Listening to those Ngai Tahu spokesmen talking, both recently and in the past, I dread what they have planned or will consent to having done on their land. They sound like, and often are, members of the National Party, and they seem to have about as much respect and care for their whenua as, say, Conor English.
As a member of the iwi I am not a supporter of this development. However there are a lot of checks and many eyes watching so i think the iwi and hapū representatives will do their best to minimise pollution from the dairy farm. But when you take water from the awa for dairy farming that degrades it. Personally I would have preferred Organic small scale sustainable operations – and I actually told them that.
As for you moz yes I’m sure they are members of any and all political parties but your assertion regarding care of the ‘whenua’ is stupid – you ‘seem’ wrong and rather than ‘seem’ why not check out all of the various ways the tikanga is maintained. You seem to display as much care and respect for tangata whenua as any of the gnats.
I’m sure they are members of any and all political parties…. The leadership? They’re solidly National Party. Which raises the question: why does the rest of the iwi tolerate such a situation?
The Ngai Tahu corporation hasn’t shown much care or respect for the Asian crews on the fishing boats they run. Let’s hope they treat their own people with a bit morearoha.
you are out of our depth moz and dog-paddle ain’t going to cut it – the leadership? who exactly are you talking about – rūnanga representatives? kaiwhakahaere? commercial arm of the iwi? Stick to listening to leighton mate or talking about the RWC – you sadly display no nous for this stuff – read up a little and become educated my friend before you embarrass yourself further
No I’m not out of my depth. I can read and follow what is happening in Ngai Tahu as much as anyone else can, and it’s clear that a small clique of well connected businessmen wield the power there just as a small National Party clique (Georgina Te Heuheu’s family) dominates Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and a small political elite dominates Tainui.
There are many reasons I, and many others, have looked with mounting disquiet at what Ngai Tahu has been doing….
2.) I’m concerned by the people who are routinely allowed to speak for Ngai Tahu—people like Mark Solomon, who has some very disturbing views indeed. For example, in 2010 he expressed his approval of the notorious private prison company Serco, telling Guyon Espiner that he was “blown away in the way that they deal with their prisoners…. We’re completely impressed.” http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/q-mark-solomon-interview-3580452
3.) Worse was to come, however. A couple of years ago, Solomon made a point of betraying other Māori and publicly backing John Key’s flogging off of our public assets. As with his backing of private prisons, this anti-Māori posturing earned Solomon some fulsome praise from the rabid right…. http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/tag/mark-solomon/
5.) Solomon has also been less than forthright in his denials that he might commit Ngai Tahu to get involved in one of John Banks’s harebrained “charter school” projects.
Now if you can demonstrate I have been unfair to Mark Solomon—the public face of Ngai Tahu—then I will accept your charge that I have “no nous for this stuff”, and will return to my normal dismal task of logging the idiocy of Hatin’ Leighton and his colleagues.
By the way, I’ll bet that at some time in the last few years, Hatin’ Leighton has stepped away from his normal programme of reading out articles from theSpectator and foaming about Barack Obama’s communist plotting to take over the world to announce how much he is impressed by Mark Solomon.
Yes some like Mark and others don’t and yes he is kaiwhakahaere and that role is often the public face of the iwi. I find myself disagreeing with many of his views. I don’t like the way the fishing has developed – too much ‘market’, let alone the poor condition that some crew experience. I don’t like serco or charter schools or selling our assets. So for each example you have dug out I am generally opposed to Mark’s view. Keep trawling the news moz I am sure your knowledge will continue to increase exponentially…
My attempt at humour at 1.22 was obviously not funny for you – next time I’ll put 2 smiley faces…
I’m sorry, marty, I did get your little joke and I did appreciate it at the time. You know, deadpan non-acknowledgement is my modus operandi; one of the reasons I can hardly bear listening to Jim Mora’s program sometimes is the way that he feels obliged to acknowledge every single quip with a dutiful “That’s very funny!”—rendered all the worse by his patent insincerity. So I did get your little dig.
I appreciate your comments, and I hope it doesn’t look like I’m absolutely opposed to Sir Mark; I recognise that he is an intelligent and accomplished man, and I respect him in spite of some misgivings. It’s just that I get concerned sometimes that there is a lack of democracy and that the iwicorporations are acting just like the “private tyrannies” that Noam Chomsky describes.
I don’t know the Chomsky reference, but it’s the ‘just like’ bit in your comment that I have a problem with. There may be issues with how Ngai Tahu does business, but saying they are the same as Pakeha business is inaccurate and stops us really understanding. I want to see the differences, understand the diversity, because that will help us out of the mess.
This is the problem with the original comment. Someone reports that RNZ reported x about Ngai Tahu. When we see Adele’s comment we see there is in fact a lot more to it. That more to it is important. Seems to be my theme currently, we have to get our targets right.
I don’t know the Chomsky reference, but it’s the ‘just like’ bit in your comment that I have a problem with. There may be issues with how Ngai Tahu does business, but saying they are the same as Pakeha business is inaccurate and stops us really understanding.
