YESTERDAY'S MAN

That Hone Harawira fella has a way of pissing people off and today he really riled us up with his silly bloody racist comment about miscegenation. He don't want his brown kids to mix it up with white kids.

He thinks its the way that many people think. Well thats just wrong.

Funny our dad never had a problem with us bringing home anyone with a touch of the tar brush but he had a huge issue with us bringing home a Nga Puhi.. Hated them with a vengance. When you see the mindless prejudice displayed by Hone , dads fears had some foundation. Some of them are a bit different and not in a good way.

Funnily enough, my scottish protestant grandfather, whom I shadowed most of my life, refused to talk to me for weeks whenI told him I was going out with a Catholic McDonald.

" No good will come of that," he said. His was a deep seated religous prejudice.

He was wrong . The McDonald was a good un .

Racism and prejudice of the sort displayed by Hone is best left for the history books.

Hone is definitely yesterdays man.

PAY AND CONFIRM

Oh dear.

Poor Shane Jones has admitted he booked up blue movies while he was a Minister on government business. Now, its not all that hard to imagine that away from his wife and probably with only the company of such socialist sex bombs as Judith Tizard and Ruth Dyson, that he should resort to a bit of cinematic slap and tickle. The frequency of the hires means he must have been sporting some big blisters on those big Dali mitts of his! Shame is that Shane booked it up to the taxpayer. Funny thing is that in certain quarters the revelation that he watches porn will help his popularity.

However, the fact that we paid for his titillation will be his downfall.

GOFF DIGS A BIG HOLE

NO GOLD JUST SHIT.

Labour’s mining hypocrisy laid bare




Labour’s hypocrisy over mining has been laid bare, says Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee, after new figures released by Crown Minerals today showed Labour approved more than 200 permits for mining on the Conservation Estate.



“This from the party that launched a campaign yesterday saying it was explicitly opposed to mining conservation areas – not just Schedule Four land, but conservation land full stop,” Mr Brownlee said.



“But if that wasn’t enough, we also have the release today of information that Labour approved a mining consent on land considered special enough to warrant Schedule Four status, the very behaviour Phil Goff has been decrying as unthinkable.



“It turns out Labour approved a permit in 2006 for mining gold, garnets and other gemstones on 168.5 hectares of land at Hart Creek, inside Paparoa National Park.



“Labour’s credibility on this issue is now shredded,” Mr Brownlee said.



Figures released by Crown Minerals [attached] show 218 permits were approved under a Labour government for mining inside Department of Conservation land between December 1999 and October 2008.



“The information shows Labour were happy for mining to take place on 21,961 hectares of land, meanwhile the government is seeking approval to release a mere 7,058 hectares of Schedule Four land, of which as little as 500 hectares might be mined,” Mr Brownlee said.



“And now Labour is running a web campaign that says ‘We’re against the idea of mining in our conservation areas.’



“This represents a new standard in hypocrisy,” Mr Brownlee said.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

We make not secret of the fact that we support discrete mining in National Parks - if thats where the gold, silver, tin, coal and rare earth minerals lie.

Now there has been a bit on nonsense reported here and there that Maori wont want a bar of the mining proposals. We have said all along that there is much Maori land butting up to National Parks and some of the sites that will be prospected.

One we know very very well is Rakiura, Stewart Island.

Rakiura became a National Park after a deal was done with Rakiura Maori Land Trust in 1999 to forgo the right to log the trees on the Lords River Blocks. The trustees got about $11 million and the land was managed " as if it were a National Park. " It then formed the anchor and the argument for the rest of Stewart Island to become a National Park.

So we are hoping like the trustees of the past deal who made the best of a once in a lifetime opportunity that the new Rakiura Trustees are open minded to the possibility of mining the Lords River and some of the other land parcels under their guardianship.

What needs to happen is that the Trustees need to talk to the government about checking out what lies beneath Trust land. The Waitutu Incorporation and some of the other Maori Trusts in the Catlins and western Southland and Hokonui and Waimumu need to think about the opportunities as well.

