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Waitangi Tribunal shows no sensitivity to Crown/majority on water ownership claim

  • August 24th, 2012

The Tribunal report no 1 is now on line. It is a comprehensive victory for the NZMC/rejection of the Crown case. On my first quick run through:

a) it is sound on the legal foundation for Maori claims to water ownership. They were promised effective ownership, albeit of a customary kind;

b) on the nature of the rights that should have been available if they had been pursued in time it seems sound;

c) it does not give weight to the factors in the law (even as they explain it) that would mean few of the current Maori claims should now be large in scope or value, so it leaves a misleading impression of their current significance. In the Tribunal's defence the Crown did not put those arguments properly if at all;

d) on the claimed legal  'nexus' between the water rights claim and the share sales it is weak in logic. To 'legal realists' though the Tribunal has responded to the tactical nexus. They've squarely put a challenge. It  means if the share sales proceed smoothly after this showdown the Maori legal bluff will have been called. If they do not, Maori constitutional power will have been reinforced under our conventions, which entrench 'what usually happens around here' as constitutional orthodoxy.

e) on the proposed remedy of giving claimants shares and special governance powers in generator companies, the Tribunal is mouthing off. It reinforces those who would palm off on Maori (to their detriment and that of all of us) rights that amount to little more than the power to irritate others. They strengthen the temptations to Maori leaders to elevate recently invented or resuscitated mysticism as a basis to demand feigned respect from pakeha and the state.  It comes in a world that is rapidly making such nonsense irrelevant to them and to us all as economic power shifts from us to peoples who regard such stuff as drivel.

So we have two constitutional courts (the Waitangi Tribunal, and the Supreme Court) neither of which show  the finesse and judgment shown by the US Supreme Court in the recent Obamacare judgment.

Instead of supporting centripetal pressures in our society, they both reinforce centrifugal forces as if they bore no responsibility for the outcomes. We reap the consequences of passing power to the flower power generation. They came to maturity thinking that diminishing the overmighty establishment and its institutions was a worthy life project. They've never realised how much it takes to maintain effective institutions and what an enormous and rare acheivement were those institutions built by our forebears, then thriving with little of the coercive machinery now struggling to maintain even courtesy, let alone routine honesty and incorruptibility. The current constitutional 'guardians'have yet to realise that they are now the establishment.. They will realise too late that they will fall together with the establishment if they would rather fly their culture wars colours than respect the instincts and beliefs of the ordinary majority on which democratic legitimacy depends.  

 So they sock it to the government the way they socked it to their parents.

Comments

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Steve
This is good until the end of (d), but then you change gear and lose any analytical force.  A curious open minded reader is likely to see (e) onwards as tangential and personal about an undefined group of people.  It detracts from the key points relating to the core issue.  
By contrast, your other blog today is tight, free of indulgent flagellation, and is therefore much more compelling.  Stick to the latter style – you'll change the views of more people.
Tony 

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I should have added – I don't think terms like "venality" in the headline of your other blog are helpful.  Better to keep the language crisp and unloaded, and let good analysis and clear ideas speak with their own voice.

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  • Michael Thomas
  • August 25th, 2012
  • 3:19 pm

hi Stephen,
I left a comment but I think it got lost in the ether – something to do with the security code? or my age?

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yes we will see who owns what in the next election,
and we will see if all the people own nothing as the weakling government thinks,
and we will see that new Zealanders own new Zealand 

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off subject Stephen, and readers .You are likely  aware of the level of censorship in NZ blogs, and if not please be aware,
.Kiwi politico for instance  will take no alternative opinion.He knows everything. He is averse to differing opinion..Peter Cresswell is prolific but  intolerant . Martin Branbury got rid of Tim Selwyn.  Farrar depends on the rednecks to get you off his site.thank you Stephen for your truly open and democratic blog

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  • Roger Strong
  • September 14th, 2012
  • 5:26 pm

 Where is Stephen-interesting things are happening but no comments……

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  • Denis Stewart
  • September 17th, 2012
  • 12:47 pm

Stephen Franks you know  Garth Mcvicar, and David Garrett  are covering up child rape and torture for their SST members that you are fully aware off just like you are fully aware off the cover up of stealing from a dead child back in 2005 and gagging that family the same time as the child rape and torture cover ups began while trying to gag my family.
How low can you lot go
 
 
 

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  • Denis Stewart
  • October 5th, 2012
  • 10:42 pm

