plymouth District councillors to decide to create a Maori ward in that city, despite 83 percent of those who voted on a similar proposition just five years ago rejecting it, Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson Casey Costello said today.

A two-year inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal predictably has found that the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 breaches the Treaty of Waitangi and prejudicially affects Maori.

The stand-off over planned felling of 345 exotic trees on Mount Albert, Auckland, perhaps lifts a veil from an absurd yet extensive decolonisation process that we are ALL paying for.

This morning, Auckland residents stood in front of 345 endangered trees on Mount Albert to protect them from zealots at the Tupuna Maunga Authority, which plans to cut them down.