I came across this tweet at the weekend, and I really did not know what to make of it. Remember that the person who wrote it is a member of our elected government, and is supposed to uphold the law and represent all New Zealanders.

Initially, I thought she meant that no one had any right to be here, unless they were descended from Maori who were here prior to the arrival of the British. That, of course, is almost every New Zealander.

I questioned her on Twitter, and this was her reply.

So, I’m okay, because I am covered by Te Tiriti… although I thought I was covered by immigration law, but I guess she sees it as the same thing.

What does she mean then?

First, let us look at the definition of the word ‘indigenous’. Here is the Cambridge Englishdefinition.

naturally existing in a place or country rather than arriving from another place

Okay… so if you were born here, you are indigenous. So now we have most of New Zealand covered. The only people not covered, as far as I can tell, are illegal immigrants, and I am not going to argue with her over that.

So what was this statement all about?

I think Chloe was making the mistake that a lot of people make with the definition of the word ‘indigenous’. She seems to think it means ‘those who were here first’. It doesn’t.

What is more, as Maori arrived here in waka, they are neither ‘naturally occurring’ or even ‘indigenous’ by what seems to be her own definition. We are all immigrants, Maori included.

I think Chloe is saying that, if you are Maori, you have a right to be here, and if you have immigrated here since ‘colonisation’, you are also okay, because the Treaty covers that… but if you are descended from the dreaded ‘colonisers’ then you are a ‘conqueror’ and you have no right to be here.

Is that what she is saying? I cannot make sense of it any other way. Chloe also completely ignores the whole of European and world history, as those ‘colonisers’ were indeed ‘colonised’ themselves… by the Romans, the Visigoths, the Vikings and the French. Colonisation is fine for Britain, obviously, but not for New Zealand.

The other thing that Chloe misses completely is that none of the original ‘colonisers’ are still alive, and all of their descendants are ‘indigenous’, in the sense that they were born here. In other words, there is no one to whom the term ‘colonial convenience’ actually applies.

She also misses the fact that the Treaty was an agreement between the ‘colonisers’ and Maori. There may have been questions about the amounts of compensation given, which have been thrashed out for decades (and are still being thrashed out), but nothing alters the fact that the Treaty gave the ‘colonisers’ the right to settle here, in partnership with Maori, and that marked the end of any ‘illegal occupation’.

So, the only conclusion that I can come to is that Chloe Swarbrick, member of parliament in New Zealand, is deliberately trying to stir up racial divisions in support of a land protest that, in the end, is nothing more than a spat between 2 different Maori groups.

What we really need in this country is to be left alone to all just get along with each other, regardless of our racial origins, and just be allowed to be New Zealanders. Fuelling the fires of racism like this does nobody any good.

Nothing like ‘divide and conquer’, is there, Chloe?

P.S. a Note from me.

There were people here before the Maori.

Thanks to a knowledgeable commenter, Bryan, on Backchat the other night, this map was drawn to our attention. It is most informative.

The text under the map says:

This historical map shows tribal boundaries and the areas that were confiscated from Maori during the 1860s. The blue boundaries have been added in modern times to identify the areas in which the confiscations took place. It notes that Waikato, the domain of the Kangitanga (Maori King movement), had 1,217,437 acres (492,679 hectares) confiscated.

TeAra

Let’s zoom in a bit:

Well, that’s inconvenient!

What does the SOUL protest website have to say about this land?

In 2014 Auckland City, using the Special Housing Areas Act, designated 32 hectares adjacent to the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve (OSHR) as a special housing area (SHA. This land, known as Puketapapa, was confiscated ‘by proclamation’ under the New Zealand Settlements Act in 1863 as part of the colonial invasion of the Waikato that drove mana whenua of South Auckland from their lands ahead of the settler armies.

SOUL

These protesters may have other valid reasons why they want the land protected:

It is important to understand that this land is a crucial part of one of the last remnants of the archaeologically rich stonefields landscape across Auckland and, as a natural component of the adjacent but legally separate OSHR, it holds the stories of the earliest inhabitants of our country. The OSHR protects the places where the first Maori gardeners lived and worked using the stones and the microclimates they created to grow their Pacific Crops. SHA62 similarly is one of the last surviving places where the land and stone walls used by Maori for growing new crops such as wheat and European vegetables for the Auckland markets prior to 1863, still exists. It is of special significance in that here the ancient and more recent gardens stand next to each other. These places are even rarer than the stonefields were at the time of the creation of the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve.

