Mana News editor Joe Trinder

Now the Waitangi Tribunal has declared Nga Puhi did not cede sovereignty to the crown the Primeminister has responded  “In 1840 when we signed the treaty, it strikes me we signed it for modern New Zealand, and that was a New Zealand where we co-habitated and ran the country together. It wasn’t about separatism. It was actually about community”

This is another case of the Prime ministerial amnesia we have never ran the country together British New Zealanders have held a tight grip to power. New Zealand has never had a Maori prime minister and the Maori seats were underrepresented undemocratically for over 100 years. Indigenous rights have been ruthlessly crushed at every opportunity from the foreshore to the settlements act.

Mr Key said “I can’t see how it would help what is a vibrant growing multi-cultural New Zealand to succeed.” Is advancing indigenous peoples right to self-determination not the basis of a multi-cultural New Zealand?

In Canada they have indigenous government similar to that of local government where indigenous governments be recognized as sovereign, and capable of “nation-to-nation” negotiations as legal equals to the Crown.

For the Self-government agreements in Canada separatism hasn’t divided the nation and indigenous peoples have prospered. This is just another case of the Nats playing the anti-Maori card the same as the Orewa hate speech in 2005.