MINING IN TE HIKU O TE IKA: - SPECULATE, SYNDICATE AND SELL

As business ventures go, mining is among the most speculative.  Unlike farms that yield crops or manufacturing that produces goods, a mining property is a wasting asset as soon as the first ton of ore is dug out of the ground.  Because in the end, a mine is a storehouse which, once exhausted, can never be replenished. 

Some large coal and iron mining operations, sustained by multiple deposits, approach the kind of stability that promotes a growing local economy, but even they are largely dependent on global market conditions that can fluctuate wildly. 

State-owned Solid Energy became insolvent after their debts climbed to $400 million while coal prices dropped to half the 2011 price levels.  Now, economists are warning of a slowdown in Chinese growth and, as the saying goes – “When China sneezes – Australia catches a cold.”  So, with mining to the front and centre of the Far North Mayor's agenda as well as that of several Iwi Chairs', the questions need to be asked: “Why mining?”  “Why here?” and “Why now?”

The answers lie with international banking, massive central bank money printing, and the inflow of offshore money making its way to New Zealand.  Investors refer to this as the ‘carry trade’.  Simply put, primary banks borrow money at near zero interest rates to invest in anything that provides a yield.  Likened to ‘picking up pennies in front of a steam roller’, this is the reason real estate prices in Auckland are raising so fast.  It’s also the reason why living costs continue to outstrip our incomes, and it’s the major force driving mining interests here.

Central and local governments encourage this.  The mayor initiates an airborne sweep of Northland to identify geological areas of interest.  Syndicates are then formed to purchase prospecting and mining licenses from the Crown.  Junior partners are brought on board late in the game to help absorb the financial risk, provide the muscle needed to get resource consents, and offset potential protest and political disturbances.

Investors have long considered junior mining stocks to be a gamble in which fly by night resource cowboys promise jobs and huge returns. They work on a seven-year-boom-bust model that sees them long gone when the enterprise implodes, leaving investors and junior partners holding the bag.  Their game is nothing more than a legal con.  But to be effective, these ‘con-men’ must first gain your confidence. 

The real artists among them are well into the middle stages of the seven year cycle.  Their geological surveys are done; they got you to pay for them.  Their syndicates are set up; the Crown already made its 2012 / 2013 block offers to them.  All that remains is to get the public support of Iwi leaders; Simon Bridges (Minister of Energy and Resources) meets some of those in Kaikohe on 13^th August 2013. 

Industries like mining operate in secret, so when meetings get to the public stage, you can be assured that the big decisions have already been made and the selling job is about to begin. 

And by the way, nominations for the Crown’s 2014 block offer are now open.   

A CLOCKWORK CHOICE

“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?” Anthony Burgess posed this question in his novel, A Clockwork Orange, which explored the free will of humans to choose between good and evil, and the cost of attempts to restrain that freedom.

There is a Clock Work Orange quality to the current wave of youth crime currently sweeping through Kaitāia where schools are regularly vandalized; and now set afire.  Small business owners are subject to robbery by organised gangs of youth, adept in diversion and counter surveillance.  And CCTV cameras have become pointless when all that is seen is the same generic hooded image. 

Mobile phone technology means thieves on the inside can be supported by lookouts on the outside, and mobs can be gathered and dispersed with a few thumb jabs.  In response, community patrols have been lauded, but how sustainable are they?  The law protects youth from the discipline of their own parents, so how likely is it that a group of strangers will have any effect?  The perpetrators are better organised, are in better shape, and are motivated to outlast any public relations effort.  Curfews have been suggested, and elsewhere in the country some communities are even instituting hoodie bans to counteract youth crime. 

Currently there are only two ways forward being proposed in Kaitāia: the use of force and / or a significant investment in social intervention. 

If the consensus is for force, then a bigger hammer will be needed in the shape of more laws, more Police, Court and Corrections staff, and bigger prisons. That’s not really tenable, but the likelihood of a sizable social investment in youth also seems untenable given that the welfare system is being gutted and no additional money for schools, health care, or recreation has been budgeted.  So unless Kaitāia comes up with its own sustainable strategies, someone with a dystopian agenda will eventually do it for us.

In the short to med-term Whānau Ora money, already promised, might be used to try and turn youth offenders and their whānau around.  Increased numbers of Māori Wardens might help police and defuse potential trouble. Shop owners and business people might hire locals, instead of another relative.  Local neighbourhood watch patrols and a reward system for information that leads to the arrest of criminals might be set up.

