Imposed without warning or any electoral mandate, the total upheaval of water services in New Zealand - designed to deliver control to Maori - is He Puapua in action, commentator Muriel Newman said at the weekend.

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.