A referendum on Te Tiriti o Waitangi would be corrosive and unfair, writes Dame Anne Salmond, but there is room for a new government to initiate a mana-enhancing inquiry into recent interpretations of the treaty
Not everything, but when you propose giving a huge amount of control and influence to an unelected group of people, based on some very tenuous reasoning, I think the public deserves a say.
The most common reasons given for co-governance are, first, that water is Taonga and as a result Maori should have some control over it. This holds true for our natural waterways, a number of which do have a co governance aspect to their governance, but applying this logic to man made infrastructure is simply nonsense
The second is that a lot of land was stolen from Maori. While a decent amount of it was, the vast majority of land in NZ was legitimately acquired. Despite this fact, some people seem to think this means we should have a co governance arrangement over our water infrastructure, which just makes absolutely no sense to me.
A large chunk of NZ aren’t happy about this, and would like to express their feelings in a democratic way, and I think they deserve to.
Not everything, but when you propose giving a huge amount of control and influence to an unelected group of people, based on some very tenuous reasoning, I think the public deserves a say.
The most common reasons given for co-governance are, first, that water is Taonga and as a result Maori should have some control over it. This holds true for our natural waterways, a number of which do have a co governance aspect to their governance, but applying this logic to man made infrastructure is simply nonsense
The second is that a lot of land was stolen from Maori. While a decent amount of it was, the vast majority of land in NZ was legitimately acquired. Despite this fact, some people seem to think this means we should have a co governance arrangement over our water infrastructure, which just makes absolutely no sense to me.
A large chunk of NZ aren’t happy about this, and would like to express their feelings in a democratic way, and I think they deserve to.