Monday 21/04/2014 Letter to the Editor – The Taranaki Daily News Newspaper
The New Plymouth District Council got it right with their vote on iwi representation on council. This is how democracy works – not by threats of power as you all have seen in the reaction from Peter Moeahu. To say that council will have problems now in seeking permission to get a pipeline through a property which has iwi interests, is also saying he does not care about his own people. They all use the infrastructure like everyone else. We are all one people – we must all be swimming up the river together. The talk about a Treaty partner is wrong and this term was stated by a misguided judge and has been used ever since. The reality of the Treaty is it gave Maori the protection of the Crown and created equal rights to all people in New Zealand. The word partnership is used in the majority of cases to create barriers which in turn cost us money nationally, and in many individual cases also. We must, at all costs, stop the Treaty being recognised in any revised New Zealand Constitution, as it will also divide New Zealand. Remember, we are one people and we cannot continue to afford payouts to one race as government has been doing. The term ”full and final settlement” is a joke. When government was questioned on this, the answer was ”How can we [government] know what future generations may wish to claim?” I leave you with these thoughts – what the people fought for in the 1981 Springbok Tour was real. Don’t let it happen to us now.
KEVIN MORATTI………Bell Block