SOUL

But, according to history recorded at the time, ‘confiscation’ of Maori land by Pakeha is not a valid reason. Revisionist history might want to claim something else but it seems that the facts are the opposite of what is being claimed by the rent-a-mob shambles in South Auckland.

By Joe Banana

Since when has fact or truth had anything to do with these radical protesting professional B/S artists.
After all IWI is an acronom for “I WANT IT”

Hooray! Jacinda finally achieved something that’s not a new tax or ban. She’s managed to turn a cluster of rocks into a cluster of other sorts and in doing so, given life to a whole new autonomous and diverse tribe.

That tribe definitely needs a name – encompassing Maori and non-Maori, Pacifica and even an occasional Australian; misfits, marxists and ‘activists’ (same thing) all; so an ancestral, mono-cultural inspired hand-me-down won’t do. It needs to be something which celebrates such diversity.

Dear Leader’s intervention has made things worse, much worse, for all concerned at Ihumatao with actual skin in the game. As for her plans to produce some form of magical compromise for all, if she could just figure it out, well, here’s a clue, Ms Ardern – there is zero compromise to be had. It’s a fight, there must be a winner and a loser, there are no prizes for participating.

With her intervention, Ardern’s only compromises on show are the compromised rights of private property owners and the compromised rule of law. Fletchers and actual, legally recognised mana whenua have already agreed on a way forward with benefits to all, but our new flash-tribe, having exhausted legal avenues, have decided belligerence is their new weapon of choice.

Fletchers want 480 homes on the site; their antagonists want none. The activists want the taxpayer to buy the land and give it back to them and, given Jacinda’s history of folding to demand where it’s only trifling taxpayers’ money concerned, they now believe they’ve got the opportunity to deny local iwi and Fletchers the gains of their endeavour.

The company will probably end up saying they don’t buy into disputes, they buy into developments, but if they are returned the land cost – $19,000,000, development costs so far (probably similar to the purchase price), forgone gains from the expected development and staff hours and huge barristers fees for the several years they have worked with archaeological experts and local iwi through resource consents and legal challenges including the RMA, the Environment Court and Maori Land Court, they will accede. Expect the total bill to exceed $90M.

Given an emotional argument, our prime minister folds, never mind reason and law; as compellingly factual as they may be, it’s all too much. Our new tribe of prickly protesters claims Auckland City Council’s efforts to buy the land “were thwarted by the landowner”, but is that true? From the landowner’s point-of-view: no. They wanted the best price for their land and after already agreeing to sell 21 hectares for the pittance of $1M, as much as Auckland City Council spends on afternoon tea in a year, to create the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve and feeling “that was our contribution to the public good”, they wanted a market rate for the remainder, and who can blame them?

Dealing with facts is not our protesters’ thing, nor Jacinda’s. So who are these unreasonable people and how should we address them?

And then it came to me, flashing from the pages of the Maori Land Court judgementagainst the protesters, the latest collective of sit-inners and fact-averse militants, whose ‘traditional claims to the land’ argument against the development were heard, failed, and described perfectly by Justice Armstrong…Ladies and Gents, please welcome Aotearoa’s newest pan-activist affiliation: ‘Te Unintelligible Dia-Tribe’

With our Dear Leader now imposing herself as their new, nominal, fledgeling and furiously nodding head, all I can say is good luck, prime minister.

Well, the government has caved in to protesters at Ihumatao, and now building work will not continue… and it could be years before this issue is resolved.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has vowed that no building will take place at Ihumatao while the government and other parties try to broker a solution.

Exactly why the government has intervened is not clear. Local iwi wanted the development to go ahead. Fletcher Building was all set to proceed. Now, with a few loud protesters, a few mischievous Green MPs and a lot of unrelated people being bussed in, the project has been put on hold… and it will not be resolved for years, if ever.

