Mike's Minute: The Goldsmith scandal is no scandal

It was never five percent, it was always spit balling. 

Paul Goldsmith as Treaty Negotiations Minister is in a meeting with the seafood people, who are not happy about their lack of input into the government's foreshore plan to revert a court ruling back to the original intent of the law as passed in 2011. 

Goldsmith, it was reported, said customary title will drop to 5 percent. 1News fell over themselves breathlessly reporting this as some sort of scandal on Sunday. 

Come Monday in the Prime Minister's post-cabinet session, they try and get more detail. The Prime Minister quite clearly says the reason the government are doing what they are doing is because the court has overreached and what the government of the day intended has been distorted. An amendment of section 58 is how they are going to fix this. 

The original law was simple. If you can prove you have had uninterrupted access to foreshore since 1840 you got a case. If you can't, you haven't. 

Groups who didn’t like the law or the government went to court. The court being activist got overly involved and we've ended up where we have. 

All of the government, as the Prime Minster was at pains to tell the assembled press, wanted to do is make the law the law. 

Why? Because they are the government and that’s what governments do. 

As far as I'm aware as a consumer of news, that bit wasn’t reported yesterday by some media. I note both state-funded were still banging on about Goldsmith and his 5 percent comment. 

The point they are missing, and I suspect deliberately, is courts don’t make the law, governments do. 

If you want to mark Goldsmith down a bit, maybe he shouldn’t free wheel with numbers. Given if you apply some brain power to it, no one knows what the actual number by way of a percentage will be when it comes to access. 

But it wasn’t a scandal and it wasn’t a gotcha moment. 

It was a passing comment in a meeting about the intent of the government of the day and what they were doing to address what they see as an activist court that had distorted intent around an increasingly fractious subject. 

This would be another example of an activist media taking the side of an activist court and trying to drum up scandal around a government they don’t like on a law they like even less. 

And if you apply logic and follow it as I have, they're failing.   

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of course it was never five percent, was it. It
was always spitballing what he was doing spitballing Paul Goldsmith
as the Treaty Minister. He's in a meeting with the
seafood people who are not happy about their lack have
been put into the government's foreshore plan to revert a
court ruling back to the original intent of the law
as it was passed in twenty eleven, Goldsmith, it was reported,
said customary title will drop to five percent. TV one

(00:20):
fell over themselves breathlessly reporting this as some sort of
scandal on Sunday. Come Monday, in the PM's post cabinet session,
they try and get more detail. The PM quite clearly
says the reason the government are doing what they're doing
is because the court is overreached and what the Government
of the day intended has been distorted. An amendment of
Section fifty eight is how they're going to address this.
The original law was simple, if you can prove you

(00:41):
had uninterrupted access to the foreshore since eighteen forty, you've
got a case. If you can't, you haven't. Groups who
didn't like the law or the government went to court.
The court, being activist, got overly involved and we ended
up where we are. All the government, as the PM was,
it pains to tell the assembled press wanted to do
was make the law the law, and why are because
they're the government and that's what governments do. As far

(01:02):
as I am aware as a consumer of the news
that but wasn't reported by yesterday some media I note,
both state funded. Funly, we're still banging on about Goldsmith
and as five percent. The point they're missing, and I
suspect deliberately is courts don't make the law. Governments do.
If you want to mark Goldsmith down a bit, I mean,
maybe he shouldn't free wheel with numbers given if you

(01:24):
apply just a little bit of brain power to it.
No one knows what the actual number by way of
a percentage will be when it comes to access. But
it wasn't a scandal, It wasn't a gotcha moment. It
was a passing comment in a meeting about the intent
of the government of the day and what they were
going to do to address what they see as an
activist court that had distorted intent around an increasingly fractious subject.

(01:44):
This would be another example I think of an activist
media taking the side of an activist court and trying
to drum up scandal around a government they don't like
on a law they like even less. And if you
apply logic and follow it as I have failing For
more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, Listen live to News
Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow the

(02:05):
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