These are all worthwhile strategies in themselves, but they’re based on the view that changing our externals will change someone else’s internals.  From Cain to A Clockwork Orange proof abounds that such a view is wrong.  To paraphrase Ezra Taft Benson, “The world would take our youth out of the slums, but better we take the slums out of our youth, and then they take themselves out of the slums.”

Drive around Kaitāia and you’ll see large empty buildings matched by large groups of empty-eyed youth with lots of time and few options. Kaitāia too has few options, but it has even less time in which to choose.

THE NEW FRONTIER

When Kiwis took to their boats to refuse entry to the USS Buchanan in 1985, we saw the promise of a new age of independence and activism that gave hope to Māori and made a strong statement of sovereignty to all.  Today it is hard to fathom the extent to which that sovereignty has been bartered away to global corporate interests as a term of trade. 

After 9/11, the Clark led Labour government bought back into the corporate power circle by passing the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 and committing New Zealand defence forces to the US led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They then demonstrated their willingness to use force domestically under that Act by raiding Ngāi Tūhoe and other communities in October 2007. 

Although Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit to Auckland during the election year of 2008 didn’t save Labour, the Key led National government has been able to take full advantage of the deluge of American interest in New Zealand since then; and global corporates are the main beneficiaries. 

 

Like Clark, John Key has demonstrated a willingness to use force domestically in favour of global corporates, as seen in the deployment of the Navy and Police against Te Whānau-a-Apanui when they stopped Petrobras from fracking in their customary fisheries of the Raukumara Basin.  

He has also shown his willingness to sell New Zealand sovereignty in exchange for trade concessions.  Within months of Hilary Clinton visiting New Zealand in April 2010 and signing The Wellington Declaration with foreign minister Murray McCully, Key brokered The Hobbit deal that changed employment laws and turned over more than $60m of taxpayer money to Warner Bros. 

18 months later, at the behest of the US entertainment industry and based on the illegal spying activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), New Zealand resident Kim Dotcom was arrested.  As pointed out in last week’s Campbell Live feature, the new GCSB Bill extending that agency’s powers to spy on all New Zealanders and share information with foreign governments can be directly linked to The Wellington Declaration.

The cost of protecting global corporate interests will soon be felt in other facets of New Zealand life as well.  A February 2011 white paper: Pacific Partners – The Future of US – New Zealand Relations, details cooperation in manufacturing, medicine, mining and resources, as well as culture.  And the American Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand Inc, which maintains four offices in New Zealand, provides industry by industry updates on the growing US footprint in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the 18^th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will take place in Malaysia this week.  Once signed, all our international relationships and agreements will be subject to new laws that over-ride all sovereign protections, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi; again in favour of the global corporate interests. 

It seems the promise of 1985 is dead, the TPP will be Key’s legacy, and Kiwis are about to join Māori and Dotcom on a new frontier.

IRRELEVANT POLITICS

Thursday evening (27th June), I got a call from someone called Lea-Ann de Maxton to tell me that there was a meeting of the Crown’s Constitution Conversation Advisory Panel the next day (Friday 28^th June) in Kaitāia and to ask who was going to be there from Te Runanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu.  It was the first I’d heard of the meeting and I couldn’t be there.  A short time later an email arrived which said that, “a significant gathering” was taking place and asked me “kindly to extend this invitation and help to promote it.”  I forwarded it to the Trustees of Te Runanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu who have emails.

On Saturday 29^th June those same Trustees, along with their Kuia and Kaumātua, held their hui-a-marama and none of them had gone to the Constitutional Conversation meeting the day before.  I asked why and their answers included, “The meeting lacked notice, it’s a Crown timetable and agenda, it’s not based on He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Ngā Hapū o Nu Tirani and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it isn’t relevant, we have a longer, fuller Constitutional Transformation conversation, process and agenda going on.”

 

Clearly what was billed as “a significant gathering” actually wasn’t to a significant group of people. 

On that same day the Ikaroa-Rawhiti (east coast) byelection closed, and by that evening we knew Labour had won it with 42% (4,368 votes) of a 36% turnout (10,519 votes cast) out of 29,219 enrolled electors.  That meant at least 18,700 enrolled voters in Ikaroa Rawhiti didn’t vote.  Many thousands more weren’t even enrolled. 