Speaking at Auckland Airport this evening, the Prime Minister said the government wanted to find a peaceful solution to the Imuhatao stand-off.

She spoke after meeting with local iwi, Fletchers, and the Auckland City Council.

“We have heard, here, the strong voice of young people,” Ms Ardern said.

“At the same time we hear the perspective of mana whenua.

She said the government had to address that there had been an escalation and that’s why the call was made to hold off on building work.

“That activity cannot take place while there is such a large gathering there.

Oh, yes it could… but ‘young people’ are too important to Jacinda. Besides, she is off on another holiday and did not want to be delayed in getting to her birthday celebrations with her parents. Far too important.

Ms Ardern said Labour MPs Peeni Henare and Willie Jackson will go down to the site and talk to protesters tomorrow.
Mr Henare said he and Jackson will head there “primarily to listen.”

Yeah, whatever… and to fan the flames of discord, no doubt. That is what they did over the Oranga Tamariki child uplifts… even though the safety of the children should have been the primary issue. But it wasn’t… pride got in the way, and so it will here.

Jacinda has now made the mistake that Helen Clark did not make. Helen Clark refused to give in to protesters over the Seabed and Foreshore issue. It may have created the Maori Party, although that did no harm in the long run, but above all, it sent a message that protesting does not get you what you want. Jacinda has just sent the opposite message, and now any Maori with any grievance whatsoever will be out on the streets, or on the land protesting. The possibilities are endless, and they are all bad.

Numbers at Ihumatao have swelled to about a thousand as many join the land protest, ahead of the weekend.

It’s the fourth day of attempts to stop a special housing development from being built on ancestral land near Auckland airport.

Organisers said there will be live music performances at the site of the protest tomorrow.

Sherry Kingi, a kaumatua at the site, urged more people to come over the weekend.

“I know we’re going to carry on and I hope more people, not just Maori but everyone,” Ms Kingi said.

Earlier today, police moved back in one of the main paddocks to allow more space for people with tents.

Woodstock was 50 years ago, almost to the day. I wonder if Jimi Hendrix or Joan Baez can make it to Ihumatao this weekend? Arlo Guthrie? Crosby, Stills & Nash? Sounds like fun.

Protest leader Pania Newton has called for her uncle Te Warena Taua, kaumatua for the local iwi who opposes the action, to speak to her.
She said she also had yet to receive word from the Auckland Council about when a promised hui between all interested parties was expected to take place.
She told media her message to the Green Party was firstly one of thanks.
“And gratitude for their support over the many many years that our campaign has been running and secondly is to encourage them to appeal to Jacinda Ardern who has the power to reverse the decision of the special housing area.”

ODT.

So, if you are wondering why we can’t build enough houses, or why housing is so ridiculously expensive, look no further than this project. Fletcher Building will cut their losses and walk away from this, as they should because it will be in a deadlock for years. In the meantime, when you next read about how it is Maori who are most affected by housing affordability, just remember something. To some extent at least, they bring it on themselves

In response to criticism from law-abiding gun owners of the CoL’s latest brain fart of creating a National Gun register, the PM has changed tack.

“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a proposed gun register isn’t about law-abiding firearms owners, but rather the people who steal them.”

This woman is a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. The Gun register isn’t about law-abiding gun owners? Really? So how does that work then? The criminals are going to register their illegal guns onto the National register, are they?

“But Ardern said it’s important to make a distinction that the reforms aren’t about cracking down on “law-abiding” firearms users.“Nine percent of crime committed with firearms are committed by licenced firearm holders so there are still a few, but by and large they are law-abiding.“However, it doesn’t stop their guns being stolen, potentially if they’re not held and secured properly and then entering into the black market.“So this does give us a bit more information and help us track those weapons.

Hmm… so is she proposing to fit all guns with a GPS tracker then? That would require the police to start to properly investigate burglaries which are a crime that has been a very low priority for many years.

