Hang-ups explained

Professor FM (Jock) Brookfield, CWZM (1928-2010). My letter also included the words, ‘as well as those looking for a better life.’

Geoff Parker makes his ancestry quite obvious by including himself in the dregs of society. No wonder he has hangups about Maori, “a so-called great race of people” (his words).

You can’t get any lower than the dregs of society. I mean not much of a whakapapa, is it?

In his inauguration speech Professor Brookfield also said, “Since the late 19th century successive governments have so persistently failed in their duty that by now the government has probably lost its right to rule.”

Those words were spoken over 35 years ago. Since then the government has sold New Zealanders down the drain twice, with the asset sales and Maori with their Treaty settlements.

A billion-dollar cap — to the man in the street a billion dollars is a phenomenal amount of money, but to those in the know a billion dollars is nothing, just pieces of paper. And for Maori to settle for those pieces of paper and not the land I find quite disturbing.

The Treaty was broken while it was still quite new, and repeated breaches of it have not been repaired. ’Tis the land, ‘tis the land, ’tis the land. To some taonga.