So arrogant and so wrong - Te Ururoa Flavell you have let us down and now your legacy has been set and it is a sad, paltry legacy.
Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell is pushing ahead with his controversial proposals to change the way Māori land is handled.
He has introduced the Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill into Parliament, one month after the Waitangi Tribunal criticised the extent of consultation and recommended more engagement with Māori before changing the law.
Oh no he doesn't care what the Waitangi Tribunal says and what do they say?
The Tribunal report upheld several concerns claimants had about the bill, the key one being that consultation wasn't up to scratch.
It warned that the Minister needed to go out and get enough support from Māori or risk breaching the Treaty of Waitangi.
the minister responds
But Mr Flavell said since that hearing, he has held 22 public hui and 14 wānanga, the bill has been tweaked, and he has that vote of confidence.
This minister is not trusted, his assurances are meaningless, his word is false.
What is this Bill all about?
The new bill aims to give landowners more say and ultimately make it easier for them to use their Māori land.
by 'use' think 'sell' and thus the whittling away of Māori land continues - by overt and covert means the greedy will try to get it all and the greedy will try to sell it all and stopping this will be the people, tangata whenua. And the greedy will be stopped.
Pita Sharples is a leader who believes in going down with the ship but it is not his job to take the ship down just for hubris or ego.
We have the potential 3-way leadership of the Maori Party debacle because Pita won't let go of the leadership or his seat in the house and now he has come out in support of Dame Susan Devoy as Race Relations Commissioner calling it "fantastic" and that was after Te Ururoa Flavell, one of the other potential co-leaders of the party, had raised concerns in parliament about that appointment.
Now both the other co-leaders of the Maori Party have tried to get Pita to bow out so that new people can come in and those calls are getting more direct.
NZH
Te Ururoa Flavell has suggested it is time for Dr Pita Sharples to
stand aside for fresh blood to take over leadership of the Maori Party.
Mr Flavell told TVNZ's Q+A programme today that the party had to start thinking about a "succession plan" as far as its leaders were concerned.
but as stated in the article
Dr Sharples has rejected any suggestion he should step aside and previously said he will stay co-leader until he dies.
I used to admire Pita and defend him but I've said goodbye to those feelings and I wish Pita had taken my advice given so long ago, to retire with dignity and mana.
Some talk of hubris on the by-election trail mostly directed at Hone by supporters of the labour candidate. Good post at The Standard on that. And Morgan has a good one up about the 'mare of Tariana's comments about the maori party candidate Solomon Tipene. I like Solomon a lot better than Kelvin who is really the one out of his depth. anyway for hubris how about this - not so much the apology from Tariana for taking the legs off their candidate but how flavell frames it
NewstalkZB
MP Te Ururoa Flavell fronted media this afternoon. "Having heard from one or two that took the wrong end of the stick, the belief was that she needed to make it really clear that it was never the intent by her own statement, a mistake was made, we're owning up to it and we're just saying let's get on and finish this campaign with a victory on Saturday."
You may be wondering what exactly hubris is - wikipedia to the rescue
Hubris (
/ˈhjuːbrɪs/), also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.
Yes it is all there in that statement from Te Ururoa Flavell - can't wait for this election.
A very insightful article by Chris Barton on Te Ururoa Flavell. I wondered why he can't see the truth in front of his eyes, why he stubbornly supported the lines, why he just dug in and turned his back - the interview illuminates those questions.
NZH
He's frank, determined and clearly prepared to step up when needed. What's not so clear is whether, as in his student days, Flavell is misreading the political upheavals surrounding him.
That seems to sum it up for me - he is misreading the political upheavals surrounding him as he has done in the past and those past misreadings were big ones too - the Springbok Tour, 1975 land march and the 1977-78 Bastion Point occupation. I hope he reads the article and thinks deeply on it - he hopefully will have an epiphany of the real situation today and change his behaviour just as he did in the past.
If he was a slow learner in politics, "when the penny started to drop" Flavell took up the cause of Maori rights with vigour.
I don't blame him for getting it wrong sometimes - hell we all do. But the time for repeating past mistakes and not realising when he has it wrong again, has passed.
Well it is nice to get it wrong sometimes - the maori party have come out with a very strong statement against the governments handling of the activists stopping Petrobras - they have called the sending of the naval vessel 'Libyan tactics' as in sending troops against your own people. Very strong language indeed but the real test is - if that is the belief then how can you support that regime - against your own people? What are you going to do about it? More talk? More expression of disappointment? How about some action!
NZH
Maori Party MP for Waiariki Te Ururoa Flavell compared that action to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's military intervention against his people in a statement this afternoon. "We aren't Libya so we shouldn't be using our military against our own people - it is totally over the top for the Government to be using Navy resources in this way." He said some of the protest action could have been averted if local iwi Te Whanau A Apanui and Ngati Porou had been consulted at marae along their coast about the oil exploration work.
