Well well. Winston’s gone with Labour. I do not blame him. National may have the country running sweetly $ wise but what about the rest of the undemocratic policy they were getting up to. Out going Minister of Treaty Settlements Mr. Finlayson said he is confident that there will be no change to the process path way given the x party agreement in place. Here is hoping there is.
Labour picked up all the Maori seats ,and I commented on this last post. Today I read Muriel Newman’s latest Breaking Views Blog. One post is of significance. Tribal Control of NZ’s Coast. Yes . All the subject was aired way back when all this nonsense first came to light. Maori to have customary title to all NZ’s coast line. 600 claims. Had to be in by September this yr. The claims include air space, water, soil, bed rock and minerals. Thought it had gone away? It appears it is a result from Nationals disastrous Marine and Coastal Area Act. This was a consequence of a Court of Appeal decision in 2003 from which then Labour Govt legislated for Crown Ownership in the 2004 Fore Shore and Sea Bed Act, but left the door open for customary Claims??. A over sight? Not on your nellie. Just making it look alright. The only Politician to campaign for, was Hone Harawera Leader of the Mana Party ,and look what happened to him. Stating Maori want control of the Coast Line. Stolen from Maori.
Willy Jackson, now head of the Maori Caucus in the Labour Govt claims that NZ and esp. Maori have moved on from the Sea Bed and Fore Shore debacle. Calling it waffle. And as I stated in my last blog ,that is why Maori voters deserted Hone and the Maori Party. Mr. Jackson stated that we will never do that Sea Bed and Fore Shore stuff. Really. If that is true then it will be a big Flip Flop number One. What did Mr. Peters have to concede to over turn that? Wondering what I am talking about. The Iwi Authorities advertised their claims in all the major Daily’s and esp. this yr. Yes it is all there. And no media interest. My view. Successive Govts are deliberately selling NZ down the Brown drain and into Maori activists hands. If Mr. Peters and his team of NZ First Ministers are successful and over turn this nonsense once and for all then it will truly be a Govt fit for future purpose.
Next big Flip Flop was all this environmental garbage that Labour got up to during the election campaign really bagging agriculture. A horrible environmental degrading industry all NZer’s could do with out. Really. Here we had Winston Peters on TV One Thursday night the 19th Oct. Our policy closet to Labour. Trying times ahead for exporters. Need to protect our Regional Economy’s. Thus NZ’s?? Oh my god. These people are all over the place. But we are still going to see 1.2 billion trees planted. But now it will be on unused Maori land, the DoC estate and areas planted voluntarily on private land. It is 1.2 million hec’s. And we have John Diamond ,a scientist at Land Care Research commenting on Stuff .Co Jan last yr or there about saying as much as 2 million hecs are better off in trees. It is a huge area. The size of Horizon’s Regional Council’s area. Carbon, whispers of the cap on carbon being lifted, and my mind is blown. If it heads towards $5o a ton it will create havoc for consumers, creating inflation, raising interest rates, and labour unrest as demands for increased wages abound in the work place. But who is the speculator driving it? For it is a speculator and it is my view it is for political reasons being Treaty Settlements. For extremists within Maori not only want the Sea Bed and Foreshore, they want it all. Land and Water, including every thing above and below. Both Political Party’s were giving it to them. If NZ First has managed to stop the process then they will be God.
We will know soon enough. Both Ecan and Horizons Regional Council are up against it with their unrealistic “Unlawful Plans”. Lake Ellimere is Ecans. The Council has told then National Govt that to meet the N target of 3 ppm N would destroy the catchment economy. Take out $300 million from the local economy reducing agricultural activity to the equivalent of 1/2 a sheep per hec, driving business directly and indirectly involved to the wall causing massive social dislocation.
Horizons are in between a rock and prison. Horizons own economic study By Neilds and Rhodes (2010) puts the $ figure at $480 million Region wide leading to the same result. I covered this in my comments of Horizons Strat and Pol report 17-143, 09 August 2017. Item 8. This only includes Dairy. What about the 1.2 million hecs of hill country both Govts want in trees. This huge. Most people can not comprehend the out come. For it is the hill country of the central Nth Is, that restocks the East Coast region after drought. Plant it up and that will be the end of the sheep and beef industry as it is now. A scientist I used to know once told me. And quite frankly, Mike, Govt wants to get NZ Agriculture back to a local trade type industry. Imagine that. How many people in NZ.. Was that the reason for Nationals goal of $6 million residents by 2030? I will say that Labour now claims that 1/2 of them are already planted or are to be planted on land not replanted? Now as you and I probably no, a lot of dairy farms are now operating on land once in trees. Are they to be reconverted?. Only adds to the concerns I and others have to the integrity of the election process. If politicians are prepared to make such claims/statements/promises to get elected, just what are they prepared to do when in power?
Regional Councils are being used as the vehicle to achieve. Both Govts are deliberately circumventing the Local Govt Act sec 10, taking the Local and Democratic out of decision making at Local Govt level. Removing it to face less politicians in Regional Governance. People who are sitting there nodding their heads, eating their lunch and holding out their hands on Wednesday. If they are really good puppy dogs they get really well paid.
MMP. The Media last month was really taking the stick to MMP. Sick needing to be fixed? I say that MMP is a political tool to put a democratic face on extremist Maori demands . Create MMP. Create a Maori Party. Both go hand in hand with previous acts of Parliament. I have described them all in previous blogs, including Dianne Cringles take on the MfE discussion document Ideas for Reforming sec 6 of the RMA. It is all there.
I went the Rabo Banks annual meet and greet in Taumarunui just before we left. One guest speaker was their Environmental Lawyer . He made the statement after expressing the Banks views on Govts environmental aspirations for Agriculture. Banks are concerned. Expect a legal challenge. I was confronted with the same concerns expressed by a previous bank client services manager we once had from the BNZ when I went to the Tekuiti Farmers meeting late last yr over the Waikato Regional Councils Regional Plan. Wanted to know all I knew. Talked of organizing a presentation with Bank senior management. Asked if I would be available. I know he tried but somebody squashed it.
I was reading the NZX Farmers Weekly 2 weeks ago. 43 pages of farms for sale. Mostly Dairy. One commentator suggested it was a sign of positivity in the sector. I beg to differ. A sign of desperation on the vendors part and I can only see land values plummet. Yes 43 pages. Never seen any thing like it.
Jacinda . Past President of the International Union of Socialist Youth. Hmm.
Got heaps more I wanted to talk about, Doug Edmeads has concluded , somewhat belatedly, that science has become designer driven, thus corrupted. I tried to arrange a meeting a yr or 2 ago to express my concerns about the same but alas he did not want to no or no me , but better late than never.
Catch ya.