Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Asking the next question

Public Address

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:39:14 +1200

Discussion from blog post.

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:39:14 +1200

I make the same mistake every time ... comments now on.

BenWilson

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:44:24 +1200

"Have you done criminal background checks into all of your people? Is there anything in there that you'd like to share with the public now, rather than in 2 years time?"

Damian Christie

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:58:33 +1200

"When you said your leadership would lift ACT's polling into 'double figures', did you realise that '2' is not a double figure?"

BenWilson

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:21:22 +1200

Who would have thought Brash thinks in binary?

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:35:59 +1200

"Why? In the name of all the Gods, why?"

Danyl Mclauchlan

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:52:39 +1200

Mine would be something like, 'When you speak about race issues you ask the public to accept that you're acting in good faith, and not race-baiting or 'playing the racist card'. Yet you surround yourself with candidates and staffers who repeatedly make comments that speak the language of racism and?

Matthew Poole

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:00:22 +1200

?If 30 years of trickle-down economics have failed to trickle sufficiently to raise Maori from the bottom of most socio-economic measurement scales, what do you propose to do to improve their lot while not enacting policies that do more for one particular ethnic group than any other??

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:13:37 +1200

If I could hazard an answer, it?s that ACT basically dislike democracy (see this blog from a Libertarian as to why), believing it to be a means by which the unworthy masses steal from the overclass.

Given that, any subterfuge to gain power is justified, and if that means being?

David Hood

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:19:10 +1200

?If 30 years of trickle-down economics have failed

Unfortunately, the answer would be "that was not a proper free market" leading to one of the three inevitable answers
a) More deregulation
b) Get tough on crime
c) Don't let the brown people take your stuff (there is overlap between b?

James Butler

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:33:35 +1200

My question would be something like- Is there any level of empirical evidence that would cause you to change your mind on this? If so, what?

Brash has repeatedly claimed that he changed his mind from an orthodox "social democrat" perspective to his later right-leaning views __based on empirical evidence__?

BenWilson

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:50:17 +1200

Unfortunately, the answer would be "that was not a proper free market" leading to one of the three inevitable answers

That was my thinking, and Graeme's question is still a good one (do you sometimes cross- examine, Graeme?) – you should never ask a question that gives the person a?

ScottY

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:52:18 +1200

My question would be this: Which version of the Treaty of Waitangi are you relying upon when trying to justify your "one law for all" policy? The one in Maori that most chiefs signed, or the English one? And did you also bother to read Articles I and II of?

Sacha

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:35:26 +1200

Yeah, I was going to suggest "how do Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the Treaty relate to one another?"

B Jones

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:49:32 +1200

Back in the Orewa day, someone asked him that, and he said he was familiar with both versions, and also the Littlewood one. The latter is a draft or translation discovered in 1992 that nobody actually signed, but which nevertheless gets the Maori Weren't Here First crowd very excited because?

Idiot Savant

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:57:24 +1200

B Jones

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:22:07 +1200

Don't ask me, it's a conspiracy. Doesn't have to make sense, only that the Truth is being Covered Up by Vested Interests.

It's very helpful as a shibboleth for redneckery, anyway.

Islander

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:37:44 +1200

There is good evidence that it's actually a back-translation of the Maori into English. There is, I understand, a line that has rednecks/Martin Doutre et al squeeing, that the land et al is not only for "the chiefs & tribes of New Zealand" but also for "and the people (of New?

ScottY

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:40:51 +1200

I don't understand. Why is a draft that no-one actually signed important?

The fact that you find it strange how someone could be legally bound by something they never saw, never signed and in any case couldn?t read just goes to show how much damage the Maori radicals have done?

Islander

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:48:14 +1200

Heh!

dave crampton

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:18:12 +1200

Bugger. I saw Brash on Friday. Wish I had read this earlier...

Russell Brown

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:19:37 +1200

I?d ask about the process behind this.

By what process were these ads created and approved?

Were they solely the work of the guy you?ve now fired?

Who else was involved?

Who wrote the press releases in your name?

Did you read them before they went out?

And you didn?t?

Angus Robertson

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:21:24 +1200

The Maori Party is radical free, now that Hone has left. Only respectable Maori leaders in it nowadays.

Susan Snowdon

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:16:53 +1200

The Maori Party is radical free
Is that because of the anti-oxidants?

DeepRed

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:55:04 +1200

The Maori Party is radical free, now that Hone has left. Only respectable Maori leaders in it nowadays.

By 'respectable', did you really mean 'brown table'?

Susannah Shepherd

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:00:31 +1200

It's a variant on previous questions, but mine would be:

If you entered into a contractual arrangement and the other party decided to ignore the clauses in the contract that protected your interests, but still demanded you honour the clauses that protected their interests, would you agree and comply? If?

Ken Sparks

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:21:06 +1200

Dear Dr Brash – why are you so annoying?

