Ultimate in Stoopid

The tribunal is where they air there grievances and stake their claim. You close this you close the door and a chapter of the countries past entitled "paying back what we stole". Then we forget about the grievances and move on. They can "complain" but the govt has put into policy that it's over and done with.

Do you know how many 'final' settlements various Governments over the past 100 years have made with various Maori groups over various issues?
Do a bit of research before posting on a subject you clearly know very little about.

Having said that, those who suggest that Maori have it "sweet" because we didn't quite treat them as bad as, say the Australian Aborigines or North American Indians got treated really needs to have a long, hard think.

look at the mori ori's, they weren't treated too well by the maoris who conquered them were they. so yes, the maori's did get a sweet deal in comparison with other conquered races.

Don't think I would go so far as to say free will doesn't exist - just that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. I tend to agree that rules, if designed for inclusion, automatically create space for exclusion...but perhaps that is why debate about the desired ends of those rules is so important in order to minimalise marginalisation?

Whilst I wouldn't regard postmodernism as a fad your last statement is a blinder for the world of relativism!! Long live late modernity (or not!)

I do have understanding about the subject. The dealine for claims is closing:My point is they've closed it, no more historic claims once these are worked through, thats it, finished, which means they can piss and moan about how rough it was, but there is no more financial incentive for them.http://www.stuff.co.nz/4695720a11.html"The claim was one of thousands received in the rush leading up to the
September 1 deadline imposed by the Government for historic claims."No more claims! Depending on your definition of historic.

And I'm telling you that many of the claims being settled now have been settled in the past by various NZ governments in a 'final' settlement. So do you think that an arbitrary date for lodging claims will stop Maori from further airing their grievances if the settlements they receive don't ultimately allow them the degree of involvement in political decision making that most organised Maori claimant groups are striving for?
Yes, any Government can put a policy in place, but it can also reverse it if it finds itself under enough pressure, or if it's politically expedient at the time. Nothin's set in stone, no matter how politicians try to portray their policies...

So do we need to write a new consitution and do away with the treaty of Waitangi for things to move forward? (i'm truely not taking the piss either)

So do we need to write a new consitution and do away with the treaty of Waitangi for things to move forward? (i'm truely not taking the piss either)

Oh. My. God.

And you dare comment on NZ's history.

I'm stunned.

To clarify, apparently current historical opinion is that the Moriori were not a separate race, but another tribe of Maori. So any wiping out was consistent with the cannibalistic behaviour of warring Maori tribes at that time.

So what does 'living in partnership with Maori' mean exactly then?Aren't the Maori seats in Parliament already a partnership?What else do we need?Perhaps separate justice systems?Is that really a good idea?Presumably there's more than one school of thought on that idea ... heck, there were tribes that didn't sign the treaty but are still ruled by it.

But such bollocks made justifying European colonialisation all the easier of course.

Which wields greater power?

The school journal or empirical evidence provided by Skinner?

Never let evidence get in the way of a convenient story.

I would think that probably 80% of NZers believe the myth that Moriori were a separate creed of people who were wipred out by Maori. That's what I was taught at school (I'm 43) and I think its fair to say that not all of my "class of '82" colleagues would have read any further on the subject.

Oh. My. God.

And you dare comment on NZ's history.

I'm stunned.

Well they got a better deal than the Jews, but that's hardly a good comparison.
The Bosnian Muslim/Kosovo Albanian one I'd put up for debate.
Regardless of the comparisons though, Maori still got a rough deal. I mean if you and let's say your neighbour both got attacked, and he had all of his family killed and was forced out to live on the street, and you only had your parents killed but your siblings survived and were allowed to keep a couple of square feet of the backyard, sure the neighbour got the rougher deal, but that doesn't make your deal sweet.

The deal Maori got did not differ in any greatly significant extent to the what was happening in North America at the same time. Obviously developments in North America were on a larger scale (as they were always going to be), but the processes and ideology behind it were essentially the same.
The Maori did survive the colonising process in better shape than native Americans, but this was in large part due to demographic factors rather than any greater benevolence on the part of the colonising structures.

the actual treatment of them wasn't based on the same idealogy (sic)

Assimilation is a much more 'civilised' process than genocide

I'm not denying that the humanitarian movement had some influence in treaties with the Native peoples, but there's two issues here. Firstly, this was by no means unique to New Zealand - check out King George's Proclamation from 1763 after Great Britain acquired French territories in North America. Part of that goes like this:
"And whereas great frauds and abuses have been committed in purchasing lands of the Indians to the great prejudice of our interests and to the great dissatisfaction of the said Indians; in order therefore to prevent such irregularities for the future, and to the end that the Indians may be convinced of our Justice and determined resolution to remove all reasonable cause of discontent, We do, with the advice of our Privy Council, strictly enjoin and require that no private person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians within those part of our colonies where we have thought proper to allow settlement (and goes on to describe other protective mechanisms to ensure Indians didn't get ripped off)"
So some of these 'humanitarian' ideals are not just in evidence in New Zealand, but in North America as well (note also the Treaties made with various tribes in North America in the 1860s and 1870s). There's no doubt that some of the reasoning behind this was indeed humanitarian (as exemplified by most early missionaries in NZ), but there were also more pragmatic reasons designed to protect settlers who were in the early years significantly outnumbered by native peoples. It is interesting to note that 'humanitarian' notions start evaporating once this demographic situation changes - earlier NZ historians have stressed the humanitarian impact in the colonisation of NZ, but more recent historiography downplays this factor (rightly in myeyes), and points that the real colonising process in NZ began in the 1860s once the demographic situation changed in favour of the settlers, and it's really from this time that Maori start getting the rough end of the stick.

But you're right, we can probably continue arguing about this for ages, so I'm sticking to football from now on....