John B Henderson
His words and message are even more pertinent today – some 50 years later.
I firmly believe that in a parliamentary democracy, the government has been charged with a solemn duty and given a mandate to fully protect the public’s interests – if it fails, then it must take the consequences.
With the massive power that is today concentrated in the hands of industry, finance, the supranational cartel and many private commercial leeches, the citizen must look almost entirely to his elected representatives to protect him or her – and has every right to do so.
You see I believe New Zealand was founded by people who had deliberately abandoned a feudal society built on privilege and a pecking order to found one based on social equality and opportunity for all.
That kind of aspired society is strongly reflected in New Zealand outdoor sporting and recreation attitudes of the last one hundred years:-
• resistance to commercialising sport and the legal structures to prevent the sale of game, fish and access rights thereto
• The modest licence fees (Fish and Game) and equality of opportunity for all
• the democratic election of those who administer the rules
• the tradition of public ownership of fish, wildlife, mountains, lakes, rivers, sea coasts and associated recreational and scenic resources
• the large measure of freedom to camp, tramp, climb, ski, fish and hunt
• the friendly hospitality exchanged between town and country people
There is another system – the very antithesis of the one I have just described. Overseas, it is often founded not on rights but on privileges based on accident of birth or possession of wealth. Overseas the privileged minority buy or inherit and thus the fish, wildlife, mountains, lakes, rivers,sea coasts and their associated recreational and scenic resources are not publicly owned but are for the most part, private preserves.
Some will say – it can’t happen here in New Zealand. Well I believe they are dead wrong.- it is already happening and glib-tongued entrepreneurs are selling this gimmick to New Zealand today under the guise of necessary development of commercial and especially tourist industry.
Protection from such damaging influences can be assured in the long term only by proper government action and legal safeguards.
Our main danger today lies in the fact we have had money-grubbing governments dominated by men who have long been cross-eyed staring at dollar signs and who are prepared to convert anything to cash in return for the irretrievable loss, often to foreign interests of public resources, including fish, wildlife, minerals, land, water and social values associated with them.
I was brought up to believe Parliament was the Court of last resort – where the public and the public interest could get a fair deal.
I believe the public should continue to flush out the men who pull the strings and wield the power – flush them into the open where the spotlight of public scrutiny can be focused. If they are true and sincere, they have nothing to lose and nothing to fear.
I urge the public to be more determined to bring the debate to the public for its judgement and never to be duped into believing that politics and the environment are other than cause and effect.
I remember John Henderson as a forthright national president of the NZ Deerstalkers Association.
He had his critics but they were significantly usually members of the National Party which was in government at the time. Most sensible hunters appreciated his leadership.
Nice words by John who was a very good orator.
I agree with the previous comment. By chance I have a copy of John Henderson’s presidential address to the 1969 NZDA conference. Here’s a sentence or two to think about.
“Our forbears came to this country to rid themselves of a feudal system that arbitrarily assigned the wildlife resource to a handful of wealthy nobility. –wildlife is public property and shall not be owned by individuals for their private exploitation – that wealth shall not be the factor determining who shall hunt and fish.”
That was 1969. Since there’s been moves to set up private pheasant preserves charging $1500 and more a day to shoot pheasants. But the Wildlife Act and current law prohibits selling shooting rights. Figure that one out.
The Quota Management System with sea fisheries, according to the commercial corporate fishing companies, and probably Fisheries Minister Shane Jones, gives a property right of fish stocks.
It does not!
It is not ownership, it is a lease.
The fishery resource is owned by the public.
Trouble is politicians like Jones and his sloth-like Ministry of Fisheries don’t want to acknowledge that.
It’s not just the private, well-moneyed commercial sector that wants to turn this country into a feudal system run by a privileged class. There’s also the maori-elites who are doing the same thing. They are also succeeding under the present government.
The underlying big problem is how New Zealand measures its progress. It is all monetary based, an obsession with Gross Domestic Product, GDP, which measures in monetary terms and ignores the health of society, happiness of the people and and the state of the environment.
GDP is like a dog chasing its tail.
Instead NZ should be measuring progress by social and environmental qualities and then economic progress.
GDP is all about free trade, exports etc but it’s deception. Free trade results in constant trade deficits (losses) and increasing debt for the country. It is not progress.
It is deception, deception, deception.
I’m pleased Postman Pat, you mentioned “Maori elites”.
It would be true to say “part-Maori elites.
It can added the “part-Maori elite minority” for without exception, fellow Kiwis I speak to with Maori ancestry have no time for the demands of the privileged few.
Don’t judge all Kiwis with Maori ancestry on the vociferous noisy minority.
Trouble is most politicians listen to the noisy ones.
Wonderful words by John B Henderson, thank you CORANZ.
Henderson said it all. It is sad to see the race issue clouding the theme. Most Maori entities are ending up as allies in the conservation and recreation areas.