Ken Sparks

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:23:07 +1200

Oh – and irrelevant?

Sacha

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:31:59 +1200

Brilliant

Susannah Shepherd

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:42:42 +1200

Sadly, the answer of the Brashes of this world will be:
– (on a good day) it's all too long ago and completely irrelevant
– (on a bad day) savages can't enter into a contract

Susannah Shepherd

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:59:51 +1200

And, on the subject of those having a bad day, I thought the best response to John Ansell's views on us silly women was from a blunt-speaking female colleague: "I might find this offensive if I wasn't laughing so fucking hard."

Sacha

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:01:59 +1200

I'd like to see a journalist try that one, nonetheless. Answer almost doesn't matter.

Steven Price

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:03:01 +1200

Dr Brash was finally, this morning, asked about Article 2 of the Treaty. He said it was about Maori giving up sovereignty and receiving property rights protection. The follow-ups:
1. The thing Maori gave up was "kawanatanga". Who translates this as sovereignty? Isn't sovereignty a nearer translation to the thing?

Sacha

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:03:04 +1200

"I might find this offensive if I wasn't laughing so fucking hard."

They're deeply embarrassing silly old men.
Must be a pasture somewhere..

Islander

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:08:45 +1200

Or a swamp-

Ken Sparks

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:30:32 +1200

Swamp? – luxury!

Matthew Littlewood

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:43:27 +1200

And the Littlewood Treaty ? it must be a contender for the highest average level of lunacy per item of correspondence to Ministers?

Can I just say that my family has nothing to do with this particular "Littlewood Treaty". In fact I didn't even know about it until this evening.?

Moz

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:26:14 +1200

"bound by something they never saw, never signed and couldn't read"

Ah, so you know about software EULA's then.

I don't see why those conditions have any bearing on whether that particular document is binding. Our modern legal system has moved beyond those constraints. We have also moved beyond needing?

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:47:30 +1200

By entering this room you cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty ....

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:55:04 +1200

1. The thing Maori gave up was ?kawanatanga?. Who translates this as sovereignty? Isn?t sovereignty a nearer translation to the thing they were promised they could keep ? rangatiratanga?

I wouldn't have thought that rangatiratanga translated particularly well as sovereignty at all.

Hugh Kawharu's translation of the Maori text translates?

Sacha

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:09:19 +1200

This is not backed by any research or reading on my part, but could Maori signatories have thought that the then-current role of the Chiefs and the Governor were being talked about? That is, rangatiratanga is all the stuff chiefs do and kawanatanga is what the governor does.

You can?

Andre Alessi

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:15:23 +1200

You can imagine some potential for surprise when the latter turned out to mean ?flogs your land?.

I wonder how long it'll be before Dr Brash demands Maori thank Tau Iwi for introducing them to lawyers and lawyering. (No offense intended to present company, naturally.)

Sacha

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:23:59 +1200

Space-age lawyering, naturally

B Jones

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:30:20 +1200

One persuasive argument I read, and damned if I can cite it years after the fact, was that Maori knowledge of kawanatanga would have been referenced to the Bible, which had for years been taught to Maori by missionaries, and had examples like Pontius Pilate and Caesar.

Paul Rowe

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:42:24 +1200

The Maori Party is radical free, now that Hone has left. Only respectable Maori leaders in it nowadays.

Define 'respectable'. Perhaps a leader who did not lead the illegal occupation of public property to advance a claim before the Waitangi Tribunal, like Tariana Turia? I imagine she is still (rightly)?

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:24:48 +1200

could Maori signatories have thought that the then-current role of the Chiefs and the Governor were being talked about? That is, rangatiratanga is all the stuff chiefs do and kawanatanga is what the governor does.

Yes, but I would note that prior to the Treaty, we wouldn't have had a?

Sacha

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:31:15 +1200

prior to the Treaty, we wouldn't have had a governor

good point

Islander

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:46:03 +1200

Well, I initially thought of a fumerole but-
swamp has more bitey life in it...

Islander

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:21:45 +1200

I?m away from my Maori library so cant quote from anything except that very useful little compendium of pamphlets published by the State Services Commission in 2006:

?"Maori who signed had clear expectations of how the new covenant with the Crown would bring benefits. There would be a sharing of?

Islander

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:28:05 +1200

We did, however, have a Lieutenant- Governor...

Susannah Shepherd

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:09:57 +1200

Can I just say that my family has nothing to do with this particular ?Littlewood Treaty?.

I don't blame you for putting some distance between you and its proponents, although it seems there'd be no shame in a family link to the original Mr Littlewood.

I do find it sad,?

Russell Brown

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:52:58 +1200

"Mr Brash, do you agree with your new candidate, Don Nicolson, that emissions trading schemes are a secret plot concocted by the United Nations and persons unknown to rob wealth from developed countries?

"And if so, how would you explain the call from the 23 large multinational corporations that form?