Mana: Key set for hostile Waitangi reception

Posted by karere under Maori News

The Mana Party is warning Prime Minister John Key will get a hostile reception at Waitangi this weekend as anger among Maori grows over the potential removal of Treaty rights and cutbacks at the Maori Affairs Ministry, Te Puni Kokiri.

Mana spokesman Malcolm Mulholland said this morning Key was walking into “a perfect storm”.

It follows concern from Maori that the Government wants to remove Section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act, which requires the Crown to act in a manner consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi, from new legislation to enact its plans to partially sell four state-owned energy companies.

There has also been anger from Maori this week at news 50 jobs would be lost at Te Puni Kokiri.

“No government is their right mind would want those two pieces of news breaking in the lead up to Waitangi Day,” Mulholland said.

“It’s terrible timing, it couldn’t be any worse.”

Waitangi Day was often a lightening rod for Maori grievances and Maori protests, he said.

Former National leader Don Brash was pelted with mud in 2004 over his one law for all policy and Key was assaulted in 2009.

“I don’t expect this year to be any different,” Mulholland said.

Mulholland said the Government had underestimated how important Section 9 was to Maori.

It was inserted during Rogernomics following an acrimonious time between the Government and Maori who were concerned asset sales then would damage future Treaty settlements.

“It was a turning point and a major victory for Maori.”

If there was one piece of legislation most Maori were aware of in terms of Treaty rights it was the State Owned Enterprises Act.

“So (the Prime Minister) has severely underestimated Maori feeling on that issue.

“Most Maori in the country will say ‘that is our Treaty right, we have gone to court and fought this and won’.”

Key has promised to raise the issue at Waitangi this weekend, saying there was a lot of misunderstanding over the issue and he wanted to explain the Government’s position to iwi leaders.

He has said he wants to make it clear he was not walking away from the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty.

The Government will next week begin nationwide hui to consult three options for Maori on Section 9: to retain it, scrap it or change it so it relates only to the Crown, not private shareholders.

However Key has said Section 9 could not apply to partly privatised power companies and would be difficult to interpret.

Mulholland said the round of consultation would “certainly be met with some hostility as well”.

[source]

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