Disclaimer: This post will probably be fairly discriminatory, fairly generalised, and will portray the author as being fairly facist and thoroughly irked. If you don't like what I'm saying, then do something about it!
I'm well and truly fed up with all this ruckus over Maori claims. They want to be New Zealanders, but at the same time they want special exclusive rights. Well, they must be joking. Their track record is, in general, abominable. Maori organisations have wasted millions of taxpayer's dollars on pie-in-the-sky ventures that usually fold due to mismanagement and internal corruption (Maori TV, Tainui, etc). And the percentage of Maori beneficiaries compared with Pakeha? You all know what I mean.
Okay, say they want to be different. Say they actually should have all these claims honoured. The fact that in general(and there are exceptions, don't get me wrong) they've wasted whatever money they've been given, the fact that a significant proportion of them can't get off their butts to go get a job to support their own families - these facts alone show that as a whole, Maori are in no position to be given management of our country's natural resources. If they were as hard-working and successful as Indians or Chinese, it might be a different story - but as far as I am concerned, they have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to looking after stuff. Maori as a whole should really sort themselves out from the bottom up before even thinking that they're in some sort of position to manage beaches, seabeds, harbours and the like.
But even having said that, why should Maori have their claims honoured? If they want to be New Zealanders, they should work for stuff like everybody else. It seems like they're begging for apartheid. The Treaty of Waitangi was drafted with the intention of bringing the Maori and European cultures together harmoniously. Today it seems to be used to effect the opposite. In this generation, we are all born into the same culture, under the same law, with the same opportunities. Sure, it is perhaps the most important founding document of our present culture, but its time has passed - put it in a museum where it belongs, where it can live out its days in dignity, with a proud history, without all this foolish degrading misuse that we're seeing today.
Our government should grow a spine, and do what everybody knows is right and just, without catering to the every whim of the smallest minority for fear of offending them and losing their vote.
Go ahead, flame me.
