CONTEXT:

In 2011, the National-led government passed the 2011 Marine and Coastal Area Act (MACA). Prime Minister John Key and Attorney General Chris Finlayson assured concerned Kiwis that the legislation would result in very few successful claims for our coastline, and that our concerns over the loose legislation were unfounded.

Predictably, the 2017 deadline resulted in opportunistic claims being lodged for the entirety of New Zealand’s coastline. Currently, 200 of these are cluttering up the High Court and another 385 are subject to behind-doors negotiation with Government. The ongoing consequences are draining the time and coffers of self-funding counterclaimants, Councils, RMA applicants, and taxpayers, who are obliged to fund all Māori claimants. There are ongoing community disputes at several beaches around the country.

How these cases are handled by the courts has gone far beyond even what Kiwis were concerned about back in 2011. The Court of Appeal has recently supported an earlier ruling that deemed that the requirement for claimants to have ‘exclusively occupied’ an area has no connection to any dictionary definition or even what was intended and that the highly variable ‘tikanga’ must be an overarching consideration in the hearing of claims. 

These interpretations of the law will facilitate much of our country’s coastline, beaches, estuaries, harbours, and territorial sea passing into the control of various groups which identify as Māori. This control extends to the airspace above, the water space, plus the subsoil, bedrock, and mineral wealth below.

This impacts our country’s sovereignty, economic development, business costs and efficiency, corruption levels, conservation efforts, citizens’ recreation, law and order, and race relations.

The new National-led Government must reverse the ill-conceived MACA legislation of an earlier National Government.

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta refused to rule out making the reforms mandatory, only confirming the legislated approach in late October.

Cabinet agreed on June 14, 2021, to a mandated approach to the Three Waters reform and spent the next four months telling councils that the plan was voluntary and councils could opt out, according to Cabinet papers quietly released last month.

Radio New Zealand reported this late on Friday afternoon, after news the previous day that introduction of a Three Waters bill would be delayed until next year, See Mandated

“Discussions (during a two-month consultation period) would have been "quite different" if councils had been told about the mandated plan from the outset,” Whangarei mayor Sheryl Mai said.

According to sources in Wellington, there is a standoff between Labour's Maori caucus (who want co-governed water) and the provincial Labour MPs and Cabinet Ministers who are feeling the political heat from widespread opposition to the Government’s proposal.

Dear former New Zealanders . . .

Here is a letter sent in to us:

“I left what was previously known as New Zealand on Friday. No longer could I take the constant racial and cultural division. The communisation and Marxism of the nation that once was the blood that flows through my veins. A sixth-generation New Zealander, my family elders helped build that nation. We even have a small town named in honour of our family.

“I was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. My passport says so. My birth certificate says so. Every legal document I have says so. But all I got for the last four years was Otautahi. Aotearoa. And a whole bunch of other words that I don’t understand because they’re not the nation I was born into, or my children, or grandchildren, or my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my great-great-grandparents. No, we were all born in New Zealand.

Read the full letter at https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/peter_clark_dear_former_new_zealanders

He Puapua author fights book-ban attempt

Dr John Robinson, who wrote He Puapua: Blueprint for breaking up New Zealand and other books, has taken One News to task for broadcasting an appeal last week to bookstores to refuse to stock his book and books by his publisher, Tross Publishing.  https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/12/04/educators-say-publishers-books-anti-maori-hateful-and-untrue/

The claim of “half-truths and out-right lies” (in his He Puapua book), unsupported by any clear example, is unacceptable from anyone, let alone a university lecturer (who attacked him on television), Dr Robinson wrote in a statement titled “TV1 News has proposed a ban on sales of books”.

“As my book makes clear, the separatist movement that is clearly described in the He Puapua report is aimed at destroying democracy and setting up a three-chamber legislation for New Zealand (one for Maori, a second for the others but with a strong Maori presence, and a third joint chamber, with a Maori veto, for negotiation between the two divided ‘partners’),” he wrote. 

