The recent report that the new Auckland Council had pushed through a budget of $3.43 million to fund an unelected Maori Statutory Board for Auckland is a disgrace. Mayor Len Brown and his Council should hang their heads in shame.
So too, should Local Government Minister Rodney Hide and Prime Minister John Key who let it happen, despite earlier protestations that there would not be separate racial representation on the Auckland Council.
The new Council’s allocation of ratepayers’ money to unelected people to play games with engaging and reporting to the Maori community, researching the wellbeing of Maori when 101 other publicly funded agencies are doing the same, brings shame on every councillor who was party to the rushed decision.
With nearly $1 million allocated for staff costs that are not explained, Hide and Key must immediately turn their minds to legislating a satisfactory arrangement for Maori advisory services to the new council.
A form of parallel Government by Maori who are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Auckland area, with an overwhelming number of them hailing from outside of the Council’s area, and therefore unable to claim tangata whenua status, cannot be tolerated by sane people.
Even if a majority of them were tangata whenua, no credible case can be made for what is occurring.
Promoting Separatism
What this National-led Government seems to be pushing is separatism within a country that has always thrown its small but significant strength in world forums against any form of apartheid.
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders marched in the streets 30 years ago against apartheid and the visit to New Zealand of a racially selected Springbok team. Today, many of those same marchers must be cringing in corners as Brown, who was elected by a majority of them, marches onwards toward parallel forms of Local Government one elected, and the other seemingly with a right to mail invoices for ratepayers’ money without any proper public scrutiny.
This process must be stopped in its tracks.
If Brown lacks the commonsense to understand that he has gone too far, then his Council must rethink the issue. Failing that, the responsibility lies with Central Government.
Scarp the Board
Three days after we celebrated the signing of the ‘Treaty of Waitangi’ that guaranteed Maori “the same rights and duties of citizenship” as the rest of us, we must pull back from this new arrangement being implemented by the Auckland Council. It clearly bestows special privileges on Maori and goes way beyond any reasonable interpretation of any Treaty obligations.
Editor’s Note: The Auckland Council backed down on the $3.43 million Board and trimmed its funding to $1.9 million and at press time, the Maori Statutory Board was taking legal action.
Michael Bassett has been Auckland City Councillor, Local Government Minister (1984-1990) and Member, The Waitangi Tribunal (1994-2004). The above article, which appeared in the New Zealand Centre for Political Research Website, has been reproduced here with the permission of the author and the Centre.
