Thursday, September 01, 2005



Orwellian Flailing

Don Brash doesn't interview well when he's pulled away from his prepared lines, does he? This afternoon, Scoop's Alastair Thompson used the opportunity of a National party press conference to ask Brash a few questions about those leaked emails and the advice received from Roger Kerr. You can listen to the resulting verbal flailing here, or watch here.

Brash falls back on the old line of "it's a distraction" - just as he did when his credibility was called into question over his position on Iraq. But the scariest bit is his response to being informed that children in schools were being taught that the Treaty was a partnership between Maori and Pakeha: that it is "not a view which we hold" and that "of course" they would be instructing the Ministry of Education to change the curriculum to remove such information. He's not just trying to remove the Treaty from law, but expunge it from public consciousness altogether. This isn't just Prendergastian - it's practically Orwellian...

In the end, after more questions about the leaks and who was responsible, he had to be rescued by a flunky - which seems to be happening with disturbing regularity.

Update: Full transcript here.

7 comments:

The politics one learns being a lecturer is clearly much tougher training than the politics one learns as a reserve bank economist.

Posted by Genius : 9/01/2005 06:05:00 AM

That is scary. Is this really the view of "mainstream NZ"?

Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 08:26:00 AM

The treaty does not mention any partnership. Have you read it? The treaty says that Maori cede sovereignty to the Crown while retaining private property rights.

The people who ignored the words and invented a different meaning to suit their political views and are now trying to indoctrinate our kids with that view are the ones who are being 'Orwellian'.

Posted by Nigel Kearney : 9/01/2005 09:04:00 AM

He also said that Roger Kerr didn't like his Orewa speach. Really? How do you know Don? Did you have a review after or was that another "unsolicited" email?

BTW can you do an analysis of the Tax Calculator formulas used. Even the NBR suggests that National is over-egging the pie.

"On the consumer side, scrapping the carbon tax will save the average household at least $200 per year from 2007, he said. On National's tax cut calculator web page, however, the party estimates the savings to be $500 per household from 2007."

In other words the calculator contradicts their own statements.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=12719&cid=8&cname=News

Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 09:40:00 AM

Re Partnership. It has been discussed in the courts.
"The most important discussion of this issue by the Courts is found in the judgment of the Court of Appeal in New Zealand M?ori Council v Attorney-General, [1987] 1 NZLR 641. In this case, Court of Appeal President Cooke said that the task of interpretation "should not be approached with the austerity of tabulated legalism" and that a "broad, unquibbling and practical interpretation" was necessary (p. 661).'...
"Both the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal have determined that the principle of partnership includes the obligation on both parties to act reasonably, honourably and in good faith. The Courts have found that Treaty partnership does not necessarily describe a relationship where the partners share national resources equally."
http://www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz/treaty/principles.php

Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 11:00:00 AM

Excellent comment balach....

QUite a bit of updated stuff here

http://www.scoop.co.nz/#features

Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 09:46:00 PM

Nigel: No, the Treaty doesn't mention any partnership - but it did create one, in the form of an ongoing relationship. It wasn't just a one-off transaction, but created continuing obligations on both sides. And that's your partnership right there...

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/01/2005 11:33:00 PM