A victory for Māori in Nelson

Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and surroundings would be set aside for them. The New Zealand state inherited this deal, and proceeded to break it systematically, refusing to allocate the land promised, and stealing that which had already been allocated. In 2017 the Supreme Court ruled that the state must honour the deal, and last year the High Court found that the state must return land and pay compensation. And after a year of negotiations, they've finally done it:

In Wellington on Wednesday, Attorney-General Judith Collins and Conservation Minister Tama Potaka announced that an agreement had been reached.

Under the agreement, 3068 hectares will be returned to descendants of the original owners, including the Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve and the Abel Tasman Great Walk.

The agreement also includes a $420 million compensation payment to recognise land that has been sold by the Crown since 1839 and in recognition of the lost earnings and land use.

Which is pretty cheap for 180 years of back-rent and interest. There's also the quirk that a lot of the land being returned is coastal, while the regime, though its climate change policies, is ensuring that it will be flooded. Which seems like they're undermining the settlement even before it was signed. But that's the "honour" of the New Zealand state, I guess.

National wants to eradicate Māori from the law

One of the major legal changes of the last fifty years has been the increasing recognition of te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga in law, both through statute and caselaw. The present white supremacist regime, with their Treaty Principles Bill, Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Act, and plans to repeal Treaty clauses, have made it clear that they want to remove statutory recognition. And now they're going after caselaw as well, threatening legislation to simply overturn decisions they don't like:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the judiciary is creating a “bespoke” legal system that’s not internationally transferable and could deter foreign investors.

These comments – made to an audience of lawyers at a Law Association function last week, and first reported by Law News – came with a commitment to create legislation that would essentially overwrite certain judicial decisions where tikanga and te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations are involved.

The Government is already doing exactly this in regards to its Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill, which seeks to tighten the law around Māori claims to customary rights following significant court decisions.

And according to the Law News report, Goldsmith revealed at last Wednesday’s breakfast event that he planned to go further.

Which you'd think would be an even bigger threat to the legal system and deterrant to foreign investors than the "problem" Goldsmith purports to be solving. After all, a government which overturns decisions which benefit Māori could also overturn decisions which benefit foreign investors. But weirdly racists never think they'll be the victim (because white supremacy).

Not that there is actually a problem here to solve at all. A "bespoke" legal system? You mean a country's laws reflecting the society and historical circumstances of that country, rather than a foreign one on the other side of the world? Quelle horreur! And yet people have no problem accepting this when talking about the USA, or France, or Germany, or Canada, or pretty much anywhere else. It is only when they're only talking about Māori that it becomes a problem. And we all know why.

But Māori are the first people of this country, and tikanga is its first law. Under accepted and completely orthodox legal principles, that law remains until extinguished. And it is a matter of historical fact that parts of it have not been extinguished, and therefore effectively remain in force, to influence the rest of the legal system. This may offend the sensibilities of richwhite lawyers from the fancy suburbs of Auckland, but the fact remains. And if they don't understand it, maybe they should adhere to their professional responsibilities and learn, rather than seeking to eliminate it.

(As for Goldsmith's threat, if this gets to the stage of legislation and passes into law, it just goes on the list of things to be immediately repealed under urgency by the next government. We have a revert button too, and we will use it, so if you want "stability", then stop fucking around and let the judges do their job).

Foreshore and seabed 3.0?

Back in 2003, in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, the Supreme Court recognised that the settler government had not actually stolen all the beaches, and that (depending on the specific history of specific areas) some of them still might belong to iwi and hapu.

Naturally, the government went apeshit, passing a law to confiscate any remaining Māori property, with consequences we are still living with today.

Fast forward 22 years, and, in a case about rights over a specific part of the foreshore, the Supreme Court has recognised that the settler government hasn't actually stolen all the riverbeds either. The law the government relied upon to claim that it had - section 261 of the Coal Mines Act 1979 - didn't mean what they claimed it did, and in fact had essentially the same wording as the law the government relied upon to claim it had stolen the foreshore and seabed (section 7 of the Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, and Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1977). The interpretation of that sort of law as not expropriating existing customary rights was settled by Ngati Apa, and it applies to purported expropriations of riverbeds just as it did to the foreshore and seabed.