 

Yesterday (Monday 1^st July) Mike Smith asked on facebook, “Why was there such a low voter turnout in the east coast byelection?”  The answers from east coasters themselves came thick and fast.  “No petrol, no car, no time, no idea who to vote for, no abode, no idea where to go to vote, wasn't much hype, no tv, no phone, no post office, system is rigged, no link between voting and an improvement in our lives, the best candidates are stymied in their delivery even if they make it to parliament, the system stinks, we don’t feel heard, a depoliticised public, neo-liberalisation has killed democracy, government is illegal and is a corporation posing as a government, voting is a colonization idea, voting is voluntary, lost faith in MPs who talk crap, wasn’t a priority on my only day off, have seen and heard all the promises before, sick of the lack of unity between Māori MPs.” 

The glaringly obvious fact is that the Crown process of electing a government has no more relevancy for the majority of east coast Māori than the Crown Constitution Conversation has for the majority of Far North Māori. 

Māori disengagement from Crown processes is an old story.  But what is new, is the sustained Māori engagement in our own processes of constitutional transformation, and our increased understanding that politics is unnecessary and irrelevant to the process of good government.

PITFALLS AND PIPELINES

In the pending clash over large-scale prospecting, mining and drilling of their whenua, certain hallmark behaviours will be seen amongst some Iwi leaders which will give an accurate indication to their people of how far inside the belly of the beast they have crawled.  For Hapū mana whenua who have to deal with any Iwi-level sellout to the mining industry, there are lessons to be learned from the experiences of other indigenous peoples.

The comprehensive 2009 report Pitfalls and Pipelines – Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries notes that one of the main problems of mining for indigenous peoples is social division amongst themselves over land ownership, current livelihoods, intergenerational or gender-based conflicts, and contesting leadership claims between traditional and ‘elected’ leaders regarding their ‘free prior and informed consent’ (FPIC).

Often these divisions are based on already existing tensions, but the arrival of prospecting and mining increases them.  Companies can then deliberately exploit the divisions to claim they have FPIC from willing Iwi with whom they make deals, while excluding other Iwi and Hapū who refuse to do a deal.

One of the most illustrative examples of this kind of behaviour concerns the Subanon people of the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Phillipines. 

In 1994 the Canadian company TVI Pacific Inc arrived to mine Mount Canatuan, the Subanon’s sacred mountain.  After their traditional leadership refused TVI entry, a new type of leadership called a ‘Council of Elders’ was imposed on them at the behest of the company.  This Council made a show of exploring the pros and cons of mining, then gave TVI entry. 

Over the next thirteen years the Subanon did everything in their power to protect their land, including legal action.  But all their efforts came to nothing as TVI claimed it had their consent.  Additionally the Phillipines government, a major investor in the mine, allowed the company to damage Subanon personal property and to physically intimidate and attack Subanon traditional leaders.

Finally, in 2007 the Subanon turned to their own traditional judicial authority, Gukom sog Pito ko Dolungan, for a ruling.  After long deliberations, the Gukom ruled in 2009 that TVI Pacific had violated human rights and Subanon customary law, and it ordered the company to take part in a mandatory cleansing ceremony and pay fines to the Subanon for their actions. 

It took a further two years before the company finally accepted the ruling, recognised the traditional leadership, took part in the cleansing ceremony, acknowledged the desecration of the Subanon’s sacred mountain, admitted to other misdeeds, and paid the fines. 

Although largely symbolic (TVI has still not closed the Canatuan mine), the good news is that this victory shows Hapū that they too can overcome the huge power imbalances between themselves, exploitative companies, compliant Iwi, and complicit governments. 

However, if their Iwi opt for pipelines of mining company cash, Hapū will first have to deal with the resultant social division. And that’s just one of the pitfalls of large-scale mining they will face.

THE SILENT MAJORITY

The Crown has a long and dishonourable history of minimising and neutralising the rights of minorities in this country by imposing norms which silence even the majority.  For example, prior to the 1984 elections, the Labour Party promised to honour the Treaty and settle Treaty grievances.  But when they became the government, they created a process in which Māori had to accept the demands of multiculturalism and “the public good.”  

The concept of multiculturalism is harmless enough as a descriptive term for communities where a number of different cultures live.  But used by the Crown as a normative term, multiculturalism became a way to neutralise Māori demands and minimise the redress of their rights.   

For example, when Moana Jackson released his 1988 report on Māori and the criminal justice system, which critiqued both the system's basis in a monocultural philosophy and the outcome of criminal convictions for Māori within that system way over and above that of non-Māori, Jackson concluded that parallel legal systems for Māori and non- Māori in Aotearoa were mandated by the Treaty.  But under the normative banner of “multiculturalism” then Minister of Justice Geoffrey Palmer, rejected the idea of parallel legal systems out of hand. 

