Posts by Che Tibby
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thats' the thing. a separate house would be just, too, "big". if you had territorial separation it would work, but new zealand is too interwoven for the scots-style self-determination to work. the intermediating agencies and subsequent issues between the two houses would bloat under bureaucracy, you'd have petty empire-building, blah blah blah.
a freaking nightmare.
plus, it runs contrary to the treaty. because,
article one = "one sovereign". check.
article two = "maori take care of their own". check.
article three = "equal rights under the sovereign" . check.the trouble is determining what interests maori have, how to ensure they are able to exercise their rights over those interests, and how to ensure this doesn't impinge on the rights of the majority as guaranteed under article three.
my own opinion is that smaller is better. things like distinct and targeted maori health care are ideal. they're something owed to everyone (all new zealanders have the right to decent health care), but can be delivered in a "maori way" to maori. self-determination.
then you also need maori education (which we have), a maori economy (which we have, and is growing annually), etc.
it's self-determination without the expensive travel budgets and bloated egos.
the seats fit in because they are the places most likely to return maori representatives to assist in the construction of the agencies.
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i for one am sick of being an international investor's cash cow... i'm putting all i can into kiwisaver.
re: sovereignty. it is possible. the main hurdle is mainstream fear that maori self-determination is a step towards "separatism".
when you explain that in practice it takes the form of radical ideas like "maori wardens", and, "marae committees" they wonder where the self-determination went, and why all the fuss is being made.
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no worries. that cameron one is a bit of a moot point. sure, 8 hours bombardment, but a decent general would send in pickets, and not march in column into an crossfire...
sovereignty is a tricky one, mostly based on definition.
i think there's a strong argument that what the scots have is 'self-determination'. the difference being that self-determination is enjoyed *inside* the overall sovereignty of great britain.
sovereignty is effectively a zero-sum game. it's always associated with nation-state status, cannot really be shared, and is guaranteed to split a country.
self-determination within a sovereign state is something a nation like the scots, or maori, could enjoy without upsetting the apple-cart. but what makes this model possible in scotland, quebec, catalonia etc is that they have a clearly-defined territory to tie the self-determination to.
maori don't. so... political theorists aren't sure how to manage it... that said, and potential gerrymander aside, the maori seats are a start and a bit of a case-study in self-determination in comprehensively intermixed national populations.
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i was confused as well. imperial and colonial commanders walking blind into traps in the land wars wasn't so much the exception as the norm.
gate pa being the example par excellence. cameron was, without doubt, an idiot.
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<quiet voice>rob... titokowaru and te kooti were involved in fighting the settlers after the creation of the seats</quiet voice>
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2linger n' kyle: what merc said.
we might need to distinguish between the land wars and the creation of the seats.
the land wars were a direct response by the settlers to the formation of the king movement. kingites wouldn't sell land, the settlers were "a bit annoyed" by this, and forced guv. george grey to invade the waikato. after the raupatu ("land confiscations"), sporadic warfare occurred across the north island until it was finally supressed in the 1880s.
i'd had to carefully check my history of the maori seats, but they were patronisingly extended in the the wake of the defeat of the kingites. i'm remembering that they weren't something maori were actually asking for, just something they had foisted on them.
and despite producing some great leaders they weren't all that meaningful until MMP. which is coincidently around the time that the most vociferious opposition to them started being heard.
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got it. "sop" and "rights" aren't the same thing.
the only rights maori had in the aftermath of the land wars were those extended to other citizens. and these were precarious at the best of times.
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ben, the land wars didn't result in any rights.
you might remember a thing called raupatu.
i might also draw your attention to the 1967 Maori Affairs Amendment Act.
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Don't you just love how thoroughly disobliging Maori are?
heh. absolutely.
i demonstrated in my thesis that maori "representative groups" (and aboriginal people) had a clearly identifiable and consistent set of demands of colonial governments from the time respective settlement/invasion onwards.
it wasn't until the majority liberalised in the 1960s/70s that these demands started to be *listened to*.
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and linger and rosie are right.
another interesting factiod is that maori were denied secret ballot until 1938...
and reading keith's comments further, the "few and dispersed" bit is also outright wrong.
and i agree with neil. the situation for maori without the maori seats would be far worse, taking into account that they were effectively ignored by all and sundry until the 1970s.