Of course, whether any particular iwi or hapu still owns any particular riverbed is a matter of fact. But the government can no longer simply deny it as a question of law. I wonder how long it will be before they go apeshit and use it to open another front in their racist hate campaign against Māori? And will ACT, who back in 2003 claimed to be the "party of property rights" and opposed retrospective expropriation, support or oppose a racist law change?

More constitutional vandalism

Since the national government embarked on its racist campaign against Māori, the Waitangi Tribunal has emerged as one of its chief adversaries, putting the impacts of its racist policies formally on the record so they can not be denied. National has responded by sabotaging it, replacing almost the entire membership with unqualified crony appointments. But apparently that's not enough, so they've decided to "review" the Tribunal to undermine it further:

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka has announced a review will take place into Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and the Waitangi Tribunal, in a move the ACT Party says will “rein in [the] activist tribunal”.

The review comes as part of a coalition agreement between National and NZ First, and aims to refocus the scope, purpose and nature of the Tribunal’s inquiries back to its original intent, Potaka said.

As ACT's response shows, this is simply more constitutional vandalism, intended to eliminate one of the few checks and balances on our overpowered executive. And its moving in completely the wrong direction. The lesson of this regime is that the Tribunal needs to be strengthened, not weakened, with stronger protections against government fuckery.

Hopefully Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori will make it clear that they will reverse whatever the racist dogshit regime does, and restore and strengthen the mana of the Tribunal. As for the government, it needs to think about it this way: it can either resolve claimed Treaty breaches calmly and quietly through a Tribunal, or it can resolve them through protest, occupation, and confrontation, with all the consequent impacts on the legitimacy of the state. Lawyers and historians, or Ihumātao everywhere. Their choice.

The dishonest crown

The High Court has just ruled that the government has been violating one of the oldest Treaty settlements, the Sealord deal:

The High Court has found the Crown has breached one of New Zealand's oldest Treaty Settlements by appropriating Māori fishing quota without compensation.

It relates to the 1992 Fisheries Settlement, commonly known as the Sealord Deal, which funded the purchase of a 50 percent stake in Sealord and protected Māori fishing rights and interests in perpetuity.

The court found the Crown had breached the 1992 settlement and by extension the Treaty of Waitangi.

The full ruling is here. The breach is due to the technical details of the government's quota management system, but it basically meant that Māori quota was stolen by the crown and reallocated to other fishing companies to pay off its debts. Its been going on for decades, so the amount of quota - and therefore money - involved is substantial.

But while the court has found a breach, it hasn't ordered any relief, so the obvious question is what the government will do next: enter good-faith negotiations to make good its breach and compensate for the wrong? Or pass "fuck you" legislation because they don't really think Treaty settlements are binding on them? And if the latter, what do they think it will do to all the other settlements - and their claims of being "full and final" - that they have passed?

Another day, another breach of te Tiriti

Back in February, the National government disestablished Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. It was a revolting breach of te Tiriti, but the government avoided a formal ruling of that by rushing the legislation into the House specifically to deprive the Waitangi Tribunal of jurisdiction and kill its inquiry into the matter. But that only delayed the inevitable - the Tribunal's jurisdiction was restored the moment the law was passed, and they've now produced a formal report, Hautupua, finding that the government pissed all over te Tiriti and its principles:

After assessing the evidence presented from parties, the Tribunal found breaches of te Tiriti/the Treaty principles of tino rangatiratanga, good government, partnership – including the duties of consultation and acting reasonably and in good faith – active protection, and redress.

The Tribunal found that the policy process the Crown followed to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora was a departure from conventional and responsible policymaking in several concerning ways. The Crown did not act in good faith when disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora as it did not consult or engage with Māori, nor did it gather substantive advice from officials. Consequently, the Crown made the ill-informed decision that Te Aka Whai Ora was not required, despite knowledge of grave Māori health inequities. The Tribunal found that Māori did not agree with the Crown’s decisions but were denied the right to self-determine what is best for them and hauora Māori. Instead, the Crown implemented its own agenda – one that was based on political ideology, rather than evidence, and one that fell well short of a Tiriti/Treaty consistent process. It did so without following its own process for the development and implementation of legislative reform.