While Jackson's report was quickly sidelined and repressed by the Crown, his analysis still resonates powerfully, and the justice system still remains a source of great misery for Māori to this day.

Another example was the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975.  Since 1978, the Tribunal has written a number of reports, but no effect has been given to the vast bulk of the recommendations contained in those reports.  Instead the Crown has largely ignored the reports’ findings and opted to directly negotiate settlements.  The results to date have been a triumph for normative multiculturalism and ongoing misery for Māori.

Now we see similar normative tactics being used to neutralise and minimise other minorities and their rights, but with the added twist of secret lawmaking which bypassed the select committee process and censored much of the official advice that informed that lawmaking. 

Under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill the carers of disabled adult family members can now be paid; but only if they accept that they can never take legal action against Government for being discriminated against, that spouses and parents aren’t covered, and that payment will only be made if the disabled person is assessed as having high or very high needs.  Similarly, calls to address the high level of childhood poverty in this country have produced the Education Amendment (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Bill.  It does nothing to address the causes of childhood poverty, but it will further stigmatise decile one and two schools.

It is clear that minorities in this country are at the mercy of a Crown which thinks nothing of short-circuiting its own lawmaking processes.  Of course, none of this would be possible without the silent majority.

TU TIKA! STILL STANDING

Now that James Parker has plead guilty to all the charges of child sex abuse laid against him, and as a follow up to the Hikoi Against Child Abuse of all forms that we held earlier this year, a nationwide but informal group has been established of which I am a part. 

We are called Tu Tika and our goals are to be an independent lobby and voice for the rights of children, and to hold those institutions which are supposed to protect children accountable. 

The strategies and solutions that we are currently working on include holding silent vigils outside Courts whenever child abuse cases are being heard.  We want to keep the issue in the forefront of our own minds and those of our people.  Coupled with public awareness handouts, our vigils will be a reminder that the concession of guilt by one monster does not mean there aren’t more out there.

We will seek to meet with local school, church, sport and community organisation boards regarding their child protection policy development AND implementation.  There’s no doubt in our minds that had the employers and supervisors of James Parker implemented their school policies, many of his victims might have been saved.

We are asking local and regional newspapers to provide us a monthly column space  under the banner of ‘Tu Tika’ where we can raise and address the issues that give rise to the terribly high level of child abuse amongst us.

Additionally each of us are developing relevant resources that can be used by individuals, whānau, hapū, iwi and communities in our regions to educate themselves and others about the issues and what can help address them. 

We’ve set 13th March as an annual nationwide hikoi date to refocus attention on the fact that, although the problem and its causes are undoubtedly universal , the solutions have to be tailored, owned and delivered locally.  

To support our work, we’ve established an annual Tu Tika hui to review progress and revise strategies.  The first of these is planned to be held in Kaitāia this year.

On a personal level, right now I’ve chosen to undertake training via wānanga that are based on our Māori qualification framework and not on that of NCEA.  Why?  Because increasing the numbers of NCEA qualified Māori professionals hasn’t eliminated or even reduced the problem of child abuse one iota; in fact, quite the reverse. 

To my mind, NCEA qualifications don’t and can’t address the reality that, although the problem of child abuse is not a Māori problem, it is one that has hurt many of us and still does. 

Mauri Ora qualifications do address and penetrate that reality with the tikanga that we cannot usefully confront any problem until we confront ourselves, we cannot clean up someone else’s backyard if our own are paru, and before we work with anyone else’s whānau, we had better be prepared to work with our own. 

Tu tika!

DISCONNECTING FROM COLLECTIVE GUILT

The well-known Māori sense of collectivity has its roots in our worldview that we are connected with all things, are sustained by those connections, have a responsibility to maintain them, and wear the consequences if we don’t. 

With this worldview our tūpuna populated and managed an entire hemisphere where 80.9% of the space was comprised of open ocean.  Our collectivity clearly worked well for us.  Then the Crown colonised us. 

Today, instead of enjoying a general sense of collective greatness for any in-group achievements, Māori are more likely to feel a collective sense of guilt for any in-group failings. 