That is true and so is this
"We expressed our disappointment at those iwi being left out of the process in June last year, and we reiterate that again now. "To give the people of this country confidence, the government must put the permit on hold until that consultation has happened."
Okay - they are strong words so what are you going to do about it? When are you going to realise that the results mean more than the rhetoric. Make your words more than hollow, by action.
The hikoi against the replacement for the Foreshore and Seabed Act reaches Wellington tomorrow - big day coming up. The hikoi has made good time and the opposition have stalled the government, so the 3rd reading has not happened yet. The goal is to shame the maori party into changing and not voting for the Bill. That won't work but it will be the worst day in the world for the maori party MP's - they will be crying inside and out. But they have had their chances, they have had plenty of chances and they still refuse to listen to the people, instead they fawn over key, they back racist and unjust legislation - it will be a hard day for them, as they deserve I'm sad to say.
Hone says
“Now unfortunately that hikoi is going to get to town before the third reading so I think what this is all about is maintaining pressure on the Maori Party, positive pressure I would like to think, positive and polite pressure,” Mr Harawira says. He’s written to his former Maori Party colleagues asking them to withdraw their support for the bill.
But there is more happening tomorrow for the maori party
A contingent of Kaumatua, Kuia, Pakeke,& Rangatahi from the Kaipara & Tamaki Makaurau will be arriving at Parliament tomorrow between 1-2 with the express purpose of uplifting, retrieving, and returning a 6ft hook (Matau) and anchor (punga) which was gifted to celebrate the Maori Party’s 1st year in parliament, and express support for their mangai MP Hone Harawira. The group has asked that the taonga be placed below the steps of Parliament so that they may ensure the easy return of these taonga.
This is part of their statement
“It was perhaps a HUGE error on our behalf to assume, that the party would uphold such values as manaakitanga, in order to respond to Taikokerau’s concerns re this bill. And that the party would also continue also to fight to restore our TINO RANGATIRA status (as guaranteed in article two of Te Tiriti 1840) but now recognise that , that will not be the case, being that the party, expelled our MP for merely voicing the Tai Tokerau’s concerns, and that they (The Maori Party) have blatantly ignored over 90% of the submissions re: this bill, and endorsed a piece of legislation that may well be the catalyst for TOTALLY nullifying and or extinguishing our ancestral rights of GUARDIANSHIP, CHIEFTENSHIP, AND TOTAL AUTHORITY over our taonga (Wenua, Ngahere, Moana Katoa!)
If that doesn't make them cry, nothing will. I appreciate that the maori party leadership thinks they are doing the right thing, but they promised to listen to the people and they haven't - and worse they have ignored and disrespected the Māori submissions, so it is just not good enough, not by a long shot. I think the maori party leadership should retire and that the other two members should step down and that new people who are not tainted can come in. But that is up to them - i am fully supporting a new left Māori party led by Hone and backed by all people, from any background, who believe in tino rangatiratanga, fairness, equality, kaitiakitanga and support for the less advantaged. Join us we are going to make history.
Hat tip - Waatea News and tangatawhenua com
Tim at Tumeke has a great post about a hui he attended where Te Ururoa Flavell defended the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
... After a rough session where we remained unconvinced this bill would do anything other than legitimise all the mining and drilling that is planned by the Crown and will lock in the confiscations that have happened all the way to 2011, Te Ururoa breezily attempted to use the same old bullshit line about being open to ideas. This was too much. They cut the process short and say they will do all the changes at committee stage/2nd reading, but we won't have any chance to object to it then. We can't properly tell him yes or no now to the bill because we don't know what the law will say - and neither does he. It is preposterous.
I said I had put forward ideas at select committee stage but had seen no evidence that anything I or anyone else that wasn't a big infrastructure company had said was taken on board. So how long have we got to get back to him with our ideas that he will be listening to (before the caucus votes for whatever the Nats put in anyway?) I asked. Realistically, I said, how long have we got to email you our ideas on this bill before it's too late. I had my pen poised over my pad and I kept looking at it as he struggled to find an answer. All I could hear was the ticking of the clock and him shuffling papers around for what seemed like an age. I didn't look up at him, just at the tip of the pen. The meeting waited in silence. Then he finally said: "a week." I took a long blink, looked up and repeated, slowly: a week. Maybe it was my unchecked expression of derision that did it, maybe it was the laughter from the others, maybe it was the earlier exchange over Hone and who would be the next male leader of the party now "you pulled the pin on him" that had something to do with it, but he seemed a little irked. "A week," he repeated. "One week" I repeated in disbelief. "You wanted a time: a week." - he reiterated tersely. There was more silence as the bad punchline to an even worse joke sunk in. No one had to say anything - it's a farce.
That week has started running which reinforces the 'farce' - it is a joke but no one's laughing.