The Tribunal stated that Te Aka Whai Ora was an integral part of a system responsible for the equitable delivery of health care and services in Aotearoa New Zealand and gave effect to the Crown’s Tiriti/Treaty obligations. The Crown could have left Te Aka Whai Ora in place until it had a replacement, but instead it chose to disestablish it in haste. Te Aka Whai Ora was previously established by the Crown to provide redress for the long-standing failure by the Crown to reflect tino rangatiratanga in our health system. The Crown’s unilateral decision to remove Te Aka Whai Ora had effectively taken that redress away.

The later is important. The creation of Te Aka Whai Ora was effectively a Treaty settlement, aimed at undoing the damage caused by the systematically racist colonial health system. National has effectively unilaterally repealed that settlement. And that has implications for the whole settlement process, as well as the sustainability of existing settlements. Because pretty obviously, if a settlement is only a settlement until a racist government decides to steal it from you again, then its not really a settlement, is it? And its certainly not in any way "full and final", no matter what that government's laws may say.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering: has this government already achieved the dubious distinction of having the highest number of modern Treaty breaches? Because they certainly seem to be treating that as a goal to be achieved in their hundred day plans, rather than something to be avoided.

The High Court says "Land Back"

Way back in 1839, the New Zealand Company bought the area that is now Nelson from local iwi and hapu. As part of the deal, they promised that Māori would retain their homes, fields, and burial grounds, and that in addition, 10% of the land in the planned township and surroundings would be set aside for them. A few years later, the New Zealand government, as part of its investigations into pre-Treaty land deals, effectively took over the arrangement. They then proceeded to break it: land which was meant to be set aside was stolen; promised land was never delivered; and what was given was stolen again for "government purposes". The local iwi have been fighting this ever since, and in 2017 won a major victory in the Supreme Court with a ruling that the government owed them a fiduciary duty and must honour the deal. They kicked it back down to the High Court to decide exactly what was owed, and after seven years of foot-dragging the court has finally ruled, deciding that the government must give them their land back:

Māori customary landowners in New Zealand’s oldest property claim, the Nelson Tenths, suffered a loss of land and are entitled to millions of dollars in compensation, the High Court has found.

In a decision released on Thursday, the plaintiffs, led by kaumātua Rore Stafford on behalf of the descendants of customary landowners, were found to be entitled to relief, which was likely to be “substantially less than $1 billion” but still a “significant sum”, the court found.

The sum could not be settled until the final acreage of land to be returned and other issues are determined, a press summary on the decision said.

...which the government will no doubt try and drag out for another seven years, as part of the same immoral legal strategy it used on the children it tortured. But the principle isn't in doubt: the High Court said "Land Back". And if they've already given it away, then they have to pay compensation. In addition, there's 180 years of back-rent, plus 180 years of interest. Its simple interest, not compounding, but: this is going to be hugely expensive for the government.

(Note that "given it away" apparently includes to SOEs and Crown Entities, which are part of the government. The government here is behaving exactly like a rich bankrupt who hides their assets in a trust: sure, they can use them, control them, even get money from them, but they're not "theirs", so can't be used to pay off their suckerscreditors. Whether this position meets the standard of ethical behaviour we expect from our government, or is consistent with its longstanding position that privatisation would not undermine Treaty redress, is left as an exercise for the reader...)

So, given the current government's anti-Māori agenda, the question naturally arises: will National once again abuse its Parliamentary power to over-rule the courts and prevent justice, as they are doing over the foreshore and seabed? Sadly, I don't think it can be ruled out. But if they try and go that way, it would be another ongoing Treaty breach, and basically blow up the crown-Māori relationship completely. National might not care about that: Māori don't vote for them. But the rest of us should. And we should not let it happen.

Not getting the message

Yesterday almost all political parties attended the Koroneihana at Tūrangawaewae, and Chris Luxon and Shane Jones took the opportunity to make it crystal clear that the government's racist, divisive, Tiriti-breaching Treaty "Principles" Bill has no future. Which is good, but if they're not going to vote for it at second reading, why even go through the farce of giving it a first? Especially when the racist outpouring ACT and its white supremacist allies hope to whip up at select committee will inflict further damage on our society?