To illustrate, when the news broke in July 2012 that an unknown Kaitāia man was being investigated over numerous child sex abuse allegations, did one single Pākehā spend one single second hoping that the alleged offender wasn’t a Pākeha?  Probably not ay.  Yet I and many other Māori breathed a collective sigh of relief when it turned out James Parker wasn’t Māori.  What an unhealthy response to a truly collective tragedy!  It needs to stop.

Collective guilt is a psychological condition that results from “sharing a social identity with others whose actions represent a threat to the positivity of that identity.”  Many post-Holocaust Germans suffered it to a degree.

Victor Frankl (1905 – 1997) was a psychotherapist who lost both parents, his brother, and many relatives, in that Holocaust. Shortly after his liberation, he composed a stage play “Synchronisation in Buchenwald” full of psychological insight.  But nowhere in it did he blame Germans collectively for what the Third Reich had done to their fellowcitizens. Instead he affirmed that guilt can only be personal and can only be healed by a concept he called the “Will to Meaning,” in which all humans are motivated to search for, find and fulfil the meaning of life. 

Long before Frankl, Meringāroto of Te Aupōuri understood this concept when she responded with these words to her Te Rarawa husband’s stated intent to destroy her people, “Hutia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te tauranga o te kamoko e ko?  E kii mai koe ki ahau, he aha te mea nui? Maku e ki atu, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”    

And long before both Meringāroto and Frankl, a man named Jesus looked down from the tree on which his oppressors had crucified him and pled, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”  Different paradigms, same principle – collective guilt is unnecessary and unhealthy.

I don’t blame Pākehā collectively for the wrongs that the Crown has done to their fellowcitizens. Engari, kei whakapohehetia koutou; kahore te Atua e tinihangatia: ko ta te tangata hoki e rui ai, ko tena tana e kokoti ai. 

From now on, as I fulfil the meaning of my own life, I will enjoy the collective greatness of all my peoples.  But I will no longer do collective guilt for the actions of any one of them.

FREEDOM FROM TERROR

I bear testimony regularly to the reality of a loving father in heaven and his son Jesus Christ, but the story in Saturday’s New Zealand Herald about the hunger strike taking place in Guantanamo, has made me question how much I know about that reality.

Guantanamo is the infamous detention centre run by the USA where terrorists are held.  Five years after Obama said he'd shut it, over 100 prisoners are still chained inside, and when Herald reporter, David Jones, visited last month he was horrified by what he found there.

Mr Jones first visited Gitmo (as it is nicknamed) in November 2002 when “memories of the Twin Towers atrocity were still raw.”  Today he writes, “Few doubted Bush [in 2002] when he told us that the men who were flown there had been caught in the act of waging war on America and its allies, and that among them were the worst of the worst.  More than a decade on, we know the truth to be very different.”

“Only a handful of the 779 detainees who have passed through Gitmo have been put before the dubious, perpetually delayed military commissions staged in Camp Justice, the hill-top courthouse.  They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts in the so-called 9/11 Five who, it seems certain, plotted the World Trade Centre attack.”

“These rock stars of Gitmo, as one young serviceman ill-advisedly described them, are held in Camp 7, an unreachable, unmapped secret prison on the naval base, which officially doesn't exist.  As for the others, nine have died (seven by suicide, two of natural causes) and almost 600 more have been freed without charge to return to their own countries or others that have agreed to take them off America’s hands.”

Today 100 men are dying inside Gitmo as a result of a hunger strike that began on February 6^th. 

What is happening in Guantanamo is an utter disgrace, and as a Christian I oppose the USA and its allies continuing their criminal War on Terrorism. Our leaders have averted their own eyes and done their best to stop our eyes from seeing the unfolding tragedy, but they have failed.

Now that media such as the Herald have obtained first-hand reports of it, we can see how hopelessly stained with innocent blood our own hands, hearts and souls are. Will we hear the warning words of the prophet Ezekiel to ancient Israel over its idolatry and militancy and tremble for that of our own?

February 6^th has always meant Waitangi Day for me, but from now on it will also be a symbol of the reign of blood and horror perpetrated in the name of ‘freedom from terror’ upon these men who still feel to pray to the God of their understanding.  They know more about the reality of God than I may ever.

DUNNOKEYO

Last month The Standard published a list of inconsistencies that have come from John Key in the past seven years.  As I read I recalled a line from Nicky Hager’s ‘Pundit’ blog during the 2008 election campaign.  “There’s actually only one John Key, just not the one on show.”