The best decisions are made with the most facts at hand.
Piggy backing on the governments prospecting seems a sensible thing to do.

To completely disregard the opportunity would be to disenfranchise future generations of Rakiura beneficiaries.To say no before all the facts are known would be a travesty as the trustees are obliged to ensure that all opportunities are explored, analysed and tested.

And the current trustees need not fear the wrath of the Mayors. They did not like the Lords River deal much either until they were made to understand that what was good for Rakiura Maori was good for all of Southland.

This is an opportunity that must be seized upon. There are risks but the rewards could be great.

FAUX MANA

The apparent troughing by some brown fellas in the name of Maori development has the whanui choking on their kumara.

Phil Kitchin from the Dominion Post has been lifting the potae on the rather overblown ambition and under delivery of the Tekau Plus programme that is aimed at positioning ten Maori businesses to become ten big exporters in ten years. It was big and bodacious - a good vision - but not a bloody goal.
It was overseen by a Government department - never a good start for any business.

$2m of $3m has been spent and so far all that has happened is that there have been no positive outcomes and a handful of big brown swinging dicks have done very well thank you. They have the odd hui here and there, travelled quite a bit , talked shit and written even more shit.

At the centre of the story is a outfit called Fomana Capital It is now known round the traps as Faux Mana.... how funny is that!


We are delighted that there will be an inquiry. However it would behove those who are conducting the inquiry to ensure that there is a ceiling on the fees of those who are investigating the scheme.

We continually see the same bumpf repeated over and over again by these sorts of organisations. Full of a strange language that real businessmen dont use - like this claptrap

ACCORD

The FOMANA Capital Accord is neither a legal commitment nor a prescriptive framework. It is equally about innovation, co-networking, market positioning for the future and working collaboratively.

The bond between FOMANA and reputable organisations is people. People that foster strategic relationships and that are aware of the big picture game-plan.

POLICY FRAMEWORK

Foremost the policy is premised on a strategic relationship. This requires FOMANA Capital and the Accord parties to agree to building relationships based on understanding, accepting and acknowledging each others’ values, principles and strategic intent. The aim is to have congruence or alignment of values/principles and strategic intent.

The Accord relationship can be visualised similar to an iceberg. That is the base and foundations (Values, Principles & Strategic Intent) may not be seen or overtly known. However the base/foundations are what provide the strategic scale and bulk.

POLICY FRAMEWORK

There are four levels associated with the policy of entering an Accord.

Level 1: Is the foundation, an alignment and/or agreement on the principles and values.

Level 2: Is the structural alignment, an agreement on the strategic intent and big picture.

Level 3: Is the form of an agreed business programme – goals, objectives to be worked towards, which illustrate a pattern, theme of results.

Level 4: Is the individual project or events, where the system of agreed programmes (patterns/themes), which is part of structural/strategic intent programme, which is based on the Accord foundations, principles and values.

We work and have worked with CE's from listed companies, exporters, consultants and entrepreneurs.

They dont talk like that - They say things like

• We need to get shit done now
• We cannot lose our competitive edge.
  
• We need to be number one.
  
• We need a game plan.
  
• Whats on the agenda?
  
• What do we need to fix?
  
• Wheres the payback?
• Whats the cost benefit?
• Whats the NPV net present value ?
  
• Fuck thats a bloody good opportunity.
• We need to win.
• We need to work on our relationships
• The customer is king.
• Hire that woman - shes got great tits
• No risk - no reward.
  
• We need to beat the bastards
• We need to work out what the market wants
• get them to sign on the dotted line
• Dont blow the budget
• We only hire the best because we want to be the best.
  
• There has got to be something in it for our partners.
• Wheres the profit?
  
• Wheres lunch?
  

TOO MUCH KORERO NOT ENOUGH MAHI

The front page of the Dominion Post didn't make for nice reading this morning.