“There are no “half-truths and out-right lies” here. These comments are supported by quotes from Maori activists and lengthy quotes from key sources, such as the He Puapua report,” he wrote.

Campaign update

Since the Maori Party declared war on “coloniser names”, and since Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta revealed that the Three Waters plan would be forced on councils, we have experienced a surge both in numbers of supporters and donations, for which we are deeply grateful.

Your financial support enabled spending on three advertising campaigns.

Thirteen billboards erected in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, during November, reminded everyone that we live in New Zealand, not Aotearoa. The billboards certainly attracted attention. Every billboard was attacked.

A dual New Zealand, not Aotearoa/Three waters social media campaign, active until just before Christmas, helped increase signatures on our petition and on our letter to the Prime Minister. 

A two-week Three Waters radio campaign on the NewsTalk ZB network throughout New Zealand widened awareness of the co-governance aspect of water infrastructure seizure.

Buying advertising space is not cheap. Those three campaigns chewed through around $60,000.

Your engagement as citizens concerned about the racist Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill led to thousands of submissions being sent in.

For five years, we have been keeping pressure on MPs over pending race-based legislation, and on councillors, over tribal appointees and Maori wards.

The decision to defer introducing three waters legislation could be a sign that this work is making a difference.

New Zealand, not Aotearoa

Nearly 35,000 have signed our petition calling on our Prime Minister to affirm publicly that the name of our nation is New Zealand, not Aotearoa. If you have not yet signed, click here  https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/new_zealand_not_aotearoa and like and share the page.

Dear Prime Minister . . .

More than 14,000 have signed our open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern which says that we are especially worried about the iwi entitlement to governance of Three Waters. If you have not done so already, you may sign the letter at https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/letter_to_jacinda

Dump two governments plan

Nearly 24,000 have signed our He Puapua petition calling on the Prime Minister to reject outright and cease implementing all aspects of the two-government plan as described in He Puapua, the plan presented as realising in New Zealand the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If you have not already done so, click here to sign  Reject co-governance.

Beaches for us all

And our petition which asks Parliament to amend the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 to restore public ownership of the coastal area, put all claims through the High Court, and repeal customary marine title, while affirming customary rights, has picked up nearly 48,000 signatures. The petition may be signed at https://www.change.org/beaches4all

Frequently asked questions

• What is Hobson's Pledge? Hobson’s Pledge supporters think it is absurd to argue in the 21st century that people who chance to have a Maori ancestor, always with other ancestors too of course, should have superior rights to those who don’t.  And utterly absurd that there are politicians who want to be taken seriously who still push this nonsense.
• What are the issues we're facing today?
• What are our campaigns?

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Former MP and founder of Te Tai Tokerau Border Control Hone Harawira flying the Maori sovereignty flag at a checkpoint.

You may have missed it but the Water Services Act that became law a week ago quietly added to legislation water “partnership” while establishing a framework “to provide transparency about the performance of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater networks and network operators”.

In a new book titled He Puapua – Blueprint for breaking up New Zealand, mathematician John Robinson, tears apart the He Puapua plan for two separate governments, one by Maori for Maori, and the other, a “fully bicultural” administration for everyone else.

A plan for two racially separate governments in New Zealand under tribal control means that we will have to decide whether we want our future to be that of an ethno-nationalist state or a democratic-nationalist one, according to Professor Elizabeth Rata of the Faculty of Education, at Auckland University.

Consultation on the implementation in New Zealand of the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People will start with Maori groups, Maori Development Minister Willie Jackson confirmed on Thursday. See More UNDRIP consultation 

A friend has brought to my attention a recent article, written from a radical Maori perspective, on the legal force of tikanga and the court case on which it is based.  Since I have written a book on tikanga, he suggested that I prepare a response.

A petition that got a blogger fired from his job after he criticised the He Puapua plan for two governments under tribal monitoring, plus a spoof video ridiculing a Maori Party MP, raises the question whether a Maori Party co-leader started it.