Posts by Idiot Savant
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
All I know is he'd better curtsey at his upcoming meeting with Betty Windsor - or else!
I thought bowing and scraping to our feudal "masters" went out around the same time as the invention of the Guillotine?
-
This symbol has been used for both the left and right over time, from the Romans to the New Zealand Municipalities Co-operative Insurance Company Limited, later Civic Insurance. The Fascio adorns the old Municipal Buiding in Auckland City.
And we have them in our Parliament - IIRC they have some as wall decorations in the old Legislative Council chamber.
-
Has any reporter ever questioned the "half a million" budget?
No. They're too busy investigating a bloody chicken.
-
The four million New Zealanders elect the government known as the "crown" and are hence party to the treaty, just as the eighteen million Brits were in 1840.
One million. In 1840 the UK was a long way from universal suffrage, and only 20% of the adult male population could vote.
Nitpicking aside: the Treaty is certainly subject to ongoing consent, as is any political arrangement or constitutional document (the social contract is an ongoign arrangement). And its worth noting that every NZ government in recent memory has consented to it. Whether this is a sign of popular consent or a failure of representation I guess depends on whether you are a racist or not.
-
So anything we may have once deemed legally/socially/ethically useful as a society needs to be ignored once it passes some nebulous, agreed-upon use-by date? Like yoghurt?
Except its not agreed upon - its simply asserted by people with an axe to grind.
-
wondered whether either the Crown or iwi signatories intended to (or even could) extinguish this particular aboriginal title in the process of signing their Treaty, which granted new, explicit rights.
Yes, they could have, but no, they didn't. And the rights were neither new, nor granted, but rather affirmed - in the same way as done by the BORA.
-
The idea that the specific articles of the treaty of Waitangi could still apply to him and - hopefully - his descendants at that time would be a functional absurdity.
Why?
People are quite happy to live under the shadow of old documents. The US Constitution was written in 1789; they're still happy with it. We still recognise the Magna Carta, signed in 1215 (though the version in our law is a later re-enactment), plus of course the Bill of Rights 1688.
If you hate the Treaty, you should at least have the guts to say so openly and honestly. But this idea that "in the future it will be irrelevant" fools no-one.
-
Edit: I see your snap and add my own.
And, in a slightly different form: Prendergast is dead. Get over it.
(Yes, I have a hate on for Prendergast. He ranks high on my shitlist of worst ever New Zealanders)
-
Could the Crown and its fellow signatories have extinguished existing title in the foreshore and seabed when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and its various rights were granted?
By mutual agreement between crown and iwi? Of course - just as they could have not guaranteed the rights of iwi to their taonga, or to the rights of British citizens. But it would have been a very different Treaty had they done so.
If so, were they in error not to have done so?
No, at least not in the historical context of the actual Treaty. Regardless of your view on kawanatanga vs te tino rangitiratanga, what the Treaty primarily did was transfer some kind of sovereignty. Property rights remained intact, both as a clause in the Treaty, and (more important in a strict legal sense) as an underlying doctrine of common law. If it was owned by Maori, that ownership was unaffected by the Treaty, just as the ownership of houses in New Orleans was unaffected by the Louisiana Purchase - something the courts were willing to enforce, at least until Prendergast.
In 1840, no-one cared about the beaches. The absence of a clause giving them to the crown is thus entirely unremarkable, and not any sort of "mistake".
-
DPF was right on this - Labour did not need to panic and legislate, it could have panicked and appealed, and left legislation a year or so down the track (and un-rushed).
Of course, back in July 2003 DPF was supporting Bill English's call for immediate legislation, and urging exactly what he is now decrying...