Let’s say that I register my legal gun and store it in my legal gun safe that has been checked as meeting security requirements by the police in order for me to get my gun licence. Somehow it gets stolen despite my security being approved by the police. Then what? Are the cops going to call me and say, “We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that we’ve found your gun. The bad news is that it was used in a mass shooting. But thanks for registering and helping to make New Zealand a safer place”

As for the 9% of licenced gun owners who kill using their registered weapons, they will still commit their crimes of passion or kill themselves just as they did before the National Gun Register. In fact when you think about it logically, a National Gun Register would not have prevented the Australian terrorist from killing all those people in Christchurch. What would have stopped him would have been if the police had enforced existing laws more carefully.

A National Gun Register won’t stop guns being stolen or guns being used in crimes just like a dictionary won’t stop people making spelling mistakes. All motor vehicles are registered but that doesn’t stop people using them to speed or drive drunk and it doesn’t prevent them from having accidents.

Additionally, There are currently some idiotic proposals to register magazines! Gun magazines don’t have serial numbers which tells you what the IQ level is of the people making these proposals.

At the end of the day, the question that the MSM should be asking Ardern is this. How does a National Gun register stop terrorists/criminals from getting their hands on guns?

The answer is of course that it won’t stop them at all. The Christchurch terrorist legally obtained his guns. This is yet another expensive exercise in virtue signalling.

I always thought that Heather du Plessis Allan was a bit of a Jacindaphile, but she has been known to criticise our dear leader on occasions. Her recent Australian trip was one such occasion, and Heather has pointed out something that most of us probably would not have picked up.

An interview the Prime Minister’s given on TV in Australia is being called awkward when it is really anything but.

In the viral clip, The Project’s Lisa Wilkinson asks Jacinda Ardern about comments where she called the deportation of New Zealand citizens from Australia corrosive to the trans-Tasman relationship.

Wilkinson challenged Ardern about the fact Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the architect of the plan, and Ardern said that the fact our countries are friends means she can be frank.

That’s not awkward. That is called being found out. That is called being found out trying to run two different positions on the same thing.

Hang on a minute. So Heather is saying that Jacinda is busily calling the issue of Kiwi criminals being deported as ‘corrosive’ to the NZ media… but she is not saying that in Australia?

When watching the interview, I was a bit surprised at the way she tried to say that, because we are such ‘great mates’, she can say anything she likes to her Australian counterpart, and it won’t damage the relationship. I thought that was both naive and arrogant in the extreme, which is nothing new for Jacinda, but Heather thinks differently. Heather thinks Jacinda spins two completely different lines, depending on which side of the Tasman she is on.

To New Zealand media, Ardern was describing Australia’s deportation policy as ‘corrosive’, and she was getting applause. People were saying how strong she was and how refreshing it was to hear a leader actually be prepared to say the tough things.
But to Australian media, she’s making excuses for the policy, saying ‘oh let’s put it in context, it’s been around for a while’, and ‘oh, it’s just a few cases here and there that we have a problem with, largely it’s totally fine if Australia deports criminals to New Zealand’.
Which I think is probably an insight into what she’s really saying in those closed door meetings with the Australians.

Please don’t tell me that Jacinda thinks that Australian journalists are incapable of searching through a New Zealand news website to find out what she has said? Or that Scott Morrison’s team of advisors don’t scan world headlines to see what is being said about their prime minister and their country?

She couldn’t possibly be that stupid… could she?

Truth is, we shouldn’t be surprised. What are the Prime Minister’s qualifications for this job? A communications degree and the ability to hold a press conference?
This is a Prime Minister who won the job by saying the right thing. She didn’t do the right thing, she didn’t actually do very much in the NINE years she was an opposition MP.

All true, but I am shocked… not by the fact that Jacinda is not truthful, which is nothing new, but by the fact that she thought she could spin two different lines, one for the Australians and one for the folks back home, and actually get away with it?

She gets away with it at home, of course, because no one from the media ever asks her a difficult question, but it seems that the Australians are not quite so affected by her fairy dust.

So, it shouldn’t take any of us by surprise when she says one thing to us to make us feel nice and make her look strong, and then to say something completely different to a different audience.

Newstalk ZB.

For the record, I don’t think it makes her look strong. I think it makes her look arrogant, and I don’t want her wrecking our relationship with Australia. She cannot rely on the goodwill of previous prime ministers to save her… she has to create some goodwill with Australia herself, and she is not doing that by using the word ‘corrosive’.