A flashy initiative with the lofty goal of developing some Maori business into successful exporters has turned out to be little more than a cash cow for some articulate consultants.

Personally we would love to be paid $30k for reading a few reports.

We love this bit

In another three-month period consultants received $33,000 for analysis and research including "developing a strategy for a clear strategy forward" and "ensuring offshore studies add value".

That bill was also for analysing "establishing soft network clusters" and "bigger picture value proposition", media articles, economic forecasts and working through issues with stakeholders.

It reminds us of the overblown pseudo academic bullshit we got with this

Who wouldn't mind being paid $30k for looking at a few documents?

We just wonder who the consultants are who have been sucking on this $3million dollar tit.

We are pleased that when TPK CE Comer realised that Tekau Plus was a bit ragged round the edges he put the brakes on.

Sometimes when you are CE is hard to keep a handle on whats happening down the trenches. So he deserves some credit for suspending it when he realised all he was getting was a lot of korero but not much mahi.

We still have reservations of the worth of the Maori Economic Development Taskforce as well. We do not need more korero from them - we need some concrete outcomes.

And we understand that if you like the Dominion Posts offering this morning then you will be getting more with your weetbix in the morning.

SHAKIN THE TREE

Matthew Hooton has done one of his finest columns ever for the NBR today. Its explores the fears we hold about access to the foreshore and seabed and why we should be relaxed about it..


We are going to fisk it....

When I am in Tauranga, I stay at the very pleasant Sebel hotel, built on three piers out over the harbour. Its construction in 2006 meant New Zealanders lost access to that part of the foreshore. Up the road is the port, with fences preventing access to the sea.

When I was young, holidays were at Turkey Island, near Coromandel, owned by three family friends. No one ever stopped others landing on the island for a picnic but it would have been odd had they not introduced themselves and asked if it was OK.

Later, my family bought a bach at Northland’s Te Ngaere Bay. We called the next bay Tattersfield’s, after the family that owned it, and it was customary to say hi when strolling across their beach.

Just south was a farm owned by Doug Myers, including a holiday home on a small, secluded bay. With no public road access, it didn’t feel quite right to land a boat on his beach but there was no sign saying you couldn’t.

A short walk up the valley, on Maori-owned land, was a waterfall with a decent fresh-water swimming hole. When we Auckland kids wanted to use it, it was courteous to check with the whanau living there, in pretty much third-world conditions. It was never a problem.

Yip our life has been pretty much the same - Never been denied access to any part of NZ.

Nowadays, my wife and I take our kids to a Pacific Island resort each year. The kids go to the Kids’ Club and we take it easy at the beach. The locals don’t have access to that small bit of coastline but they do have the rest of the island to choose from. They also have jobs.

The enjoyment of my life has never been compromised by limited restrictions on my access to the sea. Nor has any of my privileged access compromised anyone else’s enjoyment of theirs. But the idea there is an inherent right by every New Zealander to access every square centimetre of foreshore and seabed is plainly wrong. No such right exists.

The so-called Queen’s Chain has always been a myth. To simply declare it belongs to the state is to propose a nationalisation and collectivisation of land of which Stalin would have been proud.

Unbelievably, this was exactly the position asserted by everyone in Parliament in 2004, except Act and the Greens. It was a national disgrace.

Abso - bloody lutely.

15,134 km coastline

With just four million people, New Zealand has 15,134 kilometres of coastline, the 10^th longest in the world. The exclusive economic zone is more than 4 million square kilometres, the 7th largest in the world.

Listening to politicians in 2004, it was possible to believe the 3.4 million New Zealanders who do not identify as Maori were at some risk of losing access to these resources, whether for commercial development or just building a sandcastle with their kids. Avoiding this risk, we were told, justified sabotaging due process, removing the right of access to the courts and undermining the rule of law.

