same old game

It's a classic really - boscawen of the Act party bleats on about how the new Foreshore and Seabed legislation - the Marine and Coastal Area Act (MaCAA), will allow iwi to gain control over all the coastline and charge boaties etc etc etc, meanwhile Treaty Negotiations Minister finlayson says "it was a very high test" and  "it's a very high threshold to prove customary title, but he believes there are a few iwi which would meet that test."

Stuff

"Some of my political opponents may well be alleging for electoral purposes that the Government's going to do backroom shoddy deals. I can assure you that is not the case."

It took about year for an iwi to reach an agreement in principle with the Government, he said. It could take another couple of years to reach a deed of settlement.

How few is a few I wonder - not many that is for sure - we know because the deliberately high threshold for customary title was one of the main issues for Māori as the legislation was rammed through by the maori party and national. 

Finlayson gives us a glimpse with this comment, "These are very intensely factual inquiries." Yep - just the facts please - FACTS are the measure and the be all and end all but are 'facts' objective? Don't they also relate to the position of the proponent of those facts? If i draw a six on the ground and you see a nine - what are the facts - that it is a nine or a six? Both? Neither? History is made up of disputed facts.

And in regards to customary title - the facts are that Māori held tino rangatiratanga before the colonisers came and a number of rangatira signed te Tiriti which guaranteed their continued rangatiratanga, meanwhile the powers that be used every dirty trick in the book to steal the land and resources of Māori for themselves and their own profit. Now many Māori are alienated from their tribal lands and ancestors because the governments deliberately ignored their obligations to maori as agreed to in te Tiriti. This alientation results in Māori higher representation in social measurement statistics showing - poorer, less healthy, more imprisoned, dying sooner and so on. 

Those facts will be contrasted with the Crown facts as they attempt to block iwi from their historic lands. Same old same old.