Justifying privilege

Your regular columnist Anahera Herbert-Graves continues to trot out her own version of facts and history to justify Mā ori privilege and advantage.

The Treaty of Waitangi quite happily established that we are one people and are equal under law and intent. For her to say that any need for special Mā ori representation on local bodies is not based on privilege but on the Treaty follows her misreading of the Treaty or its intent.

The Treaty never agreed to privilege, although it may sometimes lead to the need for the rest of us to offer a hand up to achieve equality for some among us, whatever our race. Offering a quality education to all is the major hand up being offered. A lack of choosing to accept that education, for some, remains a major disadvantage in life.

I fully support a recent Age editorial pointing out that any governmental attempt to address poverty needs to notice the corelationship between poverty and

think all your readers well understand how he feels.

I long ago gave up trying to debate with those whose blindness is an effect of refusing to see, or is an effect of left-wing brainwashing. However, I do want to support Mr Bell in that neither Tuvalu nor Fiji are in danger educational shortfall.

Separate Mā ori representation in Parliament was originally set in place at a time when Mā ori were considered to be educationally disadvantaged and in need of a hand up to achieve equal representation. Perhaps this thinking is behind the push for Mā ori wards.

Here in Te Tai Tokerau we have always had sufficient and quality Mā ori representation without needing a quota. If Anahera feels that lack of quality Mā ori representation is still an issue, she needs to work harder to support equal educational achievement both in the Mā ori, and the world, educational view.

She will no doubt reply that the whole system is somehow stacked against Mā ori because of colonialism. (A tired argument.)

The system adopted by ‘Pā kehā ’ New Zealand is the system now valued internationally, in countries such as Japan, which, like Britain, once favoured an absolute monarchy. Perhaps this is because

from rising sea levels.

In regard to Tuvalu, your readers and the blind persons should refer to research published in 2018 by New Zealand scientists Kench, Ford and Owen, which revealed that: “Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu …” during the period 1971 the current international consensus makes sense, and has become most people’s world view. Mā ori who have succeeded in both worlds have learned to adapt and accept that this is 2021, and that we are world citizens.

It is said that democracy may not be a perfect system, but it is the best we have. Mā ori who succeed and continue to represent us all in a variety of fields are in general representing us well. I thank them for it, and admire their contribution. They do not ask for unearned rank or reward. What is achieved in life is because of choices that have been made, not because of race or ancestry.

Anahera is now able to advocate for “disadvantaged” Mā ori because she has chosen to achieve through her own effort and choices. Her

‘Pā kehā ’ education is evident in her approach to her advocacy.

I thank Anahera for her continued advocacy, but invite her to have better regard for facts.

Brian Gillespie

Coopers Beach

to 2014.

As for Fiji, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been studying sea levels around the Pacific in a project they began in 1993, the Pacific Sea Level and Geodetic Monitoring Project. Their project site in Fiji is Lautoka. From 1993 to 2020, a 28-year period of rising CO2 atmospheric levels, their graph of monthly lows, highs and averages shows no rise in sea level - high, low or average.

Leo Leitch Benneydale Making a difference Sometimes the small guy can make a difference to a country, and not always by the usual ways.

Wars have been fought over countries’ borders that are mapped to the nearest millimetre, and yet a farmer moved the marker, and thus the border between France and Belgium, because it blocked his tractor. It was discovered eventually, and righted, but there was no international conflict, just the difficult task of moving a heavy marker.

Maybe the farmer could solve the world’s big problems, starting with the simplest of ones, fence disputes between neighbours, and then move on to the north and south borders of Ireland, and then finally the borders between countries in the Middle East. This solution may not work, but it seems no less likely than Donald Trump sending his sonin-law, a real estate person, to solve it.

It is time that the individual stood up and made a statement, especially as so many have shut down while the Covid pandemic has spread. Our leaders are too involved with solving the bug problems, or trying to, and most have lost sight of the individual and their concerns.

One individual solved a problem rather than going around it, and that is what we should all do.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne

The lender’s game

One has to admire China for its foresight to invest in other countries who are living beyond their financial means.

Yes, China is investing in its future, for the good of its people’s health, education, food supply, infrastructure, its standard of living and much more.

One must be insane not to know that it is not in a country’s best interests to be price-getters and not price-takers, as this country’s Government appears to be. New Zealand and other countries appear to be content with selling their land, livestock, businesses, raw produce, terminology, etc, for nothing other than a few pieces of gold and silver, which is really valueless, as it can only be stored, not eaten, but appears to be this world’s god.

The Bible explains the concept of living beyond one’s financial income, that they, the borrowers, become the lender’s slaves, and this appears to be the case with the world’s sovereign countries, in debt to the tune of $237 trillion, with a default of $63 trillion (NZ Herald July 5, 2018).

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Email editor@northlandage. co.nz to have your say. Responses may be published.

One is of the view that the debt and default has increased greatly since then.

The question is, who is all this money owed to, or is it just an IOU on paper as a promise to repay, along with interest, as is any loan or mortgage?

Does the lender care if one does not repay the money they have lent you that does not exist?

The answer is no, as they have security over one’s IOU, money that only exists on a piece of paper.

The lender is more interested in charging penalty interest on your default payments, as you are their slaves and they have you trapped, as that is the name of their game, to create interest from money that does not exist, by lending to the foolish.

Great numbers of people have lost everything through the centuries playing the lender’s game, believing the lender is their best friend so they the borrower can have now pay later,