Meanwhile, Rimmer is simply not getting the message, and still seems to think he can persuade National and NZ First to vote for his steaming pile of racist horseshit. Which means he's either completely delusional, or he's planning to destabilise the government and sabotage the rest of its agenda, or even topple it, unless he gets his own way. And given what a fanatic racist he is, the latter can't be ruled out. Which means the opposition parties might want to make sure they have a plan for an early election next year, just in case...

Foreshore and seabed 2.0

In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the foreshore and seabed controversy, resulting in some of the largest protests ever seen in Aotearoa, an outright racist campaign from National, the poisoning of crown-Māori relations, and the formation of Te Pāti Māori. And now, in response to another Court of Appeal decision, the government seems to want to do it all over again.

The decision is Whakatōhea Kotahitanga Waka (Edwards) & Ors v Te Kāhui and Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board & Ors, and it basically reinterpreted section 58 of National's Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act to make it consistent with its purpose clause and te Tiriti o Waitangi by allowing "shared exclusivity" according to tikanga. The upshot is that it would become significantly easier for iwi and hapū to gain customary marine title over their foresore and seabed - a fact confirmed in subsequent court decisions. National doesn't want that to happen - in fact, they don't want Māori to be able to gain customary title at all, despite what they promised Te Pāti Māori when they passed the law in 2011 - and so they plan to legislate it away (which they disguise as "restoring the intent of Parliament" - which is effectively an admission that they dealt in bad faith with their coalition partner in 2011). Of course, they're pitching this as being about beach access, like they always have, even though that is not and never was under threat. But they're quite open in the Herald about what its really about: protecting the aquaculture industry. So Māori rights are going to be sacrificed to protect National's donors and cronies. Which sounds just a little corrupt.

As with the 2004 law, no-one should expect Māori to take this lying down. And in the context of National's other attacks on Māori - the repeal of s7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, the attempted eradication of te reo from government, their plans to repeal / "reinterpret" te Tiriti - it is likely to lead to significant protest. And as with those other issues, no matter what "solution" National comes up with, it will be reversed by the next government, in the same way that Labour's Foreshore and Seabed Act was. The question then is how many aquaculture consents they will have corruptly given out in the meantime, and what will be done about them and the corporate scum who have corruptly instigated this mess.

A worrying sign

Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine Stats' conflict of interest policies. That report has landed today, and its a little worrying. Not for its findings that the speech was inappropriate - that's entirely orthodox. The worrying bit is that they seem to be moving towards a position that "being Māori" is a declarable conflict of interest:

There is an opportunity however for Stats NZ, perhaps supported by the Public Service Commission and other key departments, to review and consider leading a discussion on how these types of interests should be treated and how political neutrality could be more clearly defined and understood in this context. Particularly, whether and how the cultural interests of Māori public servants7 can be more clearly defined, not to single Māori public servants out, but to acknowledge and recognise that their affiliations, interests and world view, whilst inextricably linked to their whakapapa, might be effectively accommodated within the conventions of political neutrality and management of interests.

The footnote is "or... any other affiliations interests and world views", but that'll be defined against the imagined or desired norm - that is, as anything other than straight and white.

Despite the disclaimer, this really looks like they are singling Māori out, and adopting Rimmer's position that they are de facto enemies of the state. Which is an absolutely vile position for the public service to take.

Political neutrality means separating your private interests from your public duties. But this is reaching very far into the private realm - well into the prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Human Rights Act, which employers are forbidden from even asking about (and even the "national security" exemption does not apply to ethnicity). Requiring public servants to declare such things seems to invite such discrimination, as well as sending a clear message to anyone who doesn't fit into their desired box that the public service is no place for them. And our country will be the worse for it.

