by Ann Arnold

“Co-governance” in practice will mean unelected autocracy by types like them.

The big election decision facing the thinking public first and foremost is about one issue. Stopping “co-governance” from wrecking every fabric of the NZ we once knew.

Simply put it affects every New Zealander that calls this country home and is why it’s the major issue this election and beyond. Unless we get rid of co governance nothing else will matter, we’ll be a divided nation, the Zimbabwe of the South Pacific. 

Under the original 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, Maori and non-Maori became one people, one country, one vote, one law. 

Forgotten over time is the relief Maori chiefs felt to cede sovereignty to the British Crown and be one people alongside European settlers. The French were knocking on the door for a NZ takeover and Maori were living in fear of other tribes randomly destroying their tribe and stealing their possessions. History tells us that between 1800 and 1840, a third to a half of all Maori were wiped out, why? By Maori killing Maori.

NZ was in agreement of ceding sovereignty to the British Crown, for law and order and the privileges it brought. That’s what signing the Treaty of Waitangi did and has served us well ever since. And land was sold in the manner of the day not stolen.

Now we are highjacked by false treaty writings ie James Freeman Treaty and corrupt and ignorant people on both sides of this debacle including politicians and the Waitangi Tribunal over decades. Millions of dollars have been squandered trying to appease Maori for misdemeanours that didn’t occur. 

The Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 chose to adopt the false James Freeman version as the official Treaty because it erroneously includes forest and fisheries (the original didn’t) and excludes all the people of NZ while the original included all the people of NZ.  

We have been made to feel guilty when the exact opposite is true. To have utensils to cook in, shoes, clothes, electricity, medical care, farming, roading, rail, small and big industry, all the privileges of our times. It was Europeans that gave us these things not Maori.

Twenty years after the Treaty signing 112 chiefs gathered for the Kohimarama Conference 1860 affirming the Queen as their sovereign and agreeing jubilantly they were now far better off.               

But co governance gives privileges and favours to Maori at the expense of the 160 other cultures that make up NZ; never the intention of the Treaty.

Every culture should retain the right to their own individuality including Maori. But not at the expense of others.

The democracy and equality we lived under and enjoyed has rapidly been eroded away. This has to stop now if we have any hope for recovery.  

Through decades of rewriting history, indoctrination and falsehoods it’s time to wake up and face the truth. Stop dividing our nation. We’ve been hoodwinked too long, unravel this insatiable money grabbing monster that’s designed to suck us back to the stone age. 

Otherwise, we’ll all be losers.