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Freedom Campers not invited

The recent announcement from newly appointed Tourism Minister Stuart Nash that he will ban freedom camping in vehicles that are not self-contained has come like a bucket of cold reality to many in the tourism industry.The minister is the first in a long time to heed the many calls from throughout the country for the industry to be reeled in and reset to be less harmful to the New Zealand environment and less costly to taxpayers and ratepayers. The minister made it very clear that he was looking ...

Churches and Charities

When is a church not a church and what does it matter to non-religious or non-Christian people?Most people, may not realise it but everyone who pay taxes or property rates is subsidising dozens of churches throughout the country which pay almost no taxes or local body rates and that subsidy potentially amounts to unquantified billions of dollars a year.Under the Local Government Rating Act (2002) Church property that is used for religious purposes are exempt from general rates but many will stil...

Racism and Equality

Some of the dust has settled, the election is over and we will have a new government soon. But how much will we remember of the many promises and warnings we heard during the campaign? Requests by some leaders for an end to what they call “race baiting” by candidates in the lead up to the general election need to be taken seriously if we are to avoid even more serious social divisions than we already have. New Zealand is not a racist country in the true sense of the term but, like ...

NZ general election 2020 results

“The tumult and shouting dies; The Captains and Kings depart: Still stands personal sacrifice, and humbled if uncontrite heart.” (with profound apologies to Rudyard Kipling for butchering his beautiful Recessional)The moving verse in the aftermath of war is also an apt description of the aftermath of last weeks general election and a battered but unbowed the National Party asking, “what went wrong?” Nothing went wrong and it is only a disaster if they let it be. Candidates and parties pr...

Maori Wards must be decided by ratepayers, not councils alone

While Hamilton City Council and the Taranaki Regional Council appear to be approaching the thorny issue of Maori Wards for local bodies from completely different positions, they are in fact both taking exactly the right course.The Taranaki Regional Council recently resolved to establish a Maori ward in time for the 2022 local body elections. Before making that decision, the regional council had the time to ask ratepayers what they thought of the idea. There was a disappointingly low response but...

Water and local body woes

Projected large scale changes in the near future to the way potable water is supplied to homes throughout the country should not have come as a surprise to anyone.Last week the Waipa District Council announced the possibility of spending millions of dollars on water system upgrades, then being forced to hand them over to a new Government entity to own and manage. All local authorities in the country are in the same position and they have known this was coming since the Government announced in 20...

Last year was a pass. We have much to be proud of.

Looking back over the past 12 months there is much to be proud of and just a little to intensely dislike about us Kiwis. Reflection is something we like to do in the aftermath of Christmas indulgence which some of us resolve never to repeat but mostly fail. Considering what fate threw at us last year and how we responded we can congratulate ourselves for being a nation of genuinely good people with only a few disappointing exceptions. Early in the year, when the deadly Covid-19 appeared on the w...

The dangers of race-based co-governance

In his opinion piece on co-governance, published in the mainstream media on June 26, Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon, suggests it is a way to “lift up Maori, empower Tangata Whenua at the decision-making table.”Significantly my local newspaper declined to publish this counter argument, an indicator that our mainstream media are no longer as professionally objective as have we a right to expect.Firstly all people born in New Zealand are rightly Tangata Whenua (natives of the land) witho...

Tokenism

Former Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan made what could be one of the most important and logical comments about the use of Te Reo Maori in official documents I have heard in a very long time.In the last few days before she stepped down from the role to taken her new position as Justice Minister, a flurry of emails from within the department seemed to suggest she had given an instruction to the effect that Te Reo Maori was not to be used in official documents unless it was a greeting or a sig...

Guns and Gangs

Like her government’s policies at home or not, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is at her brilliant best on the international stage. The standing ovation which greeted her commencement speech to Harvard University, in which she touched on gun violence and the dangers of an unregulated internet, was genuine and prolonged and she also received a rare honorary degree from the university.Her meeting with United States President Joe Biden went well over time and they reaffirmed the long-standing close...

Threats to Democracy

The strength and durability of democracy is totally reliant on the right of groups and individuals to hold a dissenting or minority opinion and the freedom to debate that opinion in public.While none of our rights or freedoms are absolute there should only be restrictions against defamation or advocating violence. Beyond those logical qualifications, muzzle that free debate, and the foundations of a free and open society start to crumble. We have seen that in some nations where negative comments...

Three Waters

The Water Services Entities Bill, the first of two Bills giving effect to the Government’s water services proposals, has been introduced to Parliament in the face of strong opposition from across the country.The unpopular and controversial project began with the catastrophic failure of a Havelock North wellhead in 2016 which resulted in the death of four people and 5000 people falling seriously ill. A year later a comprehensive report revealed that a significant number of public drinking water...

Separatism in New Zealand: Part Five; Ownership of Fresh Water and Beaches and consultation

Towards the end of more than forty years in front line journalism I became increasingly aware of the development of an informal duality of citizenship in New Zealand, the acceptance of that duality by community leaders and the long-term potential for dis-harmony and, in 1991, I wrote a rather long essay on my observations. This is the fifth and final part of that essayOwnership of Fresh Water and Beaches and consultationThe Foreshore and SeabedThe Foreshore and Seabed debate should have been con...

