December 14, 2012
Māori Council should appeal water decision
Opinion: On the face of it, the High Court judge this week should've had no trouble telling the Government to back off with its plans to sell Mighty River Power until the whole business of water rights has been sorted out.
But the judge, Ron Young, came up with the finding that it's OK for John Key and his mates to fire ahead with the sale of 49 per cent of the Mighty River Power shares – and presumably then to move on to Meridian, Genesis and Solid Energy as well if that takes their fancy.
You'd think that telling the Government to back off was a no-brainer.
The commonsense way of behaving has always been to deal with the rights first – and only then, if it becomes clear that there's no problem, do you proceed with the sale.
Yet somehow it came as little surprise to Māori that the judge gave the thumbs down to the New Zealand Maori Council who had raised the matter.
He'd shown his hand early on in the case when he seemed to be irritated by the council's lawyer, Felix Geiringer, and by the argument he was presenting. In fact, he chastised Mr Geiringer and told him to "stop for a moment and take a breath".
Advised him to be "conscious of where you are".
I doubt if Mr Geiringer had any illusions about where he was.
He knew, as we all know, that he was operating in a "justice" system where there has rarely been an overabundance of understanding of Māori issues or about the Crown's Treaty obligations.
And he also knew, as we all know, that he was up against the Crown which has a long history of putting mainstream Pakeha interests way ahead of those of Māori – and getting away with it.
Maybe we'll see the day, somewhere way off in the future, when the Crown goes to bat for, rather than against, Māori.
After all, that's the kind of outcome we might've expected from the Treaty which seemed to promise a fair go for all New Zealanders, not just the Pakeha majority.
John Key, however, like most of his predecessors, finds it more convenient – more politically expedient anyway – to disparage Māori and their Treaty claims and keep suggesting that they need to be kept in our place… whatever that is.
There's still scope, of course, for this water rights case to go on to the Supreme Court or to the Court of Appeal, and for the Government not to be delighted by the decision coming from that direction.
But meanwhile we've had another reminder that the system still has a knack for getting things wrong.