Part Time Rider Falls at first jump.

Waitangi Tribunal interim finding...

Amongst the hustle of the Olympic Games the Waitangi Tribunal released its interim findings. It was announced around the time that Mark Todd had completed the dressage and was guiding his horse around the cross country course.

In the Tribunal Vs the PM, the horse is the New Zealand public, the rider is our Part Time PM but the event judge is our legal system.

The race to begin the controversial assets sales programme is in the hands of the PTPM and he has a problem, for while he can control the horse because he presently holds the reins that hold is tenuous, and grows more so by the day. 

Mai Chen, a lawyer for the Maori Council suggests that the Crown should be worried. The PTPM has changed horses a few times but is being driven down a path that he is not used to, he is a gambler his whole career has been based on taking a punt and if successful reaping the bonuses. But this case is different, for the processes must be followed and the payers are the people. Who will pay dearly for the selling off of their assets, of course it’s ironic that they are being asked to buy their own assets? In reality it is a tax on electricity that will be used to increase the incomes of those who can afford to buy into the PTPM’s concept of shares for his mates.

While the dressage, cross country and show jumping activities are separate medal events they make up the team event as well, and that is the problem for the PTPM he isn’t a team player. Mark Todd is a full time equestrian events practitioner and understands the need for strong connections between horse and rider.

The Maori Council too has strong connections to those they represent and are in it for the long haul. If John Key fails to take seriously their interim Waitangi Tribunal outcome then no doubt they will move into the courts for they are serious, very serious in fact.

The courts are not like talk back radio or the Sensible sentencing Trust, full of red necked nutters, no doubt there are some strange judges, but in the main they reach balanced outcomes. Mai Chen went on to say:   

"I'm not saying that it's easy, winning in the tribunal is not the same as winning in the courts, but . . . this opens it up, it doesn't shut it down,".

"If I was Maori I would argue that their vulnerable relationship with water has been because the Crown . . . allocates what are essentially property rights for water to others."

And she is correct; the interim report proves just that. For the fact is, that while our PTPM may say [for red-neck consumption] that no one owns the water, he is selling it, and that for him would be another feather in his salesman’s cap when he heads back to his old employers on Wall Street, which I believe is not too far off.