All good – I broke my own, self imposed, rule on that one and deserved a good put down. For me ts isn’t really a safe space to discuss this stuff and i usually leave alone unless the errors are really glaring or horrible. The fact is there is no context and to create the context and then discuss/argue the merits each way takes massive time and energy – which frankly i don’t have and don’t have the inclination to acquire.
Morrisey, By public face, I take it you mean to Pakeha NZ. I’m sure most people, whether Māori or Pakeha, regard Sir Mark Solomon as the leader of Kai Tahu, just as they did Tipene O’Regan before him.
Why exactly should Kai Tahu care about that? If Kai Tahu wants to pretend that public discourse and politics do not matter, then you’re correct, they need not worry about the public perception of Sir Mark’s comments. If they want to live in the real world, such things matter very much indeed.
How about you give us your analysis of how Solomon fits into the overall power structures within Ngai Tahu? He is obviously the kaiwhakahaere, and I know he has an immense amount of influence on all aspects of governance in Kai Tahu.
Most of what you just wrote expresses Pakeha political views. That’s not correct. I know thoughtful Māori are very concerned about the behaviour of certain powerful but virtually unaccountable leaders—and not just in Kai Tahu.
Are you suggesting that Maori, specifically Ngai Tahu, should adhere to those? Some Ngai Tahu will, some won’t. But it’s not just a Pakeha thing—-I hope not anyway.
Solomon is one person (and we still don’t know who he votes for). Let’s see: he has publicly stated his admiration for an infamous private prison company; he has broken ranks with other Māori and announced his support for the Key regime’s selling off of our public assets; he has failed to make a principled statement rejecting the National/ACT imposition of “charter schools” on the devastated children, parents and teachers of Canterbury. That spells National, surely? Or if he does not vote National, there are two other options: (a) he belongs to the Shane Jones wing of the Labour Party or (b) he has been lobotomized and has joined the science-deniers, doctor-bashers and grave-robbers in ACT.
Who are all these other leaders who are National Party members/voters? The iwi leaderships are full of them.
“Most of what you just wrote expresses Pakeha political views.” That’s not correct. I know thoughtful Māori are very concerned about the behaviour of certain powerful but virtually unaccountable leaders—and not just in Kai Tahu.
Obviously. But the analysis is different IMO to what you have just done.
I’ll give an example. I know people (Pakeha as it happens) who like the idea of Charter Schools, not because they’re rightwing, but because they can see that it gives alternative education some power and control. These are people who think the mainstream education system is competely dysfunctional in terms of basic philosophies around teaching children usefully. So they put Charter Schools in a completely different context than you do. They don’t see education policy in terms of National vs Labour, because to them both are woefully inadequate.
Likewise, when I hear Maori talking about the value of having contracts to deliver welfare services to their people, it makes sense to me, because they are being so badly failed by mainstream welfare. We can jump up and down and shout “privatisation is bad”, but that just fails as well. (Part of the problem there would be solved if Maori were allowed sovereignty to run things for themselves the way they know works ie don’t see Iwi as ‘private’).
So, when you make a list of all the terrible things that Mark Solomon says and does, it’s not that I think you have no valid points, it’s that until you can make those points in the cultural context that Solomon is operating within, then those points are fairly meaningless. By this I mean in the sense that they don’t take us anywhere particularly useful. They just point yet another stick at Ngai Tahu and say x, y, z wrong there, which just feeds another whole thread of racism into NZ society.
For me ts isn’t really a safe space to discuss this stuff and i usually leave alone unless the errors are really glaring or horrible. The fact is there is no context and to create the context and then discuss/argue the merits each way takes massive time and energy
I know exactly what you mean. I think the same whenever I hear Pakeha commentators discussing such matters. Whether it’s the outright hostile, even racist commentators (Sean Plunket, Michael Laws, Leighton Smith, Larry “Lackwit” Williams) or even the “well meaning” ones, the treatment ofiwi politics is nearly always substandard.
Mars, pleased you made the stance you did. It is the only one that makes sense to me, though it strains the commercial imperative somewhat.
Years back we did work with Lincoln scientists to ascertain the moister retention and soil retention (from wind erosion) in grass behind shelter belts on the plains. This was in aid of avoiding border dyke irrigation, and abstraction from the Rakaia. Grass growth behind shelter belts came out well in front when the other costs were totaled. Bluntly for every reason not related to the economics of cheap energy and fertilisers dairying on the plains makes no sense.
thanks for that information, as always the real story comes out later when it comes to te Ao Maori. I have no trouble believing that Kai Tahu are generally doing better than their tau iwi neighbours when it comes to kaitiakitanga and farming practices. For me, there is no ethical way to do industrial, export dairy, esp in that landscape. It’s always a loss. The things named in your post are very encouraging, and one thing I would hope would come out of this, as well as the local effect, is for other mainstream farmers to be influenced and shown a different way. That Lincoln are involved is also encouraging, because of their power to influence widely. I do agree with marty though, that there were other paths here. The core model being chosen is inherently unsustainable from land regeneration, AGW and Peak Oil/Everything perspectives.