Stephen Franks
I see you deleted my post about David Garrett stealing from a dead child and fraud with Garth Mcvicar lying and cheating the courts with perjury covering up Garrett’s violent criminal convictions so they could gag that dead child family and traumatize them till this day
I also understand you are acting on behalf of Garth Mcvicar over his child rape and torture cover-ups and will try ever dirty trick in the book as you already have done.
Besides that I have gathered defamation that Garth Mcvicar, Peter Jenkins and David garret have been stating about me on the domain to try and cheat people who I am and to deceive them about the child rapes Mcvicar is covering up for his SST members.
I see you have no followers on your blog site and is just a spin like Garth Mcvicar ripping the old and frail with a fear scam for money that pays travel and accommodation to Mcvicars annual meeting when most have money which this money is the only way to get the numbers as if you did not pay them no one would turn up like the remembrance day just past for a criminal drug dealer that was owed $45.000  for drugs by gangs and who went missing on a day he took large amount of cash and cannabis with him also stating he would be a millionaire by the time he was 30 years old from drug dealing.
Why would we want to remember that or the fact you lot praised the death of a 15 year old to the media who was hunted down and stabbed to death by your mate Emery when Cameron had no criminal convictions and said by police was a good kid but still Mcvicar blamed his mother for his death and traumatizes that family till this day.
Also the memory arousal of the dead child’s family you lot still traumatize to this day.
 
You and Garth Mcvicar and your mate David garret are an absolute disgrace and an embarrassment to NZ.  

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  • Denis Stewart
  • October 7th, 2012
  • 7:43 pm

Several NZ herald articles pieced in order about David Garrett who Garth Mcvicar helped Garrett cover up the theft from a dead child and fraud as well as cover up Garrett’s violent criminal convictions so Garrett could  off Scott free and able to gag the family of the dead child.
 
David Garrett made “NO OPOLOGY” to the family after been caught stealing.
 
A brother of the dead child said that Mr Garrett was the "lowest of the low"
The brother of the dead boy told the Herald: “How much lower can you go? I know damn well if my father was alive, being a Scotsman, he would have gone after him, I would think.
He said he would probably "lose his cool" if he came face to face with Mr Garrett.
His 94-year-old mother was "disgusted over the whole thing", he said.
He was not aware of any apology that had come from Mr Garrett, but thought his mother would be expecting one.
"Surely the guy has got the balls to stand up and say, 'I did something wrong' And he didn't do that.
The man said he was about 16 when his 2-year-old brother was admitted to hospital after contracting a virus infection. Death came suddenly.
He described his young brother as "a real bubbly little kid", and his death as a "hell of a shock" to the family.
Another brother said that as far as he knew, no one in his family had received an apology, let alone an explanation, from Mr Garrett.
"It's quite alarming. I didn't think that sort of thing was happening here. It's very hard to believe that a person could consider taking the identity of a baby," he said.
In the court documents, the deceased child's mother said the identity theft caused her considerable stress and anxiety, and what Mr Garrett did was "akin to stealing from a grave".
The dead boy’s sister was also quoted.
“The deeply cruel, shameful and malicious manner in acquiring such details has caused deep distress for the entire family, especially for my elderly mother, to be subjected to further trauma and pain in the memory of her beloved infant son and our darling little brother’s name.

Court documents reveal Mr Garrett visited a cemetery in New Plymouth in 1984 and found the gravestone of the boy, whose birthdate was close to his own.
He copied the details, obtained the child's birth certificate, filled out a passport application form and photographed himself in a disguise which included dyed hair and glasses.
Garrett gave a fake postal address in Christchurch on his application form and supplied a fake reference of another offender: It was, as with many crimes, a series of deliberate steps."
The family of the dead child whose identity was stolen "have effectively been gagged for years by a suppression order while they have to listen to Mr Garrett pontificating about being opposed to suppression orders, being in favour of openness, being in favour of the rights of victims".
Garrett having first denied the allegation of stealing to police.
Garrett said and he never used the passport. “AFTER” it expired, he destroyed it.
Garrett said being locked up by police was "very difficult to cope with".

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  • Denis Stewart
  • October 7th, 2012
  • 8:00 pm

Garrett said being locked up by police was "very difficult to cope with".
Stephen Franks you lot are a bunch of cowards to do what you did to that dead childs family let alone cover up chiild rape on behalf of your SST members.   

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  • Denis Stewart
  • October 11th, 2012
  • 5:09 pm

David Garrett asked to keep his identity secret to “maintain his reputation”.


 
 
The family of the dead child whose identity was stolen "have effectively been gagged for years by a suppression order while they have to listen to Mr Garrett pontificating about being opposed to suppression orders, being in favour of openness, being in favour of the rights of victims".
 
As we all know Garth Mcvicar was the one that helped Garrett gag the dead childs family and to cover up Garretts other violent criminal crimes that Mcvicar lied  "perjury" covering up before the courts which was the same time Garrett and Mcvicar covered up the child rape and torture for their SST members. 

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  • trips
  • December 7th, 2012
  • 8:54 pm

I am hell and hearty to found this post! Thanks

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