Article – Gordon Campbell One can sympathise with Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt and the lose/lose situation he has just found himself in. If he had stayed safe and snug in the Beltway around Parliament, he would have been stereotyped as a liberal …
One can sympathise with Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt and the lose/lose situation he has just found himself in. If he had stayed safe and snug in the Beltway around Parliament, he would have been stereotyped as a liberal snowflake out of touch with the real world. Yet if he had engaged with the Mongrel Mob on their premises and pointedly refused to pay koha, Hunt would have been derided as the human rights guy who neither understood nor respected indigenous rights and protocol. In the end, Hunt seems to have decided that if he was going to try and engage constructively with the Mob on their turf, he shouldn’t simultaneously set out to snub the culture to which they belong. When in Rome etc.
But after serving the maximum two terms, she was not replaced.
Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt has also implored the government to appoint an Indigenous Rights Commissioner, doing so since 2019. Nobody in government is saying this is a bad idea. What they re saying is they don t have the money, he said. It s extremely disappointing.
LDR
Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt says he has been urging the government to appoint an Indigenous Rights Commissioner to an empty seat since 2019. Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand requires a full-time race relations commissioner and a full-time indigenous peoples rights commissioner, Hunt said. One race relations commissioner responsible for all ethnic minority communities and tangata whenua was out-of-date .
He Puapua report to strengthen Māori rights.
Former Indigenous Rights Commissioner Karen Johansen, of Gisborne, Rongowhakaata, advocated for the human rights of tangata whenua between 2008 and 2017.
Photo: LDR / Alice Angeloni
The He Puapua report outlines policy options to give effect to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which New Zealand committed to under the previous National government.
Earlier this month Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson laid out the government s next steps to meeting the declaration, with no allowance for a new Indigenous Rights Commissioner.
Aotearoa s only Indigenous Rights Commissioner Karen Johansen wants the role reinstated as part of the government s implementation of UNDRIP.
Press Release – ACT New Zealand In an extraordinary interview on Newshub Nation this morning, Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt has demonstrated exactly why the Commission should be abolished, says ACT Leader David Seymour. Hunt either refused or was unable to answer any of the …
“In an extraordinary interview on Newshub Nation this morning, Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt has demonstrated exactly why the Commission should be abolished,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“Hunt either refused or was unable to answer any of the questions to put to him.
“He was defensive of gangs and stood by giving the Mongrel Mob $200 of taxpayers money as koha. He wouldn’t answer a single question on international human rights abuses, he doesn’t have a position on the proposed hate speech laws and couldn’t even answer questions about New Zealanders living in emergency housing.