Separatism in New Zealand: Part Four; Maori in Central and Local Government

Towards the end of more than forty years in front line journalism I became increasingly aware of the development of an informal duality of citizenship in New Zealand, the acceptance of that duality by community leaders and the long-term potential for dis-harmony and, in 1991, I wrote a rather long essay on my observations. This is the fourth part of that essayMaori in Central and Local GovernmentMaori seats in Parliament were established by Maori Representation Act 1867 and there were originally...

Separatism in New Zealand: Part Three; Treaty Partnership

Towards the end of more than forty years in front line journalism I became increasingly aware of the development of an informal duality of citizenship in New Zealand, the acceptance of that duality by community leaders and the long-term potential for dis-harmony and, in 1991, I wrote a rather long essay on my observations. This is the third part of that essayTreaty PartnershipIn 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was not a contract between two peoples Maori and Pakeha. It was a contract between some Ma...

Separatism in New Zealand: The Insidious Development of Separatism in New Zealand: Part One

From the time I started in journalism in 1963 I have seen a number of changes in the social structure of New Zealand and not all of them have been positive. Journalism wasn’t the only occupation I tried my hand at but in those early days of my writing career, most of our training was “on the job” in the newsroom and it could be a brutal training ground for the inattentive student. I was however fortunate to have a number of highly skilled and patient mentors who taught me how to obser...

Tolerance

Are we losing our tolerance for the dissenting opinion? By world standards we New Zealanders are a very tolerant lot. We might grumble and even get a little outraged at what other people write, say or do if we disagree with them. However, provided they are within the law and don’t advocate illegality, we are usually prepared to let people express a different opinion.The cancellation of a venue booking last year in Hamilton by a so-called conspiracy theorist group, on a national speaking tour c...

Cool It

The reported anger of property investors at the Government’s new housing policies, announced last week, is mis-directed at best. Under the new law any owner who sells a property that is not their family home within 10 years of purchase after today will pay tax on the profit. That could be as high as 39 per cent, depending on other income and the amount of the profit.In reality we now have a capital gains tax in drag and it would have been much easier to simply do that from the outset without ...

Lattes to Orchard Ladders

Constant calls from the tourism industry to open New Zealand’s border with Australia seem to be drowning out several other more important calls.The first call the tourism industry appears not be hearing from the Government is that we must remain vigilant to keep Covid-19 out of the country. We might have a world class system in place to keep the community safe from possible infection from people returning to New Zealand from overseas but that is far from error proof. Requiring new arrivals to ...

Open Season

Early this morning (May 1) several thousand gamebird hunters would have set out on their annual pilgrimage to swamps and wetlands with a gun and a dog in search of waterfowl. Others would have taken to the hills and valleys seeking wily pheasant and quail. The annual gamebird season is as much a part of our folk lore as horse racing and rugby and usually opens on the first Saturday in May. A rare exception was last year when the opening weekend was delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions. Most hunt...

Is ANZAC a nostalgic dream?

The so-called trans-Tasman relationship, which we will commemorate next Sunday on Anzac Day, has never been more abused than it is now. While the somewhat idealistic brotherhood in arms tradition was established by a previous generation on the bloody slopes of Gallipoli more than a century ago, there is now a new conflict festering beneath the surface which is raising temperatures and tempers on both side of the Tasman.When we closed our borders to international visitors a year ago, in response ...

When traditions prevent common sense

A couple of weeks ago, following an unseemly bout of infantile intolerance over the use of te reo Maori at a Grey Power meeting, I asked in this column if we had become a little too sensitive about the differences between Maori and non-Maori social and cultural norms.It had been suggested, in a Grey Power newsletter, that Opotiki District councillor Louis Rapihana had insulted those at the meeting who did not understand what he said in a Maori karakia or prayer to open the meeting. The two parti...

A virus is not deterred by bishops or anybody else

It has been a long and difficult year since the first nationwide lockdown to take Covid-19 out of the community and keep the deadly virus confined to managed isolation facilities.The economic cost for many has been enormous, the social cost for others has been devastating, a few have lost family members but many have had only minor inconveniences. Overall, through hard work, outstanding leadership and a huge amount of luck we have, so far, avoided a major catastrophe the likes of which have shat...

Unwritten social rules evade Bridges

he many laws, rules and regulations which govern our lives can be seen as a measure of our uncertainty. In effect, if we are certain about what we should or should not do, we do not need laws to direct us. It is only when we are unsure that we need laws to direct us. It is only the dishonest or the stupid who defy certainty or the law. In an increasingly complex, uncertain and risky world we have a seemingly endless flow of new dictums to observe in our daily lives. We can only expect that to in...

Citizenship Ructions and a Rabbit

In a world of angry and sometimes fearful people shouting past each other over all manner of real and imagined problems it is refreshing to get a glimpse of the softer, friendlier, side of humanity.Lately we have been awash with news about the disorganised and tragic international response to one of the deadliest pandemics in recent history, the astonishing antics of a deluded world leader and his flood of blatant lies and the unseemly shoulder shoving over female speaking rights at Waitangi and...