In a speech back in November 2000, the former Labour Party Prime Minister David Lange warned that if governments attempted to accommodate the increasingly audacious demands by the Maori tribal elite for independent sovereignty, they would end up threatening democracy itself.

David Lange stated 'Democratic government can accommodate Maori political aspiration in many ways.

'It can allocate resources in ways which reflect the particular interests of Maori people. It can delegate authority and allow the exercise of degrees of Maori autonomy.

'What it cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as it does that, it isn't a democracy.

'We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can't coexist and we can't have them both.”

David Lange explained that the Treaty of Waitangi was a contract between the Crown and Maori bestowing equal status, not a ‘partnership'.

He said treating it as a partnership was not only 'absurd”, but doing so would result in the introduction of profoundly 'undemocratic” rights and entitlements

I suggest the same applies to local government and that our Tauranga Mayor and Council need to acknowledge what Lange stated.

Tony Fellingham, Pyes Pa