Friday, August 05, 2005



Misleading headlines

Pakeha group make land claim in the Herald this morning. The implication of the headline is that the claim has something to do with the Treaty. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with it; instead, its an ordinary claim under the Public Works Act to have land taken for a public purpose and no longer used for that purpose returned to the descendants of the original owners. In 1958, waterfront land in Te Atatu was taken by the Auckland Harbour Board for a port. The port was never built, and the land was eventually handed to the Waitakere City Council. According to the Public Works Act, the land should have been handed back (and handed back years ago, at that) - regardless of the race of the claimants.

5 comments:

It was reported the same way on RNZ yesterday ... quite strange, not least of all because the ethnicity of the claimants is completely irrelevant to the claim. They could just as easily have been Chinese market gardeners.

Posted by dc_red : 8/05/2005 09:49:00 AM

You mentioned a case relating to a hotel in Wellington in the past that had similarites, what happenned there?

Posted by Anonymous : 8/05/2005 10:32:00 AM

They won, and IIRC the court ordered most of the land to be returned, with compensation (both for lost value from the date when it should have been returned , and for a small portion which was not).

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 8/05/2005 11:15:00 AM

I thought it was an excellent headline - well done that sub editor.

It begs the reader to ask the sorts of questions we should have been asking all along: are these Pakeha to have time limits on their claims too? Why are cases of historic injustice to Pakeha families relatively rare compared to Maori families etc. etc.

Posted by Bomber : 8/05/2005 02:12:00 PM

On the subject of land claims coverage in the herald, I noticed this today:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10339267

The Maori Party supports Labour's plan to impose time limits on the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process, but says it must be better funded for them to be met.

Party co-leader Pita Sharples says the claims have been used by politicians to "bring Maori into contempt and ridicule, by branding the process a gravy train".

"It is therefore in the country's best interest that the claims be settled as fast as possible to remove this negativeness."

You know, that sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Posted by Anonymous : 8/05/2005 08:04:00 PM