Posts by Stephen Judd
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I keep hearing that but I don't actually believe it because all too often it seems to turn into "I'd be quite happy if someone else paid a lot more tax,
Please believe that my class interest and my conscience couldn't be more opposed.
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Thomas, reading your Stuff link, you seem to have omitted the very next sentence:
"He could look to just write out a cheque to IRD. They won't send it back, they'll bank it," Mr English said yesterday. Though Mr Morgan probably did earn some income and pay some tax, the Government needed to make the system fairer so people were paying their fair share of tax, particularly if they had invested in property, he said.
So I wouldn't be looking to Bill English to support your views.
I think we can all imagine scenarios where we want to help but will only do so if everyone else helps too, yes?
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Sorry, the Dompost needed the column inches on the front page today to explain Bob Jones' views on why rich people deserve the money.
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It's my understanding tuhoe accepted money from crown for lake waikaremoana 3 times, 1919, 1940 and then in the 60s or 70s.
Lake Waikaremoana
The Crown had been claiming ownership of Lake Waikaremoana even though the court had ruled the lake bed was not Crown property. As late as the 1950s the Crown was still seeking to claim ownership of the lake bed through the courts. The Crown still claims ownership of the water, something the Trust does not accept. In the 1950s the Crown changed tactics and tried to purchase the lake bed but Tūhoe refused.
Faced with the reality that the Crown would use its powers of compulsory acquisition Tūhoe agreed to lease the Lake. As the only Tūhoe-wide trust the Tūhoe-Waikaremoana Māori Trust Board was recognised by the Crown to negotiate. The Board refused the fixed term lease that the Crown had used for lakes such as Tarawera and insisted on a revaluation clause. This provision has proved very forward looking and the rental from the Lake is now a major earner for the Trust."
So yeah, your understanding doesn't seem to be correct. The Crown pays a lease that was negotiated under duress.
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I say let's slice the baby in half.
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Wasn't there such talk on some of the Operate 8 intercepts?
Possibly. I couldn't possibly speculate about that.
But first, no one was charged with treason, implying that there wasn't a sound case to be made, and second, that's not what Tom was talking about. Tom appeared to me to be saying that merely proposing to transfer sovereignty from some chunk of current NZ territory to another entity is "the very definition of treason."
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it's my understanding tuhoe accepted money from crown for lake waikaremoana 3 times, 1919, 1940 and then in the 60s or 70s.
Easy. If I owe you a million bucks, but I tell you all I'm going to give you is $100, take it or leave it, maybe you'd take it but keep coming back too. It's not a negotiation between equally powerful parties, so one solution for the weaker party is to keep chipping away.
Tom: get a grip on yourself, will you?
It is incredible that anyone would seriously put forward the idea that we as a nation could simply give away our territory to someone else to create a unitary state, and do so without a fight. It is, frankly, the very definition of treason to even advocate such a course of action.
In the first place, the context is preventing a festering grievance turning into violence. In the second place, treason is:
"Every one owing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—
(a) Kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to Her Majesty the Queen, or imprisons or restrains her; or
(b) Levies war against New Zealand; or
(c) Assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or
(d) Incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or
(e) Uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or
(f) Conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section."Advocating giving land to another entity is none of those things. Nor should it be, or we'd never be able to negotiate who owns a island or a chunk of ice shelf.
And anyway, what sort of nonsensical state would be created? One can hardly have any doubts that Tuhoe "sovereignty" would scarcely amount to much more than a cherry picking of what bits of the New Zealand state they would like to discard or keep; Most probably New Zealand would have to keep paying for the first world health, education and welfare expectations of Tuhoe, but obeying the laws of New Zealand? No thank you. We'll make up our own to suit ourselves.
I understand that you fear that, but that doesn't mean it needs to work out like that. I find it amusing that on the one hand you argue that Tuhoe sovereignty could never happen, but on the other you want to tell us how certain you are about how terrible it would be. We'll never fly to the moon, but when we do, the cheese will be delicious.
It may well never happen. We may well all end up happy with some different solution. I don't think it hurts to understand that it is an aspiration for some people and to think about why.
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Craig, taking your point about Auckland, are you saying that it would be wrong or unjust to give land back to Tuhoe because it's harder to do the same elsewhere?
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I think the angle from Tuhoe nationalists is that when you say "our growth as a nation", they would say they never belonged to that nation, and that their turf was never part of NZ, and that when you say "our lands", that's assuming something they dispute. Hence it's not ours to give, but theirs to hold.
It's good to have sovereignty back in the national conversation without the backdrop of violence.
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The Crown appears to be neglecting the land; Tuhoe would surely treasure it
A little whine about this.
One of the justifications often offered in the past for the alienation of Māori land is that the owners weren't cultivating it, or were letting it go to ruin, or whatever.
This is a very poor argument. If I own something, I own it whether or not you think you can make better use of it. It's conceivable that Tūhoe might want to clear-cut the whole park for timber and then farm it; or encourage deer and game in the bush for hunting; or some other activity that would offend the sensibilities of right-thinking people. That shouldn't affect their claim to ownership one bit.
The idea that they deserve to have their claims honoured because they would act better than the Crown is just other side of this kind of argument. It's appealing, but to allow this argument when it runs in Tūhoe's favour would be to justify expropriating or withholding land from Māori owners (or any others, for that matter) when we feel owners are neglecting their property.