After reading Sir Ian Taylor’s opinion piece in the ODT (5.2.25) I pondered why bother to respond as so much of the rhetoric is the usual "let’s not change our failing systems in case it makes academia et al uncomfortable".
Sir Ian’s first salvo was entirely predictable: the Treaty Principles Bill and its cost of $6million.
Remind me, please, what was the cost of the ill-conceived Three Waters plan of Nanaia Mahuta?
As has been stated previously, many Bills take decades to finally pass into law. I was one of the fortunate few who was given the chance to speak directly to the select committee on the Treaty Principles Bill.
I wasted far too much of my 10 minutes by trying to point out that those of us who are in favour of the Bill were not opposed in any way to Maori and their fundamental role in our society.
All of us remain free to engage in democracy should we choose to do so as Maori have done since 1853, when you could vote if you owned land.
The problem is the lack of clarity of what it all means 185 years later. The gifting to activists of all hues a free run at what in their exalted opinion the Treaty should mean rather than what it actually does mean, needs discussion.
I just loved hearing the non-Maori activists on taxpayer salaries tell the select committee everything will be fine if we only just hand back sovereignty. If sovereignty had not passed to the Crown, it would have enabled tribal warfare to continue to thrive well after 1840.
Listening to submissions for four hours showed me that many don’t know why they are opposed to the Bill, but they are prepared to fight like hell to stop it.
Oh yes, and if we only left the Treaty outcome to those who live their lives peering at life and race relations in the equivalent of a legal petri dish, everything will be fine.
Sir Ian comments that the state should indeed feed school children because their parents/caregivers won’t — not can’t — is breathtaking .
Please read the great Tom Sowell, Sir Ian, who tells the story of his male caregiver in the home he grew up in, smiling while watching the children eat, yet there was no food on his plate.
The feeding of New Zealand children may well be beyond every child’s control as Sir Ian suggests but it is not beyond the control of their parents or carers.
Sir Ian speaks of Finland ranking No 1 in the World Happiness Report. Yes, indeed Finland should be a role model for New Zealand, given that both countries are rich in fresh water and forest products, but the similarities end there.
Finland is a high tech manufacturing country with electronics and engineering industries leading their productivity.
We, on the other hand, appear to ban productivity as it is bad for the environment. Chemicals, North Sea oil and nuclear reactors are major contributors to Finland’s GDP. New Zealand just loves to ban mining along with oil and gas exploration.
Finland does indeed value education above all else. We, on the other hand, wrongly value the education of our children remaining in the hands of unionism so it’s little wonder literacy and numeracy is so far behind other first world countries.
If charter schools can offer whatever number of young lives the chance to breathe somewhat easier then why would you want to see them banned as well? Perhaps we as a country should ban success due to it being unfair to state failures?
Then there is the apparent belief of Sir Ian’s fellow travellers that a government of the Left is better able to manage our lives because they say they care more.
Will that mean doing things like bringing back post offices and subsidies for farmers?
Sir Ian would do well to remember the brilliant words of one Sir Winston Churchill: "there is nothing the government can give you that they haven’t already taken from you in the first place".
The parting shot at Act New Zealand and its leader by Sir Ian in his satirical "Person of the Year" commentary was that David Seymour had the temerity to deliver a state of the nation address to his party supporters/members at their party meeting, which the media chose to attend.
Get over it Sir Ian — tens of thousands of us deliver our views on the state of the nation every time the 6pm news finishes.
It’s called public opinion, albeit delivered in private.
■Gerrard Eckhoff is a former Otago regional councillor and Act New Zealand MP.