The risk was never real. The area of foreshore and seabed where it was ever likely a hapu could prove customary title was always infinitesimal compared with the thousands of kilometres of coastline. The Foreshore and Seabed Act, announced unprompted by the Labour regime within hours of the Court of Appeal’s Ngati Apa decision, was a despicable piece of legislation.

It was worse than that - it was venal and evil.

National’s abandonment of its commitment to property rights, the rule of law and civilised race relations was even more vile.

Yip we were gobsmacked that they would not make a principled stand for what was essentially an issue of property rights.

Resolution

John Key, Chris Finlayson, Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples will repeal that legislation and put the shame behind New Zealand, but the myth of a right of access to every square centimetre of the foreshore and seabed endures. There will be pressure on them to enshrine that myth in new legislation, as well as greater or lesser rights for Maori than the courts might otherwise find.

They should resist. No new statutory framework is needed. The courts are the proper place to resolve disputes over land ownership, not parliament.

Further, should a handful of hapu be able to prove customary title to the satisfaction of the courts, why shouldn’t they be able to have that right recognised as freehold title? Why shouldn’t they then be able to decide that collecting tuatua is not the extent of their aspirations, but instead form a JV with the Sebel hotel chain to build a holiday resort? (Good luck to them, of course, getting consents from local councils.)

What possible harm would this involve? It would create an economic base and jobs for a bunch of New Zealanders.

As long as it had a Kids’ Club, my wife and I might even decide to spend our holiday dollars not at the Raratongan but at the Muriwhenua Beach Resort and Spa.

It’s difficult to see why so many in Parliament still seem to think that would be so terrible. Are we really that afraid of Maori economic self-determination? Is socialism really so embedded in our national soul?

Matthew is so right, we need to stop being worried about Maori self determination and embrace it.

TROUGH SCOFF

We said that we wont blog on Maori or Health stuff but we will link to blogs who we think illuminate interesting issues on these topics. Alf Grumble has a considered take on the parlous state of the Crown Forest Rental Trust Finances.

Worth a gander.

MAORI TASKFORCE

At the risk of labouring the point - we want to see more details around Pita Sharples Taskforce. It is costing $4.5 million a year.

We want to know how that money is being spent. And we wonder why greater use is not being made of some of the fine young minds in Te Puni Kokiri. You see many of them have been wasting their talents monitoring the performance of other government departments for nine years or wasting away on projects they knew were of no benefit to their people. Why not devolve a heap of that responsibility and let them loose on how to reduce the impact of the recession on Maori. If they had been given this task they would have a cause that would light the fires of passion that we know still burn in many of the best there. The big wigs at the top table should just be there to grease the wheels and open the doors as required.

It is a dam shame that the Maori Party has put all its efforts into the development of an expensive tasforce rather that use the vast pool of talent that rests not a hundred yards up the road.

And we want to see regular updates on the outcomes from the Taskforces - both this and the Job Summit.

We cannot afford a single cent to be wasted. Nor see any human resource wasted. And we will be the first to say we got it wrong if the taskforce turns out to actually achieve anything of note but for us the jury is out.

WHY?

We don't get this - Tamihere has been annointed by the Maori Party. We have already blogged on it - we reckon its the first time the Maori Party has seriously wrong footed on an issue.
This morning Tamihere says he was sidelined by Labour and he is getting " much more " under National - We ask why? Nothing has changed. The guy is a dork.

Labour didn't want him so why would he suddenly be annointed by the Nats and the Maori Party. We remain dumbfounded.

SHARPLES HAS GOT THIS ONE WRONG

Sorry but what business experience has Solomon got? Why do we keep trotting out the same tired old boars who have been drinking at the tribal troughs for a decade ?

There are dozens of successful Ngai Tahu business people who should be on this taskforce before Solomon. And Tamihere's inclusion on this is just a bloody insult to every good moral person in in this country - Now why did he get not get re- elected again? Fiscal Prudence is not one of Tamihere's strong suits.

Sorry but we reckon the Maori Party had a chance to put some fresh blood on this Taskforce - instead the roll out the same tired old faces who have to sit along side a few people who have cut the mustard.