Australia obviously has some decent journalists though, who can read foreign websites and confront her with relevant questions. If only we had a few more of those over here.

We have been saying it on the blog for some time. This government is crashing what was, only a short time ago, a very well managed economy. The signs have been there for a while, but one of the most worrying aspects of recent times is that interest rates are continuing to fall. This means that the Reserve Bank has limited options to stimulate the economy if things get really bad.

I am not an economist, but I have been surprised at how keen Adrian Orr has been to cut interest rates over the last year or so. It seems we might be heading towards zero interest rates… which presents a whole raft of problems for the economy that we have never seen before.

So, what do we do? It seems the answer is to give away free money.

No… I am not joking.

New Zealanders could be in line for a cash payout, alongside temporary tax cuts if the economy crashes, according to advice from Treasury.

Treasury warned Finance Minister Grant Robertson that he would have to shoulder a large responsibility for getting the economy back on track, given the Reserve Bank, which New Zealand usually leans on in a financial crisis, has limited capacity to cut interest rates.

This is how this government is going to ruin this country. They seem to think that money just grows on trees, and can be happily splashed around as they see fit. Welcome to the Greece of the South Pacific.

Treasury’s plan for Robertson would mean temporarily cutting taxes and increasing spending to pump extra money into the economy until things improved, but some economists are concerned it doesn’t go far enough.

In January, Treasury briefed Grant Robertson on the best way to maintain New Zealand’s living standards through an economic downturn.
Because New Zealand, like the rest of the world, has arguably not fully recovered from the last recession, Treasury warned that a conventional response to a GFC-style shock is “likely to be impossible”.
That means two things: the Reserve Bank might try “unconventional monetary policies, currently untested in New Zealand,” and Robertson could open up the cheque book, spending billions of dollars on building new infrastructure, including “increased capital spending, tax cuts, and/or cash transfers to households”.

So the government is in such a good cash position that it can afford to give tax cuts and throw cash at people? Really? So why did they cancel National’s tax cuts then, when obviously, there was no need? And if they can afford to pay for all the much-needed infrastructure projects, why were so many Roads of National Significance cancelled? Why have extra fuel taxes been imposed to pay for transport projects when the government doesn’t need the money?

There is something very strange and very wrong about these Treasury proposals. I cannot decide if it is all simply pie in the sky, or if Gabriel Mahklouf was a total idiot, determined to bankrupt the country with no holds barred.

After all, it was under his watch that Treasury went through its ‘moon feelings’ project… not to mention that hacking of the website that wasn’t and that probably tells you all you need to know.

Treasury doesn’t give specific details of what it recommends, but says that “effective fiscal stimulus should be timely, targeted, and temporary”.
It says the “best case” stimulus would focus on tax cuts and stimulus, alongside spending money on building infrastructure, which would also boost the economy.
It recommends giving money to households, particularly those in need, saying that tax changes or cash transfers (meaning a payment of some kind, possibly a benefit) meet its policy objectives of boosting the economy, but in a way that achieves equity.

Long before we get to this point, the tax take will have already fallen, and government coffers will not be as full as they once were, which gives the government only one alternative. They will have to borrow heavily.

Usually in New Zealand the heavy lifting during a financial crisis is done by the Reserve Bank. It will cut interest rates, essentially making it cheaper to borrow money.
But New Zealand, like most other developed countries is in a bind this time round. Unlike the last recession, where New Zealand’s Official Cash Rate was 8 percent before being cut, New Zealand’s OCR is just 1.5, giving the Bank very little room to cut should it be required.
This is because the last decade of recovery has been far weaker than other recoveries. At every point the economy threatened to tip back into recession, so interest rates were kept low.

Stuff.

I don’t believe splashing around cash is the answer, and spending on large infrastructure projects, while it may have worked in the 1930s, is a different prospect these days, with the extremely regulated environment in which we now live. It will take years to get these projects moving, and will not, therefore, stave off the inevitable economic consequences of a major downturn quickly enough.

If the government’s answer is to simply throw cash around, then heaven help us. We will be repaying the debt this government racks up well into the 22nd century.