NOT FOR SALE

I don’t know who it was who first said, “Everyone has their price,” but I don’t believe it, at least not in terms of money.

Neither do the kāhui kaumātua o Ngāti Kuri who have agreed to the launch of a national hikoi from Te Rerenga Wairua on the 24th of April against privatisation and for everyone who is concerned about the government’s blitzkrieg on the sovereignty and human rights of the citizens of this country; specifically, the watering down of section 9 of the State-owned Enterprises Act, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) legislation currently before parliament, the proposed sale of further state assets, and the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

This is in addition to concern over the government’s drive to axe funding in the public sector, while at the same time ramping up a widespread and aggressive natural resource privatization programme that allows fracking, prospecting, drilling, mining, and extraction over huge tracts of our seas and lands (much of those private).

Over the last 20 years there have been many calls by Māori leaders for the constitutional entrenchment of human rights to prevent their erosion by government, most notably from the Hirangi series of national leadership hui hosted by the late Sir Hepi Te Heuheu in the 1990’s.

As part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Māori Party and the present government it was agreed that a constitutional review group would be established to consider, amongst others things, the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in any new constitution. Belatedly this group was set up just before the last election. Before then an independent constitutional working group had already been established by the National Iwi Chairs Group to collate and report on how to entrench and protect mana mauri motuhake and Māori as tangata whenua.

But while both these groups are still designing the mechanisms to protect all our rights, those rights, along with the economic sovereignty of our nation, are being eroded by the government.

“Aotearoa Is Not For Sale” is the leading statement of the hikoi that will kick off in six weeks time. Is that right? Well, we shall see. Either concerned citizens of all races and political affiliations will unite and mobilise against the erosion of their rights, the sale of their assets and the cession of their sovereignty; or they won’t.

At the moment, other than the commitment of a few activists, the main protection we all have for our rights, sovereignty and assets is Te Tiriti o Waitangi; which is why the government has also sped up its long-term strategy to extinguish Te Tiriti with the help of iwi corporate leaders eager to settle and then be “first cab off the rank” to buy our assets.

These are testing times for those who believe that not everyone has a price and that Aotearoa is not for sale.