Dear Editor
New Zealand already has Co-Governance. When Kiwis go to the polls on election day, they as individuals elect a Government. That is Co-Governance.
The Treaty gave Maori Chieftainship over their own private land. It also gave them the right to sell their private land, which they did. They sold off vast amounts for profit.
To this day New Zealanders sell thousands of hectares of private land to China and the USA for profit. Future generations may indeed suffer as a consequence.
If you are a landowner, you are effectively the chief of your land. That does not mean you have some special powers in Government or the ability to vote twice. Or that you should be handed disproportionate representation in a democratic society.
Maori have a right to practice their culture and traditional medicines. That does not extend to the creation of a separate hospital health bureaucracy.
Whether a person is poor or rich or fit or unhealthy, is likely to be far more important than their ethnicity.
Tova O’Brien recently suggested, “It’s time to end the racism refuge for desperate politicians.” Yet Tova and the Maori Elite gain a lot of personal wealth by playing the race card themselves. All benefit from Maori targeted funding and job opportunities.
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer picks up $200k for her role as an MP. She is also chief executive of the Ngati Ruanui iwi and we can only speculate she gets $200k or more for that role.
It is difficult to see how people like that can argue about ‘equity’.
Politics is all about which special interest group can get their hands on taxpayers’ money.
Micky