This matters

I've been watching the reports of the Māori-led protests all around the country this morning, seeing huge crowds not just in Auckland and Wellington and other major cities, but in much smaller places like Nelson and Whangārei. Its a significant show of opposition to the government, and hopefully they are looking at all this and thinking about what's going to happen when they introduce their racist bill to unilaterally redefine the Treaty and gut it from the law. And while they some of them might be laughing to their mates in the Koru club about how none of this matters because its not their voters protesting, the problem is that we can all see. Their voters can see how unpopular they are, and can see that it will get worse if the current agenda continues. And that's going to have an effect.

They can also see that these are perfectly orderly protests within Aotearoa's strongly democratic tradition, and that government Ministers calling them "absolutely illegal" is authoritarian, bullying, and undemocratic. While National swings that way, I don't think the centrist voters they rely on to win a majority do, so that's going to have an effect as well. The protests have made it clear that the government is nasty, racist, authoritarian, and undemocratic. And hopefully, this will cement the narrative that is already appearing in the polls that this will be a one-term regime.

A malevolent authoritarian

One of the fundamentals of the New Zealand government system is consultation. On a broad scale, policy proposals generally need to go through a consultation process with the public, or at least with key stakeholders. And within government, agencies are required to consult each other, with Cabinet requiring formal checks to ensure this is done on certain issues. There are good reasons for this: it stops the government from working at cross-purposes and undermining its own policy agenda, it mitigates against groupthink and silos within agencies, it allows the impacts of policies to be accurately identified, and (most importantly) it stops the government making huge mistakes. But Rimmer thinks it takes too long, so he wants to end it. But only for certain voices, of course:

Minister for Regulation David Seymour is frustrated at the way population ministries can slow down the business of government.

Most proposals have to be farmed out to population ministries like the Ministries for Women, Māori, and Pacific Peoples asking whether they think any policy changes will impact the people they are responsible for.

If the ministries have anything to say, and often they do not, their comments are put in a box on the final Cabinet Paper.

Some papers also receive a climate impact assessment, which triggers if the proposal is likely to have an impact on New Zealand’s emissions reduction goals.

Speaking to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast, Seymour said this slowed things down and that he was keen to change it, although a final proposal had not gone to other ministers.

Seymour said he believed too many of these ministries were consulted when drafting Cabinet papers.

This is a crystal clear statement of which voices Rimmer think matter and which don't - and in the latter category is everyone who isn't a polluting white male. But its also a clear statement of how he wants to govern: by silencing anyone who might speak out against his far-right agenda, and censoring advice which might accurately identify the impacts of his policies. Which is also something you can see in his command that schools punish climate strikers. The man is a nasty malevolent authoritarian. The question is how much we are going to let him undermine our democracy.

National's linguistic engineering

The National government came into office on a culture-war platform of eradicating te reo from public life. There are the obvious measures, like spending millions changing the names of government agencies, and requiring government agencies to primarily use English. But its not just government agencies. An OIA response I received today showed Ministers are also doing their bit, by eradicating the use of te reo from their official correspondence:

I have noted to officials in a meeting on 11 December 2023 that Ministerial correspondence should either be all in Te Reo Maori or English, not mixed language [sic]. This also applies to the formatting of my letter responses to requestors.

Which invites the question: which English? Or rather, whose English? Because New Zealand English (as opposed to American, British, or pre-Treaty Victorian English) has always included a large number of te reo words, including everyday greetings of the sort that the Minister is targeting with this policy. Modern New Zealand English has adopted (or stolen) more, as more people have grown more comfortable with te reo - but it has always been there. Issuing an injunction against "mixed language" simply denies who we are as a people and a country. But then, that's exactly what this policy is about, isn't it?

Another attack on te reo

The new white supremacist government made attacking te reo a key part of its platform, promising to rename government agencies and force them to "communicate primarily in English" (which they already do). But today they've gone further, by trying to cut the pay of public servants who speak te reo:

The government is trying to figure out how to stop any more public servants getting extra pay for being proficient in te reo Māori.

But it concedes it cannot dump existing allowances.

"I will ... ask for advice on how we could stop these bonuses being negotiated into future collective agreements," the Public Service Minister Nicola Willis told RNZ.

