winston peters

Winston Peters has told an audience at the New Zealand First party conference in Christchurch that co-governance with Māori was akin to apartheid and claimed the English language is being erased. The party also today voted on a policy to remove almost all references to the Treaty of Waitangi from our laws. He promised if he comes back he'll ban gang patches in public. "We are not going on in this country with these unlawful private armies," he said. And warned his 250-strong audience about co-governance policies with Māori like the Māori Health Authority. "Reform? No it's not. It's retarded theft," he said. And Three Waters. "Well I said it. That's what Three Waters is, retarded theft." And he said that co-governance with Māori is the same as the brutal South African apartheid regime. Bay of Islands lodge owner Julian Batchelor had some of his land reclassified as Māori land and said Pākehā are being oppressed. "I have personally been on the other end of apartheid." Batchelor also put up policies on removing almost all references to the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation. Shane Jones was in favour of the idea - "with the exception where it would be unwise of us to unwind things like the Ngai Tahu settlement," he said. And of making English an official language to stop it being erased. "It is. Look on the TV news, it's being replaced by Te Reo," Batchelor said.

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17 hours ago

Driven On The Akatarawa Rd Lately?

Marie from Waikanae

If so, its good to know you are still alive and reading this.

We have a function to go to over Christmas up that way and having heard a few hairy stories about the road, I went up there on Thursday to check it out. The road's ok, narrow and winding, but not much worse than a Wellington hill suburb. What was pretty scary was the behavior of other drivers. Three vehicles heading the other way at speed would have crashed into me if I hadn't been pulled off the road. I had pulled in to check the address when a truck came flying past, taking up all of the narrow road at speed. There is no way the driver would have been able to stop had they come around the corner immediately in front of me. The other two drivers came hurtling past as I had turned in to turn around and come back down the hill. They were also driving at speed and taking up most of the road. Coming back down I passed another car coming up and estimate that the safe speed to pass another car was about 30-35 kms.p.h. So, now we're thinking, do we go to the function or not.? Feels a bit like we're taking our life in our hands going up there. Drivers appear to be overconfident, and they are courting serious injury.