The expected time to transfer the entire coast of New Zealand to small groups of people with Maori ancestry will reduce from 100 years to 30 years after Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little caved in to pressure from the Waitangi Tribunal.

Last Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had “listened to Kiwis” and will make Matariki a public holiday from 2022 if re-elected. The Kiwis she had listened to were the 30,000 who had signed two petitions calling for Matariki to become a public holiday. Launched by Action Station and New Zealand Republic, these online petitions were handed to Labour MP Paul Eagle on Friday night, July 24. There were also the 630 people polled by the Labour Party’s research firm, UMR, in July, who backed a Matariki holiday.

The New Zealand Herald is in the process of inflicting a seven-part series denigrating a race and the Race Relations Commissioner is missing in action. What’s going on?

Hobson’s Pledge today launched a petition calling on Parliament to fix the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 by restoring the coastal area to public ownership and moving all claims to the High Court.

A new School Journal comic book aimed at 10- to 12-year-olds with a Year 6 reading level shows indoctrination about the Treaty of Waitangi in action.  

For those following the long-running shambles to do with tribal claims for the coast, Friday is the deadline for submissions on the Nga Rohe Moana o Nga Hapu o Ngati Porou Bill (No. 2), which gives effect to a deed of agreement between Ngati Porou and the Crown for around 200 km of the East Coast coastline north of Gisborne.

After reviewing our campaign over the past year in light of the general election result, Hobson’s Pledge members chose to continue as a lobby group.

The Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 has a number of problems, according to a legal opinion obtained by Hobson’s Pledge on correspondence relating to the Act and the huge number of last-minute claims by Maori groups earlier this year. Wellington law firm Franks Ogilvie wrote:

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.