Atlas Network and Te Tiriti

On 16 November 2022 Barbara Edmonds told parliament about the Water Services Entities Bill ( Three Waters ) submissions to Select Committee :

"There were 88,000 written submissions on this bill, approximately 82,000 used four different templates or were considered form submissions by the Taxpayers' Union or the National Party themselves. Now, these 82,000 submissions are identical or substantially identical..", - Barbara Edmonds.

Here was an example of an Atlas Network think tank exploiting the Select Committee stage of law making in New Zealand when it came to fighting Māori Co-Governance on any scale larger than the Waikato River arrangements.

This scale and level of organised resistance to Māori co-governance - provides an indication of what is likely to occur with David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill in the coming months.

There will likely be grassroots level campaigns from the Taxpayers' Union like there was with Three Waters - while at a more corporate level the other Atlas Network think tank here - the NZ Initiative will most likely fight the same fight in other ways like by capturing the Three Headed Taniwha and it's policy priorities.

Alongside the direct Atlas think tanks we have already seen it's affiliates like Muriel Newman insert 1.1 Million booklets about a convenient 1922 based take on Te Tiriti in 55 newspapers and strident individuals like Julian Batchelor has big plans for town hall meetings and has his own expanded pamphlet drops planned.

Atlas Network people are being platformed in media.

So where is the counter movement?

Let's step back and realise some context and where we stand.

About four years ago Natalie Coates delivered a speech at Victoria University where she painted some of the challenges and opportunities ahead.

In 2008 the National Government had a goal to complete Treaty Settlements by 2014 but it did not get there - and we still have a few very large outstanding settlements to go ( Including Ngāpuhi ) but almost all outstanding iwi are engaged with the Crown.

The context we stand in - is a transition period between the Treaty Settlement era and the Post Treaty Settlement era and what form a relationship between the Crown and Te Ao Maori will take.

Assimilation or a relationship?

Over the past few years we have seen Māori development in about four key areas towards that new era based on an ongoing relationship with the Crown :

1. Controlling rights over natural resources - like water, geothermal, aquifers ...and guardianship over these resources.

2. Building institutions and competency - the right people with the right knowledge in the right positions. People who understand complex regulatory environments so there's an informed voice to speak.

3. Collectivism - knowing when to all come together as one to fight certain issues - versus when to best do it separately ( eg Auckland housing ). In other words like we recently saw with the nationwide Hui and at Waitangi.

4. Addressing inequities - like in Health or the proportions in prison - and understanding how to shift these inequities and what Article 3 really means.

When you look at what is happening in Te Ao Maori in the coming post settlement era - we are now seeing the NeoLiberal Assault on all of these fronts from the Atlas Network in New Zealand.

They want assimilation big time because on several levels indigenous rights stand in the way.

Big Oil and Gas have interests in delaying climate action and Mining have interests in extracting things like coal, gas and geothermal heat from those natural resources. Tobacco wants to keep selling their products to Maori kids under 25, Banks want more mortgages and more houses built and Agriculture is sick of red tape about water, and hate the idea of an ETS, too bad about the rivers.

Most recently we all saw The NZ Initiative come out swinging against Mike Smith and the Supreme Court over a "tort" concerning seven big polluters and the damage to the climate how this was sent back to the lower courts - and it made Atlas Network folk shake their fists at the "activist judges" on our Supreme Court.

You know - experts, Atlas hate real experts.

We saw the urgent repeal of the Māori Health Authority who were an example of a competency building Institution who had gone a step too far for the Atlas Network and it's disdain for any form of "by Maori for Maori" solutions. The way this was done was bloody insulting to the Judiciary at the Waitangi Tribunal - and it showed again Atlas Network contempt for experts and a body of experts.

The repeal of smokefree legislation overly impacts Māori while Atlas Network people like Casey Costello pretend they have nothing to hide, but they speak with tobacco tongues.

The urgent repeal of Three Waters involved a repeal Bill put together by The Taxpayers' Union and was stacked with Atlas people. Again this was an assault on Co-Governance.

There's a stop to any work on He Pua Pua.

