Letters: Justice for Māori slow in coming

Descendants of the tangata whenua are getting a lot of attention lately, mostly from "Treaty experts" who haven't got a clue what it's all about.

For my Taranaki tribes, the facts are that we have suffered 100 per cent alienation of our lands, forests and fisheries and our customary rights.

All of which indicates that we no longer have our basic human rights. We have had long-drawn-out negotiations with many agencies, but nothing has really changed. We only have to drive through our former territories and see how many of us are living on our ancestral lands and gaining our sustenance from them. Bugger all. In 1840 it was 100 per cent.

How did this come to pass? That's simple. We have never had "due process" under the law as promised by that Treaty. My turangawaewae has a $1 million debt. That's what it would cost just to return it back into Māori land, i.e. no individual title and definitely not fee simple. This also applies to lands managed by the PKW Incorporation. A billion dollars for each of the eight Taranaki tribes would give some relief.

And the real interpretation of that Treaty must be: What was the intent of those Māori who signed it? But another fact is that the Treaty was never seen or discussed in Taranaki. So charges of rebellion were total fiction.

The Taranaki wars were terrorist acts by the settler government. And our Māori forebears and ourselves have been robbed many times through shonky legislation. This includes the settlement that my own people signed with the Office of Treaty Settlements.

I regard it as a racist document because we had to agree to a governance entity, which is an alien concept to the real Māori culture and the fulfilment of a prophecy that my iwi will one day consume itself.

So Treaty critics should shut up and be grateful Māori are not a violent people. We will follow the law all the way to the time when "justice is seen to be done".

POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff

MPs' pay rises

MPs have unanimously agreed to block any increase in their salary over the next year. Legalisation enacted the pay freeze announced last month.

Passed into law September 26. MPs had been in line for a 3 per cent rise, but the New Zealand PM said that was unacceptable. The Government will also now review the way the Remuneration Authority calculates future pay movements.

Could be, would be, a saver for the New Zealand ratepayers with councillors not having over-the-top, out-of-this-world pay increases just because they can. Hope is eternal, but when you hope you cannot predict the outcome. So we will not hold our breath.
Or wait for the next election and predict the outcome.

F LAW
Whanganui

Credibility concerns

A couple of questions for the author came to mind when I read "Victims battle for years" in the September 28 Chronicle: Who are you? What have you done with Chester Borrows?

In this latest column, Borrows (?) joins the US media chorus attacking Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee. He does not demonstrate the reflections of a former policeman from whom you would expect an evidence-based opinion. Instead, he registers an assumption of guilt.

Why would a professor of clinical psychology wait to raise accusations against a man who has been through six FBI investigations in his rise through the judiciary? (A rise she admits to have tracked.) Prof Ford could have offered protected testimony long ago, out of the limelight.

The nature and timing of the accusations against Kavanaugh should raise credibility concerns, especially with a former law enforcement officer. Especially since they have not been corroborated. There is cause for concern for Ford. She will find out too late her new "friends" don't give a rip about her or justice; she is just a political tool who will be used then discarded.

These accusations come when the American left, and their lapdogs in the media are desperate for ways to attack Trump. In the toxic "#MeToo" domain, all they've got on Trump is bad behaviour consensually engaged in with women who make a living off bad behaviour. Nothing new and nothing that bothered them when Trump was hanging out with Bill Clinton.

Kavanaugh is being "borked". Facts get in the way. But they should matter to a policeman.

TEDDY MARKS
Whanganui

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