Posts by Ewan Morris
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This may be of interest - the Law Commission on alcohol legislation and the conscience vote
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Thanks for this, Terence. What I find particularly depressing is the fact that the media have almost entirely ignored McCully's destruction of our aid programme. When the former Director of NZAID (an ex-diplomat, and not one to speak out in such strong terms without very good cause) writes a column severely criticising McCully's changes to the aid programme, you would think that this would make the news, wouldn't you? But in fact it hardly caused a ripple. Something to cover in Media 7 perhaps, Russell?
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Harawira is specifically framing his statement as a rebuttal to what "non-Maori" say about Bin Laden. He's pretty close to presenting what he says as a Maori perspective there, isn't he?
I've translated "tauiwi" as non-Maori, but perhaps in the context it would be better to translate it as people who are not of Osama bin Laden's iwi (whatever that might be). I don't pretend to know exactly what Hone Harawira was trying to say, but I would suggest that he was drawing a contrast between how bin Laden had been portrayed in the West generally and how he was viewed by his own people. Again, I'm not trying to defend what he said, because the very best interpretation you can place on it was that he was dangerously ambiguous about what he thought of bin Laden, and you certainly can read his statement as supporting the view that bin Laden was some kind of freedom fighter.
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Just for the record, this is my transcription and translation of the most relevant part of the interview with Hone Harawira on Te Karere. I have no wish to defend his comments, but I think we should be accurate about exactly what he said.
Scotty Morrison: ...engari, he tangata whawhai mo te tino rangatiratanga o tona iwi, ne ra? Mo ona whakapono?
[...but he was a person who fought for the tino rangatiratanga of his people, wasn't he? For his beliefs?]
Hone Harawira: Ae, ahakoa nga korero a tauiwi, e mohio ana, e tangi ana tona whanau i tenei ra, tona hapu, tona iwi, ki tenei tangata e tu ana, e whawhai ana mo tona ake tino rangatiratanga, mo tona ake whenua, mo tona ake iwi, te iwi taketake o reira.
[Yes, despite what non-Maori have said, his family, tribe and people are mourning today for this person who is standing up and fighting for his tino rangatiratanga, for his land, for his people, the indigenous people of that place.] -
Russell, do we really have a "rush of misguided Maori sentiment" in memory of Osama Bin Laden? Yes, we have Hone Harawira and Ranginui Walker, who are two very prominent Maori. Perhaps we have Willie Jackson, although I haven't heard his views on the matter. Bomber Bradbury isn't Maori as far as I know. Aren't we really just talking about a few individuals, whose views have been disagreed with by other Maori?
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The curious thing about Hide's Bill is that almost no one, apart from the Act Party and the Business Round Table, actually seems to want it. Even a paper written for the conservative Maxim Institute has come out against it.
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Does Mohamed ElBaradei really have a "pivotal role" in events in Egypt? Or is he just a suitably West-friendly figure for the Western media to focus on?
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Graeme:
It's not listed in their process for complaining
Yes it is:
12.In those cases where the circumstances suggest that the complainant may have a legally actionable issue, the complainant will be required to provide a written undertaking that s/he will not take or continue proceedings against the publication or journalist concerned.
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This section of Waitangi Tribunal report summarises the mainly 19th century history behind the iwi residing in the greater Wellington region in the 1840s - all is clear ;-)
That was a background report before the Tribunal completed its inquiry - you can read some relevant sections of the actual Tribunal report here and here. And Ian Wards's book The Shadow of the Land, which is one of the sources Witi Ihimaera does acknowledge in The Trowenna Sea, is also worth reading on the Wellington war.
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it is not just the Tasmania part of the story, nor the Whanganui links that need to be told. Few Wellington and Hutt locals know about the injustices that happened in the Hutt Valley.
True - yet, bizarrely, the fighting that Hohepa Te Umuroa was said to have taken part in, and for which he was transported to Tasmania, is about to be commemorated in the name of a Lower Hutt golf club: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/hutt-news/4031143