There's a general review of all laws that have anything to do with Te Tiriti by this Government as they seek to get Te Tiriti out of the way on behalf of the Atlas Network.

Māori place names and Government department names are being down graded and replaced with English to keep that colonial culture alive and dominant.

There's been a kind of "malevolent spotlight" singling out Maori - whether it's in school admissions, cracking down on crime, over fishing protests, or blocking a road to protect a community.

When Annette Sykes spoke at Waitangi she spoke about a lack of "mindful kindness" from this government and how the opening lines of Te Tiriti were about kindness and this had been now replaced with greed and avarice.

She asked why had Luxon decided at this time - a time of existential crisis and just after a global pandemic to exclude the first law of this country, and to allow the tail to wag the dog.

Is greed consistent with mindful kindness?

What we have seen this week suggests it is not.

Seymour was doing more than tinkering with Te Titi - he was rewriting it - and Annette declared "Lies !!!!"

Annette asked how Luxon is letting him do this and how at least Winston only played up to get back into power - but you others really believe this.

They should have talked to us before deciding to change things.

Natalie Coates had told Jack Tame that the Treaty Principles had long been critiqued as a watering down of Te Tiriti - but what we have here is one partner in a relationship unilaterally deciding to change an agreement regardless of what the other partner thought.

Te Tiriti guaranteed Hapu independent authority over their own affairs but now Seymour was developing a bill that removes all of these Maori rights.

Seymour's clauses bear little resemblance to what Te Tiriti meant and it's just a grab for power now - using equality and Universal Human Rights as a lever.

You will hear Atlas members insist Te Tiriti was all about equality but that is not what it said.

It was basically about Maori hanging on to their land and pre-existing rights - and having authority over their own affairs - when they wanted to sell they had to sell land to the Crown and in the meantime a Government would deal with lawless settlers.

As you know Lord Hannan had spoken to Atlas in early December where he warned about the perils of the American woke infecting Anglo nations - and the scourge of creative judges re-interpreting Te Tiriti here - and how we must resist this - as he held up the Magna Carta as the rule of all for all and urged all the neoliberals gathered together to defend their heritage and inheritance.

Lord Hannan and most of the assembled Atlas Network agents likely were unaware that in 2015 there were events held in Universities in New Zealand that celebrated the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

In those events speakers pointed out some similarities and differences between the Magna Carta and Te Tiriti - including how they both were about a moment in time and particular circumstances - and how shortly after they were agreed - they both went through a period where they were broken and abandoned.

Both were revived some time later - and so both had been re-interpreted under the law - and it was argued that the scope of rights included in Te Tiriti was broader than those in the Magna Carta - so it was even more suited as a constitutional document.

Today we know more about the intentions of the framers of Te Tiriti in the Colonial Office and we know Seymour and Lord Hannan are way off track...but they have a huge set of machinery in place within New Zealand to implement the Neoliberal assault here using an uneducated and disenfranchised population who at most will grab a few sentences and soundbites to form their opinions.

All Atlas needs to do - is raise the support for Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill from around 30% to 50% by mid 2024 and we all saw them try to beat that drum using the Atlas Network Taxpayer's Union poll straight after Waitangi Day.

To successfully ward these Neoliberal attacks off now New Zealand needs counter think tanks and organisations that connect with the public via grassroots campaigns. Te Ao Maori can't do it alone and they need allies in all of us.

I thought I had more to say about this but I think this contextual summary highlights the way the two sides are positioned for those of us who have not really thought much about it.

Atlas wants Te Tiriti moved out of the centre and off to the sidelines so they can plunder on free and assimilate that old history in the Westminster System where it has no teeth and there is no relationship anymore.

"We stand in the light of our ancestors" versus "That's just tribalism and we must overcome our tribal feelings".

Well there's a beautiful middle ground that has both and that's the promise of Te Tiriti.

We should all talk more about this...and there should be action to stop the Neoliberal assault on Te Tiriti.

The Atlas Network already have the machinery in place while we have awareness - there's still a battle to reach uneducated hearts and minds, they have the advantage - but we have the power of soul. A power that cannot be defeated if it unites together.

Atlas Network and Te Tiriti

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