No more cuzzy bro favouritism please!

We didn't expect this sort of crap from the Maori Party and we hope it is not a portent of a continual roll out of the same passengers on the same old brown gravy train.

The Minister of Maori Affairs, Dr Pita Sharples, has asked seven iwi and
business leaders to head a Taskforce on how Maori can avoid the worst impacts of
the recession, and strengthen the Maori economy in the longer term.
"I am
very pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Solomon, Ngahiwi Tomoana,
Bentham Ohia, Daphne Luke, John Tamihere, June McCabe and Rob McLeod to lead
this work for two years," said Dr Sharples.
"These seven movers and shakers
in Maoridom have particular expertise in tribal asset development, the primary
sector, education and training, small to medium enterprises, social and
community development, investment and enterprise, and economic growth and
infrastructure," he said.
"Together they make up a balanced team with wide
networks and diverse interests, and they have the knowledge and experience to
deliver results in the face of the huge economic challenges facing our nation.
The key to our success is co-operation, and this team can achieve that for
sure.
"The Taskforce will follow through on the ideas that emerged at the
Maori economic workshop I called in January. I have set aside $4.5 million per
annum for the Taskforce to work with. At the same time the Taskforce will lead
rapid responses to the outcomes of Prime Minister's jobs summit.
"The PM's
Jobs Summit emphasised interdepartmental co-operation, and this task force is
expecting to follow that approach as well. Some projects may be taken up by
other agencies with Maori clients," said Dr Sharples.
"The task force will be
backed by a small secretariat in Te Puni Kokiri, with a private secretary right
in my office. Members will be expected to maintain their own networks to gather
information and co-ordinate responses from flax roots and iwi organisations
around the country," he said.

Rangi wept.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT DUE

A wee birdy tells us that Mark Solomon raised the possibility that the banks are getting a bit touchy at the moment over the public controversy surrounding the tribes leadership ( or lack of it)at the Hui at Rehua Marae yesterday and at Kaikoura.

Ngai Tahu reputedly has a $200 million dollar credit facility ( note: credit)

Apparently Solomon suggested that all the raruraru ( arguing ) in the media was making the banks nervous.

Well for starters many companies are on notice from the banks - Credit is tight - full stop.
Secondly if they were worried it would not be because of what's in the papers or on the radio or TV or heaven forbid the Blogs. No, if they are in fact worried - it will be because they dont think that the current leadership is stable or horror of horrors maybe there some issues with financial performance or governance. We can only speculate.

But for Solomon to raise it as a big bogey is scaremongering at its worst and at best a limp attempt to make those who are opposing him feel guilty.

If the situation has got so bad that the financiers are reducing support for the tribe then, again we say that points to weak leadership.

Again we say that Solomon , for the sake of the tribe needs to step down.

And it is time for the Tau boys, Tahu Potiki and some of the other young Ngai Tahu businessmen and women to have a korero and develop a leadership plan to take Ngai Tahu into the future. It is time for them to put aside their egos ( and they all have them in spades) but put their wisdom and expertise forward.

The fate of the tribe is in their hands.

HUI TAUMATA - WHERE TO NEXT?

This Maori think tank is meeting today - the Hui Taumata at Te Papa. ( one of the most expensive places to hold a conference) We wonder what the future holds for this August body.

Here are the members of the Task Force

• Leith Comer
• Professor Ngatata Love
• June McCabe
• Rob McLeod
• Phil O’Reilly
• Sir Tipene O’Regan
• Sir Paul Reeves
• Tumu Te Heuheu
• Ross Wilson

Now we Maori are pretty good at hui -ing and it appears that this group has been very good at hui -ing but there seems to be a dearth of activity ( the Doee- ing bit) past about 2006. ( if you can find evidence we will happily update.
We have heard that this Government may have a different view on their worth especially in light of being fully govt funded to the tune of at least a Million Bucks.