Striking a balance
I was present in Mangere today at the launch of Labour's 4th pledge card commitment.
The pledge is to complete the Treaty claims settlement process by 2020, and to set a cut off date of September 2008 for the lodgement of claims.
I think that this policy strikes a good balance. The whole area is a tricky one, becuase on one side, there are a range of legitimate and outstanding grievances that need to be settled. On the other, there is a strong public feeling that while we want to "put things right", there does need to be a point at which things move on.
The policy strikes a reasonable balance because while it brings some finality to the process, there is a very reasonable amount of time for claims to be lodged, researched, and discussed. Having too short a time frame would simply give rise to a new set of grievances and we would be back we started. The evidence is that when claims have been settled fairly, that iwi groups have been able to move on and make some real progress for local Maori (ie; Ngai Tahu).
This will no doubt be a contenscious area for debate, but I think that on the whole, most fair minded New Zealanders support the settlement process, and the time limit policy will unltimately strengthen that support by showing that we are actually moving towards a final goal.
8 comments:
"You are a bunch of racist rednecks".
That's what ACT was called in 1999 when we campaigned on it then. Once again, ACT starts the race and the others catch up 6 years later. Oh well.
Spooks, excellent work exposing the frail agruments of the Labour and its apparatchiks like Bertand, the would-be member for Pakuranga.
Nobody's fooled.
Historic treaty claims are hardly an issue, although it has continued to fuel a grievance industry for far too long. Labour are a bunch of hypocritical scum: they claimed first that Derek Quigley, then Winston Peters, and most recently Don Brash were all racists, inciting disharmony, for advocating the very same deadline on historic grievances.
As you point out, the real issue, which Labour won't touch, is the happy-clappy civil servants with a head-in-the-sand, PC agenda that choose to interpret dangerous Treaty clauses as an excuse to implement liberal policy.
Historic Treaty grievances--which were resolved far more successfully under the last National Government--are at least transparent and on the table. And because of the grievance industry around it, the time to resolve them means that very little actually happens while the lawyers, academics and civil servants who depend on that industry to make a living, ensures that grievances don't get resolved. What is far less clear, and far more dangerous and expensive, are treaty-related clauses that encourage local body officials to give special preference to Maori interests, health bureaucrats to give special preference to Maori in funding, education officials to give special preference to Maori education, etc, etc.
And the reason they do that--apart from the liberal PC ideology, is that it's much easier for officials to distinguish funding, allocation, procurement, and employment based on race, rather than identifying need. Because they're too stupid to understand the causes that the taxpayer pays them to resolve, they resort to racially divisive maneuvers, thanks to legislation that sanctions it.
He isn't the would-be member for Pakuranga, he is the hasn't-got-a-snowballs-chance-in-hell candidate for Pakuranga.
These last comments are what we call an outpouring of bile from the wholly outdone.....
Is it 'wildly different"? Really?
A couple of points for the principled doubters posting here:
1) Yes, this policy is about historical treaty claims. Both National and Labour have quite a proud record of resolving these in a principled fashion over the past fifteen years. None of you have actually commented as to whether you support the process, or whether you think the time limit is a good idea. Do you?
2) My words in describing the policy aren't exactly the same as Helen Clark's because I am not just cuttting and pasting a speech of hers! The policy states that we have "the aim of settling all claims by 2020". I have said that the policy is to settle claims by 2020. I don't quite understand Spooks' hernia over this. One's policy is by definition an aim!
"No, settlement by 2020 is not a good idea.
On the other hand, settlement by 2010 is a good idea".
oh really, spooks, you're just getting silly here...yes, silly!...not offensive, extreme, or the other sins so well represented in you other comments.
You've clearly decided this will be your thread for silliness!
What range you have!
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