I also take the view that there tends to be prejudice in critiquing Ngai Tahu’s business practices, and that critique instead should be done intelligently and from an informed perspective taking culture into account, which it usually isn’t. Still so hard for pakeha to look at things in any way other than through their own lenses.
Sorry about the late reply Adele…thanks for the reply and great to read your response.
My understanding is that a huge number of the South Island dairy farms are being worked by a mix of foreigner’s, mostly Philipino…if the farms were a bit smaller, say 300 to 500 cows it would be a hell of a lot easier to get local workers. Large farms are incredibly tedious to work on, cupping 800 cows twice a day is one of the most soul sapping jobs around (Ive done it, Ive also milked smaller herds, so I know what Im talking about). But if Ngai Tahu are going to employ local and put the effort into protecting the environment then I have absolutely NO problem with what they are doing…if Ngai Tahu are going to pollute the local environment then they probably have more rights to do that than the local pakeha farmers.
I do owe you an apology for suggesting that your comments were motivated by prejudice.
Personally, I would rather dial everything back to before 1800 when life was definitely much more hunter-gather-ish and small-scale. However, we are in the 21st century and are products of the modern age. Our reality is so vastly different from those of our tūpuna.
As a child I used to love collecting eggs from free-range chickens. As an adult, I had the opportunity to revisit these child hood memories on visiting a friend’s lifestyle block. I was mortified to find eggs covered in chicken crap. Out came the hand sanitiser followed by the Samsung Galaxy to research the efficacy of hand sanitiser on the likelihood of developing histoplamosis symptomatology post egg harvest.
Māori business practice is evolving and for the better as our business leaders are having to align their business practice to more closely fit with the principles we espouse as Māori. The rigid ‘for profit’ business model is no longer tenable in an age where growth is no longer possible without extreme prejudice to the environment. Ngai Tahu are being watched by many eyes so let’s see how evolved their thinking has become.
“Māori business practice is evolving and for the better as our business leaders are having to align their business practice to more closely fit with the principles we espouse as Māori. The rigid ‘for profit’ business model is no longer tenable in an age where growth is no longer possible without extreme prejudice to the environment…”
That is fantastic if Maori achieve that, it will be challenging. Dairy farming does have scope for improvement, Ive seen worker rights really take some huge backward steps in dairy farming, instead of dairy farmers meeting the market and paying workers the market rate and also improving conditions they have simply lobbied for overseas workers who are desperate…its just something that really annoys me.
Good luck with the dairy project, I know Whakatohia in Opotiki (much smaller than Ngai Tahu) are running dairy farms with locals..and they relatively large dairy units.
The Steve Irwin’s helicopter first located the Nisshin Maru at 64°44′ S, 162°34′ W,in New Zealand’s sovereign waters in the Ross Dependency Antarctic region,and inside the internationally recognised Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
Sea Shepherd has obtained compelling footage and images of three dead protected Minke Whales on the deck of the Nisshin Maru, taken at the time the factory ship was first located. A fourth whale, believed to be a Minke, was being butchered on the bloodstained deck.
McCully has already started the weasel words and has issued a statement saying the Ross Dependency is not NZ sovereign waters. We just have search and rescue responsibility for it. So I guess it belongs to us when we want to exploit the shit that’s in it but doesn’t belong to us if that means upsetting the Japanese?
The leadership? They’re solidly National Party. Which raises the question: why does the rest of the iwi tolerate such a situation?
http://www.dol.govt.nz/News/Media/2012/2012-foreign-charter-vessels.pdf
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/q-mark-solomon-interview-3580452
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/tag/mark-solomon/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1210/S00338/qa-shane-taurima-interviews-mark-solomon.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmrfWF3S4Tk
I’m sure most people, whether Māori or Pakeha, regard Sir Mark Solomon as the leader of Kai Tahu, just as they did Tipene O’Regan before him.
If Kai Tahu wants to pretend that public discourse and politics do not matter, then you’re correct, they need not worry about the public perception of Sir Mark’s comments. If they want to live in the real world, such things matter very much indeed.
He is obviously the kaiwhakahaere, and I know he has an immense amount of influence on all aspects of governance in Kai Tahu.
That’s not correct. I know thoughtful Māori are very concerned about the behaviour of certain powerful but virtually unaccountable leaders—and not just in Kai Tahu.
Some Ngai Tahu will, some won’t. But it’s not just a Pakeha thing—-I hope not anyway.
Let’s see: he has publicly stated his admiration for an infamous private prison company; he has broken ranks with other Māori and announced his support for the Key regime’s selling off of our public assets; he has failed to make a principled statement rejecting the National/ACT imposition of “charter schools” on the devastated children, parents and teachers of Canterbury. That spells National, surely? Or if he does not vote National, there are two other options: (a) he belongs to the Shane Jones wing of the Labour Party or (b) he has been lobotomized and has joined the science-deniers, doctor-bashers and grave-robbers in ACT.
The iwi leaderships are full of them.
That’s not correct. I know thoughtful Māori are very concerned about the behaviour of certain powerful but virtually unaccountable leaders—and not just in Kai Tahu.