These allowances exist for a good reason: speaking te reo is a skill which is in demand in the public service. And the reason it is in demand is because public sector agencies owe specific legal duties to (for example) support the crown-Māori relationship and use te reo to promote public services and make them accessible to Māori. Both of those duties require that agencies maintain capacity, which means staff with the appropriate skills, and - as with any other skill - that needs to be paid for. And, as the article notes, they're in collective agreements, and the PSA has indicated they're going to fight for the rights of their members to be recognised for their skills. So, the government is going to have trouble implementing its white supremacist agenda. But the fact they even blurted this, when it wasn't in either coalition agreement, suggests they're going all-in on it, and that the elimination of te reo from public life is a goal they wholeheartedly embrace.

Labour on the wrong side of history

Last week, Stuff asked Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis about compulsory te reo Māori in primary schools. And as usual for Labour, he firmly rejected the idea, citing fears of a public backlash. Today, Stats NZ released data from the 2021 General Social Survey, showing us thatfears of that backlash are imaginary. In addition to a welcome uptick of use of te reo, there was also this:

62 percent (up from 57 percent) of people agreed or strongly agreed that te reo Māori should be a core subject in primary schools

57 percent (up from 53 percent) agreed or strongly agreed that the government should encourage and support the use of te reo Māori in everyday situations

56 percent (up from 51 percent) agreed or strongly agreed that signage should be in both te reo Māori and English

Which makes sense. There's been a significant change in public use and acceptance of te reo in the past few years (which comes on top of significant change over the course of my life). There's a public recognition that te reo is a taonga, one of the things that makes Aotearoa Aotearoa. Its everywhere now - on the street, on TV and radio, in government press conferences. And apart from a few dirty old racists (who are gradually dying off), we like this, because its who we are now.

And in the face of this change - which they helped promote years ago - Labour is resolutely on the wrong side of history. As with capital gains taxes. They need to learn to read the fucking room. But maybe the real problem is that the only room they're interested in is the one full of rich old racists?

The Greens' "land back" policy

It was Waitangi Day over the weekend, and the Greens took the opportunity to release a new Hoki Whenua Mai policy to remedy injustices in the Treaty settlement process. Key provisions include giving iwi and hapu a right of first refusal over raupatu land (with a voluntary register for non-raupatu land); restoring the power of the Waitangi Tribunal to recommend the return of council- and privately-owned land, an inquiry into Māori dispossession, and reopening the settlement process in recognition of the inadaquacy of most settlements. A lot of this echoes the main points of Te Pāti Māori's policy, and seems extraordinarily moderate given the scale of the wrong done. An inquiry and first refusal rights? Easy. Tribunal recommendations over private land? The government will still have to buy it, and there'll still need to be a process for that (and you can see how first-refusal rights could also be a solution there, if iwi are willing to be patient). As for re-opening settlements, everyone knows they are insignificant compared to the wrong done, and everyone should recognise that this inadequate redress is in itself a severe and ongoing breach of the Treaty. While the government calls them "final", that's only the case insofar as Māori accept that they are, and that's a political question for each generation. If a new generation of Māori leaders rejects the deals made by their elders and demands proper redress, then the government is going to have to deal with that. Recognising that reality and having a process to deal with it in advance seems sensible, and a government committed to a just Treaty relationship would recognise that.

All of which makes Labour's immediate rejection of the policy seem stupid as well as racist. The injustice of the settlement process is already causing problems - just look at Ihumātao - and the government is going to have to deal with them one way or another. Sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending there is no problem is not a good way of doing that.

Serves them right

Back in December, the government purchased Ihumatāo. Officially the purchase was for a housing project, but whether any houses actually get built (and who will own them) is subject to negotiation. And now, the Auditor-General has ruled the purchase unlawful:

The deal struck by the government and Fletcher Building to buy the disputed land at Ihumātao is "unlawful" unless it is validated by Parliament, the Auditor General says.

[...]

"In our view, the intent of the Ministry, and the intent of Ministers, was to establish a new appropriation that would provide authority for the purchase of the land at Ihumātao.

"However, because the Ministry did not seek the correct approvals, the expenditure was incurred without appropriation and without authority to use Imprest Supply. For these reasons, the payment is unlawful until validated by Parliament."

That validation will no doubt be forthcoming (there's a standard bill to validate all the irregular expenditure in the Budget next month), but the government will pay a political price. And they deserve to. This problem is entirely of Labour's own making, born of their unwillingness to admit that the deal was about restoring stolen property. If they'd admitted that, they would have taken the money from the right box, and everything would be fine. But they were worried about offending racists (who were always going to be offended), and about the "danger" of reopening Treaty settlements (which the government says are "full and final", but which aren't really), so they tried to finesse it. And now they have egg on their faces, and it serves them right. But hopefully validation will force them to admit the real purpose of the purchase, and that in turn will let them give the land back to its true owners, without all of the accompanying bullshit.

Fixing National's whiteness problem

After almost twenty years of ignoring the Māori vote, National may run in the Māori seats again:

A former National MP is excited the party could stand a candidate in the Māori electorate seats for the first time since 2002.

One News reported last night that National's leader Judith Collins will tell the caucus next week the party will reverse its longstanding position not to run in Māori seats.

Collins said last year that the party was exploring it as a possibility.

Good. National's racist cordon sanitaire against Māori was bad for the party, bad for our society, and bad for our democracy. It means their caucus doesn't look like New Zealand, while sending an appallingly racist message that in National's eyes Māori do not and never will matter. And that's the sort of thing that ought to be beyond the pale for any self-declared "mainstream" political party (or really, any party at all).

A good first step

The government has finally accepted the inevitable and purchased Ihumātao from Fletcher Building, apparently with the aim of eventual return to iwi. Good. It shouldn't have taken them this long, but I guess that's what happens when you have Winston Peters in your government. Now he's gone, there can be progress. As for how much progress, the people whose views actually matter here are the Kaitiaki, the people actually occupying the land. They're cautiously welcoming the deal, but pointedly not mentioning the government's plan to put housing on the site, so it could all still fall apart. Still, its a good first step, and shows the government is at least trying to find a solution, rather than sticking its fingers in its ears and pretending that there is no problem...

...except on the Treaty, of course. The government is saying the purchase and return is part of a "non-Treaty process", and the agreement includes a clause saying that it isn't a Treaty settlement. Which is exactly as meaningful as its clauses saying that Treaty settlements are "full and final": not at all. Yes, the government wants to pretend its not setting a precedent, and not upset its long-running scam of offering Māori a tiny fraction of what was stolen from them and relying on exhaustion and goodwill to make it stick. But we all know they are, and that the door is open for those settlements to be revisited. And we should welcome that. Because no person with a shred of conscience could consider what has been provided anything like just compensation for what was stolen - and until just compensation is paid, the wrong remains.

A headache for the government

For decades, the government has elided its Treaty obligations over water by claiming that no-one owns it (except, in practice, farmers). But last year, the Waitangi Tribunal ruled that water is a taonga, and it belongs to Māori, and invited iwi to bring a test case to prove it in court. The New Zealand Maori Council have already taken up that suggestion. And now, Ngāi Tahu is seeking to establish their rights over most of the South Island's water:

South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu is taking the Crown to court, seeking “rangatiratanga” over all freshwater in its takiwā (area).

The case would seek to establish “shared authority” with the Crown over policy and practice.

Te Rūnanga o Ngā Tahu kaiwhakehaere (chairwoman) Lisa Tumahai said the case against the Crown, lodged in the High Court in Christchurch on Monday, came after generations of being excluded from kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of waterways.

“For too long, governments have talked about addressing these issues but have made piecemeal progress,” said Tumahai. “That is not enough. Now is the time to act.”

Ngāi Tahu is quite clear that they are not interested in conventional property rights. Instead, they are seeking the regulatory power to protect their waterways. But even that is likely to be explosive. Canterbury is the most irrigated area in New Zealand, and ground zero for most of Aotearoa's water problems. And the greedy farmers who profit from sucking the rivers dry and filling them with shit (while poisoning the groundwater with toxic nitrates) are likely to go apeshit at the thought of getting a single drop less. So its going to be a real headache for the government, who are eventually going to have to sort this out with a settlement or legislation. And then there's the prospect of National and/or ACT running a racist hate campaign over it...