The Standard’s list starts two months before the 2008 election with Key telling Paul Henry on Close Up that he would always be honest.  At the time his nose barely wobbled.  However since then it has grown considerably, along with the scope and impact of the inconsistencies.

22nd May 2008 on Campbell Live Key said, “We are not going to sack public servants, the attrition rate will reduce costs.”  

By September 2011 his government had slashed 2400 public service jobs, and announced another 1000 were set to go within two years.  Using phrases like ‘ongoing changes in staff positions’ or ‘a reflection of the change programmes which have been undertaken,’ more than 3000 positions have now been cut. I wonder if local DoC staff affected by these cuts can tell the difference between being changed and being sacked.

On 27th July 2008, Key said, “We are not going to cut Working for Families [payments].” 

Less than three years later he announced that cuts to the Working for Families payments of ‘high earners’ would kick in at $36,350 p.a.  He who once earned $96,000 a week considered those on $36,350 p.a. to be ‘high earners’.  How richly ironic was that?  Read on.

During the 2011 election campaign, Key claimed that international credit rating agency, Standard and Poors, had told him a credit downgrade would be more likely with a change of government in New Zealand.  A week later S&P contradicted Key’s claim saying, “It is something we just don’t do.  We don’t rate political parties, we rate governments.”

And yet when the double credit downgrade had happened a month earlier Key had said in the House that it didn’t “really matter” because “hey it’s just private debt.” That was more than an inconsistency, it was an out and out untruth and a particularly pernicious one, because most people didn’t understand what it meant when he said it, and most media commentators and economists have never explained nor contradicted it since. 

In the simplest terms, Key was concealing the true level of New Zealand’s indebtedness, which is calculated on a combination of household, business and government debt.  Our true level of indebtedness is what determines our credit rating as a nation, which in turn impacts on how much our money is worth, how many jobs we need to hold down to pay the bills; and so it goes on.

It’s true that politicians in general are “economic with the truth,” but The Standard’s full list, which can be read online at http://thestandard.org.nz/an-honest-man/#comments, shows that John Key has taken that economy to a whole new low.  Combined with his serial brain-fades, he has now earned a new nickname. 

Someone owes Pinnochio an apology, while Dunnokeyo just owes us the truth. 

CONSTITUTION-LITE

There are two different and anomalous constitutional conversations going on right now which most Pākehā are missing out on because they either don’t care or don’t know.  And the main reason for their ignorance is a totally inadequate education that hasn’t taught them the true history of our country, doesn’t even mention our constitution, and hasn’t prepared them to hold this conversation.    

But instead of educating them, the current government has set up the ‘Constitutional Advisory Panel’ (CAP) to review the size and length of term of Parliament, and whether or not it should be fixed; the size and number of electorates, including changing the method for calculating their size; the integrity of electoral legislation; the Māori Electoral Option and participation in elections; Māori seats in Parliament and local government; and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Bill of Rights.

That would be all well and good if parliamentary and local government politics were all that a constitution had to cover.  But they’re not.  In fact they make up less than one third of a constitution, and to review only those aspects amounts to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship of state. 

Where is the review of the state itself; its distribution of sovereignty and lines of accountability?  When do we talk about the relationships between the three main organs of that state?  And, alongside the role of the domestic Te Tiriti o Waitangi, where is the review of the role of He Whakaputanga o Ngā Hapū o Nu Tirani as well as that of the international agreements to which New Zealand is party? To not include these issues and many others in the review is a farcical anomaly. 

Meantime the CAP and its terms of reference have produced some farcical anomalies of their own, including the demand by at least one group of Pākehā that ‘the Treaty’ be expunged from the conversation altogether.   I’m reminded of a cartoon during the National government’s infamous Dawn Raids of the 1970s against Pacific Islanders which showed a woman of colour coming through New Zealand Customs, and an officer pointing to the snake rising out of her luggage while his boss yelled at him, “Never mind the snake!  Check if she’s Samoan!”

Another anomaly is that the CAP has a budget in the region of $3 million and a reporting deadline to Parliament of September 2013.  Meantime, Mātike Mai Aotearoa has held about 150 hui around the country in the past three years on a budget of $300,000 and will report back to the Iwi Chairs Forum in November 2013. 

It’s clear that, until we are able to talk maturely about our constitution based on knowledge rather than on ignorance, the anomalies are set to multiply.  Because it’s an undeniable fact that if current constitutional knowledge was measured in calories, there would be no obesity problem amongst New Zealanders who have been, and continue to be, fed a diet